I am Brek

by Mark Mulle



  I am Brek

  By Mark Mulle

  Copyright 2014 Mark Mulle

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  Author’s Note

  This short story is for your reading pleasure. The characters in this "Minecraft Adventure Series" such as Steve, Endermen or Herobrine...etc are based on the Minecraft Game coming from Minecraft ®/TM & © 2009-2013 Mojang / Notch

  Other Books of Mark Mulle

  The Obsidian Chronicles Trilogy

  The Quest: The Untold Story of Steve Trilogy

  The Doppelganger Trilogy

  Table of Contents

  I am Brek

  About the Author

  Other Books by Mark Mulle

  I Am Brek

  In the land of Minecraftia, on the plains of Danithur, there was a village. At a single glance, this village did not seem unique or important at all. It had a small chapel, a blacksmith’s shop and a tiny merchant shop that was only occupied twice a year. This was the village of Tanlin and, for better or worse, it was my home.

  My name, while unimportant, is Brek and I’ve never been the type of person to be sentimental about where I grew up. I was raised in Tanlin by my father, Durnen, who was the village’s blacksmith. He also tended the forge in a neighboring village called Darsooth and, when he traveled between the two, I was left to mind the forge in Tanlin. I always enjoyed that task because I could use the heat from my father’s forge oven to bake some of apple bread that Widow Berken would give me. Then I would sit on the front stoop of the forge building and watch the wind ripple through our village’s wheat field. The field was shared between my father, the Widow Berken and the adventurer Sir John Crandow.

  Our village, as well as our sister village of Darsooth, acted as a hub for a number of farmers, ranchers and shepherds who lived in more isolated areas on the plains of Danithur. They would occasionally come into town for the odd random supplies but, for the most part, they limited their visits to once every two months. For an entire week every other month, the village felt like a busy place. I looked forward to it. All around the perimeter of the city, brightly colored tents were pitched with plumes of smoke from all the cooking fires reaching towards the heavens. The farmers would bring in any crops they had recently grown, the ranchers brought in cuts of wonderful meats and the shepherds brought wool for blankets, clothing and more. Every so often, a traveling band of performers would also come to the village during one of our bi-monthly events and we would be thrilled by all of the amazing things they could do.

  It was during one of these events that I got my first tasted of adventure and it set me on a new path. The day’s trading had been completed and the sun was starting to set. Everyone had gone back to their tents to prepare that night’s meal and look after their livestock. The performers were busily setting up their oversized performance tent to celebrate the last night of the trade fair and I was in the house that father and I shared, which was attached to the blacksmith’s forge. I was busily cooking some strips of meat that I had bought, along with some potatoes, and baking a loaf of bread in the forge oven outside.

  I was just stepping outside to check the bread when I heard the telltale hiss of a creeper. A second later, the performers’ tent exploded outward. The camp erupted in panic as two more creepers came in from the dark and detonated near a group of tents, rending them into scrap fabric while the people inside them did not fare much better. Then came the zombies, shambling through the fire, grabbing for anyone they could reach. I stood transfixed by both fear and curiosity. The last mob attack on our village had happened before I was born; that was when the Mrs. Berken became a widow and we lost two entire families.

  Suddenly, I felt an iron grip on my wrists. I panicked, trying to break free, when I realized that my father was shouting at me to get inside. He shoved me indoors, grabbed a handful of freshly forged swords from the rack and ran back outside. I watched through the window as Father rallied the men handing swords to those without a weapon. He directed the women to lead the young and the old into the center of the village and told them to barricade the doors while the men charged forward at the zombies. Thankfully, there were no more creepers, which made dispatching the zombies relatively easy. A few of the men were downed by arrows fired by skeletal archers but they were also quickly dispatched. The men finished off the last of the zombies and cheered. The day had been saved, and it was all thanks to my father; I had never realized he was so brave.

  I watched him as he stood on a hill overlooking the village, surveying the damage that had been wrought. Suddenly, I noticed a creature that I had never seen the likes of before come up behind him. It blinked out of existence and then blinked back into view, this time even closer to him. I ran outside with my sword as fast as I could, trying to yell, but panic crushed my vocal chords. As I reached the foot of the hill I looked up at my father as this strange creature reached its long arms down and grabbed his head. With a quick snap, my father was gone.

  The creature bellowed and it was the most ungodly noise I had ever heard in my life. Without thinking, I roared in my broken child’s voice and threw the blade I had been carrying at it. The blade stuck into its chest and it glared daggers at me before it blinked out of existence. I was later informed by some of the other men that what I had seen was the fabled Enderman, a creature as black as the night with the ability to pop in and out of our dimension at will. The Endermen were rarely known to hang around the other mobs that plagued our nights but it would seem that this one had been different.

  A few days after the attack, Sir John Crandow called me over to his house as I stood working the forge. He told me that the people of the village had sent word to the capital they needed a new master blacksmith, as I was not yet old enough to take the title for myself. The forge house was not the property of my father and as such I needed to pack up my things in preparation for the new smith’s arrival. He said that the Widow Berken had offered to take me in and I could stay there for as long as I wanted to. He added that, when I was old enough, I could apply to become a master blacksmith and he would even foot the bill for my schooling, so that I could take up my father’s old post.

  Months passed without incident but I was still searching for any information I could find on this Enderman who had attacked our village and taken my father from me. The anger at being thrown out of my house still burned brightly within my chest and the smith who took over my father’s post made it even worse. The man was a slob, tending the forge fires improperly and completely neglecting our village because he’d found a woman he quite fancied in the neighboring village. In his attempts to woo her, he frequently failed to return to the forge and I began handling the needs of our village instead. I was working at the forge busily one day when the pig of a man stumbled back into town. He saw me standing there, at what was now his forge, and began to bellow at me. The slur of hateful language directed at my young ears did little to impede my progress on the set of horseshoes I was working on and it wasn’t until I felt the sting of a hot poker sear my side that I stopped what I was doing. I could do nothing to defend myself as the man lashed at me with his walking stick again and again.

  In the land of Minecraftia, the smiths are of the highest order. A master smith is taught his trade in the capital city of Dunworth and is given his title by the king upon the ceremonial presentation of the finest piece of craftsmanship they are able to forge. What they choose to fo
rge dictates where they will be assigned. If the smith forges a fine hoe or shovel, they are assigned to one of the rural communities. If they forge weapons or armor, they will be assigned to either the royal forge, where they will make weapons for the king’s army, or one of the front villages, where conflict happens often. Because this skill is so highly valued, a smith holds one of the highest positions in our society and, had I fought back against even this embarrassment of a smith, I would have been dragged to Dunworth and imprisoned... or worse.

  I lay on my straw bed in Widow Berken’s root cellar, thankful for the cool air against my burns and welts. I was unsure what to do. I wanted to someday rise to my father’s level and take over his post, but I did not think I could stand being here any longer. I lay on the cot half asleep and listened to the voices of the meeting above me. The Widow Berken, Sir John Crandow, the smith and some of the ranchers and farmers were tensely discussing the state of affairs in this region. Most of the conversation was lost to me as I lay there in a sea of my own misery, until I heard them say the word Enderman. Apparently, the Enderman I had wounded was still leading