Seven hundred and forty one days.
It's been seven hundred and forty one days since the mob invasion. Everybody has lost something or someone, whether it be their homes, friends, family, or even their own lives. And the worst part? There is no stopping it. There isn't any prophecy to stop this. There isn't any mythical "chosen one," or some sort of cure. This is it. This is reality now, and that reality is a cold and uncaring one:
Do whatever it takes to survive.
It all started 45 years ago with the warrior king known as Notch. King Notch had, whether it be through diplomacy or conquest, acquired all known land currently mapped out by civilization. He named his unified kingdom, "Minecraftia." With all the known land under his unified rule and banner, the warrior king became an emperor, and his kingdom an empire.
But this is not the typical story about an emperor turned evil. Emperor Notch, unlike the kings, barons, and warlords who had come before him, was kind and fair to his people.
Under his rule, he was able to transform Minecraftia from a war-torn battlefield into a stabilized union of commerce, education, and diplomacy. He established trade routes to and from the many cities in his new empire. He built many schools that specialized in redstone engineering, alchemy, construction and masonry, agriculture, business, and various other fields of study. He also made education free to any and all who wished to apply themselves. With proper education now available to everybody, Minecraftia flourished and grew very quickly. Towns that used to only have several wooden huts soon transformed into castles and cities complete with stone walls and farmland. And, in a feat that had never been attempted or much less accomplished before, he was even able to establish a stronghold in the mythical Nether, conquering the area from the zombie pigmen who formerly owned the hell-like underworld. The taxes were fair, the farms were bursting with crops, and he had a considerable army of troops garrisoned in every city and town to keep order and maintain peace. Indeed, by many peoples' account, Emperor Notch had created the perfect civilization.
But good things seldom last.
Emperor Notch, while his word was law and ultimately had the final say on decisions, had a special group that he created to discuss various topics on the social and economic matters of the empire. Called the Order of the Empirical Consultants, or just "the Order," this group was tasked with offering advice and updates on the empire to Emperor Notch. Composed of numerous lawmen of the Capitol City, the Order was slowly starting to grow tired of Emperor Notch's charitable and fair acts as emperor. The taxes, by their account, were too low. The government should have more power, not the people. Their disillusion with the emperor grew as Notch's chief consultant and brother, Herobrine, made promises of how he would make them all very rich men if he were emperor instead of Notch.
Greed, once again, became the undoing of so much good.
Eventually, the entire Order was conspiring to overthrow Notch and replace him with Herobrine. And, of course, they succeeded. Using the trust that Notch had in Herobrine against him, Herobrine was able to get close enough to his brother to poison his wine goblet. One sip was all it took. Notch's body was quickly disposed of and the Order wasted no time in declaring Herobrine the new emperor. Of course, had they known the events that were about to transpire, they would have killed Herobrine as well to stop him. Unfortunately, their lack of foresight led to more than just Notch's death that night.
Herobrine, although evil, was very clever. He knew that there was no way Notch, a mere mortal, was able to lead an army to conquer the entire known world by himself. There had to be a secret to his success on the battlefield. And he was right. Herobrine ordered the castle to be searched up and down. Every cabinet, every display case, every mattress, every crack or crease would be turned inside out and upside down until finally he found it. The secret to Notch's power: a magic tome found under the floorboards.
This tome, written in the olden language, was enchanted with a very powerful spell. It's origins were unknown, but the book was dated back to the earliest known history of Minecraftia, hundreds of years before the warrior king Notch. How his brother obtained such a tome, Herobrine did not know, but neither did he care. Herobrine thought that with this tome, he too shall become as powerful a leader as Notch. But Herobrine was arrogant. He did not understand that the tome would only work for those who had been properly trained to use it. Chosen to use it. Because of his pride, Herobrine was not only unable to harness the power of the tome, he was stricken blind by the power sealed within the tome itself. Cursing the tome, Herobrine ordered the old book to be burned. The greatest mistake mankind has ever known.
