Foreword:
I was really hoping I wouldn't have to make anyone wait a whole month, but alas, there were other deadlines to meet and other obligations to attend to. It's here now, though. :)
Ugh. I had the hardest time getting that last chapter to work. -_- is so picky with the characters they'll allow and how. Did you know you can use tildes but not if they're spaced in a specific way? It was gonna be so cool! I had special scene breaker designs and everything and FFN ruined it! T^T
*Herm* Anyway. :\
So here's my plan; Set in Stone will cover the events of episodes 1-4. I don't think I need to say this (It seems pretty obvious to me), but I'm going to be making my own touches to it. Honestly, what would be the point of writing it if there wasn't going to be anything new happening, right? Just know that every change I made I did to make the story more interesting or less stupid. I mean, I love this game as much as the next fan, but let's face it… there's a lot of stupid. :] If any of you have any questions, feel free to PM me. You can see this plan on my profile along with some other plans.
Without further ado, I present to you Chapter 1.
Chapter 1 – Getting Wood
««««« … »»»»»
"Nothing built can last forever, and every legend no matter how great, fades with time.
With each passing year, more and more details are lost, until all that remains are myths… half truths. To put it simply: lies.
And yet, in all the known universe, between here and the Far Lands,
the legend of the Order of the Stone endures, unabridged, as self-evident fact.
Indeed, it is only a troubled land that has need for heroes, and ours was fortunate to have so long ago, four heroes such as these:
Gabriel the Warrior — before whose sword all combatants would tremble.
Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer — whose machines would spark an era of invention.
Magnus the Rogue — who would channel his destructive creativity for the benefit of all.
And Soren the Architect — Builder of Worlds, and leader of the Order of the Stone.
These four friends together, would give so much to gain their rightful place as four heroes.
Their greatest quest would take them on a dangerous journey to fight a mysterious creature known as the Ender Dragon.
In the End, the Order of the Stone emerged victorious and the Dragon was defeated.
Their story complete, they slipped away into the pages of legend…"
Jesse looked over at Olivia as she finished reading off the legend of The Order of the Stone from the latest and greatest poster to adorn the walls of his cozy little treehouse.
"Cool, right?" Jesse asked, heaving the bright orange pumpkin he'd just brought in from his garden up onto a bare armor stand where there would have been a helmet if he could afford one. He had received the stand as a gift for his birthday one year, but until he had something to put on it that wasn't a vegetable or a poster, it had the dubious honor of being his sparring partner.
"Yeah," Olivia answered, fashionably late. "Way better than the one you bought last week." She indicated a poster of a pig hanging behind her.
"Hey, that poster is awesome," Jesse argued. "That pig looks just like Reuben."
Reuben appeared from behind the armor stand at the sound of his name and scampered over to the poster, imitating the pose and expression of the pig in the picture by standing on his hind legs and pawing at the air with his two front hooves.
"Jesse, every pig in the world looks just like Reuben."
"That's not true," Jesse said with a frown as Reuben marched back over. He gave an offended snort, then looked up at Jesse expectantly.
"Reuben…" Jesse hesitated for a second. "Has a spot on his back."
Reuben turned up his snout at her proudly as though saying, 'Yeah, Olivia! I have a spot on my back!'
Olivia raised an eyebrow. "Right."
Jesse turned to Reuben and knelt down, grabbing his pink face and looking him square in the eyes. "It's okay, boy. She doesn't understand you like I do."
Reuben made a pig-purr and jubilantly lifted a hoof, nuzzling Jesse's face with his snout.
"Will you fetch my sword for me, buddy?"
Reuben squeaked happily and pranced over to Jesse's tool chest, then crammed his face under the lid. While he waited, Jesse turned back to his armor stand and straightened the pumpkin to get it to focus.
Olivia chuckled and Jesse turned once more to face her.
"You two definitely understand each other," she muttered. Jesse couldn't tell from her tone if it was meant to be an insult or a compliment. He took it as a compliment.
Turning to face the poster again, she fingered the sprig of hair above her right ear, staring thoughtfully. Always thinking, that girl. Jesse liked to imagine that her stiff pigtails were cranks for turning the gears in her head.
