Jake sat studying his maps quietly while occasionally stopping to pinpoint the most important sites on the pixel like map.
Parker was prepping the salmon fish that Jai had caught during that misty afternoon and brought them to the master chef Parker, to work the group furnace. The aroma of the sunset outside filled the room through every minute of cooking.
Jai sat at the birch plank table with a golden pressure plate and sat down ready to dig in when Parker brought the food.
Flynn was in the mine, digging for whatever valuables he could find in the trench. He had already dug up more than enough coal to last the night and cook their salmon.
The roar of zombies began to fill the air, loud enough to disturb a howler monkey, which is why Daniel Was on the cobblestone rooftop, ready to shoot any hostile mob point blank.
Parker brought the salmon to the table.
“Is it finally finished?" asked the Exhausted Flynn. Whacking a pickaxe at riveted rock all day was not his dream job.
Parker turned towards him. “If you mean your job, not even close, but the fish,” he held up a iron platter above the table the group sat at as they watched intently. “They're done. And all thanks to Jai for catching them.”
Jai gave Parker a grin before snatching one of the fish for himself.
The rest of the group seated around the birch plank table, and they started on their food like a pack of hungry wolves.
“Fishing trip tomorrow.” Jake mentioned, finally looking up to enjoy one of the fish.
“Jai going to catch a whopper.” Daniel stated, almost as placing a bet that birds will eat berries.
While the meal concluded, Flynn pulled out the crafting table from beneath the dinner table, took out sticks, emeralds, diamonds, gold nuggets, gold ingots, and cobblestone blocks.
"What is that for?" Parker asked.
"What do you think it’s for?" flynn contemplated
"No, what is it specifically?" He stammered "Like swords, bows and arrows, diamond blocks, pikaxes, or whatever else?"
"Hmm, that is a good question. I think you should make a list of everything you want from me. But within reason." Flynn started with a hint of annoyance for Parker being quidnunc.
Parker fetched one of the slabs of stone he had and placed it on the table.
“I’m getting a better pickaxe first.” He expressed
Jake eventually presumed his markings while the rest of the group lingered, standing immoble in the stifled air.
Flynn then pulled out his pickaxe, and shoved it into his inventory.
Flynn next hauled the boats out of his inventory and Arranged them on the floor, next taking fishing rods and gently positioning two rods inside each of the boats, along with bait.
The swords that he had made for everyone remained on the crafting table before he removed them from the table and situated them inside the chest for later use. He followed the same procedure for the building materials such as the polished diorite and cobblestone, along with planks for fires and further crafting.
When he had withdrawn his hand from the crafting surface he sighed and looked at the group, which were smiling.
“This is why you're the miner,” Jake remarked, before gripping one of the new iron swords.
He wanted to say 'Finally some fame for this nightmare of a job' but he kept that to himself, as he was too glad that his friends approved of his Accomplishments.
Flynn Looked outside the blocky glass panes, before stating, “I'm glad you like it, but I’m really just excited for our fishing trip.”
“Aren’t we all.” Jai bellowed, snapping Jake out of his mapping trans, and he started frantically nodding his head, until Daniel Motioned him to calm down, while descending the steps of the planks.
“It’s a bit chilly here,” Daniel said, which was really saying something, compared to what the weather was like outside.
Daniel Pulled some of the birch wood out of the chest. “Thanks to Flynn for loading this up,” he said, shelving through for the right amount of wood, before sparking the flint and steel to get it going, and the fire roared to life.
“Feeling warmer already.” Daniel started, taking off the leather tunic. As he ripped off the boots and hat, he began, “don’t get too excited about the fishing trip tomorrow.”
Jai frowned. “Oh so you come from your drunken duel to tell us we shouldn’t go fishing?”
Daniel didn’t flinch. “Mad snowstorm is coming. If you use your brains, you won't get capsized. Not only that, but there, the drowns like to stay out. It’s life or death, but now you have a choice.”
"Why not just bring some weapons.” suggested Jake, who was in full attentive mode now.
Daniel Scoffed. “You think sticks and stones will break their bones, why'’, That’s almost——or all, they are. And you think it will protect you from a certain slow death? What has gotten into you?”
Jake was only warming up, but the look in his eyes said this was going to end soon. “You,” he finished. “You're what's gotten into us. It’s a happy scene,” he waited for everyone to process before continuing. “Why, I’m more afraid of a paranoid monster than a little snow.”
Daniel finally sighed. “You dont learn anything,” and ending with, “Fine. If parkers in, I am. But I know who to call when we get into trouble.”
Parker nodded, representing ‘fair,’ and everyone proceeded heading to bed in silence.
Two
Proceeding the early hours of the dawn, Jai was the first to wake up, and the way he was programmed, he either forgot or ignored the incident as if it had never happened.
He popped off of the bed, making sure not to wake anyone up. He would get ready, in case the storm Daniel mentioned really existed, then they could beat it.
By the time he had arrived at the full descent position of the stairs, it quickly appeared that it had already been raining, and bluish—navy drops of water flowed down the window. Not snow, just rain, at least yet.
Jai pulled all of his leather armor on before heading outside. It was chilly as Daniel predicted. On the contrary, the sun was only still awakening. Jai walked back into the cabin-like structure to find that everyone else was about to wake up.
Jai decided that he would try to set up breakfast, and he pulled out some eggs from the shared wooden chest, and some breakfast cake.
By the time he had achieved breakfast, the rest of the group was already downstairs.
“Hello Jai,”Parker said, more sleep than conscious.
“Hello Parker,” Jai replied.
Parker started towards the furnace when Jai got in his way.
“Parker!” he exclaimed. “I already made breakfast.”
Parker turned around puzzled.
"Hold on, I cook around here," Parker proclaimed, still waking up.
“Chill out parker.” Daniel advised. “These probably taste better than your menu,” Daniel Concluded taking a look at Flynn.
Flynn, Not noticing Daniel’s gaze, treated himself to a piece of cake before noting, “We should have Jai as our permanent chef,” he finished with a smirk at Parker.
“Don’t push it.” Parker said, giving an disapproving look at the cake that Jai had prepared.
Jake was stuffing maps and materials into the portable chest, while the rest of the group chatted.
When Jake had finished this process, Parker signaled that they would leave.
With Parker in the lead and Flynn bringing up the rear, the group began to head outside. So far, Daniels threats and warnings seemed like a fantasy, as it seemed more like a winter wonderland than a firepit, of course, without the fire.
Jake, who always liked to have a clear view of anything and struggled to achieve that goal in the snow, looked inside the backpack-like chest structure and pulled out a map along with a torch. The torch shone brightly above all of the faint lights coming from their house, which was slowly fading into the dark horizon.
Daniel had to admit that he hadn’t even heard a peep—— or in this case a moan, from a zombie or drowned yet.
He put his sword lower down to make walking easier as the group continued down the snow covered pathway slowly inclining towards the area.
Flynn couldn’t help but take the opportunity to collect snow, a material that you didn’t need a pickaxe to obtain. He would later make them into snowballs, to feed the snow golem on their house, not only would it provide protection, but it would keep Daniel’s job a lot safer. Snow was far easier to obtain hard core earth.
"This is nice weather compared to what Daniel predicted.” Jake said.
The pond became clearer and merging closer into view, if you could even call it that. It had been completely capped off with ice and thin layers of snow. The group halted in part for Daniel to walk ahead.
He drew a stick at the ice before dragging his leather covered hand on the ice.
He studies the ground like a group of lab rats, before nodding and coming to his conclusion.
“We’re setting up camp here.” he declared, turning towards the group.
“What do you mean, set up camp?” Jake Inquired.
“It’s simple.” Daniel Replied. “Ice fishing.
Daniel Gestured toward the now formed ice rink.
“We build a tent above the ice, and attach it to a wooden shack, where we can cook our fish. That way, we can still fish, but leave the risk of the ice breaking alone.
