Battle for the Nether

by Mark Cheverton

  “Fine, I’ll do what you ask, ghast,” the crafter said in a resignation.

  Carefully picking up the crafting bench, he placed it on top of the obsidian block in front of him, then picked up the blocks of diamond. His hands became a fluid blur as they moved quickly across the bench. Pouring all of his crafting ability into the materials, he drove his very life force into the creation, cementing his magical Minecraft power into the object. The crafting bench started to give off a strange icy glow, a sapphire radiance shading those around him, driving the ever-present fiery red from their faces and making them look alive again, as if everything was OK. As the crafter built this new item for the ghast king, he flashed red, his HP diminishing. Waves of pain streaked across his face as his unibrow furled with agony. Square beads of sweat started to drip from his short brown hair. They fell to the hot ground, where they instantly turned to steam.

  Another flash of red.

  The crafting bench started to glow a soft blue.

  More red . . . the crafter was losing more HP.

  The bench started to glow brighter. The crafter poured the last bit of himself into the creation, his body cringing with every flash of red. Then a sound started to fill the air. They were his wails of pain. The crafter was now screaming as he expended the last threads of his life, infusing all that he was into the blocky object. And then a pop sounded as he disappeared, yet another victim of Malacoda’s lethal plan.

  What remained in his wake looked like a diamond crafting bench, with an intricate series of lines etched into each blocky face, its cobalt blue glow lighting the stones nearby. Smiling, Malacoda looked down at his newest addition and then nodded, flicking a curled tentacle toward the remaining villagers. Fireballs from the blazes overhead rained down on them, killing them all where they stood, their bodies disappearing in an instant as their remaining HP was extinguished.

  Malacoda laughed, then drifted away.

  The crafter on the balcony was surprised at what he’d just seen. He was not shocked by the needless death of the NPCs or the death of the crafter. No, he was amazed by what the crafter had created: a diamond crafting bench. There could be only one reason why the ghast king would need such a thing, and the very thought left his skin prickling with needles of fear. He had to get back to the others and tell them . . . The Lost Prophecy was true! Everyone had thought it just a myth, but he could see that it was true . . . and this was a great threat to Minecraft. He had to tell everyone, warn all NPCs in Minecraft somehow, or they were all lost. Standing, he started to head back down the stairs to the long passageway, but he hadn’t noticed that it was now filled with light. A company of blazes stood at the bottom of the stairs, their fiery bodies blocking his escape.

  His stomach dropped; he was trapped.

  As he readied himself for their balls of flame, a sound filtered into his ears from behind. It was like the sound of a purring cat, coupled with the cries of some terribly sad child, like a baby torn from his mother’s arms. The sound was overwhelmingly sad and terrifying at the same time. Turning around slowly, he saw that he stood face to face with Malacoda, the King of the Nether, his ironically childlike face filled with venomous hatred.

  Oh no!

  “What have we here?” Malacoda asked.

  “Ahhh . . . ahhh . . .”

  “Good answer,” the ghast king said sarcastically.

  “You can’t do this,” the crafter said in a desperate, shaking voice. “We will stop you—somehow.”

  “Stop me . . . ha ha ha,” the ghast boomed. “You idiot crafters have done nothing but help me. I will have my victory here, then take my army to the Source and see it destroyed. When my dominance is complete and all of you insignificant NPCs are dead, I will take the Gateway of Light and consume the physical world. I will rule everything, and all living creatures will fear the name Malacoda.”

  The crafter swallowed as waves of terror rippled through him.

  “We will stop you . . . He will stop you.”

  “HE?” Malacoda snapped as he hovered closer to the doomed crafter. “He is nothing but an insignificant bug that you NPCs cling to for salvation. I will have my victory and the User-that-is-not-a-user will bow to me for mercy . . . and then I will destroy him.”

  The ghast king slowly moved away from the crafter, his face softening a little, as if he were going to let him go.

