Ender's Game
Chapter Four: A Whole New World
I yawned and sat up. Sunlight filtered through my makeshift-window, shining into my face. Mental note I thought sleepily Move the bed.
A new day of mining, chopping wood, and fiery goodness. Oh joy. I smiled and got dressed. It wasn't a bad existence, really. When you factor in the fact you could have died nineteen times before reaching where you were now, it made you see the world a little differently.
Ebony crawled up to me and mewled for food.
I grinned again. "Alright, breakfast will be ready in a sec."
After a few seconds of furnace heat, it was completely cooked. I tore off a big piece for Ebony and ate the rest.
I checked my purse. As usual, all stacked in neat little rows. I bet my sword if I poured everything out of my purse it would fill the whole house, but like usual, I didn't question it.
I grabbed my new new iron sword (this was getting expensive) and proceeded to the mines. Tabitha would be overseeing one of Oss' "projects" so that he didn't blow anything up without her.
I reached into my purse and brang out my old iron pickaxe. It was the same one I got the first day here. I smiled as the memories came back, of me trying to hide from my would-be best friend.
I quickly ran through the tall grass, tickling my feet. I made a mental note to make another pair of boots. After a minute or so, I arrived at the caves.
Looking down into the lit caverns, I quickly stepped onto the cool stone. It was scratchy under my feet, so I quickly leaped this way and that, avoiding the direct right angles of the rocks.
After a few minutes of leaping past stone, I finally hit my favorite place to mine. It was a little bit above the level you would find lava, but below the max you would find diamonds at.
Swinging my pick, the stone crumbled into tiny pieces, which formed instantly into a block, which zoomed into my purse. I continued the familiar break-check technique, and within five minutes I had a pretty long tunnel.
It was boring, hot work, and the only pleasure I got was ripping my pick into the stone. I found a vein of coal, but after 20 minutes, I only found that. Groaning softly to myself, I proceeded to run back down the passage.
I dashed back up the rocky staircase, cursing at my bad luck. A few lumps of coal and another big chunk of my pick missing. Wonderful.
When I finally emerged in the grassy field, it was midday. I decided that lunch would be great, so I went into the forest to kill things. Drawing my sword, I silently chuckled. How screwed up does your life have to be that saying that you're going to go kill things happens on a daily basis?
Apparently a lot, as I spotted a chicken. In one, swift maneuver, I relieved the chicken of its head. And it's delicious meat. Oh well.
I ran back through the itchy grass to my house, where Ebony was frolicking around, with the string ball I made her. Whenever someone walked by, she performed tricks with it and mewled.
I rolled my eyes and picked her up. "Show off." I muttered.
Ebony looked almost reproachfully at me, and I put it down as my imagination. Didn't want to question the depths of my sanity at this time.
I picked her up, and we started walking home. Just as I reached the door, however, Tabitha came up to me looking excited. That, in itself, was odd enough. Tabitha usually looked pissed, angry, or hungry.
"Lisa…" She said breathlessly "Someone washed up on the beach!"
~*~*O*~*~
We instantly rushed to the beach where I washed up a week or so before. Apparently, this was a big thing, Mike told me.
Upon coming out of the trees, we saw Mike and Sandra talking to a slim, olive-skinned girl on the beach, looking confused. I couldn't blame her. She entered the world seeing a bunch of people in shiny armor acting doctor. In all honesty, I would have just run away.
Luckily she didn't.
She looked about 16ish, wearing a faded grey shirt with black pants. Her hair was jet black and tied in a ponytail, and was gazing at us with clear emerald eyes.
"…And these are our friends, Lisa and Tabitha."
I nodded once when my name was called.
The girl stood up and said "My name is Jada. Could you possibly tell me how I ended up on this beach?"
And so began the speech of Minecraftia, Herobrine and Notch blah blah blah lets go mine blah blah blah. Not particularly interesting to me, because I've heard it three times already.