Flynn immediately got ready and forced all of his building materials out of his inventory, while Jai and Parker got the boats ready. The construction process took until lunch time, but the snow started to retreat knowing they were losing against the resilient crew.
While the group ate bread and apples in the stone-wood shack, Daniel had to admit it was going better than expected.
Jake was already back to his maps, while fighting through bits of apple.
Parker and Jai were caught up in the excitement and were already in the fishing area. Jai had already caught 3 cod and some iron armor. Parker had only caught the tiniest fish possible, but got one lucky catch of some enchanted leather armor.
Anything that the two caught was immediately traversed from their inventory into one of the chests that Jake and Flynn carried with them.
Flynn spared time for crafting all of the new items sent to them, and sorting them based on use.
The sun slowly took the trek down the horizon and began to limit itself to a hazy mist that lingered throughout the dusk.
Jai and Parker had found their way back to the original construct where they found everyone asleep.
It made sense given that they had been tugging the anxious rope, so it made sense they would be tired. In that case, Jai and Parker set themselves in pursuit of the morning.
THREE
In the morning, the crew was awakened to thunder that sounded like 100 size 5 bases playing out of chorus.
"What the heck is that?” Flynn asked groggily
"Since when do you know what sounds are inside a tiny enclosure? ” Jia asked.
"Since when have you went on an expedition that is bound to get you killed" Daniel responded
“Since when have you been so protective?" jai shot back "It is unlike you to do anything that is very safe, with your archer duty, your killing entities every second, as well as my mind."
"Oohhh" Parker, Flynn, and Jake teased.
"Oof, looks like someone’s been burned by the new cook” Flynn inquired.
"He must not be doing a very good job, if he burned it.” Parker noted. Still carrying the weight of the morning's argument in his steely gaze.
“Who said I was food?” Daniel Questioned.
“Exactly!” Parker proclaimed. “Who knows what monstrosity he’s brewing?”
An explosion of thunder loud enough to shatter glass in an instant ejected the argument into long last history.
"Let's all use are brians people ," Flynn said "let's not go outside"
"You think we haven’t realized there is Thunder so there is obviously going to be rain and lightning?" Daniel pointed out, intrigued. "Say, who wants to go outdoors?" That last part was buried with sarcasm.
"Hey at least there’s cake," Jake added, which did lighten up the conversation as much as he thought it would and it only brought everyone into a more furious notion.
“Oh come on! Now you want to brag about your cake.” Parker said, now in rage.
Flynn sighed. “We're not going to get anywhere like this,” Flynn looked around, half surprised people were listening to the Miner. “Ever heard of time-out? Yeah— not the preschool kind, you guys are totally aged out of that,” he waited making sure everyone took in the sarcasm. “Why can’t we all just try to work together. We’re in the same boat, and if too many people— supplies hop off that community boat, the rest die, and so does that traitor. Understand?”
"The miner had a good speech," Daniel said.
"The problem now is, now what" Flynn replied
"I think we should make the best of this opportunity to go fishing in this 'winter wonderland'. I don't think the weather will get better anytime soon." said Daneil. Then he added "Right Jai?"
"I mean, can it be that bad in the future? But maybe he is right about going now and getting that out of the way." said the convinced Jai. "But we aren't going to make a hole in the floor just to go fishing.
"But what are we going to do as an alternative?" asked Parker, still dazed from his conversation.
"I assume that was not a real question. Anyway, we have some choices. Flynn could go get some wood and we could make a shelter then make a new hole and make a tunnel through to connect them to each other. Or we could use the hole we already have. The problem is that we might slip and fall in and suffer a slow, fatal death"
"Choose to use the hole we already have even if there is a chance to fall in and die a slow fatal death." Flynn said "It will be a waste to us all of that material when we don't need to"
"I do not agree with that, but since Flynn had his 'amazing speech' that said we have to agree, then we will have to settle this one way or another." Jia said
"Or we could have a duel for it" daniel said
"Daniel I know you are the hunter and the archer, but you have to stop being so dark. I mean who would want to kill the food supplier or the miner. Use your brain.
"Yeah" Flynn said "You realize that if daniel keeps this up then we won't come all home when the expedition is over"
"Well I would not call this an expedition, This is just a short fishing trip, as long as we don’t die." parker inserted
“Parker!” Everybody complained in unison.
"Why do you and Daniel and you have to be negative energy, without the energy, all the time." Jake stated. I only want to survive and work on my maps.”
Jai sighed. “You’re turning into Daniel now.”
Parker, who took that as an offense, rather than start attacking the group with monster insults, stopped and looked at the ground before admitting, “yeah, I’ve been pretty problematic today, and that wasn’t exactly something you want on a fishing trip.” Parker looked up at Jai, who watched him respectfully. “I’m sorry. Right now, we need to focus on our biggest concern, which is staying alive, and staying full. I’m ready to serve now. Not just lead, and we are going to survive.”
AWAKENING
ROSTER CHECK
Jai Survival cnd 89%
Jake Witty cnd 95%
Flynn Quarrelsome cnd 44%
Daneil Relieved cnd 77%
Parker Loyal cnd 90%
Group condition: Survival 79.8%
FOUR
Parker felt as if he had been carrying a 100 lb weight and he could finally take it off. The pressure of constantly having to think of comebacks was stressing him out, and he did not want to turn his friends into his enemies.
Daniel also felt good. Even though it was not him that admitted it, it still felt as if Parker was the one that admitted for both of them.
The problem with Jai and Flynn was resolved by Flynn offering a portion of what Jai originally wanted to make a huge tent and to make a smaller one.
"Why did I agree with this?" Flynn complained
"I do not know. Why did you agree" Jia responded
"I guess I wanted peace over us having nearly enough to survive"
"It's too late." Jai siad "We already shook on it"
"Well here is the stuff, ask someone else to build it, or you can build it yourself.
"Are you serious" Jai asked
"As serious as ever" flynn stated and that was that
Since he had to make it all by himself, he took a stone pickaxe from the shared chest in the corner of the room. He mined a 2x2 hole in the wall and started to make the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel. Jai wore all of his armour, enchanted with snow flurry making him invulnerable to the snow, which wouldn’t let up.
After about an hour he was finished and sealed it with 2 oak doors.
"What are you making?" asked Parker approaching the door.
"Wait—— don't go in there!" Jai cried out.
Parker was oblivious to the warning and Parker went through the door and fell onto the ice.
"What the heck!" Parker yelled from underneath the surface. “It’s freezing!”
"I tried to warn you" Jai said defensively
Parker sighed, while trying to calm his breath even though he was still treading frantically. “Were back at it?”
Jai stared with eyes of steel, before they softened.
“you're right. We need to focus. It’s like a deadly virus, and the need to get off task is spreading. But it’s normal. We’re all crashing out because we’re trying to live, and this storm isn’t making it easy. But if we’re going to erase that problem from the chalkboard, then we’ll have to stand up and do it ourselves.
Parker nodded, and they got back to work in the fishing room. Parker had suggested a way to improve the weather tightness of the room by adding some wool layers and forming an igloo-like structure with it, maintaining heat better.
When they were done, Jai joked about the room being able to cook the food before Parker even got the chance to do it himself. They high-fived and admired their work, when Flynn came running in, Looking urgent to speak.
“Stray! Outside!” He said, short of breath.
Parker just stared at him. “Why isn’t this Daniel’s business?”
Flynn looked up at The two, horror in his eyes, took in two large gulps of water he had with him before informing:
“They knocked him out.” came the conclusion as Parker and Jai gasped their own breaths.
Five
Daniel lay in one of the corners in the shack they set up, in the lower basement bedroom. The walls were made of polished diorite and the floor and walls were patterned with wool and terracotta.
Daniel’s body was clearly not lifeless, but from the readings that Jake did with the command block, he had less than one point-five points of life left in him.
