When I awoke, Erik was already awake, crafting a chest.
"We're staying here for a while, right? Good morning by the way." He said as I stood up and looked at the crafting table.
"Preferably, I would like to find another village." I suggested. "We could find other players. If we don't, at least we should find a better place to build a shelter than the top of this hill."
"Yea, I suppose you're right. I don't want to wake up to the sight of destruction every morning." Erik replied. He crafted the chest, but put it in his inventory. "You need some steak or something?"
"I'm good." I said, taking a look at my hotbar. "I have plenty of stamina left. Let's head down there to see what's left of the village."
Erik broke the crafting table and replaced it with an anvil. "Do you still have that bow from last night?"
"Yea. Why?" I asked, pulling it out.
"Let me try fixing it, then we'll head out. I have some arrows and strings on me."
"May I ask, how did you get a whole ass anvil?"
"I stole it from that village." Erik answered, placing the bow on it and adding string to it. Sure enough, the bow magically repaired itself and Erik tossed it back to me, along with some arrows..
"You probably have better aim than I do." Erik commented, heading out the door.
"When we're done we can destroy this base and pack up the planks-"
"I have more stacks of planks than a weeb has anime figures, we'll be fine." I interrupted. Following him outside. "Let's be careful when we go down there, don't want to be taking unnecessary fall damage."
"Got it." Erik said, as he walked ahead of me and slowly made his way down the hill to the cratered village.
As I made my way down the hill, a bunch of questions flew through my mind.
"How did this happen?"
"Who could have done this?"
"Could they still be here?"
"What was their motive?"
"Man, whoever did this must have been with a group or something." I suggested.
"I've been hearing some stuff about groups of griefers on this server, but I'm not sure about the exact details. I just know that their go to strategy for doing this stuff is minecarts, and that's about it."
"A single stack of minecarts did this much damage? I doubt it." I inferred. "It must've been more."
As we explored the jacked up landscape, Erik came close to a floating block of lava.
"This was where I was sleeping." He explained, looking around the area, cautious not to accidentally step into the lava. I went towards the far corner where there was a bunch of water, in hopes that there would possibly be some crops left over. Sure enough, there were some carrots left. I took them and stuck them in my inventory.
"Erik! I found food!" I called out. "Great!" He called out. As I searched the landscape more, I eventually came across a small stack of 10 diamonds. I snatched them quickly and slipped them into my inventory. Other than the carrots and the stack of diamonds, me and Erik didn't find anything but cobblestone.
"I'm going to collect some of the cobblestone." Erik said. "It may be useful if we have to build another house."
"Sounds good." I replied. I didn't care too much about design for a house at the moment, I mainly cared about living through the entire year. I cracked a quick joke.
"Man, I am going to be so far behind on my car payments by the time I get out of this game…"
I could hear Erik laughing from across the area. "By the time I get back, they would've towed it off the lot!" He replied.
"Well, it's kind of obvious that there's nothing left here. Why don't we hit the road?" I suggested.
"Yea, let's do that." Erik replied.
"Do you know any other villages near this one?"
"I don't, sorry. But we may get lucky and run into a player-built village if we keep going this way."
"I'll follow you then."
As we walked, I took a look at the biome. It was nothing but flat grass and oak trees for as far as I could see. Of course there were small lakes here and there, but that was about it. Erik had his sword out at ready.
"Erik, it's the middle of the day. You don't need to be carrying your sword everywhere you go." I commented.
"Well, I'm not only looking for mobs, I'm also looking for pigs n stuff that we can eat."
"I guess you have a point. And by the way, let me know if you see any mines or coal chunks. I'm running low."
As we ventured through the thick forest, the landscape changed slightly. It became more mountainous, which drained our stamina. We decided to stop for a quick break right outside a cave entrance to have something to eat.
"If only I picked singleplayer, I'd have a whole year to build whatever redstone creation I wanted." Erik mentioned, taking a bite out of some bread.
"You're good with redstone?" I asked.
"Yea. and I don't mean good as in I can build a jeb door. I mean good as in I built a whole calculator in this game before."
"Wow. What an amazing flex, but at the same time, completely worthless."
