He followed. More footsteps sounded behind him, but he ignored them and kept running, thinking only about getting to the surface and saving someone . . . anyone. He scaled the tall ladder as fast as he could. When he reached the top, he saw Stitcher’s lithe form climbing the ladders that would take her to the topmost level of the watchtower.
Leaping high into the air, he grabbed the third rung and climbed after her. In seconds, he was at the top. All around the watchtower, he could now see many items dispersed throughout the village, tools discarded and food left to decay in the sun. Every single villager was gone, destroyed by Feyd and his army of monsters.
Gameknight growled.
“We’re too late!” he snapped.
“But just barely,” Stitcher said as she pointed out across the desert dunes.
In the distance, Gameknight999 could see the army of endermen moving away from the village, the dragon flying high in the air, carving out lazy circles above the dark nightmares. He could just barely make out a dark red enderman at the head of the formation: Feyd.
Drawing his sword, Gameknight turned toward the ladder, but Stitcher’s hand grabbed the back of his armor.
“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “There are too many of them and too few of us. It would be suicide.”
Gameknight turned his head and glared at his friend, but she was right. Sheathing his sword, he moved back to the tower’s edge and stared out at the enemy forces. Below, he could hear his friends moving out into the village, looking fruitlessly for survivors.
Just then, he saw the dragon turn to look back at the village.
“Quick, HIDE!” Gameknight shouted.
Gameknight crouched behind one of the stone crenellations that ringed the tower’s peak. Stitcher had done the same, hiding behind a stone cube. Slowly, as the time passed, a strange feeling tickled in the back of his mind. The tickle turned to an itch . . . and then a burn. Somehow, Gameknight could feel the dragon’s emotions through the fabric of Minecraft. He didn’t understand it, but he could somehow sense the monster’s vicious hatred in the distance . . . and there was something familiar there, something he’d felt before.
Chancing a glance, Gameknight edged his head around the sandstone and peeked around the block’s edge. In the hazy distance, the User-that-is-not-a-user could see the dragon hovering in the air, staring back at the village. It was surrounded by sparkling purple and sickly yellow particles; they gave the monster a sinister and diseased look. Gameknight expected to see purple eyes staring back at him, but to his surprise he saw two intense white rectangles, blazing with the hatred of a thousand suffering lives.
And at that moment, Gameknight recognized his enemy—Herobrine.
Somehow the terrible virus had survived the void and had infected the Ender Dragon. How is this possible? he thought. Gameknight pulled his head back and sat on the ground against the stone block, his mind reeling.
“Gameknight, what’s wrong?” Stitcher asked. “You’re as pale as a ghast.”
“Look at the eyes of the dragon, but be careful it doesn’t see you.”
Stitcher leaned out just enough to move one eye past the block. A gasp escaped her mouth as she pulled back and sat down, her face as white as Gameknight’s.
“It can’t be,” she whispered, not wanting the distant dragon to hear her. “It’s Herobrine.”
Gameknight nodded his head.
“But how can that be?” she asked.
He shook his head as thoughts exploded in his mind.
We threw him into the void, he thought. I saw him fall . . . saw his terrible eyes blink and go out. How can he still be alive?
Memories of every battle with that terrible virus played through his mind as he sat there, shaking with fear.
How am I going to stop him now? He’s a dragon!
Sneaking another glance around the block of stone, Gameknight could see Herobrine turn and fly back toward his army of endermen, a mist of purple and pale yellow particles still surrounding the giant.
Suddenly, a monkey’s head popped up through the hole in the floor with a worried look on the face.
“You two OK up here?” Monkeypants asked.
Neither of them answered. They just shook their heads, fear in their eyes. Monkeypants glanced up at his son.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Herobrine . . . he’s back,” Gameknight mumbled.
“How’s that possible?” his father asked.
“I don’t know, but we need to get out of here,” Gameknight said. “He might have seen us.”