Flynn had already given Daniel a golden apple but it had failed to do much to heal him, and that left him scrambling for another golden apple, and if he could this time, enchant it.
The rest of the group lay in confusion about what was happening. Jake kept giving him potions of swiftness, as that was all they had, to get his health to regenerate. As for the skeleton, Parker had been finishing it off when he encountered 5 more.
When Jake had hit the 23rd potion, Daniel had started to roll his head and it gave the whole group a boost of adrenaline.
Daniel slightly opened his eyes but then closed them. Jake looked at the group. "We might have to dislodge the arrow, and risk killing him."
The group nodded, but also knew what could happen, but either way, if they didn’t do something Daniel would Die.
“What makes you think that it’s the arrow?” Jai asked, trying to make Jake rethink his planning.
“The arrow, whenever it slightly moves when he does, his health readings are affected. And when the golden apple pauses, the arrow starts to vibrate, meaning that it’s somehow connected to the energy transfer.”
Jai sadly nodded. “I’m going to help fight those strays with Parker.”
The battle outside was heated. No one was really taking a side. Parker had never taken a real hit. His only health loss was because of frostbite. Arrows were whizzing everywhere and only heavily declined the visibility of the battleground.
“Oh, Some backup,” Parker said, swiping his iron sword like power rangers.
“Man. I preferred Daniel being angry than these skeletons,” Jai stated, hitting a skeleton right behind him before it collapsed in a heap before him.
“I got one.” Jai announced, waiting for a response from parker.
“There’s more than just 2. Were being surrounded, we might as well have someone there.” Parker called.
Jai went back to fighting. He had built himself A little sniper booth where he could fire through one block of space while narrowing the chances of getting hit himself.
Everything that he had shot was aimed with care and precision, to the point where it took him more than thirty seconds for each release.
Now, there was only one skeleton remaining. Jai took a well aimed shot at it and scored some health from it, and while it was about to attempt to hit Jai, Parker snuck up behind it and took his most powerful Slash at the mob he found possible. The skeleton collapsed to the ground as its bones instantly started freezing. Parker snatched the bow from it.
“This will be Daniel’s wake up present.” Parker declared, who was really thinking on the inside: if Daniel does wake up, while wiping the bow off, motioning Jai to come inside, and he gladly followed.
After the battle Parker asked, "how is Daniel managing?"
"Not very well" Flynn responded "I have given him an enchanted golden and some water. His health still lays low at 1.8 health points, but I think we’re getting somewhere.
The rest of the group nodded in agreement, While Jake went back to giving him potions, except they were able to find some healing potions and they truly sped up his healing.
"To prevent any more disasters like this, I think I will light up the place a notch" Jai said hoping it would really help
"I will gets some coal and sticks" said flynn
Flynn and Parker went out of the basement to seek out a crafting table. When they came back they had 1 crafting table, 40 sticks, and 37 lumps of coal.
"This will be enough to make 37 torches." Flynn said, in the student mathematician way.
"Where is the rest of the coal?” Daniel Demanded.
"I did not bring all of our coal on this expedition, we need to keep the house warm for when we come back," Flynn said defensively
“If we do,” Daniel muttered, but instantly caught himself and the group continued.
Jake, who was happy that they would be able obtain a device that could help them see in the thick snow easier, nodded. Flynn pulled out some of the wood that he had from leftovers of creating a shelter and placed a crafting table in one of the corners of the stone house. He used a good portion of the rest of those planks for making sticks, and left the rest for a fire. Now that he had loaded up on sticks, he was able to make a vast majority of creations. Priority first, he created new weapons as the old ones were damaged in battle. When he had, he created a shield so that The sniper booths were unnecessary, and they didn’t have to waste their life's material on the booths. Flynn immediately picked himself up a new pickaxe, as every mine he was destroying it, his new one was made with iron, and it was much more durable. He had found that this mine contained plenty of granite and copper, and he was able to gather reinforcement material.
After they were finished crafting Parker questioned "well who will be the daring one to place all those torches?"
“Place where?” Flynn asked. “It’s not like we can even place them in thin air outside.”
“Outside on the walls.” Parker replied. “To keep the mobs out of course. Daniel still needs to heal, and if he can’t even fight with words correctly, how is he supposed to fight with a bow?”
Daniel didn’t hear this, he went back to sleep on the floor. “I’ll take him to the room.” Parker said, before pulling him up and leading him to a room across from them.
“That reminds me.” Jai said in a whisper-like tone. “Remember to give this to Daniel,” Jai said, giving Parker the skeleton bow. Parker nodded and left the room.
“Back to crafting?” Flynn asked. “I still have a lot of materials.”
The group nodded. “Back to crafting.”
SIX
While Daniel left laying in one of the beds in the healers room, Flynn and Parker were figuratively and literally cooking up a storm. In the manner of a somewhat conveyor belt or a assembly line, Flynn crafted and the useful materials for cooking were handed off to parker, and the scent of teamwork could already be smelled anywhere in the structure, and Jai even placed a bet that Daniel was dreaming about eggs and mushroom stew with a side of mutton and some berries. Parker had placed the appetizers on the table such as bread, salmon, potato and carrot.
Jake had turned his appetizers into a salmon and potato roll, while using the potatoes as fries cutting them with his sword.
“This is good!” Flynn announced. “Man, Parker cannot be replaced.”
Jai had no argument with that, and he reached over to take another serving of mushroom soup.
“I was just thinking,” Parker started, “when I said our main goal was to stay fed and survive, we didn’t have a problem with that after all did we?”
Everyone shook their heads, and waited intently for Parker to say more.
Parker just sat there. “I’m done speaking” he said, putting his hands up before standing up and putting his plate back into the chest.
“What a short speech, Even I made a better one.” Flynn added.
“The one you just made? Jake asked, and the whole group started laughing. Even Parker got a laugh out of it.
“We seem like we’re in pretty good shape, am I wrong?” Jai inquired. “The weather has set to rain, but I think I actually have an idea, tell me if it sounds power hungry.”
Parker seemed to listen very carefully, and the rest of them seemed ready for anything that came at them, in this case an idea.
“If flynn can use some of that copper he had to create an lightning rod, and we can use a command block to convert in into transportable redstone contraption, and we can flow it into another command block with a dropper contained already with an carrot or any other edible entity, that I think we’ll actually get a little boost.”
The whole group was already wowing and Parker was drawing it out.
“Who wants to help me with this?” Jai asked, and a flutter of blocky hands jumped up.
“Good. Jai said, "We'll start in half an hour.”
In the meantime of the construction of the lightning rod contraction, Flynn decided to get a lot of coal. While it was not his Dream job, he needed the extra supplies if they were doing the lightning rod project, they would need all of the copper they could get.
Before he left parker demanded, "Get us some coal, we will need it if daniel does not wake up by night. And also I am coming with you"
"Ok" Flynn sighed
Flynn and Parker went 12 blocks into the surface before he spotted some andesite. He thought to himself "where is the copper and the coal?" After going 5 more blocks down he found coal. He mined 13 pieces of coal before he found some copper for a chance, a ton of copper. He mined 61 pieces of copper before he heard a moan.
"Stop pulling random pranks parker" Flynn said urgently
"The reason I am here is to hold the chest that will store all of the things you find" daniel said innocently "Say place a torch will you, the visibility is getting low"
"I don't take to kindly to demands" Flynn said "but you are not wrong, it is getting dark in here"
Flynn took out a torch and placed it on the wall and saw something horrifying. A zombie was walking right to them. Flynn took right to action and ran towards the zombie.
"Be careful!" Parker warned. It stopped flynn in he tracks
"Hey you are the one who fell into a lake despite jai's warnings"
"Ok, do what you like, I am not to blame if you end up like daniel"
"Chill out," Flynn said. And with that he charged at the zombie. When he was close enough he smacked the zombie in the head with his sword.
