Chapter 5 The heart of the world.
Really now… to think that in the past even under the leadership of the black skeletons my life was pretty peaceful… I mean, there was a lot of work but nothing threatened my life… Not even before that when us Pigmen were fighting against each other, nobody was going to really hurt the other. But now… that weird man that looked like Notch in a way, surely of the same race, who probably killed my family… who probably killed the rest of the Pigmen, heck, even the skeletons would probably be friendlier if they were put in their place and everyone lived on equal terms and without anyone forcing anyone to work for no obvious reason… excepting that that weird Notch fellow said so… So, where was I… Oh yes…
I was about to explore this weird place… Besides that reddish brown thing that probably supports the cave, the walls ceiling and floor are made out of… a really smooth material… It's of a texture as similar as a single nether brick… but it's… of a gray-ish colour… I think I've seen this colour on some of our elders… But surely this place can't be made out of their bones. Either way taking this weird but a bit funny idea out of my head, I walk forward, and the tunnel alternates between light and darkness as these flaming rods of the same tree material as the support beams sometime miss… I wonder if I can pull one out to light my way…
As I try, it easily comes off, and surprisingly light weight for a source of light (beats carrying a giant block of glowstone)… Oh what's this? Something seems to be written on the wall…
After taking a look, I let out a sigh and speak to my companion… "I do not understand this language… but I do understand these numbers… If they are the same then 28 is written here… I wonder what this means…" The small being on my shoulder lets out a sound: "Meow!" to which I respond "You don't know either? Well, let's continue", I say as I walk forward… We've made a bit of progress but It doesn't seem we're getting anywhere… Especially since right now a staircase goes down… Looking above it is solid… material, so the only way we've got is down… I see that the walls have a green colour… I guess it's the same thing that grew on the tree sides… I guess if anything we can use that to get up fast… I take a few steps down the stairs, there are still these light rods on the walls… Atleast it isn't pitch black like outside. That sure makes everything a little bit better… with the things that most probably want to kill me down the corner.
At the end of the staircase, the floor has a weird feel to it… I wonder if it's because there was that blue liquid on top of it… I look around to see two possible ways I could go… to the left it seems to go on without anything interesting, but looking at the right I see a weird texture… As I get closer, the material that I see is the same as the one making the rest of the cave, but it's cracked… It is… a wall of it, I walk next to it to find an entire room made out of that material, and besides it there's more of that green thing. In the middle of the room I see something… a square of sorts… But I can't get a good look at it because white skeletons appear.
"Eh… seems I can't get away no matter what…" I say as I charge towards them, tripping on something on my way in and hitting the floor. The skeletons shoot at me, but since I am now rolling on the floor they missed me, I get up and hit one of them, chopping it's head off, as I then take a step on the block in the center and jump towards the other one, stabbing him and ending his "life"…
Looking at the block in the middle I see flames and a small skeleton turning around… I have no idea what that is but, I take my sword and try to hit the thing… it isn't too effective, but then I place it on top of the block, and try to fit it through the gap… force it, and my sword slips in, stabbing the small creature, and making the square disappear.
I put my light rod down on the floor as to see, looking around I see that I tripped down on a brown square like the one I found my sword in… and looking down next to my feet I see that my companion is playing with a skeleton's skull… I pick it up and see that on it's back is written "06"… I wonder if that means the skeleton was the 6th…
I head for the brown container, and open it up, inside finding a brown object, a blue squishy thing that my companion eats by jumping in the container at the sight of it, a golden helmet which I take and wear… Turning around another container can be seen, inside of it I find a small piece of a weird material, with a string attached to it… being curious I pick it up, and am able to read on it "Name here: "… I guess it is used to name something? I wonder what my companion would be named… And three green objects… they seem to shine as I take the light rod next to them, so they're coming with me as well.
In rest there was nothing of use, so I step out from that room, my hooves making a weird sound as they touched the blocks with the green thing… I keep walking right, only to find Gold in the walls around me… if only I had the tools to pick it up, make a proper sword for myself… I've never quite liked swords… Anyway, I keep walking to find only a dead end… and a sticky white thing that stuck to my hands when I tried taking it down. My sword had no problem though.
