Bones of Doom

by Mark Cheverton

  Books by Mark Cheverton

  The Gameknight999 Series

  Invasion of the Overworld

  Battle for the Nether

  Confronting the Dragon

  The Mystery of Herobrine Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Trouble in Zombie-town

  The Jungle Temple Oracle

  Last Stand on the Ocean Shore

  Herobrine Reborn Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Saving Crafter

  The Destruction of the Overworld

  Gameknight999 vs. Herobrine

  Herobrine’s Revenge Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  The Phantom Virus

  Overworld in Flames

  System Overload

  The Birth of Herobrine: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  The Great Zombie Invasion

  Attack of the Shadow-Crafters

  Herobrine’s War

  The Mystery of Entity303: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Terrors of the Forest

  Monsters in the Mist

  Mission to the Moon

  The Gameknight999 Box Set

  The Gameknight999 vs. Herobrine Box Set

  The Gameknight999 Adventures Through Time Box Set

  The Rise of the Warlords: A Far Lands Adventure

  Zombies Attack!

  Bones of Doom

  Into the Spiders’ Lair (Coming Soon!)

  Wither War: A Far Lands Adventure

  The Wither King (Coming Soon!)

  The Withers Awaken (Coming Soon!)

  The Wither Invasion (Coming Soon!)

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  Copyright © 2017 by Mark Cheverton

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB, or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Cover artwork by Vilandas Sukutis (www.veloscraft.com)

  Technical consultant: Gameknight999

  Print Paperback ISBN: 978-1-51072-738-0

  Print Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-51072-832-5

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51072-742-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank my family for their continued support through this incredible writing adventure. Without their help, these stories would likely not have materialized on the page. I would also like to thank the great people at Skyhorse Publishing for continuing to publish my books. They have been fantastic to work with, and their faith in my writing keeps me motivated. I look forward to having many more Minecraft-inspired novels published by them.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  A big THANK YOU goes out to all of my readers who sent me emails through my website, www.markcheverton.com, telling me how much you enjoyed traveling through the Far Lands with Watcher and his friends in the first book of this new Minecraft-inspired series. Your kind and supportive words have motivated me to work towards making this book even better than the last. I hope I’m successful.

  I can’t wait to see the fan fiction many of you write about the characters in my stories. There are a lot of Gameknight999 stories on my website, under the Blog section, but I hope you’ll carve a space in your imaginations for Watcher and his friends. It’s always a lot of fun reading what all of you create; keep up the great work.

  With a new survival world starting on the Gameknight999 Minecraft Network, I’m hoping to build some of the ancient structures from this story for you to explore. If you go to www.gameknight999.com, you can find information about the server. The server’s IP address is mc.gameknight999.com.

  Be sure to come to the server and say hello to me, Monkeypants_271, and my son, Gameknight999. Though I don’t have as much time as I’d like to play on the server, I’m there now and then to help people build or maybe have the occasional Paintball battle. Soon, we’ll have SkyWars and maybe some other games where you can test your skills against those of myself and my son.

  I hope I see you on the server, and I hope you all send me emails letting me know what you think of this new series. I love hearing your ideas for new stories, though I’ll probably give you the answer I give many people: “I love your idea! You should go write it!” I have faith in you to do your stories justice, so sit down and put your fingers to the keyboard, and release the stories that hide in the recesses of your imaginations.

  Fearlessly believe in yourself without doubt or caution. The first step to success is believing you can do a thing … all the rest is just details. See yourself achieving your goal in your mind, then find the path to make that dream a reality. We abandon our goals only because we no longer believe they are possible. Belief is everything!

  CHAPTER 1

  The skeleton warlord, Rakir, shoved the terrified zombie down the shadowy passage, expecting the foolish creature to trigger some kind of lethal trap; soon, the skeleton would get what he wanted.

  The idiotic zombie walked along one wall of the corridor, moving about a dozen blocks ahead of the company of skeletons. When the monster lost the motivation to continue walking through the dark and terrifying passage, the warlord had a few arrows shot in its direction, forcing the decaying creature to continue.

  Shuffling its clawed feet slowly across the stone floor, the zombie glanced anxiously about, looking for tripwires or other traps hidden in the darkness … but it was too late. The zombie stepped right on an unseen pressure plate. Instantly, a series of pistons extended, pushing the cold stone walls together, crushing the monster. Flashing red, the zombie took damage, his HP (health points) quickly dropping lower and lower until the decaying creature disappeared, destroyed by the mechanism. The walls receded back into their original position, looking like every other part of the corridor, waiting for their next victim.