"I did not know how much damage could be dealt with a pickaxe"
Then Flynn knocked the zombie on the ground and stabbed it with the pickaxe. The zombie lay defeated on the ground.
"Well done," Parker said, shocked by what Flynn had just done.
"Well, I Guess pickaxes can be deadly right?" Flynn responded
"Hey, do you notice that?" parker asked
"What?" flynn wondered
"There's diamonds right beneath the surface, Its only 12 blocks underground"
"Well, let's collect them." Flynn said "But let's not tell anybody, ok"
"Ok" daniel said and that was that
SEVEN
The stiff wooden ladder dangled slightly while Parker tugged, pulling himself higher and higher up. He was getting closer to the surface where he could feel the bitter night air trying to rip through his enchanted leather armor.
Jake, Jai, and Flynn followed behind him, as they reached nearer to the roof.
When they had arrived, Parker pulled them out and the first sat to marvel at the view of the sunset.
Jake got to work soon enough and shuffled through the portable chest. He saw the lighting rods and the redstone, along with some food and beds in case they needed to take shifts. For the Mechanism to work, it had to be storming, so the lightning rods would be pulled up by pistons and would be done last to prevent early strikes and injuries. Jake used one of his outdated maps to wipe rainwater off the materials that he took from the chest.
The redstone patterns would be ruined by the pressure of the rain, so While Jake headed to the more covered areas to start creating the alignment, Jai and Flynn worked to cover the exposed area to protect the network.
Parker tracked the setup of the command block and tried to input some of the startup commands.
As Parker punched in some more buttons, a flash of lightning struck dangerously close to the house, and a skeleton horseman not too far from the house spawned.
“We're going to need to put those torches to good use.” Parker stated, as he looked below towards the ground.
“I’m going to slowly go down, while using a stair step method. I don’t expect anything bad to happen, so let's just cross our fingers.’
Parker attempted the dangerous descent down towards the ground and he seemed unnoticeable, when the horseman turned around, Parker was only two steps from the ground and he was automatically. dodging shots.
“Oh,” Parker challenged, “so you’re the boss battle, sorry. I already beat a titan.”
One of the skeletons with a sword swiped at him, and he jumped.
“Okay, Listen up,” Parker started. “I’m just here to place some torches so if you would—” as if Parker were declaring war rather than reasoning, the lead skeleton shot at him and he ducked while backing up, then placing a torch on the wall.
Now that he had placed about 4 torches on one edge, he wanted to keep going backwards, but that held the risk of encountering another hostile mob, which brought up another problem: how was he going to get back into the shack?
One option was to go directly through the door which had a self calculated 98.76% chance of not working, but he really did not have any other choice.
“Can you hurry up with that!” Parker yelled.
“Not if we can’t trigger it!” Flynn replied
“Why can’t you?”
“Because we need an amplifier!”
“Like what?”
“A beacon!”
“Can you use some of that iron?”
“We need something more, like emerald or diamond,”
“Wait,” Flynn said. We can use the diamonds, sorry, but it’s the promise, or your life!”
Flynn speed crafted the diamonds to reconstruct a beacon and placed the holder on top. “I don't know how you get diamonds from twelve blocks underground, but this better work!”
He jammed the wires straight to the connector and the summon connected to the command block, so the command block summoned energy itself, a flash struck the dark night, and Parker fell over. He was covered and extremely bright white, but he had no hesitation to get up.
Parker wiped off his arms and smiled. He stepped one foot and the pulse from distance instantly set the skeletons alight and melted the surrounding snow rapidly.
Parker didn’t notice, but to anyone watching him, he was a glowing white figure with sparks of red and blue jumping from his body.
Parker stood there for a moment as the short burst from the beacon died away, and then looked up at his friends and smiled.
“I think that was a successful test.” Parker noted, before making the climb up a ladder that Flynn had started constructing.
ENERGY
ROSTER CHECK
Jai: accomplished cnd: 95%
Jake: accomplished cnd: 95%
Flynn: quarrelsome cnd: 86%
Daneil: temporarily deceased cnd: 3%
Parker: Powerful/carefree cnd: 97%
Group cnd: Rich 92.3%
EIGHT
In the morning, Daniel had woken up, and he did find he was fully revived. The group had decided to work the energy boost on Daniel, and it worked, he was now up. Parker was still occasionally sparking from the energy and avoided getting too close to anyone, but it wasn’t the worst in the world, because now he had an easily triggerable superpower, he only needed iron, or stone if desperate, to trigger the reaction.
Daniel had missed the whole propaganda from the day before and was still wondering why he couldn’t do his archery. Even if the group hadn’t placed the torches outside, he wouldn’t be able to for the sake of keeping him safe. Today, the sun was shining, and they were scheduled to go fishing.
Daniel Had gone from a certain argument stage to fishing, so he questioned whatever happened to set the stage to such a happy mood.
When Daniel Got up, he took one of the fishing rods from the chest and woke up for breakfast.
It was better than anything Parker had ever made before, and as good as the smell, the taste definitely lived up to it.
Parker had lined the table with golden plates for breakfast and topped them with bread eggs and a side of porkchop with some sugared seaweed, he also had roasted fish that was rolled into a delicious style.
At breakfast, Everyone was already talking about the fishing trip and Everyone applauded when they saw Daniel walking down.
Everything was explained to Daniel when he sat down, and it seemed more like he was reading a volume of the newest fantasy than listening to his friends talk about what he had missed.
“We're going on the boats to fish today.” Jai said, just to clarify to Daniel why it was such a big deal to go fishing.
When the group landed outside, the sound of burning zombies and skeletons echoed in the distance, but any mob witness would probably know to stay off of this group, especially when led by Parker, the one who had been supercharged with diamonds.
Flynn placed the boats on the icy shoreline, and waited some time for the morning sun to beat on the ice a little bit, and let leave for little amounts of ice to remain.
They splitted to two boats, Flynn, Jake, and Daniel, and Parker with Jai.
These were divided into what groups seemed to work best, and eventually got into a fishing contest.
Yet Jai and Parker were only two people, they were catching three times more than Daniel’s group was. Jai might as well have enchanted himself with the luck of the sea.
At noon, the contest was stopped for a lunch break. part and they were farther from the shoreline, looking for better fish near the outside of the pond, which turned out to be a carry out into the ocean.
While Parker Munched on the fish sandwich that he had packed, he asked Jai, “Do you think your fishing skills came from somewhere?”
Jai finished a bite of his sandwich and replied, “no, why?”
“It just seems so unrealistic that you would be lapping everybody in fish every single time. Are you sure it’s not code or anything?”
Jai just shrugged once again. “Who knows? Not that it matters, are you trying to catch me as a cheat code or something, because you take my whole inventories worth, and I’ll have 1000 before you hit two.” Jai paused. “Let's not make this a thing, howabouts.”
“Fair,” Parker said, fishing in his bag for another sandwich. “I’m glad we have such a good fisherman right now. There’s no berries or fresh meat around here, so it’s good to always have fish as a meal option, even though it’s often a side.”
“Except for your awesome fish sandwiches!” Jai pointed out, taking another bite of his before placing it in the back of the boat.
When the contest resumed, no real letup, except for the fact that the other group had been able to catch some skill. They didn’t get many good fish, but they did catch a polar bear and killed it for a lot of materials and food, they also got many catches of gold armour, and a diamond helmet and legging.
Jai and Parker’s group didn’t fail to impress, they caught 30 cod, 17 salmon, and a decent amount of enchanted iron armor. They also caught 2 polar bears and a map.
When Parker lowered his cast of line, he felt something tugging at it, he tried to realize it, and it jumped on top of the boat.
“What——” but Parker’s eyes were too late to the scene, and what was most likely a dolphin dragged them underwater, and by the time Parker and Jai adjusted, they found that one, they had 14 points of air left, and two, their friends were coming after them.
