Chapter 1: The world of Darwintia
The chill wind blows across the sandy desert, causing bits of sand to blow periodically. This sandy terrain has gentle slopes and hills. It looks natural, as if it has never been set foot in before… except for the gaping hole in the ground. The dark hole disrupts the peaceful slopes. In it, a staircase leads into a vast cavern.
This cavern that the stairs lead to is connected to even more caves that go deeper underground. And those caves lead into even more caves… this is every caver's delight. A cave like this can get a player lost easily.
The sun had never looked so bright, the ocean had never looked so clear. He was riding on a donkey, drifting into the empty green plains. The steady galloping noise "cluck …cluck…cluck" was tapping into the earth.
"Come Josephine in my flying machine…going up she goes…up she goes…balance yourself like a bird on a beam…in the air she goes…there she goes!" The music made him close his eyes for a moment. Everything was so peaceful.
"JACK! WAKE UP!"
Jack Smith opened his eyes abruptly. The peaceful bright green plains suddenly turned into dry, dead rocks. The cave they had slept in looks dryer than it was yesterday.
"HURRY UP AND HELP ME KEEP OUR STUFF!"
"What?" Jack replied, still half-asleep.
"THEY ARE APPROACHING!"
Will Chapton points towards the far end of the cavern.
Jack blinked his eyes, and then he looked up. The first thing he sees was Will's dirty fingernails, soaked with what looks like black sludge. After that, he moves his head to where Will is pointing.
Deep towards the end, he saw two shadows that looked like dots. What's striking was that there was a blue halo effect emitting around their body.
"Enchanted armour! Let's get out of this cave quickly!" Jack yelled.
The two men dawning enchanted armour are running towards us. Their expression looked like angry wolves.
Jack punched down his bed he had been sleeping on and grabbed as many items from his chest, stuffing all of them in his inventory. Will hastily grabs the workbench and the stove, and they both started running up a dim stairway they had built yesterday.
"Come and taste my shiny sword you untouchables." One of the two men taunted. His voice sounded rough and croaky, it's as if he hasn't spoken in years.
Jack and Will ascended through the dimly lit stairway as quickly as possible. Jack looked back, only to see their shiny armour glowing in the darkness. The entire stairway was fifty blocks long, and had only two torches lighting it up.
Halfway up, Jack saw that they are only a few blocks below them. Panicking, he looked through the items he had managed to snack in his chest. Come on, there has to be something he can use… Aha! A bucket filled with red-hot lava.
Jack took out the bucket hold it in his hand. He could feel the heat emitting through the bucket. With no time to waste, he quickly turned back and poured the lava down the block right below him. Red-hot sticky lava instantaneously appears; the brightness of it blinded Jack for a moment. He quickly turned and ran, thinking to himself that even though the lava might not kill them, the viscosity of the red liquid would have slowed them down.
And he was right. Jack heard their annoyed grunts (due to the lava) slowly gets softer. The snobs were slowed down by the sticky liquid. Pretty soon, they were at the surface level. Jack and Will emerges from the depths of the cavern and out through the hole in the sandy desert. This was the place they chose to descend into a cave as the soft sand is ideal for digging.
However, this biome is not friendly to them now. The chilly desert is crawling with hostiles that are very visible due to the reflection of the moonlight on the sand. The moon has just appeared into the world. It was half-past six in the evening.
Jack and Will ran as fast as their legs can carry them. Their shoes are filled with rough sand, their stomachs are grumbling. But they persist on, insisting on getting as far away from the cave as possible. However, they are still stuck in the desert.
They paused, trying to get their bearings. Jack looks around the desert. As they were now stationary, hostiles of every type sense their presence and begin moving towards them, trapping them in a circle that is slowly getting smaller. Jack feels as if he was like a bundle of wheat, attracting friendly animals.
But these hostiles were not a single bit friendly! Jack spotted zombies – amongst them – wearing broken light-blue top and rusted jeans, holding their dry arms up and inching closer and closer, longing to bite them with their blood thirsty jaws. Jack closed his eyes for a short while, hoping that these blood-suckers will vanish into thin air. But when Jack opened his eyes, things became more devastating. Spiders, with its blood-red eyes, are slowly advancing towards them. Jack witnesses their eight long hairy legs pushing its body forward. But that's not all, Jack also spotted…
"Quick! Run into the woods!" Will barked suddenly. At the exit of the great sand pit, a dense forest can be spotted. Jack immediately agreed and they both make a break for it.
As they were trapped in a circle of hungry creatures, Will took out his iron sword. Will's iron sword shines brightly in the night. Will holds his sword back, like how a golfer holds his golf club. Then, he swings it with great momentum. Whoosh!
The sword hits a zombie at the torso. Jack sees blood spewing out of his chest. Will's sword was stained with red blood. The zombie was knocked back due to the force of Will's iron sword on him, providing a small gap in the hostile circle.
Jack and Will ran through that gap and head straight into the forest filled with oak trees. Jack looked behind him, checking if the two snobs are behind them.
The two blue-armoured snobs were not on their heels anymore, but that doesn't make their situation any more relieved. Hostiles – about a dozen of them – were right on their tracks. Creepers have joined the fun. Their wide open black eyes that looked hollow were looking straight at Jack. They have four legs at the bottom, pushing its armless body forward. These suckers are known to creep up on unsuspecting victims, and then explode viciously.
Jack turned back and started running a slight bit faster; Will is a few blocks ahead of him. The sand in his shoes is starting to hurt his feet. In every step he takes, he felt as if his feet are being pierced with arrows.
Jack and Will ran through the dense forest. Their stomachs are getting hungrier, and they are starting to slow down. Finally, they saw their escape route: a river!
Will took out the workbench that he had grabbed back at the cave. He took out a few pieces of planks and proceeds to craft a simple boat. Jack watches him while catching his breath.
Voilà! Will has built a boat for the capacity of two people with an ore on each side of the boat. Steadily, they climbed onto the boat. Jack takes the ores, and row the boat as fast as he can. The boat moves swiftly through the calm, blue water. They escaped the hostiles by the skin of their teeth. As Jack rowed the boat, he could feel his heart pounding. What a night in this land of Darwintia! He thought to himself.
Jack rowed out of the mouth of the river into the empty ocean. They travelled far until they can't see any land anymore; there are in the middle of the ocean.
Jack stopped rowing. The boat drifted to a stop.
"Good heavens! What a close call!" Will says after Jack looked back at him.
"This encounter was even worse than the one with the stupid wolfs, remember?" Jack recalls the incident where a snob attacks them with his wolfs.
Will twitched at the word "stupid".
"Wolfs are not stupid," Will retort, taking out a few pieces of bread he took from the chest in the dungeon. He passed some to Jack.
"Here, cave bread."
Jack took the bread, and munched on them. The bread tastes dry and mouldy, but at least it's filling.
Will turned around so that they can lean their backs on each other. The boat bops up and down on the water periodically. Jack ate the last bread, and then looked out into the calm ocean. The emptiness of the deep waters provided them a place to rest, far from the treacherous islands. They are safe, for now.