by Max Brooks
And that’s when things got serious. Bonehead Bounces only work with one shooter, as I quickly, and painfully, learned. Taking arrows in the shoulder, chest, and leg, I lowered my shield long enough for Flash’s diamond blade to claim two of its three victims.
The battle’s third and final kill was the spawner. That’s what I call the caged fire sitting in the middle of the room.
I should have suspected that this weird little device was a monster factory. I should have noticed that the thing spinning in the flames was a miniature skeleton. “Idiot,” I said aloud, trying not to beat up on myself. Don’t dwell on your mistakes, learn from them.
Unfortunately in this scenario, what I’d now learned made me feel even worse. I had a new threat to deal with, a curveball that totally demolished my ironclad theory of mobs only spawning in darkness. If there were more of these monster factories around, churning out skeletons and zombies and squads of silent, explosive creepers…
It was enough to make me want to seal up the room, the mineshaft, and turn my back on this whole new underground realm.
Right after I loot these last two chests.
At first I found a gray, thin disc about the size of my hand. Too bad there’s nothing to play it on, I thought, opening the second chest.
“A book!”
And not just any book, a manual. A technical instruction guide!
Up until that moment, my self-education had crawled like a snail. Observation, experimentation, and lucky, or sometimes dangerous, accidents, had been my process. No more. Within those delicate pages I found ready-made teachings just waiting to be absorbed. Opening the leather-bound volume felt like trying on a pair of wings, and reading its contents made my mind soar!
Without questioning why the words were written in my language—or, for that matter, what my language actually was—I flew back up to the surface, into my house, and into this new tome’s teachings.
“I found a book!” I shouted to my friends, stepping out onto the front porch of my house. I read aloud from The Book of Music and taught my animal pals how to make both a jukebox to play the record I’d found, and note blocks to compose original tunes.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most useful information. The music didn’t really deserve the name. I don’t know what my tastes were back home, but this sterile, repetitive noise was about as pleasing as zombie flesh.
And as far as constructing note blocks, well, guess I could have turned my old bunker into a studio. But why do that now when there might be other books, with more useful knowledge, just waiting for me down there?
That’s why I made another beeline for the mineshaft, my steps giddy with dreams of mental wealth. Given my first three forays, I think I expected to just trip over a library. That didn’t happen, of course, but after exploring a few new tunnels, I turned a corner and let out a long, echoing “whoa…”
The shaft opened onto a cavern that made the first natural canyon seem like a ditch. It wasn’t only vast, it was developed! Mineshafts led everywhere, with wooden bridges crisscrossing the open air. I could hear the rush of several waterfalls and see the glimmer of a few distant torches, as well as the glow of a faraway lava pond.
I could also see another light, which turned out to be a pair of thin purple eyes. The creature was tall, at least twice my height, and so black I almost missed it. It was down at the bottom of the canyon, above the bridge. Not the easiest shot to make, but with gravity on my side…
I drew my bow, lined up my shot, then paused.
Just because someone looks like you doesn’t automatically make them a friend.
Remembering that old lesson mirrored a new one.
And just because someone doesn’t look like you doesn’t automatically make them an enemy.
For all I knew, this place was this creature’s home, and it might have more answers than all the books I might find.
“Risk and reward,” I said, lowering my bow and starting down to the bottom of the chasm. Ironically, that’s when I found another chest, with a new book entitled Wildlife. I didn’t read it right then, although I really wish I had.
Shoving the volume into my pack, I crept to within a dozen blocks of the tall dark stranger. I thought I was being safe, since I was far enough away to get off a few arrows before it reached me. I also thought, since it hadn’t yet turned in my direction like a regular mob, that maybe it didn’t see me as a threat.
Never assume anything. But I did.
“Hello,” I called, hands resting on my bow. It didn’t turn. I could see something in its long, thin arms: a block of stone?
“Hello?” I called again. No response.
I was about to step closer when the creature just happened to turn in my direction. Our eyes met.
“GHAAA!”
A chilling rasp. Blinding speed. And I really mean blinding! One minute it was far away and the next, WHOOSH, right in my face, knocking me back, bending armor and cracking ribs.
The breath rushed out of my lungs and my bow flew from my hand.
“GHAAA!” it rasped again with another near-fatal blow.
There wasn’t time to do anything but bolt. I tore across the chasm floor, aiming for the nearest light. A torch at a nearby mineshaft.
Another blow, another raspy scream, and I was through. Nearly dead, and shaken to the core, but saved by the ceiling crossbeam that wouldn’t let the tall super-beast enter.
Dazed and confounded, I asked, “What did I say? What did I do?”
“GHAAA,” the being answered, butting up against the beam.
“This?” I asked, holding up the book. “Did I steal your book?”
“GHAAAA!”
“Here,” I said, dropping the book as close to it as I could. “Take it!”
But it didn’t take the book, or calm down.
“What then?” I asked, stretching out to retrieve the manual. “What’s the problem?” And as I backed away, I asked, “What are you?”
“They’re called Endermen,” I told Moo when I made it back up to the surface, holding up the Wildlife guide. “But it doesn’t explain much,” I continued. “Except that they’re neutral.”
