Hi, everyone, Wanted to put something out this week, so I'll try a one-shot for a change. Minecraft was officially released yesterday (as of writing) so what better way to celebrate than a story staring everyone's favorite new mob. They're tall, they're dark, they're creepy as hell. The Endermen.
A long time ago, when the monsters didn't roam the earth, man lived in great numbers, and their only true fear was of one another. They built many impressive structures: Cities, monuments, maze-like mine shafts, and great subterranean strongholds. Of course, all of these accomplishments have been reclaimed by the earth in their absence. Only the mineshafts, dungeons, and strongholds remain.
Man was gifted with an incredible proficiency for the manipulation of reality through magic. They crafted many wondrous potions and intricate enchantments through their careful practiced studies. But the most powerful magic required reagents, which they lacked. Visitors from another dimension who came before even the rise of man, left tomes with diagrams detailing methods of breaching the barriers between universes. They detailed construction of large arches and gate from a variety of materials, each linking to a different dimension. But the only one the humans possessed the material to construct was the Obsidian gate.
Obsidian had always been a precious resource to the enchanters, nothing else served as a better conduit for the transfer of magical energy into objects. But it was so difficult to find, and even harder to harvest, requiring tools of diamond to gather. Much debate between the court wizards of the various human kingdoms ensued, over just exactly how large or powerful these gates should be. Eventually, it was decided upon that the gate would be an economic 5x4 frame, just large enough and powerful enough to send over one person at a time, and even then only over the course of a few seconds. With trepidation, the first gate was assembled and a single spark with a common flint and steel was all it took for a swirling purple portal to erect itself within the frame.
This event created a burst of energy that rippled not only through the entire world of man, but sent shock waves across the entire multi-verse. In particular, The Endermen of The End felt these shock waves. The Endermen were a docile and curious race, with innate universe jumping abilities, they'd traveled to many strange and mysterious worlds, and had met just as many races. But none of them had quite matched the design of their own geometrical home land. When they felt the strange vibrations emitting across the worlds, their curiosity was doubly peaked.
Upon sending a small envoy to this new world, they were amazed by what they saw. Blocks, blocks further than the eye could possibly see, but different colors and qualities alien to them. The End was a depressingly boring world, nothing but white rocks and obsidian spires sitting glumly under and pitch black sky. A large part of the why they would venture out to other worlds so often was because of their sheer boredom living in this blank plane of existence. Still, they were sad, and some jealous, that all of the other worlds had so many unique and exciting characteristics, whilst they were doomed to always return, and forever be tied to the dull End.
Then, the scouts hatched a plan, they took a few chunks of material, mostly dirt and stone, and teleported back to The End. Much to their surprise and joy, they were able to make the transition into their new home, and when placed, provided some life and excitement to The End at long last. So the Endermen, in large numbers would, every night in the human world, teleport into the world, secure and any block they found interesting or useful, and teleport back by sun rise, contributing to the growing stack of blocks. "But what are we to do with all these new blocks?" They asked themselves. they then decided, taking inspiration from the worlds they had visited, to use them to build structures, such as houses, monuments, and the like.
Meanwhile, the humans were both shocked and slightly disappointed by what they saw beyond the gate they had opened up. They had opened the path to a hellish world that seemed to mirror they're own, as nightmarish strongholds of red brick were placed suspiciously close to their counterparts location on the regular world. In this land, lava flowed freely, and it was full of strange and hostile creatures. Flying ghosts that spit explosives at them, beings of flame that tried to roast them with balls of fire, and piles of amorphous slime that crawled up from the lava and melted all they touched. Oddly, there were also neutral, if not ghastly, beings here that appeared to be walking pigs with slowly decaying flesh. Even stranger was that every last one of them possessed a sword of pure gold.
When the humans attempted to ask the pigmen about were they acquired their vast trove of gold, they were met only with grunts, moans, and the occasional oink. Separating a sword from it's pigman did no good either, as upon removal, the sword instantly disintegrated into a pile of golden shavings, with only one or two salvageable nuggets. The alchemists, deciding that these minor bits of gold were not tempting enough to brave the fiery world and risk dying any number of heinous ways, decided to return home. They then agreed it was probably better to destroy the portal than to risk anything from the other side traveling onto their plane. However, a small group of adventurers and warriors reasoned with the alchemists, and were aloud to travel into the other world and bring back whatever that could gather.
Days passed, but eventually the party returned through the portal, ragged and injured. They explained that one of the flying ghosts had deactivated the portal on their end and trapped them into the could make a makeshift fire starter. They had survived by hiding in small holes in the ground until the monsters passed and cannibalizing the zombified pigmen for sustenance. They emptied their bags of the few reagents they had gathered and promptly retired from adventuring life.
