I woke up the following morning to Erik cooking food in the furnace.
"Where's Jamie?" I asked.
"She's outside somewhere." Erik answered. "Why were you sleeping downstairs?"
"Oh.. I took over the crafting for Jamie so she could sleep."
"Well, I guess that explains why she was in such a good mood when she got up this morning…"
"Say… why don't we finish that house so we can get Miles to pay us?" I suggested picking myself up and grabbing some baked potatoes out of the furnace. Coming back to the table, I yawned loudly.
"How late did you stay up?" Erik asked, taking the rest of the food out of the furnace.
"Late enough to find Obama's last name." I replied. "I just know I got it done."
Erik took a look at me. "Are you sure you have enough energy to finish that house?" He asked.
"Yeah…" I said, taking a bite out of the baked potatoes I took. As I was eating, Jamie entered the house.
"Morning Mike." She said, opening one of the chests, shocked.
"Damn, you got all of it done…" She commented. "How late did you stay up?"
"Late." I replied. "Anyways, me and Erik are going to finish the house, but before that, what's the plan?"
"Oh yes, thank you for reminding me." Jamie said, sitting down at the table next to me. Erik sat across from me.
"How are we going to get the village in on it without pissing Miles off?" Erik asked.
"Well you see… that's the problem. We won't be able to without pissing him off." Jamie said. "We'll just have to accept that."
"Me and Erik have been living here for like 3-4 days and we're already going to get on the leader's bad side?" I questioned, looking at Jamie.
"Well, what else should we do?" She asked.
"Talk." I said. "Talk to Miles and get him to believe us. We can show him the books."
"If we show him the books he could think we're members of the group and kick us out of the village…" Jamie replied. "I'm not chancing that."
"Well, its better then sacrificing all the lives of the village inhabitants because one incompetent piece of shit doesnt care about a coming invasion." Erik said.
"Actually, it's kind of a loss both ways in that case." I replied. "If we show the books as proof, we get kicked out, and the village is caught off guard and taken over. If we don't, then everyone dies, including us. We don't have a lot of options other than to just outright tell everyone regardless of what Miles thinks about it."
Jamie took a glance at me. "Are you sure about this?"
"Look, if you want, I can go talk to Miles with you, and I can explain the situation." I offered. "But first I have to build that damn house so he can pay me and Erik the diamonds."
Jamie sighed. "I guess. Just come right back when you're done and we'll head over there."
"Cool…" I said, finishing up the last of the baked potato. "Erik, wanna head out and finish it now?"
"Yeah. let's head out." Erik said, getting up and following me outside.
As we were walking to the place where we left off last night, Erik got out some wood planks and handed them to me.
"Need a little extra?" He asked, as I took the planks.
"Appreciate it." I said. When we approached the platform, we immediately got to work building. I didn't have any glass, so I left empty space where the windows would've gone. We were up to the second floor when Miles came by to check up on our progress.
"Nicely done guys!" He commented, walking away.
As we continued building, Erik sparked up a conversation.
"So, what's up with you and Jamie?" He asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for one thing yesterday you were acting weird all morning over that whole bed bullshit, and last night you didn't go upstairs alongside me, and on top of that you offered to finish crafting the stuff for her."
"She was exhausted…" I replied.
"Hmm, is that so…"
"Yes. That's the truth. I felt bad for her and I wante–"
"Ooooh, felt bad…?" Erik said.
"You sound like a 5th grader saying that." I said back.
"Why are you so mad?" Erik asked.
"I'm not mad."
"Oh, you're mad because I'm calling you out, aren't you…"
"Look, I dont know what the fuck you're talking about, but I just want to finish this damn house and collect my pay, so shut up." I said, continuing to construct the first floor. As I was building, I heard another explosion in the distance, however this one was a bit louder. It also came from the same place. Taking a look, I saw…
Nothing. Still nothing.
"Hey Erik, did you hear that too?" I asked.
"The explosion? Yea, yea I did. I think we're running out of time."
"Yea, we need to hurry with this thing and meet back with Jamie to go confront Miles." I said. "Let's hustle up."
We were able to knock out the top floor of the house in a few more minutes. We were just finishing the roof when we saw Jamie running towards us.
"Hey!" She hollered. "Did you guys hear that too?"
"We heard it loud and clear." I stated. "I don't know where it came from exactly, but I do know it was over there…" I pointed towards the forest.
"Are you guys done with the house?"
"Yeah, we just finished it." I replied. "I can come talk to Miles with you."
"Sounds like a date…" Erik whispered. I ignored him and jumped down to the surface to walk with Jamie to Miles' house. Knocking on the door, he answered immediately.
"Are you done with the house?" He asked.
"Yes, but that's not what we came here for." I said. "Say, did you just hear an explosion?"
"I've been inside this whole time. I didn't hear a thing." Miles answered.
"Well, it's the second day in a row I've heard an explosion coming from that forest, and I doubt it can be a creeper, because this time the explosion was really loud." I replied.
"Miles, I think the incursion you guessed wouldn't happen, is about to happen." Jamie added.