Reuben returned with the wooden sword in his mouth and Jesse took it, giving him a pat on the head. And so began the battle between man and vegetable.
"—Chickens?"
Jesse blinked. "Huh?"
"Huuuh?" Olivia mocked.
"What?"
"It's just a dumb question. Forget it," she said with a wave of her hand, pretending not to care by going about her business.
Oh. She had asked another hypothetical question, hadn't she? Jesse had never been too fond of those, but he didn't want her to think he hadn't been listening—which, he hadn't.
"No, no. Say it again, I'm listening," he said, making sure he actually was this time.
Olivia heaved an irritated sigh. "I said, would you rather fight a hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?"
Honestly, Jesse would rather just continue fighting with his pumpkin helmed armor stand.
"Just to be clear, you wouldn't have any weapons or armor, so you'd have to fight them with your hands," Olivia stipulated.
He'd have to think about that…
Assuming these chickens were hostile, such an abomination would be the last thing he would choose to fight, but everyone knew about little zombies. Granted, he'd never fought one, but a fraction of the size meant a fraction of the difficulty, right?
"That's easy," he said, still focused on the intense battle between him and his idle foe. "I'll take the—uhh… the little—tiny—little… zombies."
"A hundred of them, crawling all over you, with their tiny hands." Olivia started mimicking the groaning sounds of a zombie and Jesse turned around to look at her as she walked in place with her arms extended lazily.
Jesse smiled. "All I'd need is—like—a shovel. I'm telling you, way too easy."
"You wouldn't get a shovel, Jesse," she said in a playfully stubborn tone.
"Well… I still think it'd be easy."
"If you say so. I would go with the chickens."
"Why?"
"Because they would be large enough that I could make a trap."
Oh boy, here we go…
"I'd start by making a small structure with windows—you know, to make sure they could see me but couldn't get to me—and then, I would put a lava dispenser on top. Once I had all their attention, I could set it off and kill them all at once."
Jesse couldn't quite get an image in his head of the machine she had described, but understood enough to know that Olivia had just jumped through a huge loophole in her own question. He paused and looked back at her with a raised eyebrow.
"If I don't get a shovel, why do you get redstone?"
"I said no weapons or armor," she stated matter-of-factly, "Redstone isn't either of those."
Jesse could have argued that a shovel wasn't technically a weapon either—it was a tool—but instead he just smiled at her.
"What would you fight, Reuben?" Jesse looked down at the pig now resting at his feet and he gave a disinterested snort with a look that said, 'I'm a pig. I'm not sure what you're expecting me to say.'
"See?" Jesse said with a satisfied smile. "Reuben agrees with me."
"Hey guys," called a familiar friendly voice, and Jesse turned around to see a happy face peeking out from under the floor hatch, topped with a mess of black hair.
That would be Axel. Finally.
He squeezed his bulky frame through the double hatch. He was the only person who actually needed both of them to get in. It couldn't be helped, though. If the roof was any lower, he'd probably bonk his head coming in every time.
"Come on, what's taking so long?" he had the gall to ask.
Jesse chuckled and Olivia put her hands to her hips.
"You're kidding, right?" she grumbled.
Jesse crossed his arms and faked an angry face. "Yeah, Axel. Thanks to you, I had to sit here and answer more of Olivia's random hypothetical questions."
Axel smiled and said with his classic monotone, "Oh, Jesse. Can you ever forgive me?"
Olivia rolled her eyes. "Real funny. Now can we please get going?"
« … »
Just one more day before EnderCon. In all the commotion, Jesse had almost forgotten the reason they were meeting in the first place. Each year, before the convention, there was a building competition. Nine years they had competed, and never once had they won. This year was going to be different, though. This year they were prepared. This year, they couldn't lose.
Jesse went over the mental list he'd been memorizing since that morning and divvied the tasks between the three of them.
"When we get to town, I need you to go get the fireworks, Axel," he instructed, "and Olivia, you go for the redstone components. I'll get the wood, stone, and…" Kerflooey. So much for his mental list. "After that, we'll meet back up at the gate."
After an awkward silence, Jesse looked back to see Olivia staring suspiciously.
"Wasn't there something else besides wood and stone?" she asked.
