ᚫᚾ᛫ᛁᛞᛁᚩᛏᛋ᛫ᚷᚢᛁᛞᛖ᛫ᛏᚩ᛫ᛋᚫᚢᛁᛝ᛫ᚦᛖ᛫ᚹᚩᚱᛚᛞ
(An Idiot's guide to Saving the World.)
ᚲᚻᚫᛈᛏᚫᚱ᛫ᚦᚱᛖᛖ
How not to build a house
(But how to make a home)
Simon's hysterics faded into chuckling. "We're in Minecraftia."
"Duh," Lewis said exasperatedly, "But where in Minecraftia?"
"Oh. Some forest biome that I don't know the name of. We're about five chunks from Khaz Modan."
Lewis desperately wanted to ask why they weren't in Khaz Modan, but remembered Simon's words, 'I was being dragged out of Khaz Modan…' and decided it was best not to. Simon hadn't asked why he'd suddenly fallen from the sky, so Lewis ought to return the favour anyway. It seemed both of them were having some bad days that they would really rather forget.
Simon was looking at the spaceman curiously. "Lewis, how are you going to get back? Into space, that is?"
Lewis grimaced back. "I don't think I can," he admitted, "As far as I know, Minecraftia's technology is far too primitive to use for space travel." He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to go back; if he did, he probably wouldn't survive the next attempt on his life. It was safer here, in that respect.
"Oh. So you're staying here?" Simon asked slowly. Lewis could see the glimmer of hope in his eyes.
"Yup. I don't know much about this place, so it's best if I stick around you; if you don't mind?" Lewis only asked to be polite- he could see that really Simon wanted his company, even if he was too stubborn to say so.
"I suppose," Simon said cheekily, "you'd have to pull your weight, though."
Lewis snorted with laughter.
"Right." The dwarf said determinedly after a moment. "What we're going to have to do first is find a biome to start in."
"Okay" Lewis said, wondering what kind of biomes there were in Minecraftia. "Where do we go?"
Simon looked around for a moment, thinking. "Well, there's a river just over that way. I'll Craft some boats, and we can sail down that until we find somewhere."
Simon stared walking away, and Lewis hurried to follow. The dwarf disappeared behind some trees for a moment, and when Lewis caught up he found the dwarf by a wide river, punching a tree. The spaceman watched in fascination as the wood cracked and bent under the dwarf's hard fists, until it vanished with a pop, leaving a rotating log behind.
Lewis frowned up at the tree, which, despite missing a log from the middle of it, was still standing. "What…?"
Simon either didn't hear him or was ignoring him, as he continued to punch down another two logs, and turned to leave the tree missing most of its trunk. He held one of the logs in the palm of his hand, which transformed in a flash of light into a few wooden planks, before again transforming into a single, patterned bench. Simon placed this bench on the ground, which quickly changed into a full-sized block.
Lewis watched this entire thing with confusion at the utter disregards for the laws of physics.
"So…" he said slowly, "this is Crafting?"
Simon didn't look up as he began placing more wooden planks on the bench. "Yeah. Normally only Minecraftians can craft, but I picked up the genes from my mum."
Lewis took this to mean that the ability to do these physics-defying things were a trait passed through a specific DNA segment. He considered this as he watched the wooden blocks flash and turn into two miniature boats.
"C'mon." Simon said as he tossed the boats into the river, "Let's go."
Of course, the boats had grown into several times their original size, big enough to fit one person in each. Simon had already in his, and was sitting patiently as the boat moved into the current. Lewis quickly jumped into his own boat, not wanting to be left behind. There were no oars, or any other means to control the boat.
"Simon!" he called, "how does this thing work?"
Simon looked over to see the confused spaceman. "Oh," he said, obviously remembering Lewis's ignorance. "Just will the boat to go where you want."
Lewis stared at his boat incredulously. He was sure if it had a face, it would be giving him an infuriating smile and saying 'U mad, bro?'. He sighed and willed it to go forwards, and much to his shock, it did.
