This story is 85 percent true.
Heist.
If you were to gain knowledge of a massive fort in the center of a desert, what would you do? Explore it? Carry on?
I'm guessing you say explore it.
What if you were then told that the fort was built by some of the best redstone engineers and builders to ever find their way onto the server, and was populated by some of the toughest thugs imaginable?
Carry on, right?
Thats's why were different. This is our story.
We were three idiots with no real plan. Were we master fighters? Not really, no. Were we redstone wizards? Well, one of us was, but we didn't have much. Perhaps we were Builders, crafting massive structures for hire? No. We... were Thieves.
Thieves, by nature, should not be well-known. A bad Thief makes his presence known. Someone open their chest and finds it empty, people get curious. Start searching. But a good Thief is never seen. One day there will be sixteen diamonds in a chest. The next there will be fourteen. You chalk it up to your friend borrowing some to make a sword.
Of course, we're no friends.
One look at us and you would think 'noobs', or, if you were more polite, 'upstarts'. Half-broken iron armor, not a diamond between us. If you were to look in our chest while we weren't around, you'd see we have a meager 12 iron and a pile of stone. If you were to look in the chest multiple times, you may wonder why there is always twelve iron in there. Most people aren't that good, though.
As a matter of fact, it would take one as skilled as ourselves to find our real base, located in our cobblestone factory. To reveal its location would compromise us, but I assure you its brilliant.
In this base, we have a massive network of tunnels leading to and from our contacts and prospect victims. This is also where we keep all our things, clearly labeled and cornered off. One chest: building. Another: ores. However, you would not find a single diamond. The location of the diamonds is for us to know only.
We had heard through the mumblings of passersby about a massive fort in the middle of the desert, supposedly home to multiple Pros and Berserkers. Most would see this as a place to avoid. We saw riches and a challenge.
Throughout this story, you may say 'why didn't they just tunnel into the base?'. Due to rampant thefts, the members of the community laid down some ground rules. We understood we couldn't stop each other from stealing, however we could at least make it fair. Rather than just tearing up a home in search of chests, we would use finesse and skill to find hidden things. Searching high and low for levers, or following the sound of water. These terms were agreed upon as follows; Don't just be a jerk and tear up houses to steal.
So, that's why we didn't just burrow into their treasury. Honor among thieves and whatnot.
Anyway, the tree of us where sitting in our main meeting room, discussing how we were going to break in.
"So, I've gotten us some basic floor plans." said Pat. Pat was in every major group on the server. He just happened to go away exploring a lot. We still can't figure out how no one suspects him of anything yet.
"I haven't got it all, but I know that the above ground part isn't where they keep the good stuff."
"Where then? Will I need to dismantle some traps?" said Steven. Steven was the go-to guy for hiding things and redstone. He was often hired to help others hide their things. We only robbed them a little. Doesn't seem fair to rob someone when you know exactly where their valuables are, does it?
"A little. Most of it we could just sneak around though. They've got dispensers with lava buckets over key entries, so its crucial we're not seen until we make our exit. Otherwise we're trapped."
"We could just bring buckets. They stack now, you know." said Castro. Castro did much of the planning, though we didn't call him the ringleader. We were ALL ringleaders.
"I don't think you understand just how many lava traps were talking about here. It also looks like there's some piston doors leading to particular people's rooms, and our informant says that when you press the button to open one of the iron doors, he can hear repeaters ticking as well."
"Alright" said Castro, getting up from the table. "So, here's what we know: there are traps and hidden bits. Only know that there's lava in the doors, and that there are piston doors leading to privates quarters. We know nothing else, other than that there's a treasure trove hidden underground somewhere. That's it?"
"Yeah, basically." replied Pat.
"This is gonna be fun." said Castro, a mad hint to his voice.
The building was impressive, I'd give them that. Massive stone brick walls, with netherbrick around the door frames. You could see the dispensers lined up on the wall, all with trails leading to a single lever. Inside the wall, there were multiple turrets, towers, and rooms, all connected via walkways. You could just see the tip of a tree farm on the far edge.
We had come light, expecting to go back heavy. Castro had no more than a pick, a sword and a bow, while Pat was packing potions. Steven had some redstone circuitry and about a half-stack of TNT. We had decided at the now-dubbed 'mineva convention' that TNT was OK. We weren't planning on pulling the ol' 'take some and they wont know' trick. Anyone with this much was practically begging to have it all taken away.
Perched upon the wall were two bowmen. We could faintly hear their jabber as we crouched behind a convenient sand dune.
"I can't wait to try this new bow enchantment. I mean, Smite V! Doesn't smite mean, I dunno, shootin' lightnin' or something?" said the first, shoving his bow in the others face.
"Smite enchantments deal more damage to the undead. Zombies and skellies."
"Oh," said the other, his grin fading. "I was planning on callin' down the Zeus on anyone who came near."
"You can still do that. Just with normal arrows."
We had enough of listening to their idiotic small talk. While the two were busy gabbing, we snuck in the front gate.
"What, no tripwire?" said Castro. "I'm almost insulted."
"Just keep watch for them once were inside, we have limited information." whispered Steven.
Once we were inside, it was simple enough. Pat had gotten some pretty good info on where the private rooms were. It was just "room here!" and a quick button search before we had whatever personal items the tenants possessed. One of them was even keeping a diary! 'dear diary, today I mined some iron...'
