The Lost Journals: An Official Minecraft Novel

by Mur Lafferty

  “Uncle Nicholas never did anything halfway,” he said. “He built the biggest houses when he didn’t have to. He wanted to learn all the enchanting and alchemy recipes, even though architecture was plenty. He left the whole of existence when he thought he’d killed me. It wouldn’t surprise me if he left for as far as he could go.”

  “We’ll find him,” Freya said. “We just have to hope we get him before he builds another portal. Because I’m not going to the End. I can take you to your uncle, but if he’s already traveled there, you’re on your own.”

  “I thought you were in this with us,” Max demanded.

  “To get back from the End you have to kill the ender dragon. And you saw how a few endermen and skeletons nearly got us killed. How will we handle a dragon?”

  Max stared at her.

  She shook her head again. “If you find him, I’ll help. But if we find a hot end portal, I’m heading back home.”

  Max went to sit beside Ali, ready with the mushrooms when they would have to get her up and moving again.

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  THE WRONG WAY

  Alison woke up when Freya poked her gently in her good arm. She winced; her other arm felt like dead flesh hanging from her body. She poked at her wrist, her elbow, and then her upper arm. She missed the pain; that had at least meant it was alive. This numb feeling was worse.

  “Well, you woke up easily enough,” Freya said. “How are you doing?”

  Alison tried to shrug, but only one shoulder responded.

  Freya bent down and examined Alison’s arm, her face doing a terrible job of hiding her worry. Alison felt nothing when Freya explored the wound, wiping it clean with a cloth. “This doesn’t look good. We need to find some milk, now.”

  “But what about Nicholas?” Alison said, struggling to her feet. She looked around and realized that it was only the two of them. “Wait, where’s Max?”

  “I assume he’s looking for milk,” Freya said, going through Alison’s pack and moving some of the heavier things to her own. “We took a quick nap, but when I woke up he was gone.” She frowned and sat back. “Maybe he thought we were dead weight. Maybe he went ahead without us. Maybe he got eaten in the night. I don’t know.”

  Alison squinted at the girl and realized she was angry with herself for letting Max get away. She looked around at the unfamiliar landscape. They’d left the lava lake and Max’s makeshift bridge behind. “I don’t even know what direction to go in now,” she said. “Did he take your wolf, too?”

  Freya sighed. “I don’t know that either. Bunny Biter sometimes wanders off, but she always comes back. I don’t think she would have left with Max, but maybe she wanted to protect him. I just don’t know.” She pursed her lips, like she hated saying those words.

  Alison put her own pack—thankfully lighter now—over her good shoulder. “Let’s head off that way,” she said, pointing. “Maybe we’ll find Nicholas, or Max, or your wolf, or a friendly stranger with some milk. Sitting around here won’t do us any good, regardless.”

  Freya focused on her at last. “I figured you’d be more upset about everything.”

  Alison smiled sadly. “There’s not much left to lose. Sitting around won’t help us find anything. If we move, we have a chance. Just keep your bow ready. I can’t help out with fighting anymore.” She winced, but was grateful that her shoulder still had enough nerves to cause pain. “Let’s go.”

  Freya took one more look at the horizon, and then they headed off to the next destination on the map.

  * * *

  —

  Max wasn’t aware of how much time had passed. He had been focused entirely on finding the milk for Alison, but multiple distractions had bothered him.

  First, he realized that he could return to Nicholas’s house so long as he didn’t look at the endermen, and so long as he kept away from the wither skeletons. There were a lot fewer enemies now; the girls had taken care of most of them. He kept his head firmly focused on the ground as he took the bridge back over the lava, supplementing the holes with netherrack he’d taken from the hillside.

  He heard the skeletons clacking in their shady hideout by the remains of the glass prison, but didn’t get close enough for them to take interest. He saw a wispy black form here and there while walking, but didn’t look at it. He climbed the tree house carefully, still looking down, and then pushed open the door, looking the other way while he did so.

  Nothing happened.

  He walked inside the house, trying to see out of the corner of his eye if any mobs were waiting to pounce, but the house looked clean. The upper level looked to have a living area with a table and chair, some books and bookcases, and some chests with very little inside, mainly wood and some coal. Max made a few torches and ventured down the back stairs to a workspace on the back of the house.

  Nicholas liked basements. He had filled this one like the cabin in the woods, with a few workbenches, a brewing stand, and an enchanting table. Bookcases lined the walls, interrupted occasionally by chests. Max chose a chest at random and opened it. So many beautiful weapons were inside! Diamond and gold weapons, glittering and urging him to take them. He had to go and tell Alison and Freya; this was too good.

  Alongside the weapons was a set of simple leather armor, folded neatly and looking as if someone had placed it there quite by accident and would be back for it.

  It had to be specially enchanted! With all of the supplies his uncle had here, there was no way he would waste time enchanting leather armor unless he meant to put a really special enchantment on it that no one would guess.

