Minecraft: The Ender Realms
Chapter 1: In the End
A leap of faith, into a sea of stars. Falling from a portal in another world, a diamond-clad figure lands on the obsidian plate with a mighty clang. All eyes turn upon him, and the hero pulls a sparkling diamond sword from his leather scabbard. Enchanted with many magics, the blade lights up the dark world with the power of a thousand suns.
Across the bleak landscape, a evil monster stirs, awakened by the interruption in the realm's perpetual flow of dark energy.
Tall obsidian pillars erupt from the earth, each adorned with a fiery purple crystal at its top.
The monster rears its head, and suddenly leaps into the sky. Flapping its giant wings, it reveals itself to be a monstrous black dragon, a thousand times larger than anything the hero had ever seen before. The dragon's eyes glint darker than the Void. As it stretches, long trails of dark purple energy flow to it from the black towers now dotting the tiny world. Purple lightning flashes through the air.
The dragon opened its mouth and let out a bone-chilling roar; most mortal men would have turned and fled; the hero stood strong. The dragon fell out of the static-filled sky, passing through the firmament with ease. The dragon landed, turned its head, and lunged at the hero, who countered with a forceful blow from his sword. The dragon's obsidian scales hiss and melt upon contact with the blade. The beast steps back, and flies off in retreat.
The hero hefts his enchanted diamond sword as denizens of the dark realm suddenly appear from the air to surround him; tall, dark demons several feet taller than the hero; they were equipped with gaping, serrated jaws and apparent powers of teleportation. The hero swings his blade in an arc around him, making contact with some of the demonic figures, while others vanish before he strikes them. He fights bravely against them with the skill and strength of one who is well trained in the art of sword. Many are slain by him before they suddenly retreat. Too late, the hero hears a flap of mighty wings behind him. He turns, and the black dragon slams into him, knocking him from the obsidian platform and into open space; the hero hurtles toward the Void as the beast roars in triumph above.
But even as the hero plunges to his inevitable doom, he is confident in his survival. For as he had slain the dark demons, he had collected pearls they had produced upon death. Quickly, hurling several pearls against the walls of the world rapidly falling away above him, the glass orbs broke against the blocks of stone, releasing the same teleporting magic of the ones that had made the pearls. The hero was quickly warped to safety, to the exact spot the pearls had broken upon the wall. He was stranded on a small ledge; however, he took the time to crouch down and regain his breath. He was not left alone for long.
A creature of the realm lunged at him from behind; its teeth biting through the armor and sinking deep into the flesh of his arm. Grunting in pain, he swung his sword, but it glanced off the monster and hit the ground, sending chunks of phosphorescent rock flying. The creature shrieked with delight and bit deeper; black circles bloomed in the hero's vision. Ignoring the searing pain, he swung his sword once more, this time it found its mark. The demon was struck in the head, and ceased to exist in a cloud of vile purple ash. The hero clamped one hand over his arm to staunch the flow of blood, which had already begin to ebb. Seeking cover from the onslaught, he produced another pearl, its black glass lit by a sickly green glow within. He tossed it in the direction of the nearest obsidian spire, and was instantaneously teleported to its top.
Driving his magic blade into the top of the flaming purple crystal, the enchantments on his sword quickly turned the entire obsidian tower into diamond and it began to heal him. As his wounds closed, however, the Enderdragon noticed the spectacle and rushed upon the pillar, destroying it and sending the hero tumbling through the sky. Even as the hero hit the ground with a sturdy thump, he had pulled out his bow and quickly notched his Infinity arrow. He was not hurt by the fall for the reverted crystal's magic was still upon him until it crashed to the ground a few seconds later. The crystal's explosion released dark energy that passed harmlessly through the hero, but destroyed all crystals within range, thus setting off a chain reaction that destroyed many of the obsidian towers. While the dust settled around the hero, he strafed the remaining obsidian pillars with arrows to destroy them also, as he could still easily make out the black towers above the settling debris. However, as the dust cleared, he realized he was surrounded.
Without time to draw his sword, he dove and rolled, plunging the arrow into the heart of the dark demon directly in front of him. Grabbing the pearl it dropped, he hurled the dark turquoise object into the air. By some cruel twist of fate, it lands upon the dragon's back as the beast charges!
The dragon feels the weight of the armor-clad hero straddling it and shrieks and tosses about in turmoil; flapping its wings and arching his neck to try to get a bite of the hero. The hero stood strong, and clamped onto the dragon with his knees much like one rides a horse.
The dragon is clever, and it dives at the ground to land to crush the hero beneath its weight. The hero, however, is smarter, and throws his last pearl at the ground below. He holds up his blade, and the dragon crashes upon the ground on its back, its neck falling upon the enchanted sword. Nothing can save the dragon, for all its healing obsidian towers are gone. The ground shakes with the dragon's throes, the beast glows with a black light. As it swelled up, the hero knew the dragon was to explode, and this would be his doom. He had no magic pearls left, and all the Endermen had deserted him.
The hero? He is going to die.
Wait! As he is blasted into the Void yet again, fate smiles down upon him, reaching out a tender hand. Before he reached the point of no return, a tiny rip appeared in the space-time of the Void, a tiny wrinkle, a tiny notch in the fabric of the universe, warping him above the island, where he lay, wounded, as the demons rush upon him.
The hero turns his head weakly to one side. He gazes at the spot where the dragon had died. A ghostly replica of purple energy swirled in the shape of the dragon, marking its grave. The hero watches as the dark cloud of ash compressed tighter and tighter, before releasing itself in a puff of smoke. What was left was a dark purple egg on an obsidian shrine. Before it was a dark, rippling ocean, twinkling with thousands of points of light. When the egg began to crack, the hero knew he must leave.
