Herobrine's War

by Mark Cheverton

  “You need TNT, boy-o,” TNTbrin said with a chuckle.

  “Ahh … yeah,” Gameknight replied.

  “Well, TNTbrin is here to deliver.”

  The rotund light-crafter knelt on the ground, then closed his eyes and started to hum. Many of the villagers stopped shooting their bows to watch.

  “Keep firing,” Gameknight called out to them. “We have to keep the monsters back.”

  When he turned back to face the strange newcomer, he saw TNTbrin’s hands were glowing bright white. Quickly, the light-crafter thrust them into the ground. Instantly, the glow began to spread outward, like water flowing from a leaky bucket. When the white light had spread at least twenty blocks in all directions, TNTbrin grunted once, and the glow became so bright that it obscured the ground. But when the glow receded and he pulled his hands out of the mountainside, Gameknight realized there were now blocks and blocks of TNT right under his feet.

  “There you go, buddy-boy,” TNTbrin said with a huge grin.

  “Quickly, everyone not shooting a bow, dig up the TNT!” Gameknight exclaimed, almost in shock at their turn of fortune.

  The villagers put away their swords and pulled out pickaxes. They smashed the blocks of TNT, causing them to shrink and float off the ground. Moving quickly across the mountainside, Gameknight collected as much as he could, then moved to Carver’s side.

  “We need to hold the monsters here,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “I need time to get ready. As soon as everything is prepared, you’ll need to get out of there, fast.”

  “No problem,” the big NPC said.

  Gameknight looked at Carver with a worried expression on his face.

  “This is dangerous. I’ll need to take most of the warriors with me,” the User-that-is-not-a-user added. “You and the others with you will be on your own. But if we can pull this off, then we’ll save a lot of lives.”

  Carver glanced at Baker. She was firing her bow with lethal precision down at the approaching mob.

  “Take her with you,” Carver said, a look of determination in his eyes.

  “Okay.”

  “Then let’s do this!”

  Carver picked out twenty-five of the best soldiers and had them stand behind the wall with bows in their hands. Gameknight took the rest higher up on the hill. They had climbed nearly thirty blocks above Carver when he had them stop and build new defenses.

  “We need archer towers, with holes in the walls to shoot through,” Gameknight explained. “Here we’ll make our stand with bows in our hands, and cover Carver’s retreat when it’s time. Everyone understand?”

  They nodded their heads.

  “Then start building!” Gameknight shouted. “Baker, Weaver: come with me.”

  The two NPCs stood at his side. Quickly, he distributed the TNT amongst them, then handed out some redstone torches and explained the plan.

  “Do you both have some stone?” he asked.

  They nodded their square heads.

  “Okay, then spread out and build what I’m building,” Gameknight said.

  With a stack in his hand, he started building a line of stone straight out in the air in front of him. He didn’t go up, or down, he just built out. Glancing at the others to make sure they were doing the same thing, he kept building until he was directly over Carver’s position.

  Down below, he could see the monsters were almost on top of the twenty-five defenders. Shouts of pain came from the villagers as skeleton arrows found their targets. A villager disappeared, then another, as their HP was exhausted.

  We must hurry, he thought. They won’t last much longer.

  “Carver, get out of there … NOW!”

  Without looking up, Carver and the surviving warriors turned and ran up the hill. At the same time, the zombies and skeletons swarmed over the walls, completely taking over their position. Arrows streaked at the retreating villagers, but Gameknight’s own archers were beginning to fire back, forcing the skeletons to keep their bony heads down.

  Reaching into his inventory, the User-that-is-not-a-user pulled out a redstone torch and placed it at the end of his stone path. He then pulled out a block of TNT and held it over the torch, and signaled to Weaver and Baker. The two placed their own redstone torches, as well as blocks of TNT, against the sides of their stone paths. Instantly, their cubes of TNT began flashing and fell downward. As their blocks fell, they quickly added more, so that there were multiple flashing explosives falling at once.