I walk back to the main staircase room and take the hall to the left, hopefully this one will bring me to surface… As I walk there are no lights anymore, and to my left I can see that the wall disappeared, but in it's place a lot of open space, to what seems to be a giant cave that looks like a wound… At the bottom I can see both Lava and that Water… if that's how it was called. I have to try remember some of the things for my stay here… and a lot of creatures on the side. The lights have been out for a while now, but forward there seems to be something…
I can see lava dripping from above… the material is cracked as well… with the amount of creatures inside here… I guess the least I could do is seal this place…
"Please go ahead for a bit" I tell my companion as I kneel down and put my hand so that he can get down, as he walks down I can hear noises coming from the darkness behind me. Just the right time.
I take my sword and thrust it upward, hitting the ceiling and letting lava free. My companion runs to the end of the road as lava flows over me, going towards both ends of the cave. Hopefully burning some of the creatures on it's way to stopping. I make my way through the lava flow to my companion, with the burned flesh smell in the air and white smoke coming out of parts of me. Luckily my helmet didn't melt on me… that would be painful. Even though I do feel pain but we are able to ignore it most of the times… it does get painful when you are carrying and building with nether bricks and… the other horrors we went through… until we got killed… That blue guy and I have something to talk about…
Anyway my companion gets back on my shoulder, and seems to like me being warm by the hug he seems to give me… I walk forward to see that indeed the cave ends here… I stick my torch above the entrance, and leave the area… Seems that everything is getting lighter, I can see that… place that had light in the distance, and the sky is getting of a light blue shade.
This place sure looks better now that there's light here… and there aren't all the bloodthirsty creatures of the night.
Chapter 6 The Village
As I walk what's left of the down hill to a more flat area… I am surprised… and not sure if in a good way or a bad one… in my way I can see small pink creatures, walking on all fours… they indeed look like us but they are small and… I think I was told they are called pigs… because no way it look like a "human" which is the race of Notch… They make similar noises that we do but it's a really really simple speech…
What's this? On their back some numbers are written… again… "20" and "14"… I wonder if there are more of them somewhere? Or would that be their names?... This world is kinda confusing… but I can't speak, as I as well have the initial of my name on my back…
Right now I'm walking on flat land… seems that this… area with the huge trees and hills ended… this is weird that not all of the world looks the same…
And my hooves hit a different material… dusty… which looks like it is placed on purpose, it leads to a place with structures made of the tree stuff.
There are more of these light rods put on thin tree stuff… I walk inside to the center to find a structure of the gray material. The beings that live in this place look at me weirdly, and I can hear their language… This structure of the weird material looks like a well… and it has that blue liquid… I take some in my palms and wash my face… it sure feels different… good in a certain way.
A villager comes at me (since this looks like a small village) and speak to me in his weird tongue. He then pulls one of my ears and runs away scared… that's a bit weird.
Then someone wearing white clothing comes at me with a book… He looks inside it then starts speaking to me in my language more or less.
"Greetings to you what does bring you to this land fine?" he asks… guess this will be an interesting conversation…
I follow him inside his home, my companion has a lot of the blue things in his face and he seems happy, and they gave me an orange and green… thing…
"Eat, it's good" the villager says… and with some doubt, I take a bite… This… tastes heavenly… I heard that our ancestors needed to eat… but luckily I do not, but we are able to… but it doesn't affect us much.
"More. Now" I tell the villager which seems intrigued, as he lets out a shout in his language, with more villagers bringing me more of this orange stuff.
"Carrots they are called. And that you are standing on is chair. Made of wood. Wood come from trees. This is my house. House made of wood, and gray stuff is cobblestone. Cobblestone comes from stone, stone is gray" he explains me while trying to speak my language from that book…
He speaks to me of this, of the world I'm in and the things around… My companion is an ocelot, otherwise known as cat, there were zombies skeletons spiders and creepers that attacked me at night, night is when the white thing… erm… moon is up, and it's when the sun is down and it isn't day…
I learned a bit, and he taught me about survival as well… how to gather food… they supposedly kill the small pigs for food… but they also have farms where these "carrots" grow out of… I'll need a farm like that…
Three days pass and I learn a bit more about their language… I also sold my sword and helmet for more of these green emerald stuff, and used it and all I had to buy myself a Diamond Axe… it's supposedly the best material, and I liked how it looked… a long stick and at the end a round blade… it's supposedly used to cut wood, but I believe I am strong enough that I can use it as a weapon as well.