Parker had been abducted underwater too soon to roast the dolphin, and even if he did, that would have killed Jai, the star fisherman. His first instinct was the charge up, but that did nothing but heat the water and make it harder to hold his breath.
By the time Daniel Jake and Jai had gotten there, they were all at a point where they did not have enough air to go back up. They had to build.
Flynn took the look in everyone’s eyes as a que and instantly speedswiped for all of the materials needed, he fetched diorite, which he found would be the hardest for water to leak through.
Flynn built like his life depended on it, because it did, and everyone was either losing health or at their last oxygen point.
Everyone quickly sealed themselves in, and everyone quickly scrambled for a sponge. Now everyone likely only had 16-18 health points left in their bank.
Jai quickly found the sponge that he had placed in as quickly as noticed. They would need more, but Jake found this opportunity to find a torch and make things more clear so the group could focus.
Daniel was the next to find a sponge, and now they had enough room for their heads to pop above the surface, and Jake placed another torch on the wall.
Flynn built a diorite enclosed space and everyone but Parker went inside. Parker concentrated and the whole place started to heat up and the diorite stressed from the pressure in the room, but this also evaporated all the water.
When Parker stopped, the whole room was dry, and it was a bit misty and smelled like new charcoal.
Jake broke down the enclosure and sighed. It’s a bit musty in here, but at least we're alive. The problem was that the stress from the water outside remained a problem, and Parker had only made it worse with his release of energy. The room was only 5 by 6 and the only things inside were a chest, crafting table and 5 beds going along the 5 block wall, and that meant 25 more blocks for other uses.
“We are not staying here.” Parker said, knocking at the walls.
“These will burst at any minute,” he looked at the group, then pointed upwards.
“We're going back to the surface.”
NINE
The only smart exit was from down up. Even from there, the water pressure would be hitting hardest and they were at least one thousand blocks below the surface, and it definitely wasn’t guaranteed survival.
"We have to get out of here quick!" Parker said frantically
"Why so urgent?" Jake asked "It is not like the walls are closing in on us"
"It is exactly like that!" Parker yelled. "If the energy from the beacon wore down the walls, what makes the ocean run out of the equation?”
Jake was going to say that what he was stating was sarcasm, but Parker didn’t seem like he was in condition for an argument.
“We’ve got to get vertical.” Jai said, trying to clasp the walls to get up, before asking, “do you have any ladder?”
Flynn frowned. “We used it all when we were rescuing parker.”
“We can pillar or create a staircase,” Parker suggested before adding, “we just need something. We need to get out.”
“Gotta try it.” Daniel responded, and they started one by one to test, Parker going first.
Parker only made it 100 blocks before he found his oxygen levels were getting dangerously low, and he swam back.
“It’s not going to get us far.” Parker said, shaking off water.
“We could use the command block, and try teleporting.” jake suggested
Everyone waited while Jake worked the command block, only to find that it spit his attempts back at him: invalid search-teleport radius.
“That’s not going to work.” He said backing away. “We’re here to die while this closes on us slowly, block by block.”
One of the beds had already been destroyed because the room area wasn’t strictly 5 by 6 blocks now, and measured 4 by 5 and only left with 20 blocks of mobility.
“We could add more to it, but then we would run shy of material.” Flynn suggested, unless, we could teleport this whole building to the farthest point on the radius grid possible.
“Jake continued punching coordinates into the command block as the group watched intently, then in an instant the Diorite shelter was set higher up on the world's y position.
When Daniel opened the trapdoor to begin the swim, he was surprised by the fact that they weren’t in the water anymore. They were under solid ground.
Flynn hacked away with a shovel until they saw sunlight.
It was a winter prepared village that they were in.
The grass was layered with snow and the cloud showed a great overcast as it was snowing slightly.
Some of the villagers were out shoveling snow and keeping care of the plants they grew. Many of them were inside eating food, a common one being fish.
Jai half for them. They mostly had fish as their main meal. Every single day, Parker had been delivering them the best meals with fish only being an appetizer.
But then again, these Villagers were not going against everything this group was.
They were protected by an Iron Golem——
Before Any of them could finish their thoughts about the village, an iron golem appeared behind them, they turned around to see its large beady eyes staring at them like how a hypnotized python will look at its tamer.
Instead of the normal iron golem procedure, it swung at Parker and he dived out of the way before he could get hit. Parker knew that iron golem hits were crucial. One hit and you could find yourself dead.
Parker whipped a diamond sword out of his inventory, and Daniel, Jay, Jake, and Flynn quickly backed up. He deflected another hit from the hand with his sword and rolled over.
“If fighting’s your dream job,” Parker started taking hits at the golem while avoiding hits, “Then I could stay all day and play, but I’m just trying to make my introduction statement.”
Parker got behind him and took a step with his sword thrown in front of him, and the golem set into flames and fires started all around the golem, as it remained red from damage even after it collapsed into a heap on the ground.
Flynn scraped the iron from the metal creature before stating, “Even an Iron Golem can’t stand this reaction.”
PROVEN
Roster check
Jia: confused cnd: 87%
Jake: confused cnd: 99%
Flynn: relieved cnd: 93%
Daneil: confused cnd: 96%
Parker: annoyed cnd: 95%
Group cnd: confusion 94.7%
TEN
Unlike the iron golem, the villagers treated the group as friends rather than enemies. They offered food and hospitality. They did not act like the group were invaders. Even Jai acted like they were family and they had grown up with each other their whole lives.
"So what are you going to do with us?" demanded the angry parker.
"Haurnhh" replied the villager, turning away from them.
"Speak to me, and in english for once!!"
"Gee whiz Parker, chill out."
"I want them to give me some information!" Parker explained in a exasperated voice
"Haurnhh" complained the villager, seemingly annoyed by Parker's accusations.
Parker rolled his eyes and turned away from the villager.
“He doesn’t seem to want to trade does he?” Jai asked. He had always vowed that one time in his life he would trade some fish with a villager.
Jai walked up, only to find that this one wanted maps.
Jake gave it one of his maps he had made prior the fishing trip and the villager gladly traded for 8 emeralds. Jake smiled and gave half to Flynn and put the rest in his portable chest inventory.
Parker sighed. “So this villager doesn’t want to kill us like that iron golem.
“That is good.” Jai said "That means they can't gang up against us."
“And instead they will help us.” Daniel added.
“Shocked to see you positive.” Jai joked.
Daniel sighed.
The villager motioned like he wanted the group to go on a tour. First they went into a place that had a sign that read : Living room. it was 3 times the size of any village house they had ever seen. It was an elephant compared to an ant. There were 4 stair blocks arranged to make a couch, and in the 4 corners lanterns were arranged. A crafting table and a stone cutter lay in the middle.
Parker thought, that's strange, it's weird as finding diamond ore only a dozen blocks down from the surface.
Why is one room so big?” Parker decided to notify the one other person that knew this secret: Flynn.
As if Flynn read Parker's mind, Flynn whispered "what is the size of a single room?"
"I was about to ask you the same question.” Parker responded "But right now, I have no clue at all"
"Maybe the others will know.” Flynn suggested.
The others took a while to find. It turned out that they were having a barbecue with the other villagers.
The fire lightened up the night sky while tents bordered the line area, close enough to a river in case the fire caught on the wool tents.
Jai was telling the villagers stories about his fishing trip, and some of them actually paid him an emerald for the entertainment. Jai was also told that they could have him as a fisherman. It would pay a good 3 emeralds and 2 iron ingots a day, and a diamond at the end of every week. Jai agreed before heading to bed.
The Village had prepared 3 king sized beds for each of them, and extra wool blankets.
The village seemed to find use in Parker's superpower and Jai’s fishing abilities meaning that the whole group could stay.
"I wonder if they are going to use my ability to their advantage?" Parker wondered
"What? that that will never happen," Jake said.
