FIRST RECORD~
It has been 250 years since the destruction of Herobrine, and Steve's liberation of the Northern Prisons. Our people have proved their ability to recover and rebuild, and have built two of the greatest civilizations in recorded history.
The Crafters. Originally a large group of engineers fascinated with Steve's discovery of redstone, the group created more and more complex and automated machinery, promising an easy and productive way of life. The Crafters now run a technological empire powered by the near-infinite energy of redstone.
The Miners. Our culture began as a somewhat fanatical religious sect, hailing Steve as a prophet and bringer of a new age - of magic. The Miner children spend the first twenty years of their lives deep within the mines, extracting raw ores from the earth. The latter half of their lifetimes are spent devoted to the arts of enchanting, casting, and also prayer.
The two societies are all but unknown to each other, having established themselves thousands of chunks apart.
But new gateways have opened. The fabric of our world is being torn apart. I'm transcribing these records in the hopes that we may preserve our knowledge for whatever generations are alive to read it. My companion is doing the same from a Crafter's perspective, with digital mediums, I believe.
To whomever the reader may be, I beg you;
Do not repeat our failures.
Her pick struck the stone, and a hail of sparks cascaded off some exposed iron ore. The leather-clad girl stooped down in the darkness to squint at the iron. After a moment, she nodded to herself and picked up the pick again.
Good haul today.
As those words came to her mind, her shoulders stiffened, and she stared angrily at the three words represented how simplistic life was in the mines, how easy it was to sum up everything that she lived and breathed for. Everything that the Council wanted to hear from their courageous young miners. Everything that life had in store for her.
Good haul today.
She finished extracting the ore, stowed it inside her pack, and stood up. Her pack was one of the more interesting aspects of her job, she grudgingly admitted to herself. Each miner's pack had a different color and insignia to designate which mining camp the miner belonged to - hers was a faded red with the silhouette of a burning torch sewn on. Its internal space was linked to a storage room at the Citadel, and could extra-dimensionally hold six or seven times its normal volume, with very little weight gain.
Essentially, it was bigger on the inside.
As she walked, she became aware of some low light ahead of her, and heard voices speaking softly. "See, it's fine. Just give more four more ingots and we can send the iron up top."
She came around a bend in the tunnel, and walked into her assigned mining camp. There were multiple furnaces and crafting benches set up in the center of the little cave, with beds lining the edges - several people were already fast asleep. There was even an arcane altar set up as of last week, so that the more advanced miners among them could create small-level magic enchantments on their tools. There were two older boys standing at the crafting tables, working on their next surface delivery. As the girl came into the meager light, they looked up. "Hey Tierras."
"Hey." She intentionally avoided making eye contact. It wouldn't do to give away anything that she might be thinking.
She walked over to the furnaces and began feeding in her iron ore, placing it the rocks carefully so as to avoid waking up the others.
Three years. Three more blasted years in the ore mines before the Council would allow her to attend the Mage's College. It was a thankless, and often dangerous job. The dreaded 'Mobs' - undead creatures that roamed in the darkness - sometimes still managed to sneak up on unsuspecting mining camps and slaughter them in their entirety, despite frequent patrols made by the warlocks. More than one child had been kept awake, terrified all night by stories of cave spiders, zombies, and creepers.
Tierras shoved in the last hunk of ore with far more force than was necessary, and stood up. One of the boys was currently re-melting a small armful of iron ingots. The other was looking at her with a worried expression.
"What?" She asked defensively.
"You're glaring at the furnaces. Are you alright?"
Tierras made a conscious effort to straighten out her face into something more neutral. "I'm fine. Just really tired."
"I'll finish melting down your ores, if you like. You should get some sleep."
Tierras looked at him. Why was he making an offer like that? Sleep was a valued commodity in their lives, second perhaps only to food. Depending on how much ore each miner had retrieved that day, they would be rationed out a corresponding amount of both.
"Are you trying to take my ores or something?"
He looked taken aback. "What? No! You just said you were tired!"
She glared at him for a moment before wandering over to her bed and collapsing on the thin mattress. She knew this boy. He was the type to share his tidbits with the younger miners during mealtimes.
In other words, he was a complete fool, easy to take advantage of. The intelligent people were the ones who learned that it was every miner for themselves.