I took hold of the book of the villager in white… he supposedly is a librarian, and holds these books…. Pieces of a material made from plants, paper… that you can write on… Supposedly the same was the name tag I had, which I used to call my companion… Mitsu… I am not sure why I called him that, but indeed it seems to fit him, and I had a good feel about that name.
I read that book of his and it was written about my people… the Pigmen, and it shows them… different… their skulls aren't visible and they seem not to have any rot in their skin… I guess we are similar to zombies and indeed we are called Zombie Pigmen in the book… and we are written as hostile…
The impossibility of communication as there aren't many that can understand us, excepting these that might have a book similar to this… just because they don't understand what we say, and we don't understand what they speak… that makes us fight each other… we only defend ourselves but… Anyway… I learned more about our Home… The Nether, and about this place as well… The "Overworld"… It is indeed a lot of information, I woudn't believe half of it If not for being here…
I also saw a map, supposedly to the North there Is a stronghold of a human… I wonder if it's the same as…
But the librarian warned me, there is a big desert and something haunting it… supposedly the creatures of the night aren't the most dangerous ones.
Either way I enjoy this village… the roads made of gravel and the torches on the fence posts… These villagers live a happy and peaceful life mostly… they are farmers, hunters and fishermen… They trade between themselves and look forward to prospering together in peace… but they are really bad warriors, there are humans that slay entire villages and they can do nothing about it… that's just sad to think that can be happening…
And another day passed, I'm sitting in the tower of the church looking at the sunset… it looks so beautiful… and it only hurts my heart thinking that my family could be here seeing this… Mitsu is somewhere down in the village playing around… He's a good companion, although I should take care to feed him from what I understood from the villagers…
And speaking of villagers, one of them comes down the main road yelling something In their tongue…
The librarian told me that a siege is coming… That will be interesting, I've not fought in a while.
From one of the bigger houses a big door opens, and an iron golem comes out, a creature made out of a strong material that defend the villager, kind of a keeper. And it was the village's keeper indeed.
As the villagers enter their homes, the sun sets and the moon is high in the sky… it looks like a circle, the center of it missing and the sides shining their white light.
At the outskirts of the village a horde of zombies appears, some of them wear armor, some of them have shovels and swords as weapon… but they aren't prepared…
In the days I've been here I've been training besides learning, needed to get ready for the travel to the North to fight whatever is hiding there. I've practiced the use of my Axe… which I shall name in the future by how well it'll serve me, learned a small bit of strategy to fight against the creatures, and practiced with Mitsu as he can fight as well, a tiny bit.
The zombies advance, heading towards the homes, as Mitsu jumps on one and claws at his head, and the iron golem throws a zombie crowd up in the air squishing them as they fall down, I as well am fighting properly using my axe.
Against a zombie I let him lunge at me, while moving at a side and cutting it's arm off the shoulder using my axe, then kicking him down to the ground and hitting his chest hardly with my axe's blade, while another comes from my back I turn around while still down at the ground and slash hardly into the side of the zombie's torso, chopping him halfway to his spine, as he falls from my blade I hit another zombie with the back of my axe, smashing his skull open, but as he was not falling I hit his neck with the blade, going down into his torso diagonally.
As I pull my axe out of the last zombie, an arrow hits the ground next to my leg, a skeleton is here as well… I run towards him while slicing the head of a zombie in half, and throw my axe into the skeleton's chest, and then run towards him, jump on him with my hooves as I pummel him down to the ground, standing on top of him I take my axe out and step on him crushing his skull. Looking at the village the iron golem managed to save Mitsu which now sits on top of his head just looking at us fight, and then I see a zombie knocking on the door of a house. I head for him and shove my axe into his back while the door was barely holding. I then pull him back without taking the axe out, and trying with all my strength I lift him up and smash him into the ground, my axe entering through him hitting the ground. With a hoof on his shoulder I pull my axe out, as I head for another zombie.