  “Say hello to him when you meet him,” Malacoda said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  And in the next instant, the crafter was enveloped in flame, fireball after fireball raining down upon the NPC.

  Surprisingly, there was no pain. The crafter’s mind was instead consumed with thoughts of his village and faces flashing through his mind: Carver, Planter, Runner, Builder, Farmer . . . his people, his responsibility. They had relied on him to keep them safe, and he had failed. Overwhelming grief swept over him as his health plummeted, but the emotion had not been evoked by his imminent death. Instead, he grieved over what Malacoda was trying to do. If the King of the Nether was successful, then . . . then . . . everything in Minecraft—everywhere—would be destroyed. The thought filled him with despair. The Prophecy was actually unfolding; the Final Battle was here, and by the looks of it, Malacoda had a huge head start. Their only hope—no, their sole salvation—was the User-that-is-not-a-user.

  Gathering the last bit of his life force, the crafter filled his mind with a single thought and tried to extend it, to hammer it ruthlessly into the very fabric of Minecraft, in hopes of reaching their savior. With his last breath, he screamed a cry of defiance and hope, reaching out to the User-that-is-not-a-user.

  “USER-THAT-IS-NOT-A-USER, THE LOST PRO­PHECY IS—”

  And then the darkness took him; the only evidence that he’d ever existed was a stone pickaxe on the ground.

  CHAPTER 7

  SHADOWS OF LIFE

  G

  ameknight and Crafter emerged from the dark tunnel into a torch-lit crafting chamber. It hadn’t been a long journey—only about twenty minutes or so in Minecraft time—but the small minecart had forced the two of them to crowd together and keep their heads low. It felt good to stand and stretch their legs again.

  “I can’t believe we didn’t think of using the minecart network when we found that first abandoned village,” Crafter said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Gameknight replied. “Maybe we had a lot on our minds.”

  They had used the vast network of tunnels that wove throughout Minecraft to leave Crafter’s new village in hopes of finding other NPCs who would help take up their cause. All of the villagers had been sent out to gather forces and prepare the Minecraft army for the battle that was about to crash upon their shoreline, and this minecart network was a critical tool in gathering forces. Thankfully, the monsters of the Overworld knew nothing about it. Gameknight and Crafter had chosen a random tunnel, and as expected, the rail line had led to another village; but by the smell of smoke and ash that instantly assaulted their senses, it was clear that they were too late.

  “It looks like Malacoda has already been here,” Crafter said, his young voice still sounding aged and wise to him.

  The cavern was empty. Giant craters were gouged in the floor and walls. These sections had probably been destroyed by creepers . . . or fireballs . . . or . . . ? A faint haze filled the chamber, and acrid smoke bit the back of their throats. Looking at the ground, Gameknight could see a fine coating of gray ash covering everything. It puffed up into small clouds as he walked across the floor. In one section, he could see smoky black soot on the walls, likely remnants from fireballs that had been thrown by ghasts or blazes. He had seen this before—charred remains of buildings and structures—but this sight was still something different altogether. The charred stain covered a section of the wall, but he could clearly see the outline of a body in the sooty patch; it was a clean section shaped like a person in the middle of the blackened stone. Someone had been standing there and had been blasted by fire, his body and life protecting the wall
from being completely scorched.

  It was horrible.

  “You see that?” Crafter asked, gesturing to the wall.

  Gameknight grunted and nodded, fear tickling the edges of his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the sooty remains without imaging the terror that must have pulsed through that poor NPC’s mind as his life ebbed away.

  “This is terrible,” Crafter said in a low, morose voice. “If only we’d gotten here in time to help.”

  “Yeah, I wish we could have been here to help,” Gameknight lied. He hoped his deceit didn’t show on his face, but he had no desire to face Malacoda and the monsters of the Nether.

  The Nether was a place of fire and smoke. He had been there many times when this had been just a game to him, trolling many a player down there in that underground world, back when he’d been a griefer. He had loved taunting the zombie-pigmen and blazes, his arsenal of hacks and cheats keeping him safe. Now, he had no desire to go there. Just the thought of it made him shiver with fear.

