“Which way should we go?” Blossom asked as they exited the jungle temple. She stopped outside the temple’s cobblestone steps and picked a melon. “There are so many ripe melons in this jungle biome, we should take a few.”
Michael and Simon were running low on food, so they agreed to pick melons with Blossom. They stopped when a voice called out in the distance.
“Lily?” Blossom asked, tingling with excitement.
They couldn’t see anyone through the heavy screen of leaves, but the unknown person called out again.
The voice asked, “Is anyone there?”
Simon hurried toward the sound of the voice. “It’s Robin!” he cried out.
The trio was thrilled to be reunited with Robin, but the joyous reunion was cut short when a loud roar boomed throughout the verdant jungle.
“It can’t be!” Robin cried.
The Ender Dragon unleashed another deafening roar and lunged at the gang. Blossom threw an endless number of snowballs, striking the side of the grey beast, while Robin, Simon, and Michael shot arrows at the dragon.
Michael grabbed a pickaxe, pounding it into a redwood tree. Simon was puzzled at his friend’s action. “Dude, what are you doing? We have to fight the Ender Dragon.”
“Let’s just get out of here. We can build a boat to save ourselves,” Michael defended his plan.
“The beast will just fly to the next biome, you know that. There’s no escaping the Ender Dragon,” Simon countered.
The dragon flew at Michael, striking him. The powerful blow from the Ender Dragon left Michael’s health bar depleted. He didn’t have time to trade his pickaxe for a sword; he was struck by the dragon and was destroyed.
Blossom continued to bombard the dragon with snowballs. “There are only four of us. This isn’t going to be easy,” she called out as she watched Michael disappear.
Robin ran right up close to the winged enemy and doused it with a potion. The dragon screamed in pain as it lost a heart.
Simon aimed his bow and arrow at the flying menace. “Bull’s-eye,” he exclaimed as he hit the beast four times.
Michael reappeared almost immediately. “I teleported,” he said as he grabbed his sword and lunged at the dragon, delivering the final blow.
Blossom grabbed the egg the dragon had dropped and everyone avoided the portal to the End.
Simon nervously watched the sky and asked, “Do you think another one will spawn?”
Robin replied, “We have to get back to Mr. Anarchy. He’ll know what to do.”
“Do you know where he is?” questioned Simon.
“Yes, I do.” Robin told them what happened after the house exploded. “After we were destroyed by TNT, I respawned in the bed and Mr. Anarchy must have respawned in his bed. I went out to look for him, and when I showed up at the lab, Pablo appeared. He told me Mr. Anarchy was in the jungle, because Pablo had found command blocks there. I teleported to Mr. Anarchy and we quickly built a house, since it was nighttime and we didn’t want to be destroyed.”
“Did Pablo go to the jungle with you?” asked Simon.
“No.” Robin took a deep breath as she continued with her story. “He had to leave the server because it was dinnertime.”
“I’ll bet he was going to eat French fries,” Michael sneered.
“What did you say?” asked Robin.
“Nothing,” Michael muttered.
“We spent the night in a small house in the jungle. In the morning, we searched for the command blocks Pablo had told us about, but we couldn’t find them. We found this stronghold filled with empty chests. Neither of us had any torches left in our inventory and the dark stronghold was a breeding ground for skeletons. We tried to search for the skeleton spawner, but we were constantly being destroyed by skeletons. It was a pointless and really exhausting battle.”
“Where is Mr. Anarchy now?” asked Michael.
“The last time I was destroyed, I went back to the stronghold, but I didn’t see him. I left to search for him, and that’s when I found you guys,” explained Robin.
A voice called out in the distance, “Guys!”
“Is that Lily?” Robin was utterly stunned.