He rolled himself over amidst the screams of demons, and disappeared into a sea of blackness.
*End Chapter*
Chapter 2: Remembrance
He floats onto a sandy shoreline. This place he remembered. He had washed up in the same spot many years ago, knowing nothing, coughing up sand as salty waves lapped at his knees.
"What am I doing here? Who am I?" he had wondered. With no memory, no food, nothing to his name, he had picked himself up, and started on a journey to find who he was. The sunlight had faded quickly, and he was forced to bury himself in dirt to hide from the undead creatures that revealed themselves at night. The next day, he set out on his way, finding a village. It was full of large-nosed, seemingly oblivious and primitive villagers. He did find a sword, a few apples, and a leather cap in the blacksmith's chest. Quickly he slew the villagers with his newfound wooden sword. However, the sword splintered quickly, and he beat the last native to death with his fists.
Before night came, he killed three sheep, turning the wool into a blanket. He then harvested wood from a nearby tree, making a bed frame. He then stuffed feathers from nearby chickens into some leftover wool to make a pillow, then assembled his bed in the largest home the village contained. Our hero then grabbed the chest he had found in the blacksmith's shop, hefted it onto his shoulders, and set it by his bed. He took an old leather book from the shelf above, and lay back on his pillow as he began to read, quickly dozing off.
He woke suddenly to a loud banging on the house's door! A villager? He groggily pulled himself out of bed, and opened the door. Little did he expect a maggot-ridden zombie to launch itself upon him and start gnawing on his arm! The hero smashed off the zombie's head with a stick he had found, using it as a club. He swiftly closed the door and blockaded it with some dirt he had collected. He took a deep breath….and fainted on the floor.
*End Chapter*
Chapter 3: That Is My Home
Sunlight shone through the glass windows. Our hero stretched, yawned, and stepped out of bed. Bed? How did he get into his bed? A villager grunted behind him. He must be dreaming. The native grunted again and offered him a trade, an emerald for some bread. Emeralds…. he had found the shiny green gem lodged in a mountainside along the path here, and taken it off the ground next to others still set in stone. Starving, he accepted the trade and munched on the bread thoughtfully. The villager donned a stained brown robe, picked up a farming tool with a shining blue tip, and quietly left the hut.
The man was in a meditative state.
He knew next to nothing about himself. His only known skill was his ability to punch through trees with his fists of steel. Our hero was obviously lonely, apparently the only sentient being in a vast world. He pondered all these facts combined with a burning passion inside, and decided his fate. He would be the man to conquer this world. He would place himself above all creatures, every monster, slayer of all; then he would build his own home in the mountains where he could be content.
But...But... That was not enough for the man. He needed to truly discover... himself. He would set out on his adventure... To find...his NAME.
Partly so he could mark out the author's name on the book he read last night and write a name of his own in its place.
Immediately, he leaped out of bed, slaying an imaginary zombie with a thrust of a stick. "This won't suffice," he thought. "A better weapon will be needed against the horrors of this world's night."
It occurred to him that he had never gotten a good look within the blacksmith's chest. He reached in his hand, and rooted around the contents of the chest, pulling out everything he could find. When he set each item from the chest on the ground, he noted that instead of paying attention to the laws of basic physics, each material decided to float several inches above the ground. Also, each item cast a circular shadow on the ground below, in strange disproportion everything's blocky shape. As our hero studied these strange properties, he noticed the strangest fact of all: the shadows were cast in every direction, not paying attention to any angles of light from the windows whatsoever, confirming the man's belief: the moving, living, and environmental materials here were not... Directly in sync with the other two material groups. The fact that when villagers pressed up against a door, and slightly phased through it, only supported his thoughts. "This universe is not normal...but if this isn't normal to me, something else must be," he thought. "I come from somewhere else. The place where I lived my childhood. Where life isn't square and my knuckles aren't quite as invincible... That is my home."
He gathered up his apples, 3 emeralds, and a wooden pickaxe from the chest. He slung the latter over his back, placed his leather cap on his head, opened the door, and stepped outside into the sunlight.
*End Chapter*
Chapter 4: Book of Fate
He plucked a feather off the ground, left apparently by the chicken clucking not far off. He then found the brown-robed villager from earlier working in the fields nearby, tilling the ground and planting seeds. The man motioned to the villager with his feather, mimicking writing. In response, the villager jerked a thumb to a small hut behind a hill that the man hadn't noticed before. "This is where the farmer must have been, and why he's still alive," he thought. The man strolled over and knocked on the door. It snapped open immediately.
"Yet another oddity," he mused.
Sitting down in a corner of the hut was another villager, scribbling in a book with a feather and a quill. Perfect! As the villager looked up, the man again mimicked writing, and showed his feather. The scribe held up an emerald in one hand and ink in another. The man nodded, and the trade was accepted. Now he had a pen. He went back to the farmer tilling the fields, and mimicked writing again. The villagers weren't as dumb as he had previously thought, as the villager immediately broke off the tops of a few reeds by a stream a few meters away, then carefully unrolled the reeds into long thin sheets. For the cost of two more emeralds, the hero now had paper and leather. He carried each back to his home, and set the materials on the workbench. He then bound the paper with the leather, creating his own book. He lay in his bed, and wrote:
Book of FATE
1. Find... NAME
2.Go...HOME
By
(Imagine illus. of page of MC book)
"First, to complete Quest #1. Gain the ability to complete my own signature," he said to himself. Then the reality of the situation dawned on him. The man sat down on his bed, and buried his face in his hands as his eyes began to well up. How pathetic was it that one of two goals in his life was to learn his own name! Then he straightened up. If he was to prove himself stronger than night's monsters, he had to be brave. Crying was not the mark of a hero.