  Max dropped the diamond armor Alison had made for him, donned his uncle’s leather armor, and went rummaging through the rest of the stuff.

  He didn’t find anything else worthwhile, but right before he left the room he spotted two books behind an enchanting table. He snagged them and saw they were more journals, leather covers feeling newer, less handled than the journal he now carried. Nicholas must have left them behind by accident when he’d vacated the house in a hurry.

  Max ran his fingers over one cover, identical to the other journal with a circle surrounding the two dots, and opened it.

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  Max could read no more through the tears in his eyes. He hadn’t known this about his uncle. Nicholas knew he was a terrible enchanter but he knew Max watched him. He had wanted to train him!

  Max’s face had flamed hot when he read about his “average building skills.” He had tried to get more innovative, but had never really risen to his parents’ expectations. But Nicholas had never cared.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath. He tossed the journal he’d just found into his pack and opened the second one, which contained fewer personal entries and more recipes. He lost himself in the pages of Nicholas’s plans for testing other enchantments. His uncle had thought he could make flame-retardant clothing in order to allow people to visit the Nether and be safe. He wanted to calm endermen so that humans could visit their villages and hold peace talks. He’d had plans to give Max a saddle for his birthday that would allow him to tame any riding beast. His enchantment ideas went on and on, from the completely mundane-but-useful, like a window that was black on one side and clear on the other so that a creeper or skeleton couldn’t post themselves at your window and watch you, to giving you the outrageous ability to fly above the Overworld, never take falling damage, never encounter a monster, and always find whatever vein of metal you needed for your projects.

  Max chuckled, wiping some stray tears from his cheeks. Nicholas always had the strangest ideas.

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  “He’s not going to the End,” Max said softly. “He’s looking for a home here.” He sat down on the floor, the armor digging into his back, and, Ali forgotten
, read further.

  MAX’S MOM TAUGHT HER BOY POLITENESS

  Max’s eyes were dry and burning. He blinked furiously, surprised he didn’t hear the lids closing like sandpaper sliding across the marbles in his skull. How long had he been there?

  He jumped up. Ali. He had come in here to find help for her and ended up on the floor going through his uncle’s things. He felt confident he knew where to find his uncle now, or at least the general direction, but what about Ali?

  Cursing the lack of light and not being able to tell how much time had passed, Max got up and stretched. He would feel better if he could take his armor off—if only the chest plate and armored trousers—but they wouldn’t budge.

  He pulled and pulled, shouting angrily as he realized in a panic that his uncle had cursed these pieces just as Max had cursed his own helmet and boots. Now he had a full set of leather armor that he couldn’t take off, while his vastly superior diamond armor lay on the ground.

  Stunned at his own lack of sense, he carefully picked up the diamond armor to take with him. He searched the remaining chests, picking up whatever potions looked useful, but looking for milk specifically. He finally found some, in Nicholas’s kitchen area, of course, and got as much as he could carry.

  With the old armor, the new potions, and the new journals, he dashed from the house, avoided looking at the endermen (although he did bump into one and say “Excuse me”), outpaced the skeletons and the pigmen in his haste, and ran back across his recently repaired bridge, barely feeling the heat from the lava lake.

  He crested the hill and kept running, looking for their camp, but slowed when he realized he didn’t see any sign of his friends. Had they broken camp and moved on without him? He looked around frantically, wondering how they could have abandoned him; he hadn’t been gone that long. Had he?

  He had to admit to himself they didn’t know where he had gone either, and possibly they were off looking for him. Still, his planned save-the-day entrance was ruined now, and that made him grumpy. He ran to the top of the hill to his left for a better vantage point.

  He spotted her, then. Netherrack had been excavated to build a small shelter, and an even smaller person lay inside. It had to be Ali. He ran down the hill, clanking in his cursed boots, heavy pack banging against his body as he ran.

  Lava gouts burst up from the landscape as he went, and he had to dodge to avoid them. It felt almost like the Nether itself didn’t want him to get to her. He wondered if the lava could burn the cursed armor off his body, but figured that might be a very bad idea. Might as well cut his arm off because he got a bruise.

  While Ali had been visible from the hill he had been on, once he reached the ground she was obscured by some mushrooms and smaller hills. He ran around them, worried that losing sight of her would mean losing her all over again. But when the shelter was in sight again, he could still see the figure resting inside. Heartened, he tried to run even faster.

  Now that he was closer, he could see the figure was definitely Alison, and she was resting with her armor beside her. A movement caught his eye: Freya was running on his right, Bunny Biter at her heels, heading for Ali as well.

  They reached the tent at the same time, and both started breathlessly talking.

  Max said, “I went back to Nicholas’s house to see what he had in there, and found a bunch of weapons and armor and two more journals, and I think I know where Nicholas was going! He’s looking for a fortress like yours to live in, and I think I know the direction to go in. I lost track of time but I got a bunch of potions and some milk!”