“Yeah!” Jai added. “They're too dumb to even speak!” Jai said. That last part was a bit quieter, but Jai still figured they’d be a bit more respectful to the guests to give them privacy.
“Dont worry about it.” Daniel Said. “You could kick their little villagers' tushies.”
“You're right.” Parker said, looking up at the ceiling. It was made of stone and had a small glass outlook for the view of the night sky. “It’s just so questionable why they would be so nice to newcomers, especially because they’re basically giving us all they have.”
“I feel you,” said Flynn. “What do they want out of us?”
Jake sighed, tapping on the wooden lower part of his bed. “Can’t we discuss this in the morning? I’m trying to get some sleep if you don’t mind.”
“Everyone agreed, given that no one wanted to talk about it, as they each dropped like flies to sleep.
ELEVEN
In the morning, everyone woke up to the smell of breakfast, but it didn’t quite smell right.
Parker intimidated throwing up when he got up out of his bed.
The village had its own breakfast system, which the group had learned. Everyday you wake up you go over to the firepit area where a lot of the chefs work together to prepare breakfast.
It was a simple meal of porkchop and berries which people warmed in the furnaces themselves.
“This is just sad.” Parker said, walking up to one of the chefs.
He motioned the villager away from the grill and he asked Flynn and Jai to come up with him. As soon as he started, the village, which seemed satisfied with their meals a few minutes ago, was forming a line for food.
When Parker cooked, he really enabled a sense that depletes when you don’t get any of his food.
Everyone in the village had at least three servings. Parker's meal consisted of fish wrapped in seaweed packed into a sugary bond, with many types of berries and apples on the sides, with carrots shaped in a chopsticks like way, giving some fun with edible chopsticks.
When the village was done eating, one of the only audible noises of the morning were the satisfied grunts of villagers bringing the remains of their food for midday snacks.
Parker didn’t feel like bragging. He was doing what he usually did. It wasn’t quite fair that these villagers were living off this mush, or at least that's what Parker thought of it at first glance.
Jai had already left to do his fishing duty, that was figurable, but the rest of the group was gone.
They probably just went to explore the village. Parker thought, and he headed on to prepare lunch.
Jake pointed to maps where the villagers questioned and he explained them all very quickly, in question of the villager’s intentions.
The mapping room of the village was as rich as all of the other houses, it was stacked with a chest filled with emeralds and gold, and they all had at least five rooms and had a basement, ground level, and upstairs and the occasional attic.
The only thing that surprised jake was that the house had snow inside of it, and he was able to translate with the command block that the villager was currently fixing what was a hole in the roof, and when Jake looked up, the villager was proven true.
Jake quickly went back to his maps feeling a bit bad for the villager, as it studied closely. But Jake had to admit the room that this villager had setup was pretty neat, but then again, he was getting even more suspicious about not just the village—— but the world generation.
Flynn had to mine for valuables. The villagers said they wanted 2 stacks of copper and coal by the end of the day.
"How am supposed to reach that goal by the end of today" flynn said
The villager shrugged, meaning I don't know and don't really care
Flynn decided if he could not beat them, then he should join them. But he already had a list of reasons why he hates it
It was tiring
No one really appreciated it
It was dangerous
It was time consuming
And with those 4 reasons reluctantly went into the mine. This mine was 2 times deeper than any mine he ever encountered. It looked like someone had used it before Flynn. It had torches on the side. He thought that it might have been a dungeon but he immediately erased that thought from his head. He didn't want to think of that while he was in the mine. First he decided to be sneaky and steal a few torches. When he finished stealing about 2 dozen torches, he decided to get to work.
He started with only finding stone but kept it safely in his inventory. Once he found enough to sustain them for a long long time, he decided to look somewhere else. He actually found some coal this tme 23 pieces. He took out a clock. It was midday. He furiously mined until he was 7 short. It was sunset. He got some stone and decided it would be a good fraud. When he got up the villergar motioned to the ores. He gave them 121 real ores and 7 fake ones.
The villager held up a torch and pointed to Flynn
"Huh?" flynn asked
The village pointed to a sign that read
We know what you did. Confront yourself and you will have no punishment.
"Ok, here are your torches and your 7 pieces of stone. Bye!" Flynn said
And that was that
Jai was happily in his boat oolong the shore. After a hour he found a leather vest which he hope he could ceep
Daniel Was back to his old duties, but in the village. The villagers didn’t seem to care that he had just recovered, but then again they did destroy the village iron golem.
It was really more like a steakout, given that the village was illuminated so brightly that no zombies would spawn very likely instantly be killed by the light.
Daniel Was about to collapse when he heard the sound of a villager behind him.
He grunted at him to get up and Daniel wobbled unsteadily trying to keep balance.
The Villager pushed him with a stick, and Daniel Growled.
Obviously he should know that sticks and stones wouldn’t break his bones. He drew his bow, scanning the area in misery. He didn’t take a break until dawn the next morning
TWELVE
Parker Felt that his friends hadn’t really met up with him in a long while, so he went to go scan the village for them. When he was passing a large oak plank house covered in snow, he saw the lights were still on, and he found a figure, and it looked a lot like Jake.
Parker opened the door, and it was. The villager nor Jake seemed to notice, and it was hard to tell if Jake was sleeping or almost in slow motion marking on maps.
The way that the villager was attentively staring at Jake made Parker get a queasy feeling. He had made breakfast for the villagers, as well as lunch and dinner, but did they think that they could take advantage of his friends? This was exactly what he thought would happen.
Parker ducked under one of the plank tables before another villager walked in and started a conversation, which sounded more like consecutive grunts than the almost perpetual exchange of ideas.
When the conversation was done, the village grunted near Jake, who was obviously sleeping now, and the villagers both left the room and turned the lights off.
When the conversation wasn’t adiable anymore, Parker crawled from the bottom of the table and rushed over to jake. He tugged on his shoulder to see if he was still asleep.
Parker gave him a controlled burst of energy and Jake shot awake feeling a bit less tired.
“They’re using you!” Parker exclaimed.
“I know.” Jake replied groggily. “I need more energy. I can barely sit straight.”
Parker focused a bit more energy towards Jake, and he sat up straight and attempted to leave. He was still crouching over when he walked, but it would have to do.
Parker and Jai looked out of the window and didn’t see any approaching villagers, so they dashed outside in the hope of not getting caught.
“Where’s everyone else?” Parker whispered
“I don't know.” Jake whispered back. “They split us up and tried to determine our strengths.
Parker sighed. “Shame. I always knew there was more to these villagers than grunts.
Parker and Jake each drank a swiftness potion and darted across the village, in search of Flynn, Daniel, and Jai.
It was not too long before they came up against a giant tower which was constructed out of iron and andesite. At the top there were bars, and surrounding towers where fires burned for light shone over the lakers and bordered the over cross. It looked like the village's sniper tower, and Parker sighed fearing the worst.
Before he could cry out to Daniel to check if he was there, he was met with arrows before Jake launched a shield in the way.
“Nice save.” Parker said, running to the other side, where they faced another stream of arrows that they either dodged or deflected with their swords.
With the light of the fires illuminating the archer tower, Daniel could clearly be seen, and he didn’t even look focused on his targets, a reason why he probably was shooting at his friends.
“I guess he was right when he said that he could fight in his sleep.” Jake said, starting to wake up.
“My supercharge is a weapon, except when I can’t actually hurt my friends.
Jake nodded, giving Parker a new sword.
“We need to get to the top.” Parker said diving through arrows and jumping to the sides.
“One thing they got wrong with the construction,” Jake started, “is that they added hangovers ranging about 1 to 3 blocks for the look and architecture rather than the use. He can’t shoot us while we're here on the walls, so we can inch up and sneak attack there. He’ll never know what side we're coming from, until we jump.
Parker grabbed the weakest sword he had, being stone, and while Jake constructed a ladder to the top, Daniel waited looking over the area.