What they found revolutionized alchemy completely. Rods from the living blazes had a peculiar quality to them, they radiated heat at a perfect temperature for the preparation of a multitude of potions. Before it took hours to properly simmer and distill and potion, now it only took a few seconds. Finally, mass production of potions was possible. The adventurers also brought back several bottles of tears from the explosives spitting ghosts, which were found to have regenerative properties on human flesh. The alchemists and magicians quickly retracted their statements on the futility of exploration of this new world, and offered bounties in return for both the tears and the rods. Over a short period of time, gates began being constructed all over the land and hundreds of warriors trekked into the depths of the now named "Nether" to hunt down the endless hordes beyond. For a time, the kingdoms flourished, and a golden age began.
The Endermen, while all this was going on, continued to harvest dirt and stone, always dirt and stone, and the odd piece of wood or gravel. After years of this they grew very bored of dirt and stone. They knew there were rare materials underground, but saw no way to safely travel into the cave systems shrouded in darkness. They combed the landscape looking for buildings, something possibly made by a sentient race to take from. Eventually, they found some of the cities of man, and so began to take pieces and parts out of whatever caught their fancy. So thrilled were the Endermen by their discoveries that they didn't even bother to think of the blocks' original owners. Mankind was baffled by the mysterious holes in their walls, houses, statues, fountains, etc.
The people tried to find out what was stealing their possessions in the middle of the night, but the Endermen struck so quickly and silently that none could even identify the thieves. Finally, when the Enderman began to steal chests laden with valuables, the people demanded of the magicians to make some sort of security system. They obliged, and the most powerful of them assembled in one location to accomplish this task. Then, using their most powerful magic they crafted the "spawners," arcane devices each capable of generating numbers of a specific guardian entity.
They crafted them and their summons each with a particular purpose in mind. The Zombies were to serve as melee shock troopers. The Skeletons were created as a ranged unit to support the zombies. The spiders were created to be advanced infiltration units, able to maneuver across any terrain and hunt down targets relentlessly. Last of all, the creepers were designed to be massive damage dealing kamikaze units. The Creepers, being essentially walking explosives, had a habit of doing just as much, if not more, damage to the things they were trying to protect, as well the the things they were trying to destroy, so they never saw much widespread use.
The others however, saw heavy use by both citizens and Alchemists, and soon, almost every home had a spawner to protect it's trappings. For the especially wary, and rich, small dungeons were built deep underground with a single spawner to protect they're belongings for all time. The Endermen were not prepared or alerted to this new threat, and many fell to the "Mobs." As fewer and fewer harvesters would return from their nightly runs, the Endermen became scared as well as paranoid, and avoided travelling back to the Human world, not wishing to lose more brethren.
Over the next several weeks, rumors stemming from a variety of locations spread about strange glowing purple orbs people would find lying around the floor upon waking in their homes. One night, a wealthy magician ventured into a tavern and saw no less than five different patrons telling the same rumor, with the only difference being the city it originated in. He took interest and undertook the long and arduous task of tracing back twelve different claims to their sources. When at last the thirteen claimants were brought to the magician's Stronghold, it was revealed the rumors were in fact true. Each of them bore an identical orb, which the magician proceeded to acquire from the original owners, offering small fortunes in exchange. In hindsight, probably much more than he needed to, but the thought of controlling the entire supply of a new reagent was just too tempting.
After only a short while, the magician began making his own boisterous claims on the abilities of these pearls. He claimed that they contained the secret to crafting a drought of eternal life! The citizens of the various kingdoms, eager to see the potential results of another collaboration after the creation of the mobs, implored their kings and lords to put their finest enchanters and alchemists under the command of the wealthy wizard. Several of them agreed, and research into the unknown spheres began.
After several weeks, there were little conclusions made. The pearls, no matter how powerful they might be, would simply not give up their stored energy, the wouldn't boil on the potion racks, and no item could receive an enchantment from them. People began to grow impatient, as the wizards were constantly requesting further funding and manpower for there experimenting. The breakthrough, as many breakthroughs often are, was found on accident, the wealthy magician's apprentice, while transporting one of the pearls, slipped in the potion making room, and sent the pearl flying through the air into a dish of ground up blaze rods. Amazingly, the pearl soaked up the powder, and began flying at breakneck speeds around the stronghold, before finally conjuring a portal flying through it, which resulted in a brilliant explosion of purple particles when it closed.
The magician, wishing to follow up on this discover, requested one more batch of funds, he'd exhausted not only the funds of the other kingdoms, but his own treasury as well, and so had very few remaining supporters. Thankfully for him, he had just enough to finalize his project. He assembled twelve devices, the details of which are lost and irreplaceable. He then placed one of the remaining pearls in each of the devices, and sprinkled some of the blazing powder on each. The machines were able to contain and focus the energy of the orbs, and instead of them flying around and teleporting away, they created a single portal to another world.