Simon, sailing ahead, looked back at him mischievously. "Bet you can't beat me!" he shouted, before zooming off down the river.
"Hey!" Lewis yelled, "You got a head start!" he willed his boat to follow Simon as fast as it could.
The dwarf was cackling wildly, but he was far ahead of Lewis. Lewis felt Simon prod him telepathically and say; See ya later, shitlord!
Why you little- Lewis said back, snickering. He knew better than to take Simon's words seriously.
Surprisingly, it didn't take long for Lewis to catch up to Simon. When the dwarf looked back and saw the spaceman steadily gaining on him, his eyes took on a steely look of determination, and he sped up just before Lewis overtook him, making it impossible to tell who was ahead.
Lewis looked over and gave Simon a playful grin. The dwarf grinned back, unmistakable even through his thick beard. In that moment they failed to see what was coming up in the river, and smashed into an iceberg in perfect unison.
"Cold!" Simon yelled as they fell into the freezing water. "This is very cold!"
Lewis went under for a moment, before coming back up, gasping for air. The water was literally icy. They dwarf and the spaceman swam back over to the bank, and crawled out of the ice-cold water, shivering.
"Bollocks," Lewis said, "That was a bad idea."
"Y- yeah." Simon said, shivering and clutching at his bare chest.
Lewis got to his feet and looked around. The ground around them was layered with snow, with tall trees waving in the chilly breeze. There was a strange mountainous formation across the river, which seemed to have frozen over at that point.
"Simon, where are we?"
Simon had gotten to his feet now, and was looking around. "Uh, dunno."
"It's awfully snowy. What on earth happened here?" Lewis said curiously. Simon gave him a strange look for the odd phrase.
"It's a magnificent example of biomes." Simon said gesturing to the snow around them. "This is what they call taiga, I think."
"I see."
"It's beautiful, isn't it? Made by a single man." Simon said.
Lewis snorted disdainfully. "Well, it is very Christmassy."
"What's Christmassy?" Simon said, pronouncing the name awkwardly.
"Oh, nothing," Lewis shrugged, looking around the landscape. "Just something people on the enterprise used to celebrate when it snowed, or something."
"Right," Simon said, walking over to the frozen river, "Look at this ice! There's water underneath, see?" he broke a few blocks of ice with his hands.
"Oh god, don't slip-" Lewis tried to warn the dwarf, who promptly fell in the water again.
"That's very cold," Simon said as he climbed out again, as if the temperature hadn't already been established. "Don't try that, Lewis. You could die."
Lewis sorted with laughter as Simon, shivering again, crossed to the other side of the river and looked up at the mountain.
"See, look at this massive outcropping. Isn't it strange?" Simon commented.
Lewis hummed in agreement, peering up at the shadowed ledge.
Meanwhile, Simon had taken to staring at the sun. "Uh-oh. It looks like it's the middle of the day, and we haven't even started."
"Oh?" Lewis peered up at the sky and saw that indeed, the sun was at its peak. "Is that bad?"
"We'll be in an awful lot of trouble, Lewis, if we don't start soon." Simon said, hurrying off into the forest by the mountains.
"Um, I don't exactly know what to do… other than punch trees." Lewis admitted, watching Simon punch a tree.
"That's okay. Just punch the trees and bring the items back to me." Simon explained shortly, continuing to punch his tree. "Wood. That's the number one priority right now."
"okay." Lewis said, turning away to punch another tree.
"The issue is that when night falls, bad things come out." Simon explained as Lewis punched the wood.
"Why does this tree not fall down?" Lewis wondered aloud, and then registered what Simon had said. "Oh. How do we know when night falls?"
"Well, when the sun goes down. When you woke up, the day had just started, if that gives you an idea of the time."
"Ah." Lewis said as he flabbergastedly watched the tiny blocks of wood fly into his chest. "I think your days are quicker than ours."
