“Where is the Fool going? There is still much to discuss.”
The zombie king laughed, then pointed his sword down at him.
“The User-that-is-not-a-user can run away only so many times before Xa-Tul catches him.”
“I defeated you once, zombie, and I will do it again,” Gameknight said, but his voice lacked confidence.
Xa-Tul laughed.
“The User-that-is-not-a-user will pay for his crimes!” the zombie king growled.
Suddenly, Feyd materialized on the chamber floor. He turned and glared at his enemy and walked toward him. Gameknight quickly pushed his minecart onto the rails, then placed a block of TNT next to the tracks. Planting a redstone torch next to the red and white cube, he shot down the tunnel just before the block exploded. As the sound of the blast reverberated in his ears, he could hear Feyd screeching out in frustration.
“I will get you yet, User-that-is-not-a-user. And when I do, you will be mine!”
CHAPTER 13
FINDING HIS SONG
As Gameknight rode through the dark tunnel, he thought about the two monster kings he’d just escaped. The last time he’d fought Xa-Tul, he’d almost lost; he wasn’t sure if he could defeat him again. When he’d fought Erebus, he’d been in the Land of Dreams on the steps of the Source, and he’d had Hunter and Stitcher there to help him.
But how can I fight both Feyd and Xa-Tul at once? Gameknight wondered.
And what about the dragon? He’d defeated two dragons now—one of them with an entire army at his back and the other with just his friends. But now, the dragon had all of Herobrine’s powers and experience. Can I do it again? Am I strong enough? Feelings of uncertainty and fear wrapped around him like a leaden shroud.
Looking ahead, he could just barely see his father, Monkeypants271, his superman cape flapping behind him in the breeze. Gameknight wished he had his father’s confidence.
The end of the tunnel brightened as he approached the next crafting chamber. When his cart shot into the torch-lit cavern, Gameknight saw his father placing a new minecart on the next track and shooting off into the darkness of the next passage. Crafter had already emptied this village of its inhabitants, sending them to his own village for safety. It was a ghost village now.
Gameknight picked up his minecart and carried it to the next track that would lead him toward Crafter’s village. After placing it down, he climbed in and streaked through the tunnel. He would do this two more times before he made it “home.”
When he finally did reach Crafter’s village, he was greeted by cheering villagers. Looking around him, he was confused.
Why were they celebrating? What are they so happy about? Gameknight thought. We were defeated.
As he stood from his minecart, Crafter came to his side.
“What’s going on?” Gameknight asked. “Why is everyone so happy? We lost that battle!”
“No, we delayed them long enough to clear out four other villages,” Crafter replied. “Around you are all the NPCs we saved. If we hadn’t warned them, they would still be in the path of destruction. They all know that you stayed to fight. You delayed the enemy long enough for everyone to escape.”
“Not everyone,” Gameknight growled.
Gameknight silenced the cheering NPCs with a glare. Slowly, he raised his hand, fingers spread wide: a salute for the dead. As he gazed around the crafting chamber, additional hands sprouted up, filling the room with extended arms and solemn faces. With his whole body filled with anger and guilt, the User-that-is-not-a-user clenched his hand in a fist. The image of those poor archers that had been attacked by Herobrine filled his mind with rage. Squeezing his fist even tighter, he could hear his knuckles pop as the sounds of their screams echoed within his mind.
Those NPCs didn’t follow Gameknight to the village expecting to perish. They deserved a better fate than they received, and their deaths weighed heavily on him. He was responsible for all these people, and they were relying on him to save them. But how could he do it? He was just a kid.
Gameknight was so afraid he was going to fail that he couldn’t even imagine how to try anymore. Every decision he made terrified him all the way down to his toes. All he could do now was stand in the path of the destruction and swing his swords. That’s all he was good for anymore: cannon fodder.
“Well, so be it,” he murmured to no one.
What he really needed was a strategic master . . . Shawny.
Monet, are you still there watching? Gameknight thought to the chat.
Yep, she replied.
I need Shawny. You think you can find him?
Two steps ahead of you, she answered. When I saw that evil looking dragon, I called him. He’s here with me and he’s working on something. Hold on, he’s says he’s got something special just for you. You’re gonna love it.
Well, tell him to hurry. NPCs are dying down here, Gameknight answered.
He’s working as fast as he can, Monet113 replied.
At least that was something.
“Gameknight, we have much to discuss,” Crafter said as he approached. “We must plan what to do next.”
“User-that-is-not-a-user, how should we disperse the new villagers?” Digger asked. “There’s room in some of the houses, but not much. We could dig tunnels into the crafting chamber and—”
“Gameknight, we need to look at our defenses,” Hunter added. “With the zombies now in the battle we can’t—”
Putting his hands to his head, Gameknight screamed, silencing everyone in the chamber. He could feel a hundred pairs of eyes all looking down on him, each set expecting some kind of miraculous plan to stop the monsters and save all of their lives.
The pressure was just too much.
