As we ventured out towards the mines, Jamie led the way.
"We need to stock up on as much iron as we can." She said, "We're going to need it if we're going to be making iron armor for everyone in the village."
"Pause…" I said. "Everyone in the village?"
"Well, use your brain. 3 of us, with little to no PVP experience, versus an entire group of griefers in full diamond armor. Who would win?"
"The griefers…" I said. "But I don't understand why we have to craft all the stuff…"
"Miles keeps all the valuable metals deposited into the storage room. He has total control over what it's crafted into. If he doesn't believe in the incursion, he isn't going to use any of it."
"So we get him to believe it then." Erik said.
"Miles is stubborn. Only way he's gonna believe it is when it hits him in the face." Jamie said, entering the mine. As we all got our pickaxes out, we began to search for iron.
"We should mine stone too." I said, hitting the walls. "There's a lot more stone here than there is ore, so we can use it to make a bunch more weapons with it to use as backup."
"Alright, sounds like a plan." Jamie said, going further down to look for iron. Not wanting to fall too far behind, I followed closely. As we descended further, we came across a few chunks of iron, as well as coal, and…
"Redstone!" Erik said, pointing towards the glowing red crystals in the wall.
"We don't necessarily need redstone, but grab it." Jamie said.
"I can use this to build a TNT cannon to defend the village…" Erik suggested.
"Great thinking." I replied. "Fighting griefers with griefers tactics. I like it."
As we continued searching, Jamie stopped.
"How about we split up?" She suggested. "Mike, you get us cobblestone and whatever else you may find in the process. Erik, focus on redstone, and gold. I'll get iron, and if I come across it, diamonds."
"Sounds good." I said, starting up a tunnel to the left. "When both my pickaxes break, I'll meet you up top."
"Yea, actually, let's all head back up once our pickaxes break." Jamie suggested.
"What are we going to do about the door lock though?" I asked.
"Door lock?" Erik asked.
"The doors to this mine are on a time lock and will close automatically at night, if someone manages to get them open, a lig–"
"I can hack that…" Erik said. "Just give me five minutes and a little elbow grease."
"Say less… alright, let's split." Jamie said, heading further down the staircase.
As I was mining away at the wall and getting more cobblestone, I heard zombies ahead of me.
"Hmm… must be another cave system…" I thought to myself. I pulled out a torch to be cautious.
As I mined the stone, I hit mossy cobble. That could only mean one thing.
I was about to enter a dungeon.
As I pulled out my diamond sword, I prepared to kill whatever mobs may be swarming it. Breaking through, the dungeon was full of zombies. As I swung my sword, I tried to make my way for the spawner to break it. The zombies proved to be an easy opponent and I took care of them pretty easily. Taking a look around, there was a chest. Opening it, I found 4 iron ingots, diamond horse armor, a plethora of string, and… an enchanted golden apple.
"Jackpot!" I said to myself, emptying the chest and putting all the items into my inventory. "Now I can also craft myself some arrows!"
As I mined through the dungeon and further down my tunnel, I didn't really find anything else, but the golden apple alone was definitely helpful enough. Eventually, my first pickaxe broke and I switched to my last one. Luckily enough, I also stumbled across chunks of coal and more iron. Sidetracking a little to mine those, I checked my inventory. Almost every slot was completely filled with complete stacks of cobblestone.
"Yea, I think I mined enough…" I said to myself, turning back. Even if I did actually keep going til I broke my pickaxe, I wouldn't have been able to collect any more anyways, as my inventory was basically full. As I made my way back up, the first thing I saw was Erik, holding a block of redstone, followed by Jamie with a now enchanted iron sword.
"I take it you found a dungeon too?" I asked, pointing to the shimmering blade.
"Actually, no. It was a mineshaft. Oh, and I grabbed this for you…"
Jamie tossed an enchanted book to me. Looking at it, it was one for infinity.
"There. Now you don't have to worry about arrows for that bow of yours." She said. Erik pulled out a small stash of emeralds.
"If villages in this world trade like regular ones, these should come in handy." He said. "Oh, and also… I found a SHIT ton of redstone."
"I can tell…" I replied, staring at the block.
Taking a look out the entrance, it was still mid day.
"Looks like we finished earlier than we expected." I inferred. "We'll probably need some wood too, I can lend you my stacks when we get to the house."
"You should just craft them all into sticks, because that's basically all we'll need." Jamie replied.
"What about shields?" Erik asked.
"Well, that too I guess." Jamie added "you can still deflect attacks with swords in this version of the game, so I never saw the point in crafting one."
"A shield provides more surface area." I said. "I'd say it's worth it."
As we made our way to the house, I went upstairs to craft another chest to dump all the cobblestone I mined up into.
Grabbing the stacks of wood from a chest, I stuck them on my crafting table and made a bunch of sticks, and brought them downstairs. Setting them on the table, Jamie was at an anvil in the corner.
"Hand me your bow, I'll enchant it for you." She offered.
"Alright…" I said, handing the bow and enchanted book over. She got an iron pickaxe out and began banging on it with the book on top, and the enchanted glow slowly spread from the book to the bow. Eventually, the book completely disappeared, and she tossed the bow back to me.