  Huge balls of fire erupted on the monsters’ left and right flanks, forcing them into the center, where Gameknight was waiting. He placed his explosive cube against the cobblestone path. The redstone torch instantly started the TNT to blink, then fell down amidst the monsters. More explosions filled the air as great fists of flame blasted into the monsters, making some flash red with damage, while others just disappeared completely.

  The monsters tried to charge up the hill to get away from the blast. But Gameknight was expecting this and backed up along the stone path, planting a new redstone torch and dropping more TNT onto the monsters. Baker and Weaver followed suit. Each flashing cube burst into life in a terrible explosion, tearing HP from zombie bodies and blasting skeletons apart. The monsters tried to scramble out of the way, but they were clustered so tightly together from Baker’s and Weaver’s initial assault that they only collided into each other, going nowhere.

  Adding more and more of the red-and-white-striped cubes to the attack, the three companions pounded the monsters with more blasts of flame, and their enemy’s numbers became significantly reduced. As the smoke from the TNT began to clear, a massive crater in the side of Olympus Mons became visible, with the surviving monsters trying desperately to climb out of it to escape.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Gameknight saw Carver.

  “Carver … ATTACK!”

  The big NPC smiled, then shouted so loudly that it made the white clouds overhead shudder in fear.

  “Villagers, ATTACK!”

  The NPCs put away their bows and drew their swords. Like an unstoppable flood, the villagers charged down the slopes of Olympus Mons and smashed into the surviving monsters. Gameknight watched from his perch as Carver swung his mighty weapon through the violent horde. He smashed into skeletons, shouldering some aside and kicking others to the ground. The iron axe was like a devastating force of nature, wreaking havoc amongst the monsters.

  But then Baker was at his side. Gameknight hadn’t seen her climb down from their position, but she quickly descended to the battle and began her own delicate dance of destruction. Her sword was like a silvery blur as she slashed at the monsters that tried to sneak up behind Carver.

  The villagers pushed the monsters back into the crater that now adorned the mountainside, slowly destroying one after another until the last monster finally disappeared. All that was left behind were hundreds of glowing balls of XP, skeleton bones, chunks of zombie flesh, and clumps of spider silk.

  Gameknight breathed a sigh of relief as he descended down to his friends.

  “SMITHY! SMITHY! SMITHY!” they yelled as he moved through the crater.

  Gameknight found the Oracle standing next to Fencer.

  “That was a great victory,” Fencer said.

  “I’m just glad you came along when you did,” Gameknight said. “If you and Carver had been delayed even a minute more, it could have been a very different outcome.”

  “We came here for a reason, child,” the Oracle said, pointing to the peak. “Perhaps you should get to it before it gets too late.”

  Gameknight cast a quick glance to the west. The sun was about to reach the horizon, and it would be dark soon.

  “Right,” he said. “Weaver, you and Wilbur come with me. Let’s see what it looks like from the top of the mountain.”

  “Oink,” the pig said.

  Gameknight picked up his little pink friend and ran up the slopes with Weaver at his side. They moved in lock step up the mountain, jumping exactly at the same time.
In thirty seconds, they passed through the cloud layer. It grew colder as they rose higher on the peak, and snow began to cover the ground. The crunch of their feet through the pristine frozen white coating was the only sound they heard; it felt as if they were the only people in Minecraft.

  Finally, they reached the top of the mountain, which Gameknight guessed had to be at Minecraft’s maximum build height. As he stood at the peak, he looked to the west, toward the setting sun. Pristine white clouds stretched out across the landscape. Ghasts could be seen playing amongst the clouds. None of the monsters had tried to attack them during the battle, which made Gameknight think whatever Herobrine had done to the ghasts, he’d hadn’t done it to them all … yet.

