Elytra Perils

by Mark Cheverton

  Chapter 2

  Into Minecraft Again

  “Hunter, how is it you aren’t trapped in the village?” Gameknight asked. “I saw Stitcher and Digger, and it was pretty obvious they couldn’t escape.”

  “I was out hunting,” she explained. “The forest around the village is still growing back but the blazes did some serious damage to it. It’s not fully recovered enough to attract any animals. So I went farther away, to the nearby Taiga forest to hunt and caught a bunch of rabbits. But when I returned, I saw all the stuff around the village.”

  “You mean the lava?” Gameknight asked.

  “No, there’s much more than that,” she replied.

  “Like what?”

  “Like how about you put on some armor and I’ll show you,” Hunter replied.

  She gave him a set of diamond armor, then handed him his enchanted diamond blade and an enchanted bow. Gameknight smiled as he took the weapons from her and put them into his inventory. With a solid set of armor and weapons with him, he felt better about being in Minecraft.

  Moving to the nearby oak tree, Hunter untied two horses. She leapt up onto a black and white spotted mare, then handed the reins of a large white stallion to her friend. Gameknight jumped up into the saddle and followed her out of the basin in which he always spawned. Turning in the saddle, he looked at the high rocky overhang that extended out over the shallow basin, a waterfall spilling over the edge. The cool liquid splashed down into a pool that eventually flowed underground into a dark cave. He could still remember that first day when the spider had attacked him; that waterfall had saved his life.

  High up on the hill that loomed over the tiny valley, he saw the dirt tower he’d built so long ago with torches in its sides so he could find his way back at night. Gameknight remembered when he’d made that single block. It had been easy back then, but that was before he’d gone through so much in Minecraft. Now, after all his adventures, the height of that tower made him feel a bit queasy, so much so that his head spun a little. The thought of making that tower again filled him with fear. It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights; he was just afraid of crashing to his death. This paranoia had slowly been coming on for a while, but in the heat of battle, he didn’t have time to worry about it. Still, he knew he could never build that tower today.

  “Are you sight seeing, or are you riding?” Hunter yelled.

  Gameknight turned back to her and realized he’d stopped galloping; his horse was just standing still. Urging his horse back to a trot, he caught up to Hunter and continued toward the village that sat far off in the distance.

  Checking the sun, he could see they had only a few hours before sunset. Being on horseback, they’d easily make it to the village before dusk. But something about the sky nagged at the back of his mind. The color wasn’t quite right. Instead of a clear bright sky-blue, there was a slight pinkish tint to it, as if someone had spilled a bit of crimson paint onto the overhead canvas that stretched from horizon to horizon. Something was wrong, but Gameknight couldn’t quite figure it out.

  They rode through the afternoon in silence, pushing their horses as hard as they could. Grass-covered hills dotted with brightly colored flowers moved past them as they headed for their village. A pristine forest of oak trees followed the grassy plains, their leaves rustling in the breeze. Gameknight expected to see zombies hiding in the shadows of the mighty trees, but fortunately, there were none. As they shot through the forest, weaving around trunks and ducking under branches, he thought he saw something that looked like green torches placed against the trees, but he couldn’t see the torches, only the circle of green flickering light that seemed to hug the tree as if it were clinging desperately to the rough bark.

  “You see those green things?” Gameknight asked.

  “Yeah, I noticed them on the way to your hidey-hole,” Hunter replied. “We call them leaves.” She laughed, then flashed him a mischievous grin.

  “Not the leaves. I mean those glowing things on the sides of the tree trunks.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hunter asked.

  Suddenly, a clattering sound mixed with the jingling of metal filled the air. From behind a cluster of trees and shrubs a zombie horse burst into the open, an armored zombie riding on its back. But, instead of wearing the normal gold armor that Gameknight had come to expect of the decaying monsters, this one was wearing chain mail, and was holding an enchanted sword.

  Gameknight veered to the right as Hunter turned to the left, circling around the monster.

  “I can’t believe it,” the User-that-is-not-a-user shouted.

  The two friends circled around the monster and met on the other side.

  “What is that monster?” Hunter asked.

  “It’s called a fallen knight,” Gameknight replied.

  “Why have I never seen one before?” Hunter asked.

  “Because they don’t exist in regular Minecraft,” he answered. “You can only find them in special, modified versions of Minecraft, which your server isn’t.”

  “Then how is this possible?”

  “I don’t know,” Gameknight replied.

  Just then, an arrow bounced off his diamond armor. Another mounted fallen knight emerged from behind a copse of trees, this one wielding a bow. The two monsters turned their zombie horses toward them and charged.

  Gameknight drew his enchanted bow and fired two quick shots; Hunter’s arrows were already flying through the air. The knights zigzagged, easily avoiding the pointed shafts. Gameknight fired again, then drew his sword.

  “Here, you can put this to use better than I can,” Hunter said.

  Reaching into her inventory, she drew her own diamond blade and tossed it to her friend. Catching it in his left hand, Gameknight kicked his horse forward. As he passed the fallen knight, he swung his blade against the creature’s glowing iron sword. The two weapons met in a shower of sparks as the enchantments tried to act on each other. But the fallen knight did not expect Gameknight’s second blade. Swinging with his left, he slashed at the monster’s chain mail, cutting into the jingling armor with all his strength.