"It worked too." Erik commented. "All my friends were amazed that I was capable of that kind of stuff."
"So, why did you pick this server?" I asked.
"One of my friends mentioned that they were going to pick this server whenever they get the chance to register for the program, so I figured I'd pick it as well so I could meet him. Now I hope he picks something else." he laughed a bit.
"Yea… no shit." I added.
Getting up, I decided to continue forward. Erik quickly followed. As we went through the forest, It was beginning to get less and less dense. There were obvious signs the forest was slowly being mined out. Floating leaves, random oak logs, you name it.
"There must be people nearby." I suggested. "This is probably where they stopped mining this forest up."
"Yea." Erik replied. "I find it strange that they aren't re-planting the trees though."
"If my hypothesis is right, I think we're about to come across a village of some sort, because that's the only valid explanation for why someone would want this much wood." I inferred.
"Did you just say "hypothesis" unironically..?" Erik commented.
"And what's wrong with that?" I replied.
"You know what, never mind." Erik said, continuing to munch on some bread.
As we walked further, the trees became more and more scarce, until we were presented with a completely tree free landscape with a lake and mountain in the background, and…
"Hey Erik!" I pointed to what appeared to be some houses. "I think I found our new home!"
"Oh hell yeah, score!" Erik exclaimed, sprinting towards the village.
"Hey take it easy man!" I yelled trying to catch up.
"Should've had more food!" He yelled, as I started losing speed. Looking at my stamina bar, sure enough it was lower than I wanted it to be.
"I'll come find you later!" I yelled out, deciding to walk the rest of the way to the village.
Coming closer to the village, it occurred to me that this village did not look natural at all. The streets were made of cobblestone instead of the usual brown grass or gravel. The streetlights were redstone lamps powered by daylight sensors and the houses were all a lot bigger. It was pretty clear that this entire place was completely built from scratch.
As I walked into the village, the only person I could see was some player tending to some crops in the garden.
"Excuse me!" I said to try and get his attention. Looking closer at him, his skin was just a pure tree.
"Yes?" He replied, turning to me. "Wait a sec. I don't recognize you…"
"Yea, I'm not from around here. Where is this?" I asked.
"This is Contavern village. Where do you venture from, may I ask?"
"I have a better question for you." I replied. "Why the FUCK do you have a block of wood set as your skin?"
"I have this skin because I am one of the tree miners in this village. It helps to blend in in case I come across other people in the forest."
"I guess that explains the deforestation surrounding this area… why don't you guys replant the trees?" I asked.
"We do, but we wait to completely clear out that nearby forest before starting to re-plant because we grow them in a specific way each time. Anyways, what can I do for you?"
"Does this village have a leader or something I can go see? I want to know more about this place."
The player pointed towards one of the houses near the end of the villages which looked abnormally larger than the other. "He lives in one of the houses near the end."
"Thanks." I replied. I decided to browse the place and see if there was anyone else outside, or if I could find where Erik wandered off to. As I was passing by, I looked into the windows of the houses, and close to none of them were occupied at all.
"Where is everybody?" I thought to myself, as I passed by numerous empty houses. Something at the corner caught my attention. It was marked as a storage room. Curious, I opened the door to a relatively empty room. Each wall was completely filled with double and single chests, with crafting tables and furnaces in between them. Some anvils also sat in the middle.
"Hmm, pretty interesting design." I thought to myself. "Only thing it's missing is an enchantment table."
Looking further, some of the chests were labeled with food or supplies. Looking around the area, I checked to make sure that nobody was close to the room, and I opened the food chest. Sure enough, it was filled to the brim with various different meats, fruit and veggies.
"Holy shit…" I whispered to myself. I figured I wasn't supposed to be in this room, so I only took a few pork chops and decided to leave the storage room. As I ate the pork chops, I finally came across some people in the town, other than Erik. There were 2 players outside one of the houses. One of them was about to go back inside, the other had some diamonds out. I realized the guy about to go back in the house had an enchanted book in his hand.
"Are they trading or something?" I wondered to myself.
Taking a look at the person with the diamonds, she had gray hair long enough to cover one eye and some sort of gray shirt and black boots of some sort.