  To the east were more clouds, but instead of them all being a pristine white color, some smaller clouds sparkled and glowed a subtle orange as they moved across the sky towards him. Strangely, Gameknight realized that when the orange-y clouds touched a regular one, it instantly infected it with the same soft, orange hue. And when that happened, the ghasts within those clouds changed from innocent, child-like creatures, to something that looked angry and evil.

  “Those orange clouds, they’re infecting the others,” Gameknight said.

  “Yeah,” Weaver replied. “It must be something Herobrine’s doing.”

  As he looked to the east, he saw orange clouds all across the horizon, approaching fast. Everywhere in that direction, the entire sky was infected with Herobrine’s vile glowing clouds.

  “Look what he’s doing,” Gameknight said, his voice cracking with fear. “He’s covering the entire land with his infected clouds. Eventually, he’ll control all of the skies, and every ghast will be his to command. Then they’ll blanket the land with fire and destruction.”

  “We have to stop him,” Weaver said. “But how?”

  “I don’t know,” Gameknight replied.

  Then he noticed one orange cloud that was drawing particularly close. It glowed softly, as if there were fire within its misty blocks, but there was also an insipid yellow color to the glow as well. It reminded him of when Herobrine had tried to transform the Overworld into End stone. That transformation wave had the same pale yellow color to it; Herobrine’s viral crafting abilities were likely powering these orange clouds using the same method.

  If we destroy Herobrine, maybe the orange clouds will stop this infestation, Gameknight thought.

  But as he considered how they could possibly stop him, he spotted movement down in the forest. An army of monsters at least ten times larger than the one they’d just fought was approaching Olympus Mons. It must be Herobrine’s real army, he realized, and the one they’d just defeated was nothing more than a scout for the real force. There were hundreds of zombies, skeletons, spiders, and Endermen, and hovering over them was an army of ghasts, their angry, cat-like cries just barely audible on the wind.

  “Oh no,” Gameknight said as he pointed to the army.

  Weaver gasped, and Wilbur gave out a scared oink.

  “How do we defeat that?” Weaver asked, his voice shaking with fear.

  “I don’t know, Weaver,” Gameknight replied softly. “I just don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 24

  HOWLING OF THE WOLVES

  The three companions ran down the hill in complete silence. Both Gameknight and Weaver contemplated the horror of what they’d just seen as they jumped down block after block, descending to their friends below. As they moved down the mountain, shouts of celebration could be heard; the villagers were still enjoying their recent victory.

  “I feel bad having to kill their party down there,” Gameknight said. “Listen to them.”

  They could hear singing and cheering and a general celebration for life, and now Gameknight999 knew he had to destroy that moment with news that would crush all their spirits.

  “We have to tell them,” Weaver said. “What other choice do we have?”

  “Oink,” Wilbur agreed.

  “If we don’t, then Herobrine and all those ghasts will get here and it’ll all be over,” the young NPC added.

  Gameknight nodded as he ran down the last few blocks and joined the rest of the army.

  “Smithy!” someone shouted.

  “SMITHY!” the rest of them cheered.

  Hands slapped him on the back and mothers hugged him as he walked through the group. Near the edge of the crater, he saw the Oracle. By the look on her face, Gameknight could tell she knew what was coming. Around her, all of the light-crafters had the same expression on their faces: fear.

  “I need everyone’s attention,” Gameknight said.

  The cheering and singing continued. Pulling a block of stone out of his inventory, he jumped in the air and placed it beneath his feet. He then did it again so that he stood towering above everyone. Drawing his diamond sword, he banged it on the stone, causing a spider web of cracks to form on one face.

  “LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted.

  The celebration instantly stopped as all eyes swiveled to him.

  “I’m sorry to put a damper on the festivities, but you need to know what I saw from the top of the mountain,” Gameknight said.

  Someone placed torches on the ground as the sun sank beneath the horizon, allowing the sparkling stars to emerge on the blanket of darkness that stretched overhead.