With everyone watching him, the User-that-is-not-a-user pushed his way through the crowd and stormed up the stairs that led out of the chamber, his entire being overwhelmed. Once he’d reached the round room where he had first met Crafter so long ago, he sprinted to the opposite side and entered the passage that would take him to the secret ladder and the watchtower. But instead of going toward the village, he went the opposite way, following a newly constructed tunnel that would take him to his own castle. Running up the stone steps, he made it into the keep of Castle Gameknight in seconds.
Stepping out into the courtyard of his castle, the User-that-is-not-a-user stared at the obsidian walls that surrounded his fortress. NPCs were placing the dark blocks on the incomplete section of the wall; that was the part he was supposed to have completed with his father, but he’d failed to do so.
Gameknight sighed.
“You know, sometimes people expect more of us than we think we can give,” his father said as he approached. His ridiculous monkey face looked worried and comical at the same time. “We never really know the limits of our abilities until we try.”
“But Dad, they expect me to come up with some kind of great idea that is going to save them all,” Gameknight complained. “Feyd and Xa-Tul terrify me, and Herobrine is in a dragon form—that’s the worst. What if I can’t solve this puzzle and save them?” He lowered his voice to just a whisper. “I’m so scared that I’m gonna fail my friends that I can’t even think. I’m so afraid of failing that I’m afraid to try. What am I gonna do?”
“Son, when you think about those things that scare you, they form a fog of fear around your mind, making it impossible to think. You can’t focus on your fears, for fear will consume your courage and strength to fight. When you focus on what you can do instead of what you are afraid of, your fear will evaporate and allow you to think.
“You know, on the day your mother and I brought you home from the hospital after you were born, I felt the same way.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t afraid that a bunch of zombies were going to attack the house or anything like that,” Monkeypants said with a little laugh. “What I mean was that it suddenly hit me that I was responsible for this new little person, and I had to teach you everything
you needed to know so that you’d have a safe and happy life. I didn’t know how to be a parent; I was just a clumsy engineer who liked making gadgets. I was so afraid that I would do something wrong and mess everything up. I was terrified.”
“So what did you do to get over it?” Gameknight asked.
“Your mother gave me some advice that I think about every day,” Monkeypants explained. “She told me, ‘Every bird has a nest to tend and baby birds to care for. All the things that mama bird does for her babies are part of her song.’ You see, the bird does the best it can, be it collecting food, building a nest, or singing to keep away predators. This is all part of her song. It’s the same with people, but our songs are the things that we can do better than anyone else to take care of our families. Your mother’s song was teaching fourth graders and taking care of us. When we brought you home from the hospital, I was uncertain and afraid, and you mother saw this in me. So she told me about the bird’s song and asked me, ‘What’s your song?’
“I stood there in the kitchen and thought about it, then she said, ‘Just be you, the best you possible. Use your strengths to do things that will help your son, for that is your song, and focus on what you can do, not what you can’t.’ So I started using my strengths, my song.”
“What was your song?” Gameknight asked.
“Inventing, that’s my song. I started putting little gadgets around the whole house . . . sensors on doors so that they’d lock if you tried to get out, special latches on the knife drawer, the robotic ball that you would chase into the bathtub. . . . I used my inventions to help you because that was my song, and I could sing that song better than anyone else in the world. You see, that’s one of the goals in life, to find that thing you can do better than anyone else, your strength, your song, and then use that skill to make people’s lives better.
“I stopped being afraid when I focused on what I knew I could do, which was to make inventions.” Monkeypants leaned in close and whispered into his son’s ear. “What’s your song?”
Gameknight looked up into his father’s eyes,
“That’s what you need to figure out, son,” Monkeypants said, then was quiet.
Closing his eyes for a moment, the User-that-is-not-a-user thought about his father’s words.
My song . . . what is my song?
Looking out the window of the keep, he could see the tall obsidian walls nearing completion. Some of the workers moved from the walls to the archer towers, placing blocks higher and higher into the air. Closing his eyes again, Gameknight imagined the army of monsters approaching the castle. There would be hundreds of endermen, zombies, and probably other creatures of the dark. The dragon would smash apart these walls in seconds. He knew, somehow, that controlling the dragon was key . . . but how? He could feel the puzzle pieces tumbling around in his head, but none of them materialized to his mind’s eye; they were just a blur of possibilities.
Gameknight could see the archer towers of Crafter’s village. He knew the dragon would attack there first, but it didn’t seem to him that that’s where the real battle would take place. Somehow, he knew that the defense of Minecraft would be fought here, in his castle. Maybe Shawny would have some ideas on how to fortify this place.
If only the users could come and help, Gameknight thought. But the ban from the Council of Crafters was still in effect; NPCs could not be seen talking or using their hands in front of users. The users had to stay out of it . . . for now.
With or without the users, the NPCs of Minecraft had to stand up and fight. What they needed was time to prepare, but who knew how much time they had?
And then an idea surfaced in the back of his mind, pushing through the fog of uncertainty and fear of failure.
“Yes, we can slow them,” Gameknight mumbled, lost in thought. “We leave one person as the trigger, then he’ll have to go slower, and . . .”
“Son, what are you talking about?” his father asked.
“We must slow Herobrine’s army to a crawl,” Gameknight said, his voice resonating with new courage.