This portal was larger and of much greater power than the ones that led to the nether. Word of this accomplishment completely restored everyone's faith in the magician and his team, and the kingdoms sent a great deal of their most powerful warriors to explore the dimension on the other side of this new portal. Over two thousand fighter and adventurers went through the portal at once, and began a massive expedition to gather as many of the pearls as possible. They moved across The End as a vicious horde, slaughtering the defenseless Endermen, (who they they were unaware were sentient beings, and not the mindless monsters they encountered in the Nether) and gather the pearls from their corpses. The Endermen had never been forced into combat before, and were unable to resist the attackers.
When the explorers had exterminated every Endermen within around twelve miles of the portal, they returned home. The Endermen's numbers utterly devastated, it is said they lost over six thousand of their kin that day. For hundreds of years, no Enderman left The End, and in the realms they were known, they fell into obscurity and myth. The humans brought back with them at least five thousand pearls, and every kingdom laid a different claim to a number of them. Claims turned to debates, and debates to arguments, and eventually, a conflict over the pearls began that would be known as the "Mob War."
The Mob War was so called because of the unique tactics employed in it's skirmishes. During the day, spawners would be placed all over a battlefield, or outside a city, and at night the spawner would let loose their progeny to do battle with a cities defenders, or one another. It was here that the mobs crippling weakness came to light, literally. Direct sunlight caused some sort of interference with the magic that held them together, Skeletons and Zombies burned in the sun, and Spiders and Creepers became disinterested in battle, eventually fizzling out of existence. Still, usually a night was all it took to get the job done.
No militia could stand against the brute force and numbers of the zombies. No archer could match the dead-eyed aim of the Skeletons. The Creepers saw work as devastating siege weapons, and not even the thickest or tallest ramparts could keep out the agile Spiders. Entire kingdoms were eradicated and a massive number of humans lost their lives in the sieges of the Mob Wars. Then the worst thing they could have never predicted occured.
They lost control of the Mobs.
No one knows the reason the mobs turned against they're creators. Nor do they know how the mobs continued coming even after the spawners were destroyed. Some have speculated that the dungeon spawners have provided an endless supply of mobs, but this doesn't explain their habit of materializing out of the darkness. Whatever happened, the mobs began attacking humans indiscriminately. The kingdom united all their remaining forces, diminished by years of fighting already, in an attempt to hold back the tide. But to no avail, the Mobs never stopped coming, and the Kingdoms fell into chaos.
The citizens soon descended into gangs and angry mobs, (no pun intended) and searched for a target to blame for their troubles. They found it in the magicians and alchemists, due to their involvement in the creation of the mobs. Completely disregarding the fact it was they who demanded the mobs be created just a short few years back, they had the mages and alchemists hunted down and brutally executed. Then they went through their many laboratories and strongholds and destroyed their experiments. Ironically, the Ender pearls, the things that had were so desired as to spark this terrible war, were now hated and discarded.
The people gained some matter of satisfaction, but it was sour grapes, as the Mobs continued to march. Eventually, as mankind's number dwindled further and further, the death tolls slowed down, people stopped living in large groups, and instead lived individual lives far from each other, but as the centuries rolled on, man's carelessness would always do him in. Now, there is but one man left in all the world. He has no name, he did once, but no longer, why keep a name when there was no one in the world to whom it would matter. His life is an almost instinctual affair. He has no ambition, nothing to aspire too, and he is forever haunted by the Mobs, who never forget their nigh-on finished war with man. When he dies, they will be well and truly free of their former masters. He doesn't question his habit of building, if he did, he would lose his only source of entertainment, and then there would be nothing left.
The Endermen, shortly after the birth of the last man, finally restored their numbers enough that they have begun to venture to other worlds again. But the world of man is the one that they dread to visit, for they still hold deep within them a fear for man. When the last man looks upon one of them, they are so terrified that they can do nothing but stare back and scream in horror. They then try with all their might to destroy him, perceiving him as an imminent threat, despite the fact he has no knowledge of man's slaughter of their kind. But it is this assumption that always leads to their downfall, As it stands, he has amassed a small collection of Ender pearls, though he has not yet discovered their true purpose.
During their isolation deep within The End, the Endermen didn't notice as a new creature appeared out of endless sky, this creature is known as the Ender Dragon. It's a tyrannical being who cruelly destroyed every building, block by block, that the Endermen had assembled. Making the sacrifices of their ancestors meaningless... But there is a last shred of hope. It is known that several of the kingdom attempted to build they're own portals to The End, but none ever completed them. They lie, half put together, deep within their ancient strongholds. Perhaps, if the last man could finish one, and find a way to The End and free the Endermen from the Ender Dragon. Maybe then they would learn he meant them no harm, and put the age old conflict behind them.
No matter what happens, Man's legacy is doomed to end, a new race has achieved sentience, and their villages dot the landscape, they mobs pay them no heed, and in fact, they have made peaceful contact with the Endermen, though they are usually too nervous to make conversation. Some have even seen the last man wonder through their town, a sad individual, pickaxe in one hand, and sword in the other. Always walking, staring, towards some unattainable goal he doesn't even understand.