“Moo,” replied Moo, supping on grass while I snacked on a pumpkin pie. Oh yeah, I found another book on the way back up, and this one was entitled Food. Turns out the mystery vine produced pumpkins, and the third book showed me what to do with them.
“I’m not s’posed to look them in the eye,” I continued between bites of sweet pumpkiny goodness. “That’s apparently what set it off. Some kind of custom that I didn’t follow, maybe? And what I thought was it running real fast was actually teleporting.”
Reading on, I said, “There’s more here I don’t understand about endermites and enderpearls, whatever those are, and some really cryptic stuff about Endermen building the world. Don’t ask because I don’t know, but it must have had something to do with the block of stone it was holding.”
Setting the book down, I mused, “They couldn’t have made the mineshafts for themselves because that one couldn’t fit, and they couldn’t have written this book because the book refers to them as ‘they’ instead of ‘us.’ But then why…”
There was that accursed word again. Why?
“Doesn’t matter,” I said dismissively, avoiding my confusion and discomfort. “I know what I need to know: don’t look ’em in the eye, don’t mess with ’em, and they won’t mess with you. Moving on.”
Skipping to the more familiar chapters, I said, “Lotta animals in this world.” Then, catching myself, I added, “Or at least there used to be before the continent sank into the ocean.”
“Baa,” scoffed Cloud, failing to dent my denial.
“Yeah, it is sad,” I said, reading on. “All those ocelots and wolves I’ll never see. The armor I found was for horses, by the way, and pigs. You know you used to be able to ride a pig in this world? Steering with a carrot on a fishing rod. Go figure.”
After another page, I said, “You can catch
fish in any body of water.” I glanced at the nearby chickens and, ignoring the stab of regret in my chest, said, “Not that I’ll ever need to.”
I browsed the parts about mobs, breezing through all the usual suspects. Turns out the crabupines are actually called “silverfish,” like that makes any sense.
“You can actually make wool from a bunch of collected spiderwebs,” I said, then to the sheep, added with a laugh, “not that I’ll ever need to.” I assumed I already knew what there was to know about most mobs. And so when it came to cave spiders, I assumed they were just a smaller, less dangerous version of the big kind.
Never assume anything.
I know now, though I didn’t at the time, that I was reading selectively. Any section that made me feel safer, smarter, or more powerful, I read. Anything that brought up scary questions, I ignored. I guess, looking back, I wasn’t much different from so many other people in my world, the kind who wouldn’t read some books, or cut out certain parts, or even burned them, because of how the words inside made them feel. I didn’t want to admit how I felt reading about new lands and creatures that might very well exist beyond my narrow horizon. It brought me back to the memory of pulling those old leather boots out of the ocean, and how I’d suddenly felt a whole lot smaller. That’s why, for all my supposed celebration, I still couldn’t ingest the true value of my discovery:
Books make the world bigger.
I’m not sure if this world lets you have a spring in your step, but the next morning I sure felt like it did. Moseying down for another sure-to-be successful mining adventure, I couldn’t have been in a better mood. Armed with repaired tools and weapons and a pack full of all kinds of food, I felt ready for anything. What I wasn’t ready for was an age-old enemy waiting to sabotage my new, seemingly invincible winning streak.
Of all the foes waiting below, the one I really should have been ready for was me.
Heading back into the mine complex, I found my usual welcoming committee of zombies, skeletons, and even a couple of creepers. I took them out, pocketed their remains, and went off down a dark, unexplored tunnel.
This one was broken by a section of natural cave that was lit by a column of lava. After surrounding its impact point with cobblestone, I noticed a block of diamonds embedded in the smooth gray floor. This reminded me that I hadn’t run across any natural diamonds except when nearby lava, and I made a mental note to prove that theory later on.
After collecting three glittering stones, I kept going until the natural cave returned to an oak-reinforced mineshaft. This time minecart tracks led me right to another chest, and another world-expanding jackpot.
I didn’t find one book; I found three! And they were all about redstone, which turned out to be its actual official name. This entire time I’d seen the crimson mineral as next-to-useless, and now I was learning that it might just be the most useful material in this world. The dim redstone torch I’d thought inferior to a brighter coal version was actually a source of energy, and that energy could be transmitted by a trail of redstone dust.
And that was just the first book. Skipping to the other two, I saw that redstone was an essential building material in machines.
Yes, machines! Finally, after going from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, here was the Industrial Revolution! And if I’d just been a little more patient, taking the books home instead of skimming the pages right then and there, everything probably would’ve been fine.
But I didn’t.
“Sssp!”
I knew that hiss. I’d heard it far too many times.
“Sssp!”
Head up, Flash ready, and books safely packed away, I pivoted to face the threat.
All clear. Behind me was the well-lit, empty passageway. Before me was only darkness. No cluster eyes, and yet…
“Sssp!”
I crept cautiously down the tunnel, placing torches as I went, still clinging to the thought that cave spiders were just smaller, bothersome pests.
At least I got the smaller part right.
It scuttled out of the darkness toward me, greenish-blue and about half the size of its surface cousin. I swung my sword, missed, and expected nothing more than the usual, if not milder, spider bite.