  At the same time, Freya said, “I found that fortress you saw on the map and I think that’s where Nicholas is going, but it’s guarded by a bunch of skeletons. There was a blaze and a few docile pigmen too, and this massive lava fall, but Bunny Biter showed up and we got through it, but it’s too complicated to tell you how. Needless to say, we don’t need to feed her for a few days. But we also found a cache of items that included milk!”

  They ended up saying “milk” at the same time, and looked at each other, startled and annoyed. They started accusing each other of abandoning the other, and demanding to know where each had gone, since neither had heard a word the other had said. Then they finally noticed Ali.

  She was very pale, looking up at them with shadows under her wide eyes. She looked as if she had lost weight already, with the wither sickness wasting away her body. “The milk?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Max said, fumbling at his pack. He and Freya produced canteens at the same time, and Freya held Alison’s head up while Max poured the milk down her throat. She coughed and spat and drank some more, then they eased her head back and waited anxiously.

  “How will we know when it works?” Max asked, glancing at Freya, who had dropped her easygoing manner; real worry creased her brow.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never cured wither before,” Freya said. “I expect she’ll tell us.”

  “Can’t we give her some healing potion and see if she gets worse again?”

  Freya shook her head, but Alison answered for her: “That would be a waste of a potion, if the milk didn’t work. Just wait…”

  She closed her eyes and sighed, and after a moment said, “And stop staring at me.”

  Max and Freya exchanged glances again and stood up, walking a few steps away from the shelter to let her rest.

  “Why did you leave?” they demanded of each other at the same time.

  “I wanted to find help!” they both answered hotly.

  “Yeah, but I really wanted to find help,” they said.

  They lapsed into silence, Max afraid to say anything else she might be able to anticipate. Finally he said, “I’m sorry I lost track of time.”

  “And I’m sorry we didn’t leave a message for you,” Freya said. “I was just so—”

  “—worried about her. Yeah,” Max finished.

  “I just hope we’re not too late,” they said in unison again, and gave each other weak smiles.

  “So, we both figured out where Uncle Nicholas is probably staying?” Max said.

  “If it’s the same fortress, yes, but I don’t know if he’s inside. I think there’s a good chance.” Freya looked back toward where she had run in from. “I just don’t get why he left that tree house.”

  “He said the monsters spawning drove him away,” Max said, digging out a journal and handing it to her. “But fortresses spawn all kinds of monsters. He’s not going to find anything different in an already-created house.”

  “There’s one thing a fortress may have that’s not going to be in any house he creates,” Freya said, looking excited.

  “Well?” Max said, not wanting to take the bait, but eager to hear the rest.

  “I’ve heard that some have portals to the Overworld within,” she said. “It’s possible he is looking for that.”

  “Do you think he wants to come home?” Max asked. He hadn’t wanted to voice his concern, but one very real fear he’d had was finding Nicholas and being unable to convince him to return to the Overworld.

  “We won’t know until we find him,” she said. “I think once he finds out you’re alive, then that might help.”

  “Then let’s find him,” said a voice behind them. They turned and saw Ali there, still looking rough around the edges, but clearly much better. They whooped, and Freya tossed a healing potion to her, which she fumbled and dropped.

  “Just give me a minute,” she added, picking the vial up off the ground and uncorking it. “Once I’m back to normal, we’ll find him.”

  MORE BREAKING AND ENTERING

  Alison had thought Freya resided in the most amazing and complex fortress she had ever seen, and now it may as well have been a shack. The fortress they suspected was Nicholas’s was built atop thirteen pillars of nether brick, suspended over a lake of lava. The base was wide and
fortified with an obsidian wall, but they could see the upper floors peeping out from behind the wall. It spread out like a plant in the Overworld, with incomprehensible towers jutting up from flat rooftops, balconies overlooking the lava lake, and what appeared to be a greenhouse on the left side, which made little sense with no sun.

  It was probably well-lit by the lava fall that cascaded down a cliff farther to the left, actually.

  Just in case the skeletons and hopping magma cubes patrolling the shore of the lava lake didn’t deter you from investigating, the “bridge” going to the fortress was made of blocks of obsidian ascending to the base of the fortress. Each “step” was one solid block: no railing, no stairs to make climbing easier. They would have to jump up each one and hope they didn’t fall into the lava.

  They stood well away from the fortress, where the mobs by the lake wouldn’t notice them. Alison gazed at the walkway to the base. She was feeling much better, but her legs still felt shaky. “I’m really tired of lakes of fire,” she said. “Does this place have anything else? How about a friendly garden? Or an unfriendly garden? I’d give anything for a spider-infested forest right now.”

  “It’s the Nether, Alison, not a snow biome,” Freya said. “We have two kinds of landscape here: lava, and not lava.”

  “You have mushroom plots too,” Max suggested, polishing the very-unenchanted-but-much-stronger diamond sword with his back to them. “And soul sand.”

  Now that Alison was feeling better, she noticed that Max was looking decidedly different. “Why are you wearing that armor, Max? Did the diamond already break and I didn’t notice?”