Half of the night has passed, and the mountain of bodies are only of zombies, and zombie villagers, but luckily none of the village here got turned. The Librarian calls me to his house, as villagers are too afraid to get out at night, and gives me some wheat, grass, and a flint and steel. I pile the bodies together and put above under and between them the wheat and grass, and light everything on fire In the middle of the road, away from any houses or anything that could accidentally light on fire.
The fire burns until the day arrives, and then black smoke comes out of it. And although it might look at that, it's not the reason for the sky darkening… it's starting to rain, this is the first time I feel this and as the water drops fall on me washing off the zombie blood, and off of my axe, Mitsu hides under the roof of a home… I guess that while… this is going on I could go to sleep…
And so I do, in a bed somewhere in the home of a villager that was… either kind or scared, since he ran off shouting something, maybe of happiness, maybe of fear… In these beds I feel… weird… I could stay here a lot… I can imagine myself living like this… and without a family to get back to… I maybe could….
As Mitsu comes and sits next to me, cuddles between my arm and my torso, with my other hand I eat a carrot, thinking about everything that happens… and everything turns black…
Chapter 6,5 Nightmares
(While being in this dream and between worlds, our Pigman knows stuff that the one in real life would not, it is a dream after all and in the real world some of these things do not exist)
Where am I… What's this? The trees are high tall and cover the sky… it's pretty moody but you can't see much because of the leaves and plants…
I take a few steps to the big board of wood and glowstone, to read the signs…
It reads "Welcome to Canopy Carnage… During your stay here your task is to find and complete the Victory Monument, only after that you shall be set free to return to your world…" So… I'm once again a prisoner?
I have to complete this… monument… for the pleasure and entertainment of this "Vechz" guy… Ugh…
I take a few steps off towards of the edge of this tree, and then jump to another leaves platform, but this one is not as stable so I fall through… that or I've been eating too many carrots lately…
I fall through the laves, and through another platform, and land on a branch… it was a hard fall so I stay down there for some time, trying to get back up without breaking anything that isn't broken yet. But then, spiders climb up the edge and throw their web at me, sticking me to the ground, and then jumping on me and eating me alive… but the image suddenly disappears and I'm surrounded by blue, I let out bubbles of air as I realize I am underwater, and swim above to a shore of a beautiful land, with flowers everywhere, a hill in the background and beautiful trees. After a flashback, besides the trees and flowers there is a giant home, made of wood stone and glass, in the center of it's garden there's a statue of a Pigman sitting on a throne, holding an axe in his hands, and around the statue under glass there is a channel of lava flowing.
But the image suddenly darkens, as it starts to rain, and after I look at the sky to see a thunder, that paradise I was in a second ago disappears. I hear explosions as I find myself on a giant boat in the middle of the sea, thunders above and people yelling at me to get a bow and fight… As I get a grip on it and take an arrow back to fire, the arrow launches and as it gets into the air before it lands somewhere on the other side, the entire image changes again, the sun is shining bright, and the arrow hits a zombie.
"FIGHT DWARVES! FIGHT FOR FREEDOM! DEFEND OUR HOME SO WE MAY LIVE TO BUILD IT BIGGER AND GREATER, FIGHT FOR THE LIVES OF THE LOVED ONES!" Says a man with a beard behind us. But he doesn't get to finish his battle cry , as another one comes and yells "DRAGON!", as I look over the edge of the wall and the valley that is a battleground, a dragon appears in the distance…
And then the surrounding changes again. The sky turns dark, with purple shades, the ground under me turns yellow as my clothes change into a diamond armor, I can see towers of obsidian and tall dark creatures everywhere, and the dragon charges towards me.