  “The force we defeated was not Herobrine’s real army. It was only their advance group,” the User-that-is-not-a-user explained. “His main force is heading right toward us this very instant. It’s easily ten times larger than the army we just defeated. Even with all the TNT in all of Minecraft, we couldn’t defeat that army here on this mountain.”

  “We can run away!” someone shouted.

  “Yeah, let’s retreat,” said another.

  “They also have ghasts, hundreds of them,” Gameknight added. “They’ll track us from the sky and follow us until we are cornered. But that’s not even the worst part.”

  “You mean there’s more good news?” Fencer said, scowling sarcastically.

  Gameknight nodded, a solemn expression on his face.

  “I’ve seen what Herobrine’s real plan is for Minecraft. He’s infecting all the clouds across the Overworld. Every infected cloud is producing evil, infected ghasts. Soon, he’ll be able to cover all of Minecraft with ghasts. We can never battle that.”

  “It’s hopeless,” someone moaned.

  “They’ll destroy everything …”

  “We should just stop trying …”

  Suddenly, the sound of a stick tapping on the ground brought all eyes toward the Oracle.

  “Never give up!” she snapped. “Never surrender! If there is life, then there is hope. I’m sure there is a solution to this problem. We just need to find it.”

  All eyes turned back to Gameknight999. He could feel the expectation in every pair: Smithy would save them, wouldn’t he? He felt their desperate hope, crushing him under the weight of the impossible responsibility he’d taken on.

  He jumped off the blocks of stone and sat down, cradling his square head in his hands.

  “Child, tell them how to stop all this madness,” the Oracle said.

  Gameknight looked up to find her by his side, her light-crafters standing near.

  “You know what needs to be done, child. You just need to figure out how to do it.”

  “Game … ahh, Smithy, I mean. You know how to stop Herobrine?” Fencer asked. “Tell us … tell us what to do.”

  “Yes, tell us,” another villager pleaded.

  “Tell us …”

  “Tell us …”

  “Tell us …”

  Gameknight stood and raise his hands, quelling the flood of questions.

  Baker put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and spoke softly, her voice calming his fears for just a moment.

  “Tell us what you think will help,” Baker said. “All of us will do anything you think is necessary to stop this disaster.”

  He looked up at her and shivered in fear. “Well … I thin
k if we destroy Herobrine, then the clouds will stop being infected.” Slowly, he lowered his eyes to the ground. “I think that’s the only way.”

  There was the briefest moment of silence, like the chilling quiet before a massive storm, and then the villagers erupted in questions, shouts of fear, declarations of hopelessness, and cries of despair. All around him had a look of confusion and chaos in their eyes, all except Baker and Carver. The two leaders looked at each other, then back to Gameknight999.

  “Let’s take this puzzle apart, Smithy, piece by piece,” Baker said.

  Carver nodded.

  “I think it’s the ghasts,” he said, his voice barely audible over the shouts of confusion and fear. “How can we destroy Herobrine when he has all those ghasts?”

  “All those flying monsters need to do is raise up into the air to escape our attacks,” Baker added, raising her voice so she could be heard. “So maybe we need to keep them close to the ground.”

  Gameknight looked around him. Everyone looked terrified, except for Baker, and Carver, and of course the Oracle. She wore a knowing smile, as if she was carrying some kind of secret inside her that was burning to get out.

  “The other problem is shooting the ghasts,” Carver added, his calm voice slowly filling Gameknight with confidence.

  “Yeah, it always takes a couple of shots to destroy one,” another voice added.

  Turning, Gameknight found Fencer and Weaver had joined the discussion, and he noticed that the fear and uncertainty in their eyes was slowly being replaced with determination.

  “And they move around so it’s hard to hit them a second time,” Weaver added. “We need to get them with one shot…. But how?”

  “I don’t know the answer to all of these questions, but I know there is an answer here,” Baker said. “We just need to figure it out, together.”