“You found your song?” Monkeypants asked.
“I’m not sure, but I do know what we need to do next, and that’s all that matters right now.” Gameknight stood a little taller as he turned and headed back to the underground tunnel that would take him to the crafting chamber. “Come on, Dad, we need to get to Crafter and Digger.”
Monkeypants watched his son run toward the stairs that descended deep underground and smiled.
CHAPTER 14
HEROBRINE’S PLAN
Herobrine looked over his scaly shoulder at the burning wreckage of the village as he flapped his mighty wings. Below him, the army of endermen and zombies headed east as the sun set behind them. The sky darkened to a shadowy blue, and soon sparkling stars emerged. With the sun down, the zombies were able to remove the leather caps that had been protecting them from the burning light. Without these caps, the zombies would have burst into flame in broad daylight.
“Maker!” shouted the king of the endermen up to his master.
Herobrine looked down and saw Feyd standing off, away from the other monsters. The dragon curved and banked as he approached his creation. After settling to the ground, the Ender Dragon tucked in his wings and walked next to the monster. The ever-present mist of purple and pale yellow particles of light danced about his leathery skin.
“What do you want?” Herobrine asked, a slight edge of violence in his voice. “I was deep in thought.”
“I am sorry, Maker, but there are questions,” Feyd said, his voice cracking with tension. “Many questions.”
“Ask them then, enderman,” the dragon snapped.
“We cannot continue to stay here in the Overworld,” Feyd said warily. “The endermen must return to The End to regain their HP, which is getting dangerously low. When we teleport here, in the Overworld, we do not recover our HP. Only by teleporting in The End do we rejuvenate.”
“I know that,” Herobrine replied, his voice sounding uninterested.
“And the zombies, they must return to their HP fountains in zombie-town so that they can regain their health as well,” Feyd explained.
“You are not telling me anything new,” Herobrine growled. “I know all of this. What is your question?”
His dragon eyes flared bright with annoyance, and Feyd stepped back, out of reach from the dragon’s razor-sharp talons.
Herobrine saw the enderman move away and laughed, then wagged his long tail, smashing it on the ground behind his shadowy servant to show him how useless his attempts to stay out of harm’s way were.
The king of the endermen jumped, then bowed his head to his master.
“We do not doubt you, Maker. We just do not understand your plan.” Feyd’s voice sounded nervous. Glancing about, he could see some of his endermen warriors were watching the exchange. “Many have asked if the Maker could share his grand design for the fools of the Overworld and the eventual destiny of the monsters of darkness.”
Feyd grew silent as Herobrine glared down at him, his eyes glowing with agitation.
“We mean, ahh, no disrespect,” Feyd stammered, “but it is only that—”
“I will explain it to you, enderman,” Herobrine said with a sneer. “I plan to destroy all of the NPCs of this world. And when I am done here, I will teleport to the next server plane and destroy the NPCs there as well, then the next server plane and the next and the next until I have purged Minecraft of this infestation.”
“But to what end?” Feyd asked. “Endermen will still be relegated to their imprisonment in The End, and the zombies will still be chained to their HP fountains in their zombie-towns. How does this help the monsters of Minecraft?”
Making a vicious, guttural sound, Herobrine growled as his eyes flared with the intensity of two blazing suns. He smashed his tail down onto the ground again just behind the foolish enderman king, making Feyd flinch. The ground shook so hard that many of the endermen teleported away in fright.
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br /> Herobrine laughed. These endermen were such cowards, except for their king. That was why Feyd was so useful to him—and so dangerous. He could overcome his fear and do things that he knew to be hazardous, like go to zombie-town and confront the foolish zombie king. Herobrine knew he had to watch this creature carefully. He could be as dangerous to Herobrine as that annoying Gameknight999.
“I have not told you everything yet, enderman, nor have I shown you all of my abilities in this dragon body,” Herobrine explained.
“You can do more than fly and teleport?” Feyd asked.
Some of the endermen were now returning and moving closer so that they could overhear the discussion.
“Of course, you idiot. I am an artificially intelligent virus. When my lines of code mixed with that of the Ender Dragon, it created something new and unexpected. Even the great creator, Notch, will not have expected what I have become.”
The endermen moved closer, the zombies standing close behind.
“Tell us, Maker, what have you become?” Feyd asked.
“You will see soon enough,” Herobrine explained, his voice booming with confidence. “My lines of code are still integrating with the software that governs the dragon. As we speak, I can feel myself changing. New abilities are beginning to emerge within me, and these will change the balance of power in Minecraft and allow the monsters of the Overworld to take over everything. But if you cowardly endermen and the sniveling zombies lack the fortitude to see this through, then run back to your prisons and stay there.”
His words brought the emotions of the monsters to a simmer. Herobrine glared at the creatures and could tell that they wanted to believe him, but were still afraid. He needed to change their fear to something useful—to anger.
“I understand you are all afraid, being away from your pathetic homes, which were forced upon you by that ancient NPC, Smithy of the Two Swords,” Herobrine said with a sneer. “You have been bred to live in these prisons and do as you were told by the villagers after the failed Great Zombie Invasion that happened so long ago.”
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