  An arrow bounced off his chest. Kicking his horse into a gallop, he charged at the mounted archer. Weaving back and forth, Gameknight made himself difficult to hit. The knight pulled his mount to a stop so as to aim at his target. That was his first mistake. Hunter’s arrows streaked through the air, striking the monster in the chest and side. The zombie archer flashed red as he took damage. Turning, the monster faced Hunter. That was his second mistake.

  Gameknight charged at the creature. When he neared, he leapt off his horse and knocked the monster to the ground. Standing quickly, the User-that-is-not-a-user attacked the creature with a vengeance, not ever allowing the fallen knight to notch another arrow. He tried to defend himself with the bow, but it quickly shattered. Hunter fired three shots at the monster just as Gameknight’s attacks caused its chainmail to fall away. With a surprised look on its decaying face, the fallen knight disappeared with a pop.

  Not waiting to pick up the glowing balls of XP, Gameknight mounted his horse and charged at the remaining zombie. Hunter rode behind Gameknight, just off to the right. She fired, aiming at the monster that was approaching. The creature tried to weave out of the way, but it was too late, the User-that-is-not-a-user was upon him. Diamond sword clashed with iron as Gameknight and the fallen knight did the dance of battle, and for one of them, the dance of death. Carefully moving around the creature, Gameknight kept the armored zombie facing away from Hunter. This allowed her to shoot at the creature without it dodging her shots. Arrows pierced the monster as it flashed red with damage.

  Gameknight stood up in his stirrups, then leapt at the creature. With his swords outstretched, he knocked the creature from the zombie horse, then tumbled to the ground. Rolling to his feet, he spun and slashed at the monster before it could gain its footing.

  Hunter was suddenly there. With arrow notched, she aimed down at the monster, then brought
her foot down on the monster’s sword, pinning it to the ground.

  “It would be better for you if you don’t move,” Hunter growled.

  The armored zombie looked up at Hunter and growled. Gameknight could see this creature was different than your typical zombie. When captured, the decaying monsters usually seemed afraid and were ready to give up, but this monster was brimming with hatred and had a thirst for violence. He growled and snarled at Hunter and Gameknight999, reaching out with his free hand to strike at the girl.

  Moving quickly, the User-that-is-not-a-user stood on the monster’s other arm while Hunter moved her foot from his sword to his wrist. The creature was completely incapacitated, yet it still struggled and growled.

  “I know you are a fallen knight,” Gameknight said.

  The monster stopped his struggling and stared up at the User-that-is-not-a-user, his eyes burning with a craving for destruction.

  “If you tell us how you came into Minecraft, then we’ll let you live,” Hunter said. “But if you continue to fight us, then I will end your miserable life.”

  She drew her arrow back a little farther, causing the enchanted bow to creak slightly.

  The monster stared at Hunter, then back to Gameknight999.

  “This fallen knight is here,” the monster growled. “It just is…there is no why or how.”

  “You’re saying you don’t know how you came into Minecraft?” Gameknight asked.

  “Do any creatures really know why they are here in Minecraft,” the monster said. He cast his hateful eyes toward Hunter. “How did the girl come to be here in Minecraft?”

  “I was born here,” she snapped.

  “Same is true for fallen knights,” the zombie said.

  “So you’re saying you just spawned into the Overworld?” Gameknight asked.

  The monster didn’t respond, it just glared at his two captors, a hateful expression on his scarred, decaying face.

  “What do you think?” Hunter asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like this,” Gameknight replied.

  “You don’t like this…that’s your conclusion?” Hunter said, exasperated. “That’s really a big help.” She pointed her arrow down at the monster. “What do we do with him?”

  Gameknight stared down at the monster, then knelt so that he was close to the monster’s face. The stench of the creature was almost overpowering and made him gag.

  “We’re going to let you up, zombie,” Gameknight said. “It isn’t necessary that we are enemies; we can be friends and live together in peace. When we release you, I want to you get onto your horse and ride away. Do you understand?”

  The monster nodded his head, but the hateful, violent expression in his beady red eyes stayed constant.

  Gameknight sighed, then glanced at Hunter.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She nodded her head, her red curls dancing about her shoulders.

  “OK.”

  Both Gameknight and Hunter stepped back. With her foot, Hunter kicked the monster’s sword into the bushes. The zombie slowly stood and looked at the two of them, then snarled and charged at Gameknight, his razor sharp claws gleaming at the end of each finger. The User-that-is-not-a-user didn’t bother to move or raise his weapons, three arrows zipped through the air as if fired from a machine gun. They struck the zombie and took the last of his HP. Armor and weapons clattered to the ground as the fallen knight disappeared with a pop.

  “Well, that was fun,” Hunter said.

  But Gameknight didn’t reply. Instead, he stared up at the stained sky, wondering what had happened to Minecraft.

  “Come on, Gameknight,” his friend said. “We can sightsee later. Right now, we need to get back to village before it gets dark. Who knows what kind of monsters are going to come out at night?”