Mike brought her back to the base, explaining it all as he went. We occasionally helped out, saying things like "Pigs drop pork.", "Sheep drop wool." And "Swords are pointy."
Not that she looked dumb, I just tried to make a sword joke. It didn't work. Now I was the dumb one. Oh well.
I rummaged in my purse and gave her half a stack of wooden planks, an iron sword, and an iron pick, to get her started.
When Mike finished teaching her the basics, I whispered to her "You get logs with your hands. It's a very important fact."
Just to be safe, right?
Jada seemed to be okay with a bow and sword, so she carried both. I was relieved. This would make surviving much easier. Maybe more people would come?
I dismissed the thought. Even if they did, people risking their lives is a big thing.
"Hey Jada!" I shouted across the camp. Jada jogged over, sporting an iron chestplate. "Wanna go mining?"
Jada shrugged, "Sure"
We ran over to the caves, and I jumped right in. Jada held back though.
I looked back. "Whats the matter?"
"Are you sure this is safe?"
"Perfectly safe. Nothing collapses or anything, in fact I'm not sure if that's even possible…"
She seemed to be analyzing the cave, a determined look in her eyes.
"Alright" she grinned, "Just checking".
We ran down the cave, finding a good tunnel that seemed nice and long.
I pulled out a bundle of torches and lit the path, as we dug our pickaxes into the ores we found. It was pretty easy, all I had to do was keep walking, light torches, and mine ores.
All the while we talked. Jada seemed pretty dependable and serious, so that was good. Once when I didn't notice a creeper behind me, she shot it directly into the head, desecrated the corpse, and pulled out a glob of gunpowder.
That was scary yet comforting at the same time. -1 point for my sanity. Yay.
When we finally decided to stop, we were about 500 blocks from where we started.
We looked at each other for a second, me being slightly taller than her (How the crap…?), and we proceeded to run through the passage.
I counted 23 lumps of coal, 8 chunks of iron, 6 redstone pieces, and 5 blocks of gold.
Not bad, I guess. I also counted fifteen enderpearls, from the fight in the camp all those days ago. Seemed like forever. I reflected that even though I'd only been there more than a week, I felt like I'd lived there forever.
We both came up to the cave entrance, and I nearly staggered with horror.
An army of monsters ran up, sabotaging buildings, setting fires, and endermen were everwhere.
Oss and Tabitha were fighting for their lives, surrounding the mansion, where the mobs were closing in.
Jada quickly drew her bow, her eyes flitting back and forth, while I charged into action.
"Wait!"
Jada yelled after me, pulling me back.
"Don't rush into battle or you'll die. We need a plan."
"We don't have time!" I yelled, but she was determined.
She narrowed her eyes at the oncoming army, and then smiled.
"Do we have any sand?"
~*~*O*~*~
A couple minutes later, we had at least five blocks of TNT, all carefully taken apart to be put on arrows and lit.
As I lit them, Jada fired them, causing a huge crater in the mob wall.
"Keep going!"
I rolled my eyes at how unorthodox this method was, but it was extremely effective. Unfortunately, we hadn't been invincible. Jada was sporting a large gash on her cheek, and I had taken multiple arrows to my leg. Hot blood was spilling down my right leg, as I tried to bandage it and light TNT at the same time.
"Now!"
I lit, and she fired. Lit and fired. It kept going, but the mobs kept coming, and it wasn't even midnight yet.
I heard a strangled hiss, and Ebony came running towards me, with lots of scratches all around her.
Relieved, I tossed her a piece of chicken, which she happily devoured.
Jada sighed. "It's no use. We gotta go in."
I grinned. "Now that is something I can do."
I somersaulted over a creeper hole, decapitated a few spiders (God they're creepy…) and kicked a creeper in the chest.
I put my iron sword in my bag and brang out my diamond one. I grinned wickedly. This was going to be awesome.
As soon as my blade hit a mob, they instantly combusted, and they died much quicker.
Just as soon as I thought we had this in the bag, I heard warbling.