10
SCUFFLE WITH SKELETONS
Lily was having a hard time getting onto the server. The connection was spotty, and her computer kept freezing up, so she could only access the server for a couple of seconds. The storm had passed through the town, knocking the electricity out for a few hours, but luckily her laptop was fully charged. She wanted to call her friends to see if they too were back in the real world, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to reach them. She felt out of sorts being back in the real world without them, but also because time moved very slowly in the real world. They had been on the server for days, while only a couple of hours had passed in the real world. When she logged in and got onto the server, she found her friends in the jungle, but the minute she called out to them, she was shut off the server. Lily was devastated. She wanted to talk to Robin and she wanted to find Mr. Anarchy.
“Not again!” she yelled, and her mother asked her if everything was okay.
“Yes,” she replied quickly, not wanting to alert her mother to what was happening in the world of Minecraft.
Robin watched as Lily vanished from the server. “Lily!” she cried.
Simon could hear a voice in the distance. “Quiet!” he said to Robin, “I think I hear Mr. Anarchy.”
“Where is it coming from?” Robin looked through a thick patch of leaves; she could hear the voice, but wasn’t sure which direction to go.
“I think he’s over here,” Blossom called out and ran down a grassy path lined with trees.
“That’s near the stronghold,” Robin told them. “I can show you the entrance.” Robin led them to a hole in a large redwood tree. “In here.”
The gang followed Robin into the tree. She called out, “Mr. Anarchy? Are you in here?”
“Robin,” she heard. His voice was faint.
Blossom cried out in pain and grabbed her arm. Three arrows pierced her body and she started losing hearts. “Skeletons!” Blossom was struck by four more arrows and narrowly dodged another barrage as she grabbed milk from her inventory to replenish her energy.
Robin struck two skeletons with her diamond sword as she called out for her lost friend, Mr. Anarchy, but there was no response. Robin worried that he had been destroyed by the skeletons and had respawned in the jungle house. She wanted to escape from the skeleton battle and search for Mr. Anarchy in the jungle, but more skeletons spawned and she couldn’t leave the battle. In fact, she could barely keep up with the bony beasts, which outnumbered her friends.
Michael and Simon splashed potions on the skeletons. Michael cried out, “I have to search for the spawner. It’s the only way we can win this battle.”
“I think it’s in the dungeon,” Robin shouted.
“I’m going there right now,” Michael hollered and he sprinted toward the dungeon, leaving his friends to finish the battle with the horde of skeletons.
Michael dodged two skeletons walking down the hall, avoiding a strike from the hostile mob. As he made his way down to the dungeon, he could hear the rattling of skeleton bones and was terrified when he approached the spawner. He wasn’t sure he could destroy the spawner on his own. Michael grabbed his iron pickaxe and banged the spawner. It wasn’t easy. He used all of his strength and was barely able to demolish the skeleton spawner, but he finally destroyed it. Michael rushed back to his friends.
He entered the stronghold and called out to them, “Simon, Robin, Blossom!”
There was no reply. Nobody was there.
“Guys?” shouted Michael, “Where are you?”
Pablo appeared in the stronghold.
Michael was annoyed to see him. “What do you want? I know you are the one causing all of this trouble. Why would you do that to us? I don’t understand. You are back home and have all the comforts of real life. Why would you want to trap us here
?”
Pablo chuckled. “I don’t want to hurt you guys. Why would you think that?”
“Don’t lie to me,” Michael replied. He wanted to threaten Pablo with his diamond sword but he knew it was pointless. Pablo could be destroyed a million times and it wouldn’t matter at all. To Pablo, this was just a game, but to Michael, this was real life.
“I’m not lying. Why would you think I’m a griefer?” asked Pablo. “Just because I griefed on the server before I was zapped off doesn’t mean I am doing it from the real world.”
Michael listed all of the reasons he suspected Pablo. “Every time you show up there is a TNT explosion.”
“That can be just a coincidence,” Pablo defended himself.
Michael was about to tell Pablo that Lily had confirmed that Pablo was a griefer, but before he could speak, Lily spawned in front of them.
“Lily!” Michael said with a smile.
“Lily,” Pablo frowned.