When their climb had succeeded hitting the top, Daniel’s back was to them, but his senses instantly averted to Parker and Jake, he lurched forward to them, but didn’t attack. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times while Parker and Jake waited in silence.
Daniel Dropped his bow, but he had a look in his eyes that reminded Jake of how he looked when Daniel had Taken a hit.
“They’re using us.” Daniel said, half confused.
Parker looked at Daniel. “Please don’t tell me I was right. I’m going to be hearing that a lot for the rest of this night.”
Parker looked around for any villagers. Daniel Understood what this meant and whispered, “My ‘boss’ Is taking a stew break. We have no more than two minutes to get down there.”
The job seemed complicated at first, but the unrealism about the world generation really came into good use.
Parker overlooked the house and found that it was formed of a complex redstone power grid, so if Parker could use his newfound ‘modification’ to temporarily distract the villagers inside, they could escape to the side wall, avoiding villagers exiting.
Parker focused the biggest portion of energy as he could, trying to aim it into one area. The corruption shut down the whole network, but not as they wanted.
The backup power grid was still online, but not only that, but the villagers had a light source, fires that had ignited from the shutdown.
The sounds of villagers rushing for the now flaming door was easily noticeable to anyone in the village, if they were awake, and would disturb the iron golem, but that’s only if the village had one.
Not wanting to stick around to find out if this village had some sort of backup, Parker slowly descended the alight house, and they started to dash off to find the rest of the group, wherever they were in the vast village.
THIRTEEN
Mike scanned the area. It was mostly a dense savanna area, with the exception of plains that varied across the vast landscape.
Nathan waited on the side, slouching against one of the trees. Across from there was a large ocean that they had just passed, and they were still exhausted from the trip, all except for Mike, who had still been eager to continue. John and Liam worked on their maps while Kyler worked his axe on one of the trees.
“Anything from the maps?” Kyler asked, switching out for another sword.
Ekeler worked on a shack while everyone worked or thought. So far, it has been pretty decent. It had 10 by 14 walls and had two floors, and a basement and roof a work in progress. The inside was also lined with rows of tables and chests and other miscellaneous items, and the windows let the early morning sunlight pass through them, with flowers that accompanied them.
Kyler smiled from his seemingly creative inventory, based on everything that he had. He pulled out a sword, but it wasn’t any normal sword, it gleamed looking like emeralds, except it changed colors often.
Liam, noticing it was experiment time, fetched an iron golem spawn egg, from his seemingly extensive inventory.
The iron golem instantly ran towards Liam, supposedly modded as well.
Kyler slammed the sword, gleaming blue, teal, and red all at the same time, and The iron golem went down in one hit.
Kyler smiled. “Some serious power comes from,” he finished ominously, “Mods.”
CHAOS
Roster check
Jia: confused cnd: 89%
Jake: weak cnd: 31%
Flynn: sneaky cnd: 21%
Daneil: weak cnd: 36%
Parker: responsible cnd: 76%
Group cnd: Beat 46.2%
FOURTEEN
While The group sped down the village path, they didn’t notice until one landed square in front of them that they had been noticed, and being fired at, with some sort of fireball.
The first thing Parker saw when he looked up was the villagers banded together near the sniper tower area, and they didn’t look very happy either, jumping up and down, with their eyebrows furrowed in a pixel conduct.
Daniel Shielded the group waving his many swords to stop the rain of fire.
“I guess they did have back-up" Parker stated
“Well, you don't need to state the obvious, parker. Please use your super lightning boost or whatever because,” he paused before whispering "we could respawn in a deep dark place better known as The void.
Parker, Jake, and Flynn realized they weren’t getting out very easily when they noticed ahead of them, three golems, that could be referred to a more detailed title, but they weren’t anything that they had seen before. They had consisted of the same structure as an iron golem, except they were made of Diamonds, gleaming in the light of the village lanterns
In the arms of the golem in the middle, who was wearing iron armor and an enchanted diamond helmet, was Flynn. He had his head down and wasn’t moving.
When the rain of fire diminished, the villagers slowly began to gather around the group. In the distance, Jai was running towards them, but when he got there, he did nothing against the golems, rather just stood there, waiting.
Parker didn’t Speak, yet tension commanded him too.
The Villagers grunted knifing looks at each other while the group sat in eerie silence.
One of the villagers held up a torch and Jake seemed to have jolted into action.
“We’ve gotta get this over with.” whispered Jake, and as if everyone else heard, the place erupted into fire, arrows and swords clashing.
Jake already had five villagers down before being nearly hit by the iron golem. He ducked before getting the leg with his diamond sword. He knew it barely did anything, but at least they were slowly winning.
Daniel was flashing arrows at targets efficiently and precisely, while getting square hits on every round, using his shield to make sure that he didn’t get hit.
Parker did his best to get some villagers to follow him, then eliminating them from existence within seconds. He even took out the diamond golem two hits, but the fun ended when Parker took a hit himself.
While Parker struggled to get up, the rest of the village moved in closer, until they stopped.
The side behind them opened up, as multiple others walked inside. They definitely weren’t villagers, but they also couldn’t be the NPC type the Parker, Jake, and Daniel were. Their name tags rose above their head as they walked, or should they say strutted over.
By the Time Jake had confirmed these were players, he stopped to look at them, then to his surprise, the one in front, by the name of Mike, Spoke.
“Thank you villagers, I have them right where I want them.” he started looking around and giving the villagers smiles. “But I think you don’t even know what you were programmed to do with these guys,” continued Mike, as he started to hover slightly above them, as if the players had seemingly enabled flying.
“That’s right,” continued the one by the name of Nathan. “You were only programmed to kill until you stop, or in other words kill in a range of time, a time test which you have failed.” Nathan looked at some of the frowning faces And looked again, “but that was your program. And if you didn’t follow it, we might as well just ditch you. Erase you from the program.”
Skype started to float up too, and to everyone's amazement or surprise, he pulled out a gleaming sword, flashing green, red, blue, teal, yellow, and other variants of them.
“I suggest you start your labor now,” the one named John called, and Liam and Ekeler walked up to him.
Jake closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. And turned to whisper to Daniel, and spoke, have you ever heard someone yap this much? Daniels eyes change and whisper back while Parker tried to work things out, it’s not one person. Did they bring the jumbo pack?
John continued, “Now what should we do with these traitors?”
“How are we traitors?” Daniel demanded infuriated “we are just abiding to our own code! We were living peacefully in our own place not even knowing about you people.”
“Correction.” Ekeir responded “we coded you to serve this village with your ‘talents’ so you better get working.”
Jake rolled his eyes, “rude.” he commented.
Ekeler moved over to Liam. “I’d like you to commence your jobs again.”
Jai finally spoke. “Well what if I don’t want to?”
Everyone gasped, and John took this as a challenge.
“Oh well then,” Mike said, joining John. he had welded an enchanted netherite sword and almost in an instant tore down his old armor and replaced it with fine netherite, dropping to the ground.
“I would like an surrender better, but there’s a reason we don’t have the kids who play soldier, be soildier.” He walked slowly closer, and intiminating look in his eyes that burned into Jake and Daniel as he spoke. “They still need to learn their lessons. Kind of like you.”
“Bring it!” Daniel Said, and he pulled out a sword of his own. A plain sword, no enchantment, but it was still diamond. The rest of the group also brought out their swords.
Ekeler giggled. “I would think it wasn’t fair that you were ganging up against Mike and John, but we outnumber you. Nathan, Kyler, Skype, and Liam and him pulled out their own swords. “With Flynn out, you’re even weaker.”
And for the second time of the day, a battle erupted.
This time, no progress was made by Specialy Encoded NPCs, or SEN’s with Ekeler pushing most of the battle through.
While it was tragedy and pushing from the side of Daniel, Parker, Jai and Jake, the players found it rather easy, and by the time one of the players was down, Parker was the only one standing.