"Oh, not this again…" Miles said, beginning to close the door. I put my foot in between the opening.
"Look, just face it. We are about to get attacked. Let's take advantage of the time we ha–"
"We aren't going to be attacked. Stop overthinking it." Miles said. Taking a look at the forest again, I saw something new. Smoke. Black smoke.
I pointed towards the forest. "Does that look normal to you Miles?"
He took a look at the nearby forest, and sure enough, there was a rising cloud of dark smoke coming from deep beneath, followed by a yellow/red hue.
"What the…" he said, opening his door and stepping out. Taking a look at the forest, we could now all see a giant forest fire breaking out.
"Told you so." Jamie said.
"Wait…" Miles said. "What did that guy you two found say before he died..?"
"He warned us about the incursion." I said. "That fire over there, that's definitely what he was talking about."
The fire was reaching towards the end of the forest.
"Inform the villagers." Miles said, rushing to the storage room. "We'll craft some armor and stuff."
"We need to hurry. They could move on to us any minute now." Jamie said, rushing over to one of the houses and knocking on the door.
"Tell everyone to meet at the center of the village." Miles instructed.
"Alright." I replied.
A few houses later, we were able to get everyone assembled at the center of the village. Everyone was looking at the huge forest fire in the distance.
"Alright, listen up…" Miles said, approaching the crowd. "That forest fire over there is a signal that we might be in danger, so I want everyone to take extra precautions for the next few days in case there is a raid on this village."
Almost everyone in the village gasped.
"Oh god, it's the Pumpkins!" I heard someone call out. Everyone looked at the guy in shock, and began to talk over each other, debating on whether it actually was or not.
"Hey, can I get your attention…" Miles said.
The village people kept bickering.
"HEY!" he yelled.
I walked over to his side, pulling out the diamond sword, and shoving it into the ground.
"EVERYBODY QUIET DOWN!" I yelled. Sure enough, everyone shut up and prepared to listen to what I have to say.
"We don't know who it is that could be coming. All we know is that they could potentially be coming here next, or other neighboring villages. What we need to focus on now is getting ready for the worst."
"Are we gonna die?" one of the villagers asked.
"Not if we plan a counter attack." I said. "My friend Erik…" I pointed towards him, and he jumped up to make sure everyone could see him. "He's good at redstone. He can build us some arrow cannons, or tnt ones. That will definitely increase our chances against the potential threat. We can use the stuff from the storage room to craft swords an–"
"I already did that." Miles nudged.
"We have swords and armor ready. I'm not sure about bows and arrows, but we will need those as well. And we will DEFINITELY need shields and building blocks."
"How much time do we have to prepare?" Someone asked.
"There is no saying for when the attack will happen, if it does." I answered. "My best guess is we have until sundown. It seems sensible for an ambush attack because the enemies would think we're sleeping. That's step one in our element of surprise counter attack."
Jamie stepped up next to Miles.
"We need to consider evacuation." I heard her whisper into Miles' ear. "What if their takeover is successful…"
"We'll talk about that in private." Miles whispered back. The village people began bickering about again.
"Listen up everyone." I said. "I advise everyone to head to the storage room, and each of you grab two swords, a bow, a plethora of arrows or infinity book, and a full set of some sort of armor, as well as a leather backup set."
Everyone stood there looking at my diamond sword. I put it away.
"The hell yall doing still looking at me? Get to it!" I said. Sure enough, all the village people scrambled towards the storage room, leaving just me, Jamie, Erik, and Miles.
"Those people can't know it's an incursion battle." Miles said. "They will panic."
"Well, as far as they know now, it's just a raid." I said. "Now what were you saying about an evacuation?" I turned to Jamie.
"If the village is taken over by them, they will either force everyone here to join in and move on to the next target, or they will kill us, loot the village, and bomb it." Jamie explained. "I've heard of these people before. They aren't known for showing mercy."
"We should plant more trees." Erik suggested. "You guys mined all of them so now there's nowhere to hide in case we do have to make a run for it."
"I can send some people out to do that." Miles replied. "Good thinking."
"Do you have a bone meal?" I asked.
"Plenty. We can grow an entire forest back within 15 minutes." Miles answered. Looking at the sky, I noticed the sun was starting to set.
"Better make those 15 minutes count." I said, pointing upwards. "If my assumption is right and they're attacking us at night, we don't have a lot of time."
"Right. I'll get some people on the tree planting, you guys get ready, you know more about these people then I do, so you three will be calling the shots."
Miles fled towards the storage shed to ask some people to come help him.
Jamie looked at me.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Sure about what?" I replied.
"Our village is about to get attacked." Jamie explained. "You have time. You and your friend could run away right now and save your–"
"We ain't pussies." I interrupted her, equipping a set of iron armor.
"Yeah… what he said!" Erik said, also equipping some iron armor.
"Well…" Jamie said, putting on her armor. Her chestplate, unlike ours, was made of diamonds.
"I sure hope you two know what you're doing."
"Of course I do." Erik said, pulling out his enchanted wooden sword.
I chuckled a bit, pointing to him. "Welp, he's gonna die."
We all shared a good laugh.