  But how had those monsters gotten here?

  The Nether was a subterranean world that was carved out of solid rock, but not the normal material that made up the Overworld, the land in which the two friends now stood. No, the Nether was chiseled into a world of netherrack and soul sand—materials that didn’t even exist in the Overworld. You could never reach the Nether by tunneling; a portal had to be used to move from the world of light to that world of smoke and flame. It was an alternate dimension that existed within Minecraft. Nobody really knew where the Nether was, nor understood what it meant to be in another dimension. Maybe only Minecraft’s creator, Notch, understood what his twisted and self-aware computer code had created . . . or maybe even he didn’t. Some theorized that the Source code had taken on a life of its own, and had created the Nether, as well as other dimensions, just because it could, its digital awareness stretching out and testing its capabilities. Gameknight had never understood how this could be true, and had read numerous debates on the Internet. But right now, he really didn’t care. Right now, his every waking moment was consumed with fear and uncertainty. His very nightmares seemed to lurk within every shadow.

  Glancing about the chamber, he scanned the cavern for threats, his butter sword (designated as such by the YouTuber who refused to say the word “gold”) held at the ready. He had to admit that it kind of looked like butter in this light, although the magical shimmer to it reminded him of its true purpose . . . to take life.

  “We should look around,” Crafter suggested. “See if anyone is hiding and afraid to come out.”

  “You sure?” he asked, not wanting to look into those shadows. “Maybe we should just take a minecart to the next village and skip this one.”

  “Don’t be silly. We have to see if there are any survivors and make sure that they are safe . . . maybe bring them with us. My great-great-grandfather used to tell me, ‘The only thing worse than being alone is being forgotten.’ We can’t forget those who might still be here.”

  “Well . . . I guess . . .” Gameknight replied, his voice tinged with fear.

  “It will be alright,” Crafter answered, then jumped off the minecart rails and headed up the steps to the cavern entrance, small clouds of ash following each small footstep. “Come on, let’s go up to the surface. We can split up and search the village twice as fast, then head out if it’s not too late.”

  “OK,” Gameknight999 replied reluctantly. He followed the young boy up the steps and into the tunnel that led to the tall cobblestone tower above.

  Streaking through the rocky passageway, the pair headed toward the long vertical tunnel that stretched up to the tall cobblestone tower above. As they ran, they had to traverse multiple craters that had been blasted into the passage, some of them still warm. Gameknight could sense all of the hatred and malice that had smashed into this community coming from those smoldering holes; the echo of wicked malevolence was still strong. The monsters that had attacked this village had wanted to do nothing but kill and destroy. It made him cringe.

  Finally, they reached the ladder that led to the surface. Crafter shot up instantly, without hesitation. Gameknight, however, grasped the rungs and stood still for a moment. He could feel the danger awaiting their arrival at the top of this ladder and was afraid, but knew he had to follow. That was his friend above him, and he could not let him go alone. Sighing, he started to climb.

  They climbed as fast as they could. He could hear Crafter up ahead of him, though his small frame was lost in the darkness. Their hands and feet beat a steady rhythm on the ladder as they climbed, almost instantly falling in step and striking the ladder at the same time. The darkness around him seemed to be filled with shadowy forms. Imaginary clawed hands reached out at him, slashing away at his courage as he climbed. The higher they went, the closer they were to danger, and the more scared he became.

  There were monsters up there, somewhere, I can feel them, he thought.

  Well, he thought he could feel them. But maybe it was just the cowardice that seemed to be growing within him like a thorny weed . . . or maybe it was something else.

  Suddenly, a sound echoed through the tunnel; it was a faint sound that seemed to come from very far away, but was still clearly audible. And soon it became clear that it was a strained voice, belonging to a speaker who was likely in terrible pain and also terribly sad. A sense of overwhelming despair and defeat resonated within the echoing words.