Wrong!
Pain flooded my system with the burning, choking, familiar sting of poison. I staggered back, head swimming, limbs aching, Flash flailing wildly at the turquoise snapper. Knocking it back with my shield, I lunged forward with a killing blow.
Still smarting from the venom, I reached for a milk bucket and the new, painful realization that size doesn’t matter. Only then did I notice that the hissing hadn’t stopped. Well now, I thought nervously, at least the others won’t surprise me this time!
Wrong again.
I headed down the passageway, ready to repel any threats in front of me. Only they weren’t in front of me; they were below. I passed a hole in the wooden floor, just one open block. In my anxious distraction, I figured that spiders couldn’t squeeze through such a teeny opening. I didn’t factor in this new, small variety. Panic drowns thought.
I’d already passed the hole when I was jumped from behind. Toxins coursing through my veins, I spun in time to catch the second of two arachnids. It reeled as its partner struck, injecting another murderous dose. Parry, slash, smoke! Another antidote of milk and more loaves of healing bread. I peered down the hole, saw nothing, and guessed—hoped, really—that there couldn’t possibly be more of them down there.
Let me just say, for the record, that my thoughts hadn’t been this frazzled in a long time. I’d been so used to winning, so used to things going my way, that when confronted by a genuine challenge, my mental recovery time was way out of whack.
That’s why I didn’t retreat the moment I jumped through the hole and saw that the entire shaft before me was filled, from top to bottom, with webs.
Of all the ironies…spider silk had once been so rare and precious that I’d risked my life to get it. Now I’d risk my life to get past it, to get to the spawner I saw at the end of the hallway.
At least I wasn’t stupid enough to try walking through the webs, but trying to hack them away was just as idiotic. I’d barely sliced through four of the stretched, creepy cubes when I saw another spider gliding effortlessly forward, as if the sticky threads didn’t exist.
I swung and struck silk. It leapt. I winced. The bite didn’t poison me, but the impact knocked me right up into a web.
I was stuck!
Legs kicking, feet dangling. Slowly dipping toward the ground.
Another pounce, a second bite. This time the fangs sank deep. I screamed from the noxious fluid, cutting furiously at the entangling net. My feet hit the floor just as the first spider sprang, and landed right on Flash’s diamond blade.
I retreated from the web wall just long enough to take my last drink of anti-venom milk. Before I could reach for healing food, another pair of spiders attacked. This time I was ready. I hit one, then the other, knocking them back like this was a crazy solo game of racquetball. Again they charged; again I struck. Shield and sword, bash and slash.
As the second one evaporated, I glimpsed another pair poofing up from the distant spawner. “I’ll be back!” I shouted, fury roiling up within me. “I’ll be back and you’ll be dead! You’ll all be dead!”
Running all the way home should have given me the chance to clear my head. It didn’t. It should have calmed me just long enough to realize that I needed to repair my battered armor, fix my cracked sword, get a decent night’s rest, and come up with a rational, reasonable plan.
It didn’t. I just grabbed some more food, extra feathers for arrows, and rushed right back out to do battle. Stopping to milk Moo should have given me one last chance for sanity, but of course, it didn’t.
I can only imagine what my four-legged lifeline might have said if she’d been human, what her sharp, multiple “moos” might have meant.
“Please don’t do this. Don’t go back there without thinking
! Consider the mistakes you’ve made, the lessons you’ve learned, all the times you’ve almost died! Please just take a moment, take a deep breath, and don’t throw away everything because you want—”
Revenge.
That’s why I didn’t listen to her, to my subconscious thoughts. Those creatures had reintroduced me to fear. They’d reminded me what it felt like to be helpless and weak and scared down to my DNA.
Fear made me hate, and hate made me blind. The lesson was clear, obvious, and ignored: Revenge hurts only me.
I would learn it the hard way soon enough.
I sprinted down into the depths, right back into the tunnel where I’d started. After sealing the hole in the floor that I’d originally jumped through, I tried picking out a new one just above the spawner itself. I planned, if you could call it that, to smash the cage from above before any new arachnids got to me.
The plan failed. As soon as the hole opened, a spider jumped up into my face. Recoiling from the venom, I gave the creature several rapid hacks. It’s not failure that matters but how you recover, right?
I recovered miserably.
Sealing the hole, then gulping milk, I groped for a rash and reckless Plan B. Would you have tried to mine a staircase down the wall next to the spawner? Would you have believed, or wanted to believe, that somehow there weren’t any webs on the other side of the hall? Of course not. That’s what a brain is for.
But I did, and within seconds of knocking out the final blocks, a trio of poisonous hissers pounced. I honestly don’t remember how I killed them all. All I can recollect is reaching for a second dose of milk and realizing I’d only brought one.
The next minute was an excruciating race between hyper-healing and the spider’s digestive juice. I tried to stuff my face with as much food as my stomach would allow, praying that I could self-repair before the acid devoured me from within.
Veins cooling, muscles repairing, I heard another, high-pitched rasp. Two more arthropods were scampering at me through their protective webs, cutting me off from the staircase.