The day had just begun and something already seemed amiss. My village was quiet, and on a day as beautiful as today, everyone would have been enjoying the smell of the grass and feeling the sunlight. I walked onto the cobblestone path and traveled quickly into the center of town, following the sound of a crowd. To my relief, I found that the villagers had gone to the little meeting square at the center path crossing, but now I was concerned with what had all of their attentions.
In this little village, we thrived on the abundance of what the valley floor gave us. We had wheat, pumpkins, melons, and all sorts of livestock. Really, the only thing we didn't have were the materials deep below the surface in the dark caves. It was alright with us, though. The Crafters were nice enough to trade with us for those precious stuffs.
I made my way to the center of the crowd, past everyone's and their excited snorts and squeals. At the center, I found a broadly smiling Crafter holding a shiny diamond pickaxe. He seemed to be doing something like a sales pitch.
"What's going on?" I softly nudged the person next to me. He turned to me and grinned.
"The bloke says 'e can mine the black lava rock with 'is new pickaxe. 'e's been sayin' it for the past couple minutes, but 'e 'asn't showed us nothin'" The pigman said, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. I cocked an eyebrow and looked at the Crafter eagerly. The black lava rock – obsidian – was impenetrable to even gold tools. How the man had managed to get enough diamonds to make such a pristine tool was impressive enough, but to find a way to mine obsidian? He must've been a genius…or a lucky miner.
"I believe I've made my audience wait long enough," The Crafter said, stepping onto a small wooden box to look over everyone. "Ladies and gentle-swine! Before you is the greatest tool ever crafted! I give you…the diamond pickaxe!" He said as he presented it eagerly. Some of the younger folks "ooo"-ed and "ahh"-ed at the pretty tool, but the rest of us looked on in silence. Though it was difficult to make such a thing, it wasn't impossible. Some of us actually had one in our own.
"Yeh! So whut?" The man beside me bellowed. A chorus of "yeah!"-s and murmurs were aimed at the Crafter. His delighted sneer didn't die away a bit, though. It actually brightened more, like he was expecting it.
"Yes, but look at what I can do with it." He said, suddenly pulling a bucket out from behind him. Everyone jolted back in surprise. The bucket was full of lava. He tipped the lava into a crevice in the ground just in front of us, filling it like a small moat. Then, he ran from his box to the well on the other side of the street. In a quick flurry that only last about thirty seconds, he had poured the lava into the ground, retrieved a full bucket of water, then dumped the water onto the molten slag. With a loud whoosh and hiss, the lava steamed up the water and solidified into the black, impenetrable stone, obsidian. Just as fast as he had done that, we watched as he started wailing on the stone with his pickaxe. Despite the fact that I was sure I wasn't the only one thinking this man was a hyped-up lunatic, we all watched as the obsidian broke against the diamond tool. The Crafter took a large chunk of it from the ground and held it up triumphantly.
"Hah hah! What did I tell you?! It really works!" He cried. The crowd seemed impressed, murmuring in approval and clapping a few times for him. I was impressed, too, but I was still wondering about one thing.
"What would we use obsidian for?" I asked over the load clapping and crowd noise. The Crafter seemed to have rehearsed the whole thing; he knew someone was going to ask that question.
"You see, my good man, obsidian is fire proof! You can make a fire pit or a fire place without the risk of setting anything ablaze." He said with a slightly menacing chuckle. I cocked my head and snorted a little. I was intrigued. I'd always wanted a fireplace in my home, but with the abundance of wood, that was what all of our houses were made of.
The crowd started to disperse as the Crafter bowed a couple times. The information of the new building material had started to flow freely among the people of the village, which the Crafter seemed to take note of and looked about us with a dense aura of pride. I stepped up to the Crafter, who promptly shook my hand.
"Thanks for helping my presentation along. Couldn't have done it without ya." He said warmly. I gave him the best smile I could, but I didn't really think I needed to be thanked for simply asking a question.
"Yeah, no problem, I guess. I just wanted to know why you came all this way to tell us. I'm sure one of us would've found out about it eventually." I said. The Crafter arched an eyebrow and leaned against the torch post next to him.
"What, a Crafter can't help you guys out every once in a while?" He said with a frustrated scowl. To be honest, I wanted to tell him that we didn't want Crafter help. Every time they "helped" us, they seemed to expect some long and meaningful praise The Pigmen were pretty much sick of the Crafters thinking we needed their help and that they were better than us because they were more "courageous" than we were. In fact, we simply didn't put ourselves in harm's way as often.
"No, that's not what I meant. I just know the nearest Crafter village is nearly a day's trip away. I just figured no one would travel so far for such a small presentation." I answered as kindly as I could make myself sound. He seemed pleased with the response and nodded. He looked back up with that devious smirk that unnerved me.
"You talk like there's none of your kind living in the village I'm from." He said. I didn't like that statement. "Your kind"? I knew he said it like that on purpose. He was one of the Crafters that thought he was better than us, better than me. Talking to him had proven to be a mistake.
"Well, is there?" I asked, persisting against my common sense telling me to walk away. The Crafter simply shook his head with dismissive grin, and picked up the diamond pickaxe.