  “USER-THAT-IS-NOT-A-USER, THE LOST PROPHECY IS—”

  Gameknight stopped climbing. Chills crawled down his spine as goose bumps spread over his skin. Shivering, he felt terribly cold and alone, the sorrow in that voice bringing a tear to his eye.

  “You hear that?” he shouted to his companion.

  “What?”

  “I said did you hear that voice?”

  Crafter stopped climbing, then came back down a few rungs so that he was directly over him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I heard someone yell out my name,” Gameknight said quietly, his own voice sounding uncertain.

  Crafter paused for a moment before answering, then spoke with a slow, calm voice.

  “You probably imagined hearing this voice. It has been a long and trying day and you’re tired . . . we both are. Let’s just keep going.”

  Gameknight could hear the worry in Crafter’s voice, as well as the disbelief, but he knew what he’d heard. Someone had been calling out to him. The despair in that sad person’s voice still echoed within his mind. He was sure that person had died, and his last words had been sent out to the User-that-is-not-a-user. For some reason, that NPC thought Gameknight999 could help, that he was the answer to the problems that plagued Minecraft.

  What a joke! I’m not the answer; I’m just a kid, a kid that was afraid of everything. What can I do? Nothing!

  “Are you coming?” Crafter asked from higher up on the ladder.

  Sighing, Gameknight999 continued his climb.

  When the pair reached the top of the ladder, they found a similar scene; the entrance to the tunnel had been blown apart at the surface, evidence of Malacoda’s rage. But instead of the remains of the castle-like tower surrounding the tunnel, they were shocked to find nothing. The entire tower had been destroyed, erased from the face of Minecraft.

  Stepping through the rubble, the duo moved to the edge of the crater. Gameknight could see that it was late afternoon, with only a scant few hours until sunset. He shivered. Nighttime was monster time.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Let’s get this search done.”

  “Fine,” Crafter replied, his small form casting a shadow that was barely half the length of Gameknight’s. “You search to the west, and I’ll search to the east. We’ll meet right back here at sunset.”

  Before Gameknight could object, his friend was gone. Sighing, he drew his sword and gripped it tight, then headed out.

  Most of the homes on the west side were now little more than rubble, giving the impr
ession that a mighty tornado of hatred had touched down here. Sections of the village were completely missing, with floating cubes of wood and cobblestone marking where homes had once stood. Looking at the destruction, Gameknight felt sad. He could imagine the terror the NPCs must have felt as the monsters moved through their village. They were helpless inhabitants of this community, unable to fight back or do anything other than hide. And from what he had heard in the last village, hiding could get you killed.

  Sprinting past the completely obliterated sections, he moved to a part of the village that was only partially destroyed. Some homes still stood, though the scars of violence were clearly visible. Smoking roofs and shattered doorways marked each structure, some of them more damaged than others. Walking amidst the destruction, Gameknight saw more charred walls where the outlines of people clearly stood out as a testament to the many lives extinguished by the monsters of the Nether, by Malacoda. He shuddered and turned away. The thought of the terrible fiery event that had left these gruesome works of art on the walls made his stomach heave. There was too much death and destruction in this digital world.

  “Minecraft was supposed to be fun,” he said aloud to no one, hoping his voice would push back the specter of fear that stalked his soul.

  He thought he heard something, and instantly stopped to listen. It sounded like the shuffling of feet . . . or was it just his imagination?

  “Anyone here?” he yelled.

  Silence.

  He moved through the half-broken homes, sifting through the remains, looking for chests or tools or anything else that could be helpful. Moving to the next building, Gameknight saw another sooty shadow of life, this one burned into the ground near what must have been the front door—though now it was little more than a charred threshold. Blocks of cobblestone floated on the ground near what had once been a wall, bobbing up and down as if riding on some invisible ocean swells. Giving the blackened stains a wide berth, he stepped cautiously into the house and peered into the shadows. He half expected some kind of nightmare to jump out and devour him.