Glancing around the block one more time, he looked across the landscape. The army of dark monsters had moved farther away, their shadowy forms disappearing in the haze. He stood, motioned for his father to move down the ladder, and then followed him. At the foot of the watchtower, he found the rest of their party gathered together, looks of despair on their faces as they surveyed the now useless items that littered the village.
“I know who the enemy is,” Gameknight said as he moved next to Crafter.
“Of course—it’s that terrible endermen king, Feyd,” Hunter said.
Gameknight shook his head.
“No,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “That’s what I thought, but my ancient enemy is not Feyd. It is someone much worse.”
“Worse than an enderman,” Hunter said. “What could possibly be worse than Feyd, the king of the endermen?”
“His master and maker . . . Herobrine,” Gameknight said in a low voice.
“Herobrine? That can’t be right,” Digger said. “We all saw him fall into the void. He can’t still be alive.”
“We saw him from the top of the watchtower,” Stitcher added. “I saw his eyes. I know it’s him. He’s back.”
“I have no doubt it’s him,” Gameknight continued. “We all heard the music of Minecraft. Only one thing could hurt the Oracle and make the music sound that wounded—Herobrine.”
“But how could he have been reborn into the form of the dragon?” Crafter asked.
“I don’t know,” the User-that-is-not-a-user answered. “Maybe his viral computer code infected the void and the dragon’s egg. We all saw the egg on top of the exit portal when we left The End.”
“It doesn’t really matter how it happened,” Crafter said. “All that’s important is that Herobrine is back and we have to figure out what to do.”
“What do you think we should do?” Digger asked, his deep booming voice filling the air.
“I don’t know,” Crafter replied. “I think I need to talk with the Council of Crafters and let them know what’s going on. We must get back to our village as soon as possible.”
The young NPC turned and headed back into the watchtower.
“What about all the items on the ground?” Herder asked.
“We should leave them as we did in Farmer’s village,” Crafter replied as he turned to look at the young boy.
“No!” Gameknight snapped. “We will need everything we can find to stop Herobrine and his monsters. Who knows how many creatures he really has in his army? Everyone, go and collect all the items.”
No one moved; they just stared back at Gameknight. Ignoring their looks, he turned and moved throughout the village, collecting tools and food and weapons.
“Come on!” he shouted. “This isn’t going to be as easy as all the other battles we’ve faced with Herobrine.”
“The others were easy?” Hunter asked.
“Before, he was just a person like you and me,” Gameknight said as he stopped and turned to face the others. “Now he’s a dragon and has all the strength of that flying beast, but likely he still has his own powers as well. He might very well be impossible to defeat now. We need everything we can find to help.” He took a step toward the others and glared at them. “I know you don’t want to take these items, and I don’t feel good about it either, but if we don’t use everything we have to stop Herobrine, he may win. Isn’t it more important to stop him from hurting
other villagers? Wouldn’t the villagers who lost their lives today have wanted us to do everything we could to keep other villages from suffering the same fate?”
They nodded their heads.
“Then get out here and help me collect all these items.”
Still, the NPCs didn’t move. Finally Monkeypants-271 stepped forward. As he passed Stitcher, he grabbed her small hand and pulled her with him. The pair nodded at Gameknight999 and then split up and collected items along the shattered wall. Following their example, the rest of the NPCs moved out into the village and picked up all of the discarded items. Going into the homes, they searched chests and furnaces, taking anything that might be helpful. When they had scoured the village clean, the party went back to the crafting chamber.
Following Crafter, they each took a minecart and jumped on the track that would lead them home. Gameknight and Monkeypants were the last to leave.
“Are you OK?” Monkeypants asked his son.
“I don’t know, Dad,” he answered. “I’m not sure I can do this. Herobrine? As the Ender Dragon? It can’t get any worse than that.” He then lowered his voice, even though they were alone. “I’m afraid I might fail my friends this time, and that fear is overpowering. It’s making it difficult to think about what to do . . . difficult to try to help my friends.”