"Wow those physics are amazing…" I commented. "With the way you hit this thing it should be broken in half…" I said, inspecting it and pulling the string back.
"Hey guys check this out…" Erik said, pulling out…
An enchanted wooden sword.
Jamie rubbed her palm across her face. "Are you fucking serious…" She said.
"Hey, this bitch has sharpness V on it." Erik said.
"Well, I was thinking you would use the other enchanted book on something useful, not a half worn out wooden sword…" Jamie exclaimed.
"Could've been worse." I commented. "He could've enchanted a stick."
"Fair point…" Jamie said. "Well Erik, unless you want to be known as the dumbass with the enchanted wooden sword when you die, I suggest you take this." Jamie said, crafting an iron sword with the sticks I set on the table.
"Trust me, this wooden sword will come in handy somehow." Erik said.
"I still can't believe you wasted a sharpness V book on that thing…" Jamie said, still crafting stuff at the table.
"I thought we mined more iron than that…" I said, pointing to the ingots Jamie had next to her.
"We do. They haven't finished smelting yet." Jamie said, pointing to the furnace.
"Looks like you need an auto smelter." Erik commented.
"Auto what now?" Jamie asked.
"Auto smelter, you stick shit in the top chest, coal in the side chest and it gets cooked or smelted and deposited into the bottom chest via hoppers."
"And how much hoppers does it take?" Jamie asked.
"Depends. If you're using a single chest, 3. If you're using a double chest, 4."
"Yea. not doing that." Jamie said, heading to the furnace to empty it. "Better to waste time smelting it manually than to waste half a stack of iron just to have chests to put the stuff in temporarily.'
"Is there anything in the storage room we can steal?" I asked.
"Miles probably took all of it out thinking we'd take it to craft into weapons n shit, but you're welcome to go check if you want." Jamie answered.
"I'll come with you." Erik said, walking over to the door. I followed.
"Oh… Hey!" Jamie got our attention.
"Don't take your swords out outside." She said. "Everyone's going to wonder why then speculation will stir up, and Miles will 100% know it's us."
"Gotcha." I said.
As we made our way to the storage closet, we came across Miles again.
"Oh shit…" I mumbled under my breath.
"Say, I forgot your name, what was it again?" He asked.
"I'm Mike, and this is Erik." I answered.
"Great. Say, are you two busy?" He asked. "I need someone to build a floorplan real quick."
"Why don't you have someone else here do it?" Erik suggested.
"There's only 6 people home right now, you two, Jamie, me, and two others, and they're asleep."
I sighed. "How big is the floorplan…"
"You just have to dig out a section for the path to be extended and copy the floorplan of one of the existing houses." Miles explained. "I like simplicity, so everything should be the same."
"You got shovels for us?" I asked.
"Should be some in the storage closet." He said, following us in.
"Well, there goes my plan for stealing some more iron…" I thought to myself. Miles reached into one of the chests and handed us each a golden shovel and stack of gravel.
"If you can get it done before sundown, I'll pay you each 3 diamonds." Miles said.
"Accepted!" Erik immediately replied. "Where's this place we need floorplans for?"
"Come with me, I'll lead you to it." Miles said, exiting the storage room. Leading us near to the corner of the village, he pointed to an L shaped mid-size house.
"I want the street extended by 20 blocks, and that house's floor plan to be copied 5 blocks next to it." Miles explained. "Cool?"
"Cool." I said, getting right to work on digging block by block and counting.
"One, two, three, four…"
"We'll each get diamond swords now…" Erik commented. "With the diamonds Miles is gonna pay us, we'll be able to craft 3!"
"Yeah I know, now get to digging or we won't get them…" I said, beginning to hack away at the grass. "Keep the grass too. It may be good to build a temporary wall to heal yourself if your getting bombarded by arrows or some shit."
As we dug out the pathway, I began to place the gravel starting at the end. We eventually finished, and then it was to make the floorplan. Looking at the house, I counted 5 blocks to the left, and placed a piece of cobblestone there.
"Erik… take a look inside at what the interior of that house looks like, while I outline it." I said, beginning to dig out the edges of the grass to form an L.
"On it." Erik said, opening the door to the house and stepping inside.
As I was digging the grass, I heard an explosion from far away. I immediately looked back, but saw nothing. No crater, no fire, but I knew I heard it.
"We don't have much time left…" I said to myself.
I began to fill in the L I dug into the ground with cobblestone, as Erik came out of the house.
"There isn't much of a floor plan on the first floor." He said. "There's just stairs to upstairs and there's a table in the middle."
"So just like Jamie's house?" I asked.
"Exactly like Jamie's house." Erik answered.
"Oh, if it's that simple to build, I bet we can just build the entire fucking house then…" I said. "Lets head back to the storage shed and grab some wood…" I said, looking up at the sky to check the time. The sun was starting to set.
"Are you sure we have time for that?" Erik said, looking at the sun as well.
"Ah… I guess not. But we can try and bargain with Miles to try and finish it tomorrow." I suggested.