“Where are the others?” Lily asked them.
They replied in unison, “I don’t know.”
“Pablo,” she said as she stepped right up to him and held her diamond sword against his chest, which was more for effect than for action. “I can’t believe you. Leave them alone. I know your secrets.”
“What secrets?” Pablo questioned.
“I have the emails you sent,” she yelled. “Do you want me to read them to Michael?”
Pablo didn’t respond. He vanished.
“What did he write in the emails?” Michael was curious.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lily replied. “We have to find the others quickly.”
Lily hurried out of the stronghold and Michael followed closely behind her. “Where do you think they are?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered, as she sheared a path through the lush jungle biome.
“I hear voices,” Michael told her, and he strained to listen.
“Me too!” Lily exclaimed.
Michael was a step behind Lily when she vanished. “Lily!” he called out, but there was no response.
The voices grew louder, and Michael panted as he raced toward them. He could see Robin and Blossom through a patch of leaves.
“Guys!” Michael exclaimed, “I’m over here!”
“It’s Michael,” Mr. Anarchy cried.
A shattering blast shook the jungle. Trees fell all over. Michael couldn’t see his friends.
11
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
“Guys!” Michael cried out again, jumping over fallen trees.
“Michael,” Simon’s faint voice called to his friend, “we’re over here by the house.”
Michael ran to his friends, grabbing a potion from his inventory and handing it to them. “You need to get your energy back.”
“That’s true,” Simon said as he sipped the potion and thanked his friend.
“I don’t have any potions left,” Robin confessed. “My inventory is almost empty.”
“We’re going to have to craft our own potions now that Ilana is back in the real world,” explained Michael.
Mr. Anarchy delivered some good news. “I have a command block in my inventory. I’d like to experiment with it now. One of us will get to leave the server. If it works, once we get more command blocks, we can go back to town and get everyone off, and we won’t have to worry about Pablo and these attacks from the Ender Dragon.”
“I think Blossom should go first since it didn’t work when you tried the last time,” Simon suggested.
“That’s not fair,” Blossom said. “I wouldn’t feel right doing that.”
“Really?” Robin asked.
“Yes,” Blossom replied. “After all we’ve been through together, I think we all deserve an equal shot at getting off this server.”
“Should we write our names on a piece of paper and place it on the ground like we’ve done in the past?” asked Michael.
“Yes, let’s do that,” Mr. Anarchy said.
Everyone wrote their name on a slip of paper and dropped it on the ground. Mr. Anarchy picked one up and called out, “Blossom. I guess the universe wants you to go.”
Blossom smiled. “When I get back home, I promise I will try to get on to this server and work with you guys to get you off here and stop Pablo.”
Robin thanked her friend. “I know being stuck on this server has been hard for all of us, but I’m grateful I met people like you, Blossom. You’ve really helped me.”
Blossom searched through her inventory. “I want to give you my snowballs to help you battle the Ender Dragon.”
“Oh no,” Mr. Anarchy stuttered, “I c-can’t stop the lightning bolt.”
Before Blossom could hand over her snowballs, Mr. Anarchy’s lightning bolt struck Blossom and she vanished with all of the snowballs.
“It worked!” Robin exclaimed.
The sounds of joy were quickly replaced with panic when a loud roar boomed through the jungle.
“Not again!” Robin cried out.
“And now we don’t have any snowballs to throw at the Ender Dragon,” Simon exclaimed.
Michael had taken out his pickaxe and was cutting down a large redwood tree. Simon looked over at him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I have a plan!” Michael stated.
Robin and Mr. Anarchy were warding off attacks from the Ender Dragon by pounding into the beast with a barrage of arrows. The dragon was losing energy, but was still strong enough to plow its grey scaly wing into the two of them.
Michael called out, “Let’s head to the river.”
Robin was shocked when she spotted Michael carrying boats to the shoreline. She asked, “Are those boats to help us escape?”