Too often she had been backstabbed by other miners. Even as a child, she was sometimes beaten by older children and left in a dark mine shaft, having been robbed of an entire day's worth of ores. As she grew older, she found that she could do the same to others. And it was easy. People were so trusting, so eager to accept any help that might lighten their load.
She lay there, in the semi-darkness, turning over plans within her mind. Plans that couldn't possibly be understood by any of the people they involved. Tierras had discovered that she had a talent for deception, for out-maneuvering a target. Even since a child, she knew. She knew she was brilliant.
Her fists clenched tightly as she lay, and tears of desperation and fury leaked from her eyes. Why? Why was she forced to live a life like this? This was miserable, and a complete waste of her intelligence.
She lay there, shaking until her form stilled, and her breaths came evenly She had managed to fall asleep.
And the two boys silently continued their metalwork late into the night.
A magical jolt of energy ran through Tierras' body, waking her up for her next mining tour. She groaned and sat forward in the bed. Sweat covered her body, but this was not unusual. It was sweltering this far below ground, and there were few ways to keep cool. The leather clothing she wore was enchanted to keep her body temperature from overheating, but it was not precise enough to keep the miner feeling comfortable.
She picked up a bag of smelted ingots that the boy from last night had left by her bed, and dragged herself through convoluted tunnels until she reached the mess hall. The mess hall (or rather, cavern,) had a large scale at one end. Her ingots were weighed, and her food was given her. She sat down alone, and ate the bland meal as rapidly as possible. An older girl was sharing some of her food with a friend over there. Moron. Nobody helps anyone but themselves down here.
After the meal she trudged off with several other miners down miles and miles of man-made tunnels. One of the miners was chatting animatedly to the others, and Tierras gritted her teeth in annoyance. This girl was apparently on her final day in the mines - she would be leaving for the surface - and the mage's college - this evening. And she refused to stop talking about it.
The small group of miners reached their destination - a large natural cavern littered with ores. She detached herself from the group and began swinging her pick at a coal deposit, jaw clenched. She had a long shift ahead of her.
Fresh sweat covered Tierras' body as she trudged back into the center of the cavern. There was a minecart there, and the miners were occasionally dumping their ores into it. She heaved her pack off her back and upended it over the minecart. Her stomach growled, and she frowned, massaging her gut with one hand.
"Here."
A hand was holding out a grimy apple towards her.
She looked up to see that the same girl that was leaving today offering Tierras the fruit.
"What?" Tierras asked, curtly.
"Take it. It's my last day, I won't need it." She was smiling.
Tierras snatched the apple and turned away. The girl spoke again.
"What's your name?"
Tierras turned back around slightly. "Tierras."
The girl smiled again. "That's a nice name. I- "
An arrow whistled out of the darkness and struck the girl mid-sentence, burying itself in her sternum. There was a shout from one of the other miners, and Tierras dove behind the minecart. The girl collapsed to the ground beside her, spluttering.
"Skeleton archers! Mobs!" Someone shouted.
Tierras glanced around the room frantically.
Mobs? Here? They said the caverns were already cleared!
More shouting. One of the miners was sprinting towards her.
No! Go away! Don't bring them over here!
She didn't have to worry about that, however. She felt the minecart rock behind her, and a cave spider leapt over her and collided with the running miner. Smaller than the usual spiders that the combat patrols had to fight, this kind was vicious, and highly venomous. The miner crashed to the ground, screaming, and she watched in horror as the spider's head suddenly jabbed downward into his chest, sinking its mandibles into him.
The minecart began to tilt forward on top of her, and Tierras scrambled away on her hands and knees. She spun around on her back just in time to see a zombie push over the cart, spilling ores onto the cave floor. The undead were common in dark caves, but normally they were exterminated before any mining was started!
Her fingers brushed against something hard and metallic, and she looked down to see her hand resting on someone's pickaxe. Without a second to lose she picked it up and stood to face the advancing zombie. When it had staggered within her reach, she swung the it upward into the space under the zombie's chin with all her strength.
There was a wet crunch, and she felt the zombie shudder through the pickaxe handle.
She pulled it out and stumbled away. Everything was moving slowly now, and her everything felt vague and far off. A few arrows whizzed past her, and she heard another scream.
Right. Skeletons.