"Let's do that…" Erik replied.
As I placed the last of the cobblestone, we made our way for the house Miles lived in and knocked on the door. Opening it, he stepped out a bit.
"Done already? Wow. Jamie wasn't lying about you two being reliable." He said. "Let's go check on what you've made."
As we all walked over to the house, I looked back towards where I heard the explosion. Still nothing.
We approached the newly filled in pathway and L shape for the house to be built on.
"Looks good." Miles said, pulling out a book and quill.
"Erik took a look at the house and it's just like Jamie's house." I said. "I think we can build the whole thing tomorrow if you'd like…"
Me and Miles paused.
"Uh… well, I was only going to pay you for this part." He said, pointing at the L in the grass. "But if you two are down for it, name your price."
"Six diamonds for each of us." I bargained.
"Welp…" Miles said, holding his hand out. "Sounds like a deal."
I shook his hand.
"I'll have your diamonds for you when you're done with the house and it's built to my satisfaction." He said. "Have a good night."
As he walked back towards his house, me and Erik high fived.
"Wait till Jamie hears about this!" I said "12 Diamonds!"
"That's half of what we need to make a full set of diamond armor…" Erik said, as we began to walk back towards Jamie's house. As I opened the door, Jamie was still smelting iron.
"Hey Jamie, guess what…" I said, Erik shutting the door behind him.
"What…" Jamie said, still focused on crafting.
"We struck a deal with Miles. He's going to pay us 12 diamonds to build a house tomorrow!" I said.
"Cool." Jamie replied, sarcasm in her voice.
"Wait… that's all you got to say?" I asked. "Cool? That's a lot! We can each have diamond swords a–"
"You're forgetting a crucial thing." Jamie said. "What if he doesn't pay you?"
"Wait…" Erik said.
"He will." I added. "Or else we'll destroy the house."
"Oh it's not if he pays you at all, it's if he pays you in time." Jamie replied. "He usually follows through, but he takes his sweet old time to get you your payment. He still owes me 16."
"Shit…" I claimed. "Well, I think we should still do it just in case."
"If I were you, I wouldn't bother." Jamie replied.
"We shook on it." I insisted.
Jamie sighed. "Welp, that was your first mistake."
As the sun neared the horizon, we all shared a yawn and moment of silence, until Jamie broke it.
"You two head to bed. I'll craft the stuff for us and we'll discuss what we'll do for the others in the morning."
"Alright, good night." I replied. "Don't stay up too late."
"Night!" Erik said, already walking back up the stairs.
I walked back over to Jamie.
"Hey."
"Hmm?"
"What… what happens if we lose?"
"Well, there's a lot of possibilities. They could just take over our village. They could kill all of us."
My gut wrenched, as Jamie continued.
"If the village leader, Miles is killed, then that's basically an automatic loss for us. Our village will be captured and overrun by the incursion members."
"We can't let that happen."
"I'm saying this right now, there's a high chance it will."
"I promise I won't let it happen." I said, pulling out the enchanted diamond sword.
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Jamie replied. "My ex did that, it pissed me off."
"Your ex sounds like a dick." I commented.
"Well, he was when I left him, but he wasn't always the way he was."
I sat down at the table. "Tell me more."
"You should really be upstairs sleeping." Jamie suggested, continuing to craft.
"This is a video game. I don't need sleep." I replied. Jamie sighed.
"Well, when we first met, he was like an angel. He was funny, kind of like Erik, and sarcastic, kind of like you."
"You don't say…"
"Over the months, he grew more and more unstable and started lashing out over basic shit, and blame shifting everything to me."
"That sounds awful…"
"Oh, he always found a way to make it my fault…" Jamie said, her voice shaky a little bit.
"Jamie?"
She slammed a pickaxe onto the crafting bench.
"Dammit…"
"Why did he have to change like that…" Her voice was only getting more and more shaky. I got up and approached her.
"Hey…"
"I'm sorry… I-"
"There's nothing you need to be sorry for." I said, approaching the crafting table to look at the pickaxe that had dug deep into the wooden surface.
"Look…" I said, looking her in the face. Her eyes were watery.
"I don't know much about him, but what is important now is that your ex is out of your life. You don't have to deal with his bullshit anymore. You're free. Free to hang out around people that actually care about you and support you."
A single tear dripped across Jamie's face.
"Thank you." She said.
"And, just like you said with your house rule shit. We have each other's backs, so I'll do anything in my power to make sure you don't die on the battlefield."
Jamie hugged me. Now reminded of this morning, my face began to glow red again.
"To tell you the truth… I'm scared shitless." She said, burying her face into my chest. "This is my first rodeo."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, it's mine too." I replied. "Say, why don't you head on up and get some rest, I can finish crafting the stuff."
"No, I'm fi–"
"I insist." I said. "Just tell me what you need made."
"Well…" Jamie said. "I made each of us two iron swords. It would be helpful if you could finish up the bows, I've been putting them off."
"Alright, I'll get to it. Good night."
Jamie let go of me and started walking up the stairs.
"One last thing…"
"Yea?"
"You're more funny than Erik."
I smiled.