  “Right,” Gameknight replied as he retrieved his horse and swung up in to the saddle. “After all, nighttime is monster time.”

  “You know it,” Hunter replied as she turned her mount toward the distant village and galloped forward.

  Gameknight followed his friend, but as he rode, his mind went to all the modded versions of Minecraft he’d played over the years. He searched his mind for where those fallen knights might have come from. But as he considered all the possibilities and imagined all of those modded monsters appearing within Minecraft, icy needles of fear stabbed at his soul.

  Chapter 3

  The Village

  They rode through the rest of the forest in silence. No more monsters tried to surprise them, but they both heard sounds neither Gameknight nor Hunter could recognize. The occasional guttural howl or barking-like growl or shrill scream brought tiny square goose-bumps to Gameknight’s arms. Fortunately, the sounds were far away, and the two companions had no desire to find the source.

  “So what is it with users?” Hunter asked.

  “What do you mean?” Gameknight replied.

  He steered his horse around a large, suspiciously dense shrub with his sword in his hand. The enchanted blade cast a sparkling circle of light on the surroundings, filling the shadows with a purple hue that drove back the darkness just a bit. With his eyes on the bush, Gameknight rode past; nothing emerged from the leafy cover. He glanced back toward Hunter.

  “You feel the need to make Minecraft more dangerous, so you modify it?” she asked.

  “I don’t do it,” Gameknight said. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “I’ve played some of these modded versions before,” he replied.

  “What do you and your idiotic users add to Minecraft to make it more dangerous?” she asked.

  “Well, I’ve seen some with giant zombies that are taller than the highest spruce tree, and dragons in the Overworld, and three-headed monsters, and massive wolves, and…”

  “What is wrong with users?!” Hunter growled. “These monsters could hurt the villagers that are in these servers.”

  “But we don’t know if those villagers in the other servers are alive,” Gameknight protested.

  “And you don’t know that they aren’t, either,” Hunter snapped. “Users are reckless with their power. They should be blocked from Minecraft.”

  “Well…”

  Gameknight didn’t want to get in an argument with his friend. He knew that Minecraft was made for the users. And it was an open software system so that people could make these mods and create something new and different, but what if all the villagers were alive. These modded versions could be doing terrible things to the villagers.

  He sighed, worrying now about what might be happening to all those NPCs. As he considered all the different monsters in all the different modpacks, they left the oak forest and moved into a birch forest biome that was struggling for life. Small saplings stood in place of the majestic birch trees that had once covered this landscape. The blaze king, Charybdis had sought to destroy everything, turning the Overworld into a charred wasteland, in hopes of transforming it into the Nether. Gameknight and his friends stopped the fiery monsters, but the scars from the battles still marked the Overworld, as this recovering forest showed.

  Some trees stood in full health, but most were just tiny saplings, struggling to reach upward toward the sun. The soil was all new, with long blades of grass growing ankle high, red and blue flowers hidden here and there within the verdant growth. But even with all the color and the grass and the flowers, it was a sad sight. He could remember how this forest had once looked, and now, it was but a shadow of its true self.

  They rode toward a large, grass-covered hill. The ground sloped up gently, then became steeper until the horses were jumping up a block or two at a time. On the other side of the hill, the User-that-is-not-a-user knew they would finally come to Crafter’s village.

  Suddenly, something began to emerge from behind the hill. A needle-like tower came into view as they climbed the mound, the thin structure jutting upward into the sky like a shaft of glowing power. It probably reached all the way up to the bu
ild limit. It was a cylindrical thing, maybe only eight blocks in diameter, but made of glass. Bright shafts of light shot up through the center, the cylinders apparently hollow. Then he noticed the tower was not a single structure, but rather multiple cylinders, one on top of the other, with a huge gap in between, the beams of light connecting all the things together.

  “What is that?” Gameknight said.

  They moved higher up the side of the hill.

  “Ahh…you noticed that,” Hunter said. “Wait till you see the square thing.”

  “The square…”

  He never finished the sentence. As they reached the top of the grass-covered hill, Gameknight saw a gigantic rectangular-shaped object floating a few blocks off the ground. It was wide and tall, but thin compared to its size, the corners all gently curved. The top of the thing stretched up maybe fifty blocks high if not more. The back was a grayish material, maybe stone, but the front was covered with some kind of dark material. At the bottom center of the object was what appeared to be a round button, with…and then Gameknight recognized the object: it was a cellphone!

  Colorful beams of sparkling particles shot from the phone to the towers as if the electronic device was somehow connected to a cell network. Suddenly, he remembered seeing a video about this. Sethbling, the redstone/command block master, had done a groundbreaking demonstration of communicating with the physical world from within Minecraft, https://youtu.be/IdlZRhKmWJY. He’d done it with a cell phone, and here it was.

  Pulling his attention away from the cellphone and cellphone towers, Gameknight finally noticed Crafter’s village. It sat behind the cellphone and was lit up with an orange light. A layer of lava sat above the village, floating just above the top of the cobblestone tower. It extended from the edges of the cobblestone wall that ringed the community.