“This will induce the Ender Dragon to follow us to the cold biome. We will have a better chance of fighting him there,” Michael explained.
Robin, Mr. Anarchy, and Simon followed him to the water and hopped on the boats as the enormous dragon flew above them, trailing them to the cold biome.
The dragon lunged at Michael’s boat, throwing him overboard.
“Michael!” Robin cried out when she looked down at the blue water and couldn’t spot her friend.
“I hope he has a potion for breathing underwater,” Simon said, as he aimed his arrow at the beast that flew above their boats.
“This is a nutty plan,” Mr. Anarchy said, “but I really hope it works.”
“I hope Michael is okay,” Simon cried as he shot another arrow at the Ender Dragon and it exploded.
“Now we’re escaping from nothing,” Robin said with annoyance. “We could be back in Lisimi Village helping everyone make a grand escape from this server.”
“But I still need a few more command blocks,” Mr. Anarchy reminded them.
“I doubt we’ll find any in the cold biome.” Robin was exhausted and had little interest in stocking up on snowballs in the cold biome. “If only Blossom had been able to leave the contents of her inventory we wouldn’t have to deal with all of this.”
“But she couldn’t.” Mr. Anarchy felt guilty; he had summoned the lightning bolt too quickly. “It’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Robin said, “I don’t want to place blame on you.”
“I’m worried about Michael,” Simon said as he stared at the empty boat floating in the water next to their boats.
“I know, me too,” Mr. Anarchy agreed. “I hope he’s okay.”
Robin spotted large snowcapped mountains in the distance. “Snow! I see the cold biome!”
Simon exclaimed, “Michael! I see Michael on the shore.”
Michael stood smiling on the snowy shoreline. He clutched a snowball in one hand and wore a large grin. “Welcome!” he hollered to his friends.
12
SNOW DAY
Robin climbed out of the boat onto the icy ground. “I have to admit, it’s pretty here. I’m glad I got to see this biome one last time before we left. It’s definitely different when you’re visiting here
in a game and when you’re actually trapped in the game.”
“I agree,” Michael said and playfully threw a snowball at Robin. She quickly retaliated and flung a snowball back at Michael, prompting the gang into a snowball fight.
Giggles were heard and the gang enjoyed a good old-fashioned snowball fight, until Lily appeared.
“Lily!” Michael threw a snowball at her and laughed.
“I’d love to play, but you guys have to get busy and gather snowballs. This is no time for joking around. I don’t trust Pablo at all, and I fear he’ll shut down this server and destroy you guys.”
“What?” Mr. Anarchy was stunned. Despite once being a master griefer who had issued many empty threats, he had never threatened to destroy the server. His heart started to pound. He didn’t want to be wiped from existence. “What about Fred the Farmer?”
“And Juan the Butcher?” asked Simon.
“And Emily the Fisherwoman …” Mr. Anarchy finished. “They’ll all be gone forever if Pablo destroys the server!”
“If you get off the server, Pablo will have no reason to attack and destroy this server,” explained Lily. “Just concentrate and get off of here as quickly as you can.”
The gang halted the fight and gathered as many snowballs as they could fit in their inventories. Lily joined her friends, but excused herself when her mother needed to use the computer. She promised that she’d return and help them battle the Ender Dragon and defeat Pablo. Then she added, “But I hope I see you guys in the real world first.”
“Me too,” Simon said as he filled up his inventory with snowballs.
“My inventory is almost full,” Robin said. “Unfortunately all I have are snowballs. I have no potions left.”
“I don’t have any potions either,” Simon noted after he perused his inventory.
“What are we going to do?” asked Michael.
Mr. Anarchy asked everyone what ingredients they had in their inventories. “We can brew some,” he suggested.
As the group discussed what ingredients they were missing, Lily reappeared. Robin exclaimed, “You’re back!”
“I forgot to tell you guys that I know where you can get some command blocks,” Lily said.
Attack of the Ender Dragon Page 4