“You think you’re so special don’t you. Just because you can use the power of that electricity.”
Parker shook his head, as the battle seemed to settle into dust, and the Players were trying to reason with them.
“I get it. You're the leader. Not the miner, not the mapper, not the fisher, and not the warrior. The leader.”
Parker nodded slightly as Ekeler hummed in understanding.
“If I were as great a leader as you, I would probably just surrender. It’s not worth it. Abide by your code. Or else,” he paused making sure that Parker was listening, but of course he was.
“We could delete you.” he finished quietly.
Parker stood there as it began to rain slightly. He wiped his head, and pondered.
“Okay.” he came to a conclusion and he stepped back.
“Thank you for making this,” he made quotes with his blocky hands, “‘easy,’ you can take a break for now. Rest up. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
When the rest of the group woke up, Parker received a message from chat. These types of messages were not heard by others because they were sent on game servers, and it read at night's meet at the well, this way we will be able to meet up and find and escape.
but Ekeler did hear, and he was going to say “We can hear you, we own the server. We control all that happens in it. drop the idea immediately,” but Liam shushed him. “They can change by morning, and this would be a fairly good test for their personalities, not only that, but they will learn that they can’t escape us.”
FIFTEEN
The next day lived up exactly to the hype, but not exactly so hypy.
Flynn spent the day mining while Jai fished. Jake worked with the mapper while Daniel fought and Parker cooked. The day went by slowly, and by the time it was lunchtime, they had all gathered to eat. Parker was the chef, and he, as usual, had made a beautiful meal. This one was a slight bit similar— a fun fact, Parker's mood influenced the depth of meals. Right now, he didn’t feel like cooking, but he did anyway.
It consisted of Milk with bread berries on the side, the carrots cooked a bit and sugary potatoes and eggs.
He also served a strength potion on the side, half because he needed to rid his inventory of what would be suspicious to the Players, who were eating on the side, looking up a multitude of times to check on what was happening.
Rather than whispering, each of them ate briefly before waiting for the instruction to go back to their jobs, to limit suspicion, they didn’t even use their game chat, just in case of any reactions.
When they got back to their jobs, the tensions were eased a bit, and the only slip was Daniel got hit once with an skeleton arrow, from which a skelelton was hiding under a tree for the whole day on Daniel's blindside.
Jake had caught many fish and amazed the other fishers as they watched in envy as Jai caught trout, salmon, dolphins, and others.
Flynn had found more diamonds close to the surface, one thiry six blocks down, and one five.
Jake had finished his fifty seventh map when he was told that he could take a break early, so he spent the rest of the day resting on a plank bench.
At Dusk, when John and Liam were the only ones now awake, the SENs started digging in the bottom of each of their own workspaces. They were each armed with comasses and maps.
They were able to slowly close into one meeting spot., which was under a well. It was dark, but Flynn, used to the drill, placed a torch on the wall, and the light illuminated the area, including Kyler and Skype.
SIXTEEN
Skype immediately burst into laughter. “Are you serious? You think you can bust into our server, and think we don’t have every single thing you say here? That’s just humiliating.”
Kyler shook his head. “Did you think you were going to escape us that easily? That’s not a good way to go about things. Skype’s right, in this domain, we’re the ultimate power. If we corrupt, the server corrupts, and this life corrupts. We are the invincible entity. Nothing will attack us or go against us, except you. Even if the did. We can’t die. We can genuinely, but not legitamately.”
“Enough with the speech!” Flynn demanded. “We get it. We got busted. Game over, no pun intended.”
Skype looked at Kyler. “This isn’t a game.” Kyler said. “We don’t need to execute you.”
Daniel Breathed out a sigh of belief before Skype finished coldly. “We will emprision you.”
DAMAGED
Roster check
Jai: deeply broken cnd: 12%
Jake: broken cnd: 31%
Flynn: broken cnd: 34%
Daneil: angry cnd: 36%
Parker: guilty cnd: 35%
Group cnd: Fallen Apart 29.9%
SEVENTEEN
All of the Players had gathered around the SENs and had shook their head at what they saw. Ekeler and John were not surprised.
It went quick, each of them took a beating from the iron golem putting them in horrible condition, and were escorted the long distance to an underground dungeon they had. As guards it was crawling with Evokers, poisonous spiders and wardens, almost as an warning screaming, don’t try to escape, but the exact opposite was happening in Flynn's mind. He was thinking of all the perfect ways to escape.
If any of them were being completely honest, thinking wasn’t very petty. It was a task nearly achievable, as they were slowly dropping in health levels. By the time each of them dropped, they were already in the cell.
CAPTIVE
Roster check
Jai: fallen: 2%
Jake: fallen cnd: 3%
Flynn: fallen cnd: 1%
Daneil: falling cnd: 8%
Parker: fallen cnd: 0.12%
Group cnd: Inactive 1.54%
EIGHTEEN
The cell was more of a depressing outlook than an imprisonment, or at least from the perspective of Flynn.
As soon as the group woke up, they took a nice look at the hellish landscape, or cellscape. It was surrounded by obsidian that was not breakable, sided with diamond blocks and the other most durable items in the whole existence.
Mobs lined the entrance, ready to maul any of the SENs if they tried to escape.
Iron bars were the only area to be able to see the rest of the world outside— of the cell. They weren’t even allowed to go outside, for the risk of escape was too real.
The only one of the Players who were remaining was Ekeler, who still shook his head, before leaving the instant that the SENs got up.
Parker rubbed his eyes as if he just had a deep sleep rather than been crushed by an Apex Modification of an Iron golem, and sat up. There was no question where they were, the first instinct of everyone's mind was “escape.” but they were all smarter than that. It was a massive security prison, with chats out of order, all they could do was make hand signals, which they hardly understood.
Jake was the first to speak. “We probably have a purpose here.” Jake started, looking around the cell to see if any of the players were listening. Clearly there was no one to listen to him. “Like serving our time. I’m feeling like something to do honestly, we can’t just be laying around here for the rest of our short lives.” Jake received a smack for the last part, this one from Parker, who had learned not to have any negativity in the group.
“Sure you have something you should be doing!” said a crackled voice, and the group turned around to be able to see an figure who was only outlined by glitching neon that bordered his 3d appearance.
He appeared to be standing still, and he had a voice that rattled each of their systems.
“Who are you?” Parker asked, not very pleased of all the impersonations he didn’t know yet.
“Me?” asked the figure. “I’m Pyil, But I can be lots of things.” He stopped, but that was only a basic introduction, he figured. “I can be an crafter——”
“Taken.” interrupted Flynn, not wanting his job taken by this newbee.
“I can be a fisher.” He suggested.
“Taken again.” Jai admitted. Realizing the begining of a pattern.
“If you can’t do anything special, you might just not be useful.” commented Daniel.
“I just answered your question about serving earlier!” Pyil recalled. “And I’m not useless. I have much more talents.”
“Let's hear them.” Jake challenged. “Mining, Hunting, Fighting, Protecting, Brewing, Coding, Mapping, Problem solving,” He was interrupted yet again.
“I think you should Make potions and enchant things.” Jake said, pleased with these talents. “So I must,” Pyil said. Glad the group came up with a decision.
“So,” Daniel Began, “how do we serve?”
“Oh,” Pyil started. “The village gave you some fairly easy tasks. You shouldn’t have left them, here their much harder.”
Jake’s heart sank. “What do you mean, harder.”
Vigorous mining, ocean cleaning fend of monsters with a stick, clean the wells, (hope you can get out) venture far to get rare materials, and basically just sitting——”
Hands went up. “Id rather sit.” Parker said.
“——and fight the ender dragon without moving.”
“Never Mind!” everyone said simultaneously.
“We’ll, everyone’s gotta do something.” Pyil mentioned. “It’s the rules!”
 |
Samuel T Ihimodu Joined: Jan-12-2025 |