  “You see, zombies are useful after all.” The skeleton warlord laughed a dry, hacking laugh that sounded more like he was choking than chuckling. “Get a skeleton up there with a pick axe.” He turned to his companion. “General Rusak, find some volunteers. That was our last zombie and we have many more passages to search.”

  Rakir adjusted his enchanted iron armor, then glanced up at his general. Rusak was larger than any other skeleton he’d ever seen. His bones were thicker and longer, allowing him to loom over the other monsters. He wore a full set of iron armor, something few skeletons could do because of the weight. Rakir didn’t have that problem; his enchanted armor felt as if it were made of leather, only many times stronger. />
  “I’m sure I can find some skeletons who want a promotion.” The general laughed a hollow laugh, his jaw clicking together with each chuckle. He pointed at a nearby monster. “You, come here … now!”

  The skeleton’s posture slumped as he shuffled forward, an expression of hopelessness on the monster’s pale face; refusing a direct order was a crime that carried with it a lethal punishment.

  “Hurry up, you fool.” Rakir grabbed the skeleton by his bony arm and pulled him forward. Another monster with a pick axe finished destroying the pressure plate, then stepped aside for the new “volunteer.”

  “Here, take this torch and search the passage ahead. We’re almost to our destination,” Rakir said.

  The skeleton moved carefully into the passage, the flickering light from the torch splashing on the walls and floors. The illumination revealed a ceiling that was impossibly high; it was at least twenty blocks high, if not more.

  “There’s a trip wire here,” the skeleton “volunteer” said.

  Rusak motioned for another soldier to destroy the trip wire, allowing the squad of skeletons to move further into the ancient passage.

  “Warlord, how do you know if there are any ancient relics in this place?” the skeleton general asked.

  Rakir glanced at his general. “The new Wither King, Krael, told me.”

  “Why should we trust that creature?” Rusak said. “Withers always have a plan of their own that benefits them at the expense of everyone else.”

  “You are right to be cautious.” Rakir ran his bony fingers along the cold stone wall, his fingers making a scraping sound. “Krael showed me a book written by one of the monster warlocks. It had the location of many relics hidden all throughout the Far Lands.”

  The sound of something slithering along the ground echoed through the passage. The skeleton warlord held up a bony fist, stopping his warriors in their tracks. They all pulled out bows and scanned the passage for threats.

  Rakir stepped quietly to a hole in the tunnel wall and peered through the gap, the other skeletons backing away, afraid. They all knew strange things could happen in the Far Lands. They were far from the center of the Overworld. In fact, they were hundreds of millions of blocks from its center. At the edge of Minecraft, where the fabric of existence was stretched tight, strange and unpredictable things were known to happen.

  It was here in the Far Lands, hundreds of years ago, where the Great War between the NPC wizards and the monster warlocks took place. Great beasts and magical weapons were conjured into being as the two sides played a deadly game of tug-of-war, using the inhabitants of the Far Lands as the rope. The end result of this colossal struggle was not clear, much of it clouded by the fog of time. But one thing remained certain … tensions between monsters and villagers were still high.

  Suddenly, a silverfish scurried out of the hole, the tiny little creature squeaking as it scraped its armored tail along the stone floor. The skeletons relaxed, as did Rakir, and put away their weapons for now.

  Rakir turned back to his general and continued. “This ancient structure was one of those locations on the wither’s map. It was built by the zombie warlock, Zo-Kol the Destroyer. That monster sought to keep this prize from the skeletons in those ancient days, during the Great War. If the skeleton warlock had been given this great weapon, maybe the outcome of that war, hundreds of years ago, would have been different and monsters would rule the Far Lands.”

  “I still don’t trust that wither king.”

  “Nor do I, General, but I will gladly use any of the ancient weapons the great warlocks created and left behind for us.”

  Rakir stopped and stared up at his general. The hulking skeleton gazed back, his one eye black as midnight, the other a dull red. A long scratch extended down Rusak’s face and passed across the crimson eye, the remnant from some NPC blade. The scar gave the skeleton an even more terrifying appearance.

  “With these magical weapons, I will lead the skeletons to take over all of the Far Lands. Once all is under our control, we will spread through the rest of the Overworld. I’m sure there’s no one that can stand against us.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rusak replied. “You are probably—”

  “There are some side passages up here,” the skeleton scout shouted ahead of them. “We’ve disarmed the traps; it’s safe to approach.”

  Rakir and Rusak ran through the long corridor, the dozen skeletons in their company following fast on their heels. The skeleton general’s armor clanked as he ran, the metallic plates slamming together with each step, but the warlord’s armor was completely quiet; the enchantments put on the iron plates by the ancient wizards of the past not only kept the metallic coating light, but also silent. Behind the two commanders, the rest of the skeletons struggled to stay close, their bodies encumbered with non-magical, light-weight chain mail. The monsters jingled like a set of angry windchimes, the sound filling the passage. The skeleton warlord listened to the clinking noise and smiled, then focused on the monsters up ahead.