Terror ran through me as no less than 60 endermen came warbling into camp, with their jaws opened extremely wide. One came to me and instantly chomped on my sword. My beloved diamond sword went flying into the woods. My vision reddened with anger, but I started running.
I heard someone yelling "Get to the portal! They can't get in there!"
Thanking Notch or Herobrine or whoever that was that I kept all my things in my purse, I dashed for the portal. I looked around, and I saw everyone but Oss. Fear stabbed through me.
"Oss!"
Everyone looked around, and took up the call.
"Oss!"
"Where are you buddy?"
"Come back Oss!"
To no avail, he didn't appear. I felt a pang of sadness, but I kept running.
The endermen and other monsters were catching up fast, and I had to grab Sandra, who looked like she was about to pass out.
I heard a scream, then silence. Only later I would realize it was Tabitha's.
Ten feet…Five feet…JUMP!
I jumped through the portal and instantly saw my vision clouded by purple…
~*~*O*~*~
I felt nauseous as I came out, from the portal or what just happened.
Mike gave a relieved sigh as I came out. He, Sandra, Rich, and Jada were the only ones there.
"Thank Notch…We'd thought you'd died." He breathed.
"Wait…" He said, looking around. "Where's Tabitha and Oss?"
The truth dawned on him. The prospect of death to two of our best friends shook us.
"We…should probably get moving…" Rich quietly replied.
We all nodded as we set off. We were basically stranded in the Nether, and we can't go back to our base.
~*~*O*~*~
It had been five days where we'd been wandering the Nether. All of us sustained burns and we were all extremely sweaty. Luckily Rich had some water bottles, but all his potions were still brewing at his house.
Or what was left of it.
We were walking along a narrow cliffside, making our way across a wall of netherrack, with lava right below us. Joy.
We were rationing our food, so we didn't have to survive on rotten flesh from zombie pigmen. Now that would have been disgusting.
As we tiredly climbed over the next cliff, something caught my eye. It was black and purple, and giving off a purple glow. Excitement ran through me.
"Portal!" I almost screamed, running past everyone towards it.
When we finally reached it, I literally threw myself in, feeling the dizzying purple cloud my vision…
~*~*O*~*~
When we came out of the portal, we were in a city. It was about the size of 150 blocks squared, and had buildings everywhere. There were stone slab roads, glowstone lamps, and even a capital building.
"We're saved!" I breathed.
Suddenly five guards, armed to the teeth in iron, came up to us, leveling swords at our face.
"Or not…" I corrected myself.
"Who are you?" said the one in front. He had a blueish insignia on his chestplate, and he spoke with authority.
We all explained, from the endermen reappearing to the most recent invasion. He nodded as we spoke, and when we were finished, he had a friendly smile on his face.
"Well praise Notch that you all got out of that alive!" He replied, noting all our cuts and burns.
"Here, follow me. We'll take you to the living areas." He offered.
All of us hadn't slept well in the past five days, so we just couldn't refuse. We all clambered off on our burned shoes (Didn't smell too good) and followed him.
"I'm Craig." He spoke, as we ran past alleys and into a cobblestoned street with houses on either side. "I'm the leader of the Guard Force around here. Someone's gotta make sure those dang creepers don't end up in here."
He finally stopped next to a street labeled "Cobblestone Avenue". It was a moment later I realized ALL the streets were labeled that. Yeesh.
He gestured to four houses, each seeming clean and fresh. Since there were five of us, Sandra would be living with me. We both seemed pretty happy about it. At least, since I'm a mind reader and I can read my own mind. Shocking.
We ran to our respective houses, and when I went in, it was very nice. There were wool floors, chairs, beds, even a clean kitchen with a fireplace happily crackling.
Exhausted and needing rest badly, me and Sandra collapsed on the beds, weary to the bone.
"It's been a long day hasn't it?" I whispered to myself, wondering whether Oss and Tabitha made it to the Aether. Definitely not the Nether, from what I heard about after-death folklore. Apparently all the bad people turned into zombie pigmen. That's why I don't feel very remorseful from killing them.