"Ah. So the sun is going to set relatively soon and we…"
As Simon spoke, Lewis spotted a green thing in the darkness of the mountain. "oh- dude, there's something up there, in the cave," he interrupted. "It's green and… bouncing."
"Is there?" Simon said with interest, turning to look at the thing. As soon as he saw it, he jumped backwards, "Oh Notch almighty, it's a Creeper," He yelped
"It's gone," Lewis told his friend, who wasn't listening.
"… Those are very, very bad…"
"It's gone, Simon," Lewis repeated, walking towards the cave, where he spotted it again, "Oh, look…"
"…They follow you and explode- don't go towards it! It'll see you! Oh my Notch!" Simon gave a panicky laugh, before turning to punch another tree.
"Right." Lewis said, turning away from the creeper's den to look at a white fluffy creature. "What's that? Oh, it's a sheep."
Simon was far away now to have to speck telepathically. Those thing are very bad, because they blow up, they destroy things- not sheep, of course. Creepers. The green things that look like cactuses. They will blow up and destroy things that you've built, they will kill you…
Lewis, curious, punched the sheep, which startlingly spurted white blocks. He frowned as they joined the wood in zooming into his chest.
…where the nether have you gone? Oh, you're over there. Lewis assumed that Simon had spotted him through the trees.
I'm punching this sheep, Simon. Lewis told the dwarf as he began repeatedly punching the sheep.
"You get wool from sheep," came Simon's voice from behind him, and Lewis turned to see the dwarf walking towards him, "That's actually quite useful."
"Oh, was that the white block that came off it?" Lewis asked
"Yeah. And by useful, I mean that it really isn't used for anything important."
"Oh," Lewis laughed, watching his friend dig some dirt seemingly at random, then make his way back the way he came.
"Right," Simon said. "I think we're going to be in trouble. What we need to do now-"
"Get wood," Lewis interjected helpfully, pausing to punch some more wood.
"We've got wood now," Simon said. "Come here and give yours to me, okay?"
Lewis found the dwarf standing next to another one of those benches the dwarf had crafted.
"Where's your wood? I thought you got some," Simon said, looking at him oddly.
"I did!" Lewis protested.
The dwarf gave him a disbelieving look. "Sure. Anyway, I'll craft these into planks…"
Lewis watched the dwarf craft the planks, and said curiously; "So, one log equals four planks?"
"Yeah."
Lewis, after thinking for a moment, tried to will the logs out of his chest like he had willed the boat to move. To his surprise, the blocks appeared in his hand, so he carefully placed them on the table and watched as they transformed into planks.
Simon watched, incredulous. "You have the crafting gene! I didn't know that spacemen could craft!"
"Neither did I," Lewis said, bemused.
"Well, this is rather convenient," Simon said, grinning, he gestured to the crafting table. "We don't need another one of these now, but for future reference a crafting table is four wooden blocks in a square."
"So I can craft things without this table?"
"Only small things, like sticks and torches."
"I see," Lewis said, spotting a brown and white animal by the river. He skipped over to look at it. "Oh, it's a cow. Mooo!" he tried to impersonate the cow, laughing.
"You are getting distracted very easily," Simon commented with amusement from the crafting table as Lewis began to punch the cow.
"Sorry," Lewis said, coming back to the tale to listen to Simon. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Well, try making some sticks," Simon said, "Like this." The dwarf brought two planks out of his inventory, and stacked them on top of each other. They instantly transformed into multiple sticks.
"Okay," Lewis said, copying him and crafting some sticks.
"Now, to make a pick we need the crafting table," Simon said, "We need the middle square to be a stick, we need the bottom centre square to be a stick, and the three top squares to be planks of wood. Or stone, when we get some of that."
Lewis followed his instructions and found himself holding a rather blunt wooden pick. "Okay, I've got a pick," He said, wondering what to do next.