We had a few run-ins with some guards, but nothing got hostile. However, it was clear that everyone in the hold had at least one enchanted item.
"Wait guys, hold up." said Steven. "If they can afford to give enchanted items to the grunts, what the Nether are we walking into?"
"Well," replied Castro "We know we are probably walking into the largest diamond stash we've ever seen. On the off-hand, crybaby over here is worried that we'll be facing some sort of hyper-enchanted beast of a player. And you know what? You're probably right, Steve-o. But when did we let that stop us before?"
"Never!" shouted the crew.
"And who's gonna get RICH tonight?!"
"Us!"
"So, lets find that stash!"
And with that, it was a run through the lair to find where to entrance to the underground area was. A few rooms later, we found the iron door with the funny button. If you listened closely, you could diffidently hear redstone repeaters ticking away behind the wall.
"Wait for it..." said Steven.
"Wait..." he repeated, the ticking getting louder.
"Aaaaaand... NOW!" he said, while ducking through the passage that had been revealed by pistons.
"Oldest trick in the book," he said "Putting a delay on a door. Child's play! It almost feels like were robbing someone who's unprepared!"
"Don't get too excited, supposedly this underground area is where to REAL stuff is. My informant could barely get any info about the existence of it at all." said Pat.
"So, wait. They keep this place sealed to the residents?" said Castro, as he lifted a trapdoor revealing a massive shaft of ladders.
"Apparently so. They must have something special down here."
"Special like infinite riches?"
"Oh, for sure."
And with that, they began to climb down.
"Notch-DAMN, dude! This must go to diamond level!" said Steven. "They must have something real important to wanna hide it this bad."
"Why do we care what we have other than diamonds and gold?" said Castro.
"And redstone!" piped in Steven.
"We don't, I'm just saying if we find any doomsday devices, we should tell some adventurer."
"Alright, so where do we start?" said Castro. They were at a junction with four hallways, each clearly marked. They read Alchemacium, Farm, Furnace room and Storage.
"I say we take the farm. These guys are a zit on the server, I've heard they go raiding bases and kill everyone inside." said Pat.
Now, that may not sound so bad. Get killed, respawn. Not so much on a hardcore server. You die, you're banned for a week.
"Nether, we'll take it all!" shouted Castro. They then went on a massive rampage through the base. We stole the enchantment table and alchemy ingredients, and fertilized their farm with some lava. The furnace room had multiple stacks of iron and gold cooking, which we of course nicked. Things were a little different in the storage room.
In said storage room, there were blocks on top of all the chests. The chests were clearly marked diamonds, ingots, emeralds, lapis and redstone. In the center of the room was a button marked open.
"Wait a minute" said Pat. "I smell trickery. See those dispensers around the room?"
Castro and Steven looked and noticed the well-hidden dispensers. They fit in well with the stone bricks in the room.
"Lemmie check something... yep. Splash potions of poison and harming." said Pat. "If we'd have pressed that button, we'd be dead. But, I see a button above the door..."
And indeed there was. After a brief coin flip of 'which is the trapped one', we pushed the button above the door. Immediately a secret passage opened up.
"Yes!" shouted Castro and company. Not only were they not dead, this was where the big stuff was!
Riches the likes no man should be rich enough to have were in the chests within. "Stuff your pockets boys, we're stinking RICH!" exclaimed Castro. He looked up briefly to see a silhouette in the doorway.
"Yes, clap clap clap, bravo." Said the man. "You've gotten to the storage room. Now, before you try to escape, keep in mind what you are trying to escape from. I have armor enchanted with Protection and Fire Tarnished. My sword is Sharpness V and Fire Aspect II. There are two men down the corridor with equipment equal to mine."
"You wouldn't dare kill us!" shouted Steven. "Because I've been planting TNT around this castle the whole time, and if you move ill blow it up!"
The man stared.
"No, you haven't, and even if you had, you'd be dead before you flipped the switch."
We stared at him. He stared at us.
"Well..." gulped Steven. "Are you a redstone engineer?"
"I toy with it, yes."
"Well then you know an irritating fact about redstone." Steven said, while casually moving towards the wall." "That inconvenient fact is that you always need a maintenance hatch." With these words he placed a TNT block on the wall and ignited it. We dived out of the way, and when the smoke cleared there was a thin passageway with redstone running through it.
"Run, dudes, run!" gasped Castro, motioning for his followers to do as he was.
They ran down the corridor as the man got up. Diamond armor was inconveniently heavy. "Activate the defenses" he shouted down the main corridor.
Our heros could hear muffled shouts of "Turn on the defenses!" as they ducked through the shaft, the only light the blinking redstone. Steven had the idea to place redstone torches and buttons along the way to mess up the currents. The maintenance shaft seemed to interconnect every redstone-powered thing in the castle, and we eventually came out at another blown-open end in what appeared to be a kitchen. The fort was in chaos. TNT cannons were firing wildly until they ran out of ammo, dispensers were firing splash potions and arrows at random, and doors were randomly opening and closing. In the chaos someone must have flipped the switch which poured lava from the doorways, but we had messed it up so only a few actually went off. In the confusion we made a mostly clean getaway. 'mostly?' you may ask? Well, there were a few creepers on the way home...
The server has since been reset for 1.3.
You can join the fun at
mcDOTetherniaDOTnet.