I rolled over and fell asleep, the first feeling of contentment since that raid washing over me…
~*~*O*~*~
The next day, me and Sandra woke up feeling refreshed. I opened my purse and saw just one piece of beef, so I cooked it in the furnace thoughtfully provided in the kitchen, and cut it in half.
I had to use an old stone sword since my diamond one got lost. I was seriously gonna kick some random mob butt for that. It was a good sword.
Apparently from the signs and notices on our front door, the city was called Iron Metropolis. I wonder where the gold and coal were… just kidding. Although that would be weird, if that actually existed.
It was strange, being in a town. They treated gold bars as currency, and we had to abide by all the rules, like "don't randomly kill things when they wander into the road." It's not my fault, that cow was looking at me funny. I swear!
Living on our own, we were really filthy and everyone else seemed so…clean.
It was a great place and don't get me wrong, I loved it but…something just felt missing. I would always miss hunting in the forest rather than just going to the market place, and exploring the woods rather than walking on the assigned roads.
Still, that man Craig had done us a favor. I had to be nice.
I discovered there was a library, and I literally dragged Mike over there.
"What are we looking for?" Mike yelled from another shelf, where he was balanced precariously on a ladder.
"SHH!" hushed the majority of the library. Geez.
I ran over to him and whispered "Something on the Aether. Don't ask why."
After a few minutes of searching, reading, and falling hilariously off ladders (He, it was funny!), we finally found a book.
It was labeled "Dimension Doors: The key to dimension jumping."
It was dusty and looked like no one bothered to touch it for a few years. I blew most of it off and opened it. A table of contents told me the Aether was on page 47.
I turned to page 47 and started to read.
"Out of all dimensions, Aether could be considered the most beautiful… or the most deadly. The Aether is a series of Skylands much above the clouds, accessible by a portal of glowing rock and water. Many creatures live here, such as the famous Moa, giant birds of the Aether, Swets, giant slimes of the Aether, or the more infamous Cockatrice, a Moa that expels poison darts.
The Aether's majesty must not fool you, terrible cube guardians and all-powerful Sun Spirits are contained in dungeons, with amazing treasures to be guarded.
The people of the Aether are Valkyries, winged people with prodigious combat skills, who dwell in many floating temples, guarding the Valkyrie Queen. Indeed, the Valkyries cannot be killed, for they are the "dead" spirits of the departed from the Overworld who are deemed worthy by the holy Notch and Herobrine.
Notch resides in the Aether, just as his counterpart Herobrine lives in the Nether. He however, is almost impossible to find, and it is said when the time is right shall appear, and only then."
I closed the book when I finished the page. So Notch lives in the Aether, and to get there it sounds like I need to make a glowstone portal, and use water too. It sounded very nice, but the mobs sounded dangerous. I found out that it had info on all the dimensions, so I checked it out.
I checked my purse, and discovered I had enough glowstone dust to make a portal frame. Thank Notch, I've had enough of the nether to last me a lifetime.
When Mike and I got to my house, I started building. 5x4, and at last a water bucket in the middle…
I heard the eerie portal sounds, and in the middle of the frame a blueish material was pulsating, and I could hear music coming out of it.
I gestured to Mike, but he stood his ground.
"Why are we going here?"
I realized it was hopeless to keep hiding it. Sighing, I told him about Herobrine and having to meet Notch.
He looked amazed, and when I was done, he said "Well we can't go alone! We have to go, all of us!"
I shook my head before he finished the sentence. "It's too dangerous. I won't have anybody else dying."
He thought for a moment, but then said "At least bring Jada. She could be useful."
I nodded, grinning. With just the three of us, we could do it fast and we could stand more of a chance.
"Alright."
A few minutes later, Jada was strapped in her armor and swinging an iron sword. I had fashioned myself a new iron one and told Ebony to stay there.
"Everyone ready?"