"Yeah, the, uh…" Dispenser? Nope, Olivia was getting that. Lever? No, wait, that was made of wood and stone. "Don't worry, I'll get it."
Olivia frowned. "You know, Jesse, there's this newfangled invention called 'paper.' It's amazing! You can actually write things down so that you don't have to hold it all in your head."
"Aw, writing stuff down is for nerds," Axel jumped in. "Jesse's got this!"
Reuben smiled with a confident oink, and Olivia sighed. "Okay, whatever you—Hey."
Jesse glanced back to see that she had stopped and looked off to the side, prompting him and Axel to do the same. Olivia pointed and muttered, "Isn't that—?"
"Petra?" Axel blasted in excitement.
Jesse followed their gaze to where two people stood talking a short distance away. One of them was the tomboy Axel had been referring to, and the other, a boy with slick blonde hair and sporting a shiny leather jacket. Jesse scowled and Olivia cut in again, "I was going to say, 'Lukas'."
Axel crossed his arms and grumbled, "That jerk. What's he doing talking to Petra? She's way too cool to be hanging around him."
"Well, let's just go interrupt them—I mean talk to them," Jesse casually suggested.
"Yeah, let's go talk to them," Axel said, brandishing his fists.
Olivia gave Axel a condescending look. "Axel."
Jesse knew well enough that Axel wound never actually hurt him, which was good because he was easily twice Lukas' size and could probably kill him by sitting on him.
Sure Lukas was a cocky jerk who also happened to be the leader of the team that had beaten them seven years in a row, but as far as Jesse knew, he didn't deserve to die.
"All right, come on," Jesse intervened, waving for Olivia and Axel to follow as he walked toward the two. When he got close enough, he saw that Petra was holding something out to Lukas. No sooner had Jesse taken notice of it, Lukas, it seemed, had noticed him. He zipped to grab the object and hid it behind his back. Petra looked up as the surprise melted from her face, leaving a smile in its place.
"Hey, Jesse. Guys."
"Hey, Petra," Jesse greeted with a cordial smile, trying to pretend Lukas wasn't there.
"You ready for the competition tomorrow?" she asked.
"We're actually out getting our materials now."
"So, you think you guys have a chance?" Lukas cut in, though he might as well have just come right out and said, 'You don't stand a chance.'
Jesse glared at him and had no doubt that Olivia and Axel were doing the same. Even Reuben seemed to be following suit judging by the disgruntled oink he gave. Lukas just gave them a questioning look, as though he hadn't said anything and they were the dummies.
Petra scoffed a laugh and said, "I think what Lukas was trying to say was, 'did you come up with a winning idea?'"
"Huh?" Lukas said, looking confused. He 'bashfully' fingered his ear, prompting Jesse to 'innocently' roll his eyes. "Oh—sure."
Axel smiled and responded as though Petra hadn't just rephrased the question of their arch rival. "Only time will tell, but—we're optimistic. Well… except Olivia."
Olivia turned on him with the same scowl he imagined she'd given Lukas. "Excuse me?"
At that point Lukas cut in, stifling the brewing argument, and Jesse couldn't help but inwardly thank him for it.
"Well, I have to go. Thanks for the, uh… thing, Petra."
"Not a problem, Lukas," Petra said.
"Subtle." Olivia crossed her arms. "As a punch to the face."
"Anyway," said Lukas, "see you guys at the building competition tomorrow."
Axel slumped and grumbled, "Unfortunately."
The two exchanged one last glare, and with that, Lukas turned around and walked away. Axel frowned and turned to Petra. "What was he doing here?"
"Business," came Petra's simple answer.
"You helpedthat tool?"
"For the right price, I'll help pretty much anyone. And hey, you could have asked."
She had a point there, and that gave Jesse a stupid idea. "I don't suppose… there would be any chance you could tell us what it is you sold Lukas?"
Petra gave a wry chuckle before stating simply, "Not a chance."
Jesse shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot."
"Nah, it really wasn't," Petra laughed. "Well, I'd love to stay and talk, but I need to get going too."
"Where are you headed?" asked Olivia.
"Just meeting someone. No big deal."