I hold my axe like a shield, blocking the face of the dragon while being pushed. My hooves try to sink into the ground, but I slip and fall over the edge, and as I seem to be endlessly falling, everything turns black… I wake up on netherrack, having nothing on me but what's left of my cloth pants… I see lava falls, and ghasts in the distance, and I hear a familiar voice… it's my boy… and my wife… they're coming towards me, my boy has a bright smile and says that he misses me… but out of the ceiling nether rocks fall, and on top of them the man in blue… He holds a blue sword, and takes a slice, cutting my wife down. He then looks at my child, the man in blue swings his sword and cuts my dear's head off…
I see red in front of my eyes, out of anger I stand up and run towards him, jump with my fists just as he grabs me in the air and shoves his sword in my stomach… as it runs through me and comes out of the other side, I throw out blood as he puts me to the ground… the image darkens again, as after a while I open my eyes and pick up a strange book from the ground… being against an altar of sorts, I manage to pull a wand out of it and hit the weird object in front of me… it starts spinning and a weird portal appears, out of which tentacles come out.
Focusing on the portal, it started surrounding me, as I find myself on a different planet once again, with light gray dusty earth, and looking above me I see the sun and another weird blocky object… it has green and blue shades, and also yellow in some spots, I think I can see islands… it looks like a giant map.
I take a bit of the ground and throw it, noticing that it floats I try to jump and seem to levitate a bit as well…
Chapter 7: Waking up
But then I find myself back in my bed… with Mitsu clawing on my hooves at the end of the bed…
"Thank you for waking me up before that dream was going to get even weirder…" I said, to which my companion only responded with a "happy" "Meow". I step out of the bed and walk outside. The villagers are sitting near the well doing their own things, mostly debating about whether carrots or potatoes are better. I kinda start to understand what they speak, but most of the time I still only hear "Huh?""Huh!" "Ha!" which really makes no sense. Maybe they're not as social as the Librarian is…
Speaking of which, he has good connections with the mayor of the village, and while being with me at a table as I'm eating carrots and Mitsu is savoring fish (feesh) the Librarian tells me that the mayor and not only, most of the villagers are grateful for my help during the siege… It was indeed a fun activity I can agree.
The Librarian tells me that it would be his and the village's honor if I would take a plot they've given me and build my own home… they would indeed help me do this and provide me with everything I need to get started.
It is indeed a thing to think about. This might give me my own place to return to, my own home… But what if it will get destroyed… I guess I'll manage to make a portal to the Nether somehow… maybe get some more Pigmen… I have so many to think about… I am blinded by this goal to get revenge on that blue man, I do not know what I'll do with my life… and not only… there are these villages that I saved, then there's the one that's been with my since night one… Mitsu… What would the poor fellow do without me…
And as if feeling what I'm thinking, Mitsu jumps on my lap and cuddles against my abdomen as if to comfort me.
I quite like this place… and I believe the jungle nearby has a lot of wood for me to build an usual house, and a giant underground fortress… The possibilities are endless…
"I may have to think more about this" I tell to the Librarian, to which he nods in agreement.
I walk outside, now carrying a bag on my back, inside I have fish and carrots, and between it and my back my axe.
I look down at Mitsu standing next to me saying "You're ready? We've got a long journey ahead…"
"Meow" he answers back.
And so it will be indeed. We've got a long walk to the north, to that Human's fortress. Although I doubt it is the same human that murdered my family, I am still curious to see how his place looks. And then, through the desert… there's still that creature I have to deal with…
There were no stories in any books, and the Librarian described it as a villager that turned bad, enslaved zombies and made them build a desert temple in his image, and inside he collaborated with tall dark, black with purple eyes, creatures. They might be the same ones in my dream… if so, this world is in trouble. For I'm not sure if anyone else knows, but I do. I know how big that dragon is, and I know how many of them lie in their world.
But still… I should not just waste time thinking about what might happen, but rather just start walking. I wave farewell to the villagers, as Mitsu hops back on my shoulder, while with his hand "fishing" in my backpack taking out a fish and eating it…
"You shouldn't go through the provisions too fast, we already owe the villagers for all the food they gave us and the fact that they taught me some things… and helped me in this alien world… Although it does not seem so alien anymore, I am glad I found someone but you, someone more civilized that was friendly… Hope is not all lots, and I am happy right now…"
I'm sure Mitsu doesn't understand what I said, but I am happy indeed. I didn't feel this since I was imprisoned. And oh no, I wasn't happy to be a slave…
I was happy because I felt Hope… and that I am feeling once again.