Gameknight looked at the ground, ashamed at what he was feeling.
“Son, we have an obligation to help our friends whenever we can, not because we must, but because we choose to. The only thing worse than not helping someone in need is quitting when it becomes too hard.” His father paused for a moment to let those words sink in. “A famous general once said, ‘Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.’ If you don’t do everything you can possibly do to help your friends, you will regret it the rest of your life.”
Gameknight999 looked up at his father.
“I know that you can solve this puzzle and help your friends,” Monkeypants said. “All we need is for you to be as confident about it as I am. Now let’s get back to the village and get this done.”
Slapping his son on the back, his father jumped into his minecart and shot down the tracks into the darkness. Lifting his own minecart, Gameknight placed it on the tracks and climbed in, but looked back at the empty crafting chamber. At one time, it had been filled with life, and now it only held silence.
Was that the fate for all of Minecraft?
Gameknight shuddered as fear rippled down his spine. Shaking his body as though he were trying to dislodge the sensation, the User-that-is-not-a-user pushed his minecart into the darkness.
CHAPTER 8
THE ZOMBIE KING
Feyd materialized in the rocky tunnel. It was lit with an orange glow and smoke and ash filled the air. Off to the left, a column of lava fell from high up on the wall. The molten flow splashed when it hit the ground, creating a wide boiling pool. The temperature in the tunnel was hot and delicious. To the right, a stream of water spilled from a gap in the ceiling. The cool blue liquid ran down the sloping floor until it sizzled into the boiling stone. Where the two met, dark shining obsidian was formed.
This was the place.
Looking at a flat section of the tunnel wall, Feyd could see a single block of stone that stuck out. The area around the lone cube was flat and smooth. Teleporting to the stone, the enderman reached up and pressed the block. It moved ever so slightly, then clicked into place, causing internal mechanisms to move. The sound of stone grinding against stone filled the passage as a large section of the wall moved aside, revealing a long, dark tunnel. At the other end of the shadowy corridor, the endermen king could see the sparkling green light of a zombie HP fountain.
Gathering his teleportation powers, Feyd moved to the other end of the tunnel at the speed of thought. When the teleportation particles cleared, the monster looked down on a massive cavern bigger than anything that could naturally occur. All across the floor of the cavern, small homes built out of every kind of material in Minecraft were strewn about in a random order. It was a like a complicated patchwork of colors and shapes, with each house different in shape and size from its neighbor.
To Feyd, it looked terrible. Why would these creatures need to live in houses when they were already in a perfectly good cave? He never really understood these decaying monsters.
In the past, endermen used to bring blocks they stole from the NPCs into these zombie-towns. Their green brothers would use them to build. However their sharing had been cut back since the failure to capture the User-that-is-not-a-user in The End. Tensions were high between the zombies and the endermen, and Feyd was here to mend that rift and enlist the help of these creatures.
At the center of the massive cavern, Feyd saw a clearing—an area free of buildings, wide enough to allow a hundred zombies to congregate. A platform of obsidian sat at the center of the clearing; clearly this was a gathering center for the green monsters. Closing his eyes, he disappeared, then reappeared atop the dais, his presence still undetected.
These zombies really are fools, he thought.
Feyd looked about the clearing. The idiotic creatures shuffled about, doing whatever zombies do in zombie-town. Many were standing within the emerald flows of the HP fountains, rejuvenating themselves under the cascading green sparks. The fountains were placed throughout the cavern and kept the zombies tethered to their town; if they stayed on the surface of the Overworld too long, they would die. The fountains, like the endermen’s need to teleport in The End, kept the monsters close to their designated homes and out of the Overworld. It was their punishment for past crimes against the NPCs in the early days after the Awakening, during the Great Zombie Invasion.