She gazed downward at her feet, and saw the spider tearing away at the miner's chest cavity. Somehow the graphic scene didn't make any impact on her - she was too overwhelmed by shock and adrenaline. She just stared and slowly began to backpedal.
Something hit her very hard in the back, knocking the wind out of her, and blinding her with sudden tears of pain. She spun around to see a skeleton notching another arrow to its bow. He just shot me. That skeleton just shot me! The skeleton raised its bow and prepared to fire again. Tierras sidestepped just as the mob fired, and the arrow streaked past her form within inches. She dashed forward and swung her pick into the ribcage of the skeleton, breaking some of its ribcage and opening a crack in its spine. The skeleton twisted, pinning her arm between a few of the ribs. A sudden clarity rushed through Tierras' mind. As the skeleton drew back its fist, she planted one leg behind its feet, and leaned into the mob as hard as she could. The skeleton was caught off-balance, and began to fall backward with Tierras on top of it. Tierras raised her free hand as they fell, palming the skeleton's skull, and slammed it into the rock with all of her combined strength and momentum.
They hit the ground. The skull shattered explosively, and her hand went numb. She rose to her feet, hand aching, and rivulets of blood already running down her arm. Her back felt warm and wet. Oh. That arrow's still probably there.
There was an ear-shattering BOOM, and a wave of heat crashed into her. Tierras stumbled backward, looking for the source of the explosion. she saw a crater in the other side of the cavern, and cracks were beginning to run through the walls. An ominous grating sound filled the stale air.
Tierras began to sprint for the chiseled-out exit across the cavern. Bits of rock and dust were already starting to fall around her now. She was nearing the center of the room when she spotted the friendly girl's corpse on the ground, still holding onto her miner's pack. Tierras slid to a halt, seized upon by a sudden idea. If she took the girl's pack, she could get out of the mines early - provided she made it out of this cave. She knelt and frantically tried to pry the pack from the girl's grasp. Her nerves screamed at her. She probably only had seconds left.
Come on, COME ON!
The pack came free. She threw her own pack on top of the corpse, and quickly stood up. She could swap identities and be done with the mines forever.
I get the best ideas in the strangest situations.
Suddenly, a sound from behind her:
"SSsssssssss..."
Creeper.
Run.
Tierras only made the first few steps before a second concussion tore the air apart. A wave of searing pain blasted across her back, and she felt shards of stone pierce her flesh in multiple places. She was hurled forward, and crashed into the hard stone chest-first.
White lights danced around in her vision, and she couldn't breathe. Her back was twisted, causing a pinching pain to radiate from her spine.
She tried to get up, but her limbs wouldn't obey her. She couldn't move. Blood was flowing all around her face as she lay there, cheek pressed into the rock.
And then the ceiling tumbled down on top of her, and everything went dark.
Light.
Noise.
Both of them cut into her head with a vengeance.
Something was lifted off of her. She could tell because now she could suddenly inhale - whatever it was had been crushing her lungs.
Her breath was cut off by a coughing fit, tearing up her already-sore throat.
"... alive! Need a healer - "
Someone was talking. More light came over.
They were speaking again. This time it sounded like they were talking to her.
I can't tell what they're saying... Ugh... I must not be very lucid...
There was something she had to remember... something she mustn't forget... What was it?
The backpack!
She tried to open her eyes, but the light was too blinding, hurt too much.
"...mostly unconscious. Can't hear us..."
Yes, I can.
She felt herself sinking back down into sleep again.
No! Not yet! Have to find... that pack...
She mentally braced herself to attempt speech.
"My... pack -" Back to a coughing fit.
"She spoke!"
"What?"
Now a woman's voice. "Here it is, dear. I have it."
"My... last day..." Ha. Still a good liar.
"Quite the last day."
"You're going to be alright, we're going to get you help. You won't have to be down here again."
Tierras smiled a little, and then finally succumbed to the depths of slumber.
Author's Notes:
HEY YOU!
Sup.
Do me a favor and rate this sucker, mmkay? Please review it, too! I answer every single review I get (provided you have a ffn account... XP)
Don't be shy! I don't bite or anythin'. If you have critique for my writing style, or spot a grammatical error, PLEASE lemme know. I'm always trying to get better.
This is my second fic ever written, and my first Minecraft one. I love Minecraft, and I've been playing it since the alpha. *adjusts hipster glasses*