As the tome burned, the words within became twisted, distorted, and charred. These words were not, however, the source of the tome's power. They were the protective seal that bound the magic to the book. As they burned away, the magic seeped into the air. As the magic grew and grew and became more unbound by the fire, it created a rift. A rift between the living and the dead. Unable to contain anymore of the tome's power, the rift ruptured as the magic completely dispersed and covered all of Minecraftia. For a few minutes there was silence. And then there were screams. Nobody could believe their eyes at the sight that laid before them.
The dead were rising.
It didn't matter if they died two seconds ago or a hundred years ago. Out of the ground corpses and skeletons were slowly starting to crawl out. They had only one thing that drove them. Only one objective. One purpose: Kill. The mobs of zombies and skeletons quickly overran the Capitol City in its confusion. They butchered anything in their path, man or beast. In a matter of just a few hours, the Capitol City was completely overrun and the Empire was already crumbling. The Consultants of the Order fled the city leaving it to burn along with any citizens that weren't lucky enough to get a military escort out. As for the newly crowned Emperor? In a dramatic case of irony, Herobrine ended up being killed by the very person he had poisoned just hours earlier. Fate destined Notch to be able to get his revenge in death as a flesh-eating zombie.
Referred to as the "mob" due to their sheer amount of numbers, the zombies and skeletons were showing up everywhere, not just at the Capitol. It wasn't enough, however, for the rift to raise the dead. Nature itself was cursed, and out of the trees came the leaved abominations known only as the "creepers." These creepers had the power of combustion, and wooden fortifications and housing were soon rendered obsolete due to their explosive properties.
Many survivors who had escaped the mobs from the Capitol City tried to make their way to another city for refuge, only to meet their end along the way. Those who were able to make it to the gates of a city found them closed to keep out the mob and unable to take in survivors. They also died. Panic and hysteria was rampant throughout the remaining cities. The walls were able to keep out the mobs from coming inside the gates, but it couldn't stop the riots in the streets and the looting and murder that quickly became common place city life in the final days of the empire. Eventually, the northern cities fell. Then, as a concentrated mob moved further south through the mountains, the southern cities fell. Finally, just a few short months after the mob invasion began, the last stronghold of the empire fell, a coastal city located in the south-west known as Spawn Pointe. Said to be the birthplace of humanity in Minecraftia, it became the final resting place for the empire, as well as most of mankind.
But not all of mankind.
The empire had fallen. But there were still survivors. Pockets of people were spread all through the remains of Minecraftia. Each group might as well have been its own little kingdom. With no imperial laws to abide by, anarchy was the law. Some groups resorted to raiding and pillaging other groups' supplies and camps to survive. These people became known as "griefers" due to the destruction and grief they'd leave behind in the wake of their raids. Other groups, however, set up small forms of government and tried to return to the ways before the mob invasion. Other groups simply just traveled place to place without keeping in one spot too long and plundered the remains of the old cities for anything useful. In the end, it really didn't matter. No matter what, all these groups had one thing in common, and that was their mindset. The only mindset that anyone has anymore:
Do whatever it takes to survive.
Next Chapter: Compass
A/N: Hey there, first chapter (technically introduction so "Chapter 0") of this new Minecraft FF I'm working on. I've been wanting to write about this a lot and now that I'm out of the house I finally can. I actually posted the first chapter or two of a similar story like, a year ago, but I really didn't like the direction I was going with it and I really didn't enjoy it, so I scrapped it and now I'm sort of working on this one which is sort of a new and improved version of my last attempt with some changes to make it better. This time, though, I actually like what I'm writing and I'm going to actually try my damnest to finish it this time 'round. Anyway, if you think this is an interesting concept or whatever, or maybe you don't like it at all, I'm always happy for any sort of feedback and I'll hopefully be posting the next chapter, the FIRST first chapter, in a day or two. Thanks for reading. :)