So she said, though knowing Petra, it probably was a big deal. Quite literally. Petra started off back into the forest and said, "See you later, guys… and seriously, if you need anything, my door is always open."
Jesse cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted after her, "If we can ever find it!"
Petra turned around to face him while continuing to walk backwards in the same direction and gave him a devious look that said, 'you know it.' Then, smiling brightly, she waved back at them.
He could see why Axel liked that girl.
« … »
In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.
Proverbs 16:9
Author's Notes:
Scratch that. As far as I can figure, you can't use tildes at all. - .-
It's not something I'm really proud of, but I'm a very sarcastic person. You'll see this a lot in my writing, and it makes for some funny prose if I do say so myself, but I have to remind myself not to go too far when writing for characters like Jesse. He can be sarcastic, but when talking to his friends, (particularly Olivia) he tends to be more clear.
Oh I'm so impatient! I want to just skip to the fun parts!
P.S. I added the tags for the other Ocelots! XD You're welcome, Gamerwhogames. :3
- Huh? — I did this in honor of my sister with whom I have this interaction with everyday. :3
- Getting Wood — I hate to explain my jokes, but for those of you who've played MCSM but not actual Minecraft, this is one of the first achievements you get, and is so easy to get that it's almost not even an achievement, but it's so essential that it kind of has to be.
-The Pose of the Pig in the Picture— This is actually something we taught our dog to do years ago, and I thought it'd been really cute to include it. :) Worry not though, there's more to it than this. :]
Choice Notes:
This being a written adaptation of a choice-based game, I'm going to be leaving my notes here for why I made some of the choices I did. You can read these if you want, but they're totally optional. If you're reading with no prior knowledge of the game, there's really no reason to read these unless you're just curious. In case you are, I will keep these spoiler free (at least for the important things) and try to explain things in a way that you could pick up from context. :)
Note that these won't always say all of my reasoning because sometimes they have to do with things that haven't yet happened.
In order to be able to fit as many of my choice notes in without them being longer than the actual content, some of them will have a '(Continued on request.)' tag at the end if it went on to long. I doubt anyone will really go for this but I have them written, so what the hay?
- Male Jesse — This is the first question I ask about every MCSM fic I read—mind you, it's not a determining factor of whether or not I read it by any means—but I thought I should explain my reasoning on this one. I decided to go with male Jesse, not just because he's the one I played with and I'm biased, but simply because it really makes more sense, all things considered, for Jesse to be a he, and since I'm novelizing it as opposed to just writing a normal fic, I figure I should probably do what's best for the story as a whole. ;). Everything that happens really makes it seem like they intended for Jesse to be male, aside from the cover, I mean. There are certain aspects of the story that don't make much sense if Jesse is female. (Continued on request.)
-Chicken-Sized Zombies— Being that this is the first choice in the game, in retrospect I feel like I should say something about it. And even though all of my reasonings for why Jesse chose what he did is in the chapter, I thought I should note that Jesse's answer would not, in fact, be my answer. :P
Glossary:
Note for MCSM players who haven't played Minecraft: Read the one on 'Chicken Jockeys.' ;)
- Zombies — Zombies in this world aren't really people who have been turned into zombies, but rather just creatures. Zombies have one of the longest attention ranges as they can sense people from a mile away. Once they hone in on a target, they focus on it until the target is eliminated, they are eliminated, the target goes out of range, or they acquire a new target.
- Chicken Jockeys — Chicken jockeys are little tiny little zombies that will mount chickens and run everywhere rather than stumble around like normal zombies. They are deliberate in battle and seem to actually have a brain unlike the larger ones that attack mindlessly.
- Zombie-Sized Chickens — Don't exist. :P
- The Ender Dragon — A giant black dragon (need I say more?). (Okay, fine.) It is located in the End (more on that later) and breathes purple fire. (What? They really don't tell you much about it. Just Google it. :P)
- Redstone — Redstone is the electronics of Minecraft. It is very brittle, so it turns to powder when mined, and can be laid out like gunpowder as wiring. (Oddly enough, gunpowder cannot be laid out like gunpowder. o.o) Redstone dust can also be used in crafting to make redstone components such as pistons, dispensers, and other more advanced circuitry.