  “Show me what you found,” Rakir demanded when he reached the monsters’ sides.

  “There is a passage heading to the left and right.” The skeleton “volunteer” pointed with his bow. “But this main passage continues up ahead. I was able to see some redstone lanterns in the distance along the main passage, but the side passages are lit with torches. Which way do we go?”

  “Ignore the side passages,” the skeleton warlord commanded.

  “But Rakir, there may be relics in there.” Rusak glanced down one of the smaller corridors, then brought his gaze back to his commander. “Perhaps we send a couple skeletons down each one?”

  “No. Krael told me to follow the redstone lanterns.” Rakir moved closer to his general and spoke in a soft but firm voice. “The wizards and warlocks of old only used redstone lanterns in the magical areas. The redstone somehow enhanced their powers.”

  “Do you think this wither king can be trusted?” the general asked.

  Rakir nodded.

  “Very well.” The general turned and faced the other skeletons. “Continue forward. Everyone carry a torch and watch for traps.” Rusak turned to the lead scout and pointed down the passage with a bony finger. “After you.”

  The monster swallowed uncomfortably, then continued through the passage.

  After thirty or so blocks, the scout triggered a trap that shoved him into a deep pit filled with cacti. His HP didn’t last very long. Another “volunteer” was chosen and the party continued forward. After three more traps, and three more “volunteers,” they reached the end of the passage.

  Before them stood a cylindrical chamber. The floor and walls were obsidian, with thick columns of redstone lanterns stretching up to the ceiling high overhead. A thick layer of dust and grime covered the stone-brick floor, the dirt adding to the stale and ancient feeling of the chamber. Across the floor, the gray dust was featureless, almost smooth, the absence of footprints suggesting no one had visited this chamber for hundreds of years. At the center of the room was an altar made of quartz. Atop the altar was a crafting bench, cracked with age and covered with dust. Floating just above was a bow made of pale bone. The white, ornately-carved surface of the bow seemed to glow with a lavender luster, and small sparks of purple hovered around the taut string.

  “What is it?” Rusak asked in awe, his jaw clicking ever so slightly.

  “Behold, the Fossil Bow of Destruction,” the warlord said. “Krael promised it would be here; he did not lie … this time.” He smiled. “The wither king gave me many such locations as this, each an old structure with hidden weapons of magic just waiting to be taken by us. We have patrols out searching for them as we speak. Soon we will have many ancient and enchanted weapons, making the skeleton army the strongest fighting force since the Great War between the wizards and the warlords.”

  Rakir moved to the crafting bench. His footsteps caused tiny little clouds of dust to billow into the air. Cautiously, he reached out and grasped the weapon.
Pain instantly engulfed him, making the warlock want to scream. But he would never show that kind of weakness in front of another skeleton. When he realized he wasn’t going to die, and the pain began to fade away, the skeleton warlord smiled.

  “Only a true descendant of a wizard or warlock may use this bow.” Rakir backed away from the ancient crafting bench and held the weapon out to Rusak. “Anyone else would be destroyed.” He looked up at his general, challenging him with his cold gaze. “Do you want to try?”

  Before Rusak could answer, one of the skeletons shouted from the chamber’s entrance. “Zombies coming. There are probably two dozen, if not … more.” The skeleton’s voice cracked with fear. “They’re armored and heavily armed. We can’t fight that many. Do we surrender?”

  “Never!” snapped Rakir. “Let’s see what this fabulous weapon will do.”

  The skeleton warlord moved to the entrance and stared down the long passage. He could see the shuffling monsters approaching.

  “They’re too far for our bows.” General Rusak moved to the warlord’s side. “We should lure them closer, into a trap, and hope their numbers can be cut down by our arrows.”

  “Watch and learn,” Rakir said with a wry smile.

  The warlord held the Fossil Bow before him, his bony fingers squeezing it tight. Rusak handed him an arrow, but it was brushed aside. Rakir grabbed the string and pulled it back. Instantly, a shimmering arrow appeared on the weapon. He aimed high in the air, judging the distance to the targets, which was still great. He focused his attention on one of the zombies, fixing the monster’s position in his mind. A burst of pain spread through his body, causing the skeleton warlord to flash red, taking damage as his HP was drawn from his body to power the magical weapon. Then he released the string. The magical arrow leapt off the bowstring and streaked into the air, its enchanted shaft making a faint whistling sound as it flew.

  “You’re too far away,” Rusak said.

  “Watch.”

  “All the zombies need to do is step aside and the arrow will miss,” the general said.