"Have a good day, sir." He said, walking down and out of the village. As I watched him walk away, I was slightly perturbed by his whole demeanor. I had learned to accept the Crafters like they had learned to accept us, but…I don't know. Since they called the pigs in our pens our close cousins, they seemed to think we were as dirty or even as dull witted as they were. I don't know when they began the degradation and discrimination of us, but it had to stop at some point.
"Hey, Burtow! Burtow!" A voice called from down the street. I looked to the person who shouted at me and smiled to find my closest friend, Townsend. He was a rather handsome gent with the physique of a lumberjack, but he was still a child at heart.
"Hey there! How's it going?" I greeted him warmly. He scuffed his hooves on the stone path and had a smile on that I'd seen several times before from when we were kids. He had a plan to do something…adventurous.
"I saw that Crafter's sales pitch about the obsidian. Not a bad material, if you ask me." He chuckled. I nodded in agreement, but kept my personal opinion about the Crafter out of my mouth. He didn't need another reason to dislike them.
"Yeah, it seems a lot people are excited about it." I replied. I was interested myself, but not enough for it to really show.
"And that's why you and I are going to go harvest a ton and sell it." He said with an intense expression of determination. I looked to my friend like he was out of his mind. Obsidian involved lava and there was no way I wanted to be roasted like the swine that I was.
"Are you nuts? That's beyond dangerous. I'm not risking my hide from some shiny, black rock." I grumbled. Townsend scowled and took me by the shoulder, wrapping his arm around me and started to stroll down the lane.
"Come, come now. This isn't the worst idea I've ever had, and trust me, it won't be the last, but we've done stupider things." He said. He was right about that. As kids, we had done plenty of stupid things. The main one I remembered off the top of my head – my personal favorite – we had "borrowed" a pig from my mother's livestock pen and Townsend had yanked a couple carrots from his father's garden. We made a makeshift saddle out of half a rug and tied the carrots to a string that we had tied to a stick. Mr. Oink was hungry for carrots, that much was certain, because when I waved the orange veggie in front of his snout, he took off like a bolt of lightning. To make an exhilarating story short, Mr. Oink and I didn't see the ledge before it was too late and his squishy body was the only reason I survived the fall. Our parents whipped our rumps raw and we were never to go near that pig pen ever again. To this day, I still blame it all on Townsend.
"Yeah, I know. I just don't want to catch flame because we got too close to the lava." I muttered. He patted my shoulder and chuckled.
"You worry too much. Everything will be fine." He said. I gave him a skeptical look, a look I was sure he had seen plenty of times as well.
"You said that the time I broke almost all of the bones in the right side of my body. If we do this, I'm going to catch fire, I can almost guarantee it." I said bluntly. Townsend still looked optimistic, which told me he wasn't going to drop it, and he gave me an exhausted sigh.
"Alright, alright, I'll give you the night to think about it, but I want an answer by tomorrow morning, ya hear?" He said, pointing a chubby digit at me. I brushed his hand away and nodded.
"Yeah, yeah, okay." I muttered back, giving him a friendly smirk. He nodded and let me go.
"Oh, before I leave, how's your progress on that whole brewing thing?" He asked. I had barely worked on my little personal project since the last time I had talked to him. It wasn't worth talking about, really…
"Still haven't found something that can get hot enough to dissolve all of the components together and stabilize the mixture. Frankly, I don't think I've any stable ingredients either." I shrugged. He snorted in disappointment and said goodbye. I was more perplexed by my brewing problem than Townsend's get-rich-quick scheme. I could've definitely made more money that way than with rocks. Unfortunately… the rock was already in demand. As I walked up to my home, I let out a defeated sigh. My decision had been made. I just needed to dig up my armor so I didn't end up as barbecue.
I stared into the little flask in front of me, trying its best to boil. The combination of water and redstone looked to try and come together, but it just wasn't working. There had to have been an ingredient missing. I just didn't know where it could've possibly been. I slammed a clinched fist onto the table and swore, pushing away and letting out an angry snort.
Tomorrow was already starting to bug me. Townsend was so eager to be going so soon. I knew he wanted to go now, in the dead of the night. Patience was non-existent with him. That was one of my pet peeves with my old friend. Careful planning and caution had always been my strongest suit. Him, not so much. He always controlled the situation and I couldn't tell him no, no matter how much I wanted to. Looking over to my stand, my armor was ready for me for the morning. I just knew there was some way I could protect myself more, but I didn't have the means to figure out what it was.
The night was already cold and yet still alive. Skeletons rattled around and zombies clawed at the windows. Our iron doors, however, kept them at bay. Since they were deterred, I could just stare right back at them, feeling sympathy and pity for the lifeless eyes that looked straight through mine. I noticed that every zombie looked kinda like a Crafter. It was eerie and strange, really. The only zombies I ever saw were Crafters. No pigmen, no Testificates. The Testificates were an odd bunch. They were bald with big noses and the brightest green eyes. I think people simply started calling them villagers after losing touch with the meaning of their true names.
Either way, no one shared the same opinion I had about the living corpses. No one thought anything disturbing or…unworldly could happen to such a superior race. I thought it was simply cosmic justice for their huge egos and complexes. I knew my karma was no better, but I didn't dwell on it then.
I turned my little burner off and blew out my torch. It was late and Townsend would be expecting me. Laying my head down on my feather filled pillow, I tried to sleep through the creepy chill of being stared at by lifeless eyes.