"Oh, Notch. I'm telling you now that I think we're fucked." Simon said, looking at the sun as it slid down the sky. "Cause we're just gonna run out of time"
Lewis shook his head at his friend's pessimism. "We need to get going, then." He followed Simon to a small cliff where sudden black shadows had been cast on its face. "Why is it so dark?" he wondered aloud. Looking at the darkness reminded him of looking into space from the enterprise, to his horror.
"Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on there," Simon said, shrugging and walking away again. "We're in a bit of a hurry to find coal now…"
Lewis shuddered as he looked away from the inky blackness to follow the dwarf. To his dismay, the dwarf had disappeared. Where have you gone Simon? I'm lost. He looked around for a landmark, and spotted the crafting table. There are lots of cows and sheep here. I'm just going to stay at the crafting table.
"Well, the problem is that you might have to travel quite a long way to find some coal." Simon said as he appeared behind the spaceman.
"What's the best way to find coal?" Lewis asked, relived to see the dwarf again, "And why do we need it?"
"Well, we use coal to make torches, with give us light." Simon said, as Lewis began to punch another tree. "And that's pretty important when things… monsters come out."
"That sounds bad," Lewis said, assuming that the creeper was one of these monsters.
"Now, we have two options," Simon said "We can bury ourselves in a hole until morning and we'll be safe, or we can make a house."
Lewis wondered how burying yourself could be an option. "Let's build a house then," he said, and turned to see Simon already placing blocks under a tree as if he hadn't been going to take Lewis's opinion into account anyway. Lewis snorted and looked up at the tree. "Is it a good idea to build it under a tree?"
"Yeah, I thought we weren't going to have much wood." Simon explained, and then jumped as it suddenly got darker, "Oh notch, it just started getting dark."
Lewis looked around at the rapidly darkening world, the hurried to help Simon place blocks. After a moment, he frowned down at the space inside. "That's going to be awfully small, even for just the two of us."
"Yeah…" Simon laughed in a panicked way.
"Or cozy," Lewis tried to comfort his friend, "It depends on your definition, I suppose."
"Oh notch, quick. Quick. Get inside."
"So the idea is that we're going to go in here and the tree is going to be out roof?" lewis asked, thoughtful.
Simon was still laughing in his panicked way. "We're so screwed…!" he said, slightly hysterical.
"what's wrong with it?" lewis asked, laughing a bit too.
"We're so screwed!" Simon repeated, going inside the hut. "I'm going to cry. I'm putting the crafting table in the house," he added.
"Oh yeah, that's a great place to put it!" Lewis said sarcastically, thinking of the space it would use.
"…we don't have much room," Simon said awkwardly, "It's definitely cozy."
Lewis laughed, and looked around at the moon-lit snow, spotting the sheep and cow. "What about all these sheep?" he said, feeling bad for punching them, "Won't they get eaten?"
"Oh Notch, come in quick! Come in! Close the door!" Simon yelled franticly.
Lewis hopped inside the hut and Simon shut the door behind him. It was so dark he could only just make out the dwarf's silhouette in the faint moonlight coming through the window.
"So," Simon said, "This is how we survive the night in Minecraftia."
The spaceman and the dwarf stared at each other for a moment, before doubling over with laughter.
Lewis Xephos and Simon Honeydew had found it hard to sleep on the grassy floor, so they'd voted to sit up and talk. Neither mentioned the previous day's events, only trivial things like gossip and funny stories.
One interesting thing that Simon learnt was that he was actually quite privileged to call Lewis by his first name.
"On the Enterprise, we all call each other by our second names, so I would be Xephos rather than Lewis. We only use our first names in private to people who are close to us." Lewis explained.
"So your family?"
"Yeah, and trusted friends." Simon had reflected how funny it was that in two days they had gone from unaware of the other's existence to trusted friends. Well, that's what traumatic experiences do to you.
"Dwarves are slightly similar," Simon said, "We have a second name, like mine's Honeydew. It's used for people who don't know me very well, but anyone can call me Simon if it feels appropriate."