"Come on man, just give me like 2 more days! I promise you I can get you the payment in time," I heard her pleading.
"I'm sorry, but I asked for 15 diamonds, and you only have 5. I'm not selling this book for that little."
"I just need more time."
"I don't know what to tell you. You're out of luck now, because I'm going to use this on my sword since you don't have the proper payment."
Just then, I remember the diamonds I snatched from the destroyed village. I quickly rummaged through my inventory to get them, but the guy was about to head in and shut the door.
"Yo wait a sec!" I yelled out, approaching them with the diamonds.
"Is this your friend or something?" The guy asked.
"I don't even… I mean yea, he is." She replied.
"You said 15, right? I have 10, she has 5. Now give her the book." I demanded, handing the 10 diamonds over. She handed the remaining 5.
"You're sad, you know that? You have to borrow from everyone around here." the guy said, as he tossed the book over and closed the door behind him.
"Thank you so much!" the girl said, as she turned towards me. "I'll pay you back somehow, you can count on it."
"Eh, don't worry about it." I replied, as I moved on. "Just put that book to good use."
As I approached the house the wood man was talking about, I spotted Erik standing near the water well. "You find anyone?" I asked.
"Nope. What bout you?"
"I found some people doing some sort of trade but that's about it." I replied. "Maybe they're all out mining or something."
"I suppose that is a possibility." Erik replied.
"I was told the village leader is here." I added. "I'm going to go in and ask if any of these houses are free."
I said, as I approached the door. Opening it, I called out.
"Hello? Anyone here?"
"Coming!" I heard a voice from upstairs. As he came down, I took a look at his skin. He was wearing a white T-Shirt and blue pants.
"Well, that's one of the better ones." I thought to myself.
"Hey, you're not from around here…" He mentioned, as he came to the door.
"Yea, I guess you could say we're travelers." I answered, pointing to Erik. "Me and my friend here are new to this server and we were trying to find a place where we could crash for a while."
"Um… okay?" the guy responded. "By the way, my name is Miles."
"Mike." I responded, holding out my hand.
"Oh, that isn't necessary." Miles said, as he walked out the house and motioned them to follow.
"Let me see what I can do for you two."
As they walked, I brought up some questions.
"Where is everyone?"
"Most of the village is out either hunting for animals, exploring, or mining supplies to contribute to the village. During the day, almost nobody is home unless they are building something here or transferring supplies." Miles explained.
Walking through the houses, Miles looked at them. Each one had a sign on it with some sort of username on it. The group passed by the girl I met earlier, as we reached the other end of the village.
"Well, I don't know how to say this, but none of these places are unoccupied, I'm afraid you may have to look for another village."
"We have supplies…" I mentioned. "We can just build another house."
"Can't do that here." Miles explained. "I'm the one that builds all the stuff here, and I sort of rent out all of it to people. If we have people building their own houses they won't have to pay me anything and I won't be getting any income."
Erik sighed. "There's gotta be HOA's in Minecraft too…"
I couldn't help but laugh.
"Yea, I hate to be that guy, but you guys can't stay here if you aren't staying in one of these house–"
"They can live with me." I heard from the left. Approaching Miles was the same girl from the trade deal.
"Well…" Miles said. "I suppose I'm okay with that." he began walking back towards the house he came from. "Oh, and by the way, there's food and other stuff in the supply room if you guys want any."
"Thank you miss." Erik said. I looked at her in confusion.
"Why did you…"
"You helped me…" She began. "So now, I'm helping you."
"What's she talking about?" Erik asked me.
"I uh… I helped her trade for an enchanted book or something." I explained.
"I'll lead you to my place so you guys can get situated." she said, leading the way. I finally got the chance to make out her name tag.
"JoystickJamie…" I read it out. "I take it you're a gamer girl or something?"
She sighed. "Please don't say that again… also, just call me Jamie."
"She looks like an emo high school freshman…" Erik joked.
"Shut the fuck up…" Jamie snarked.
"Hey…" I nudged Erik's shoulder. "At least she isn't a furry."
Jamie laughed a bit. "Yea, I think I can learn to get along with you two eventually."