Suddenly, the sound of a sword smashing against a chest plate came from the direction of the patchwork hovels. Feyd knew this to be their alarm and a signal to gather in the central clearing; he’d have company soon. The sound caused the monsters to move faster, and those in rapturous delight under the emerald fountains snapped into action. In seconds, the clearing filled with zombies, their green bodies pressing in toward the raised obsidian platform. Quickly, they surrounded the king of the endermen, but stayed at least four blocks from the dark creature; none of them wanted to be within arm’s reach.
As they looked up at him, moaning, Feyd could hear the sound of jingling metal from behind. When he turned, he found the hulking form of Xa-Tul approaching, his chainmail swaying on this body as he pushed through the green decaying creatures. The light from the numerous HP fountains bounced off the metallic links, casting a shower of green reflections on the monsters around him, giving the appearance that the hulking monster wore a coat of rare emeralds. Nearing the dark platform, the zombie king drew his huge golden broadsword and pointed it at the enderman.
“What does an enderman want here in zombie-town?” Xa-Tul boomed.
“I have come to talk,” Feyd replied in a screechy voice. “Why don’t you put your little sword away before someone gets hurt?”
“Xa-Tul will put it away when Xa-Tul chooses,” the zombie king replied. “The endermen left the zombies in The End for too long. Many were close to death when they were returned to zombie-town. The endermen king did that on purpose to punish us for something that was not our fault.”
“They had the Maker with them,” Feyd screeched. “If your zombies had stopped the User-that-is-not-a-user in the stronghold, then Herobrine could have been saved right then.”
“Xa-Tul did not know the pathetic NPCs had the Maker with them!” the zombie complained. “Nor did the endermen know this. This failure belonged more to the endermen than it did the zombies.”
The monsters around the dark platform growled and moaned as they listened to the debate. Some of them stepped closer, their razor sharp claws slowly extending from stubby fingertips.
“I am not here to relive this argument, Xa-Tul,” Feyd explained. “I am here to deliver orders.”
“Orders!” the monster scoffed. “Xa-Tul does not take orders from an en
derman.”
“They are not my orders. They are the Maker’s.”
Xa-Tul laughed.
“Xa-Tul knows the Maker was thrown into the void,” the zombie king explained. “And Feyd knows it as well. The Maker is dead.”
The zombie king raised his clawed hand high up into the air, fingers spread wide, then clenched it into a fist as he moaned sorrowfully, the rest of the zombies doing the same.
“The salute of sacrifice is given for the Maker,” Xa-Tul said.
“For the clan!” shouted some of the other monsters.
“For the clan!”
“For the clan!”
Feyd waited impatiently for the monsters to finish, then glared down at Xa-Tul, his eyes glowing dangerously white.
“You fool, the Maker is not dead—he still lives!”
“What?” Xa-Tul asked. “Feyd says that Herobrine still lives. Is this a joke?”
“Herobrine does not joke, nor do I,” the king of the endermen screeched. “He has commanded me to bring the zombie nation into his new war. You are ordered to—”
“Zombies no longer take orders from endermen,” Xa-Tul growled. “That has happened in the past and it will not happen ever again. Feyd says that Herobrine is still alive yet no proof is offered. How can this be possible after the Maker was thrown into the void? Why should the zombies believe this?”
“Herobrine came back in the form of the Ender Dragon,” Feyd explained.
Xa-Tul laughed, then turned and looked at the zombies around him. The decaying creatures gave a growling, moaning sort of laugh at the sound of this explanation.
“How is that possible?” Xa-Tul asked. “Does the king of the endermen think that zombies are fools? Nothing survives the void; every creature in Minecraft knows this.”
“The Maker has powers beyond anything we understand, for he was able to infect the dragon’s egg and be reborn.” Feyd took a step to the edge of the platform and glared down at the zombie king. “I am done arguing with you. Herobrine commands that you bring your zombies to him at once. Any delay will be dealt with swiftly and with a lethal response.” Feyd leaned closer to the zombie king. “What is your reply?”
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