"Ah," was Lewis's thoughtful reply.
"…Do you like bees?"
In the morning, Simon and Lewis ventured out and, after a challenging battle with a few skeletons, began searching for coal.
"Uh, I'm starving", Lewis said. He hadn't eaten in at least a day, and he'd only made it this long because spacemen were used to going long periods with little food when crossing galaxies.
"Oh," came the reply, and an apple landed in the snow beside the spaceman. "There you go."
Lewis bit into the apple hungrily. "What other Foods do you have in Minecraftia?" he watched as the dwarf wandered off along the mountainside, slowly following.
"Well, there's pork. You get pork from pigs. Have you seen any pigs? You can also grow wheat and make bread, and there's cake, and cookies. These are all things we can craft from ingredients, of course."
Lewis hummed in interest, noting the limited repertoire of food. He saw Simon making his way along the bottom of a cliff, and followed him closely.
"Are you right behind me?"
"Yeah…"
"Okay. There's a sort of a strange kind of cave thing here." Lewis saw the dark cave that Simon was describing. Beams of light where streaming down from a hole in the roof, but most of the hollow was in shadow. Simon was peering into the darkness. "Oh Notch, it's very dark in there…"
"It is very dark", Lewis agreed, watching Simon as he stared up at the stone wall.
"We're basically looking for where there's stone…" Then they both turned in unison to see a vein of coal branching across the side of the hole. "Oh, there it is! Right there! Now we just need to build a way up to it."
"Like a series of steps?" Lewis suggested, looking through his inventory (that's what Simon had told him it was) to find a building material. He settled on dirt. They placed a few layers of it, until Simon realised he could reach it from there and mined it with his wooden pick.
Simon showed Lewis how to craft torches, and quickly Lewis found himself with a decent supply of the match-like items. He placed one on the wall, and it lit up without any help from him. Lewis smiled, comforted by the light, and decided that he quite liked torches.
Simon was exploring the other end of the cave. "I reckon we should make our base out of this cave. This is like a nice, natural sort of…thing."
Lewis couldn't see how this cave could be a house, but he knew Simon was always going to be attracted to stone due to his dwarfish instincts. He decided to go along with it and see how it turned out.
Lewis began flattening out some dirt that was on a different level to the rest of the floor. Simon gave his approval, and moved onto sealing the exits. Lewis, after a minute, went to help him, but quickly ran out of dirt and went back to his original dirt. Simon ran off to salvage the parts from their hut by the river, in particular the door.
Teamwork! Brofist. Simon told Lewis as he demolished the hut, giggling.
Lewis surveyed the cave with a look of triumph. Both ends of the cave were now sealed with dirt, along with the hole in the roof. The floor had been lowered a level or two, so there was more room, and it was lit brightly with torches. In the short time they had finished sealing it from the mobs outside, Lewis had grown quite fond of the cave, going to the point where he asked Simon what it should be called.
"Hm," Simon said, thinking carefully.
After a moment, Lewis suggested 'The Big Cave'. He'd never been good at names.
"Well, it is a cave," Simon agreed, "But what else? It's quite cozy, it's strong, it's keeping us safe, it's fairly crap…"
"The crapcave." Lewis said laughing, thinking just how true that was.
Simon was laughing too. "Yup- This is the Yogcave."
Haha. Guess what Yog means in dwarf? Crap.
So, the end of another chapter. Yes, I know that it was pretty much a re-write of the first episodes, but it was too tempting. Too many people skip the first episodes. I'm pretty sure that what Simon and Lewis say is copywrited, so I'll disclaim; large sections of the dialogue in this chapter were copied directly from the orginal videos made by Simon Lane and Lewis Bradley. I don't own those bits.
I can't be assed replying to my wonderful reviewers, though I distinctly remember one of them mentioned cake. I love cake. Expect cake in future.
REVIEW, OR NO MORE CHAPTERS FOR YOU.