They both nodded, as we jumped into the swirling blue…
~*~*O*~*~
If the Nether took my breath away, the Aether positively choked me. We were on a floating island of bright green grass, surrounded by unfamiliar blocks. There were clouds, but they seemed more solid, and there were dozens of huge floating islands all around us, with different trees. A few rabbits (How did I know what those were…) were jumping around, puffing every few seconds to stay afloat.
Big sheep with symbols on their wool bounced around, and after consulting the book, I figured out they were called "Sheepuffs".
Majestic floating whales and giant birds roamed the sky, Aerwhales and Moas I presumed. The whole place was lit by an unusually bright sun, which seemed to be moving much slower than usual.
Overcome with excitement, I grabbed my axe and started chopping a tree. To my despair, it seemed to mine harder than a fist and stone. I tried again, and it still didn't work.
I consulted the book, and it said…
"Tools from the Overworld will not work in the Aether, for it is a dimension of its own, and bringing tools from there is unadvised. You must fashion tools from Skyroot, Holystone, Zanite Ore, Gravitite Ore, and find many others in the dungeons of the Aether."
Oh. Now I felt stupid.
I chopped the tree with my bare hands, finding it much faster, and fashioned myself a crafting bench. Rearranging the "Skyroot Planks" like regular ones, I made sticks and a Skyroot Pickaxe.
Pleased with myself, I started to mine. If what the book said was true, our tools wouldn't be effective, and I'd bet our weapons wouldn't either. We would need to mine some better tools, then go explore.
I chuckled as an Aerwhale bumped into the island, then had an idea.
I jumped onto the Aerwhale, expecting to be able to ride it, but I slid off like it was a greased pig. Luckily, it was still over the island.
"Oof!" I grunted.
Mike and Jada came over, looking worried, but I waved them off. All a part of the fun, right?
I noticed one of those Moas near me, it was white. I crept toward it, bringing out my sword. Maybe Moa was tasty. But to no avail, because the Moa noticed me and flew off in fright. It left one thing though, a white and grey dotted egg. Thinking that would make a good breakfast, I put it in my purse.
I checked my purse. I brang only essentials: stacks of torches, lots of blocks, my now-useless tools, some food, and so on.
I punched the grass, noticing it broke a lot faster than in the Overworld. I started a mine, using my Skyroot Pickaxe to break open the new stone. I consulted the book again and found out it was the Holystone they mentioned. With it, I fashioned myself a new pickaxe. We were well on our way.
I made a few for Mike and Jada, and tossed it to them. We all started mining, swinging and slashing. Eventually I found an ore with a purplish material inside. Excited, I quickly dug my pick in, and it dropped a purple jewel, cut and shining already. It was Zanite, the next tier of materials. I was very pleased.
There were two more in there, so I made a Zanite pick. However, I kept using the Holystone one. Much better to conserve.
We kept doing this for two hours or so, and every so often we would reach the edge of the island and nearly fall off. It was pretty scary when that happened.
Mike found 7 more Zanite jewels, and Jada found 4. I only found those three I got, but I still thought we did really good.
Oddly, even though we came here at about midmorning, the sun looked like we had only been here thirty minutes. The Aether was weird, but it was another dimension. Can't be picky.
"Hey let's head back." I spoke as we came out of the mine.
Mike and Jada nodded, exhausted, as we clambered back through the portal.
I decided that the Aether was pretty cool, and with a new feeling of contentment in our new home, I prepared lunch.
I smiled as Ebony pawed my legs. The Iron Metropolis seemed pretty peaceful.
At least, I hoped so.
Protip: The Aether makes all Overworld tools pretty much useless. Skyroot, Holystone, Zanite, and Gravitite are the Aether equivalents of wood, stone, iron, and diamonds, respectively.
(A/N: I am so sorry for whatever fans I may or may not have :P.
School is driving me crazy, and procrastination won over writing. Meh. Anywho please review, and still accepting OCs. By the way, I promise that I will try to get this in sooner! Cyall!)
