As I slowly came to, my eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the light of the fire in the fireplace. I could see Kat, sleeping on the floor, next to my bed, despite the bed having enough room for the both of us. As I got up and stretched my arms and legs out, I got up, and checked my inventory. Sure enough, everything was still there.
"I can't believe i'm saying this… but… I think I am starting to think that I can actually trust her." I thought.
Walking over to the chest in the corner of the room, I looked through it's contents, picking out the gear I would end up bringing with me when we went to the jungle base for the raid. I grabbed two golden apples, one of my enchanted bows, with knockback and flame on it, two stacks of poison arrows, an efficiency four pickaxe, in case we ended up tunneling into the mineshaft, an iron axe to slice down trees and vines that would be in our way, and of course, a full suit of armor, mixed between iron and diamonds, as well as a secondary sword. Of course, I did not forget to grab a few stacks of food, and finally, a pumpkin mask.
"This should be enough." I mumbled to myself, as I heard Kat yawn from behind me. Turning around, I saw her, her head lightly raised, looking at me as I closed my chest.
"Did I wake you?" I asked.
"Yeah." Kat replied, slowly getting up and stretching as well.
"Well," I said, pulling out a clock from the chest. "We are fixing to leave soon, and you're gonna need a lot more than a stick and a couple of food, so I'm gonna take you down to the storage room to grab you some stuff."
"Do I need to tell you what to get, or are you just gonna give me a suit of armor and a sword?" Kat asked me.
"No, I'm taking you there." I replied. "You get to pick."
"Oh." Kat replied, surprised at my response.
"Welp," I said, taking out 3 porkchops and tossing them to her. "Make sure your hunger's good, and we'll head out and suit you up for battle."
"Okay." Kat said, grabbing the porkchops, and eating them quickly. As she did, I equipped my armor, and took a look at it's durability. Thankfully, this set of armor wasn't as worn out as my last set. It should be good enough to last.
I inspected my weapons as I made my way to the door, Kat following behind me, a look of uncertainty on her face.
"What is it?"
"I just want to make sure I won't be in your way." She said.
"Kat, you don't need to worry about that. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. Trust me."
"You seem really confident about that." Kat said.
"Because I am." I replied. "Now, let's head over to the storage area."
As we walked out into the hallway, we slowly walked to the storage room, and I opened the door with my special item keycard, which was a renamed nether star. I put my keycard back in my inventory, and opened the iron door, holding it open for Kat as she walked inside.
I flipped the light switch on, and the redstone lights illuminated the room, and the rows of chest in the room. In the middle of the storage room, there was a small table in the middle of the rows, a crafting table at either end, a furnace on top, anvil, and a stonecutter.
"Weapons are over there." I said, pointing over to the left side of the room. "Armor should be there too."
"Thanks." Kat said, nodding.
She walked over to the far wall, and began to look through the chests, picking out a couple of weapons, ranging from swords, enchanted bows, an axe, and various different redstone related items.
"What the hell do you need redstone for?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"You never know." Kat answered, grabbing a dispenser out of one of the chests as well. "We could definitely benefit from an arrow cannon, so I'm grabbing the supplies for that."
"Actually, you have a point." I said.
"An arrow cannon could come in handy."
After she finished going through all the chests, she walked over to a crafting table, to craft a redstone comparator. As she finished up, she put on all the armor she picked, and I looked at it. She decided to go with a full set of diamond armor, with a shield.
"You went all out." I commented
"Well, I just want to come prepared." Kat said to me.
"Alright, now, I need to meet up with Jim to see what the game plan is going to be, so just... wait inside of my quarters, and I'll be right back. You know where my quarters are, right?"
"Yeah." Kat said.
"Great." I replied. "The door should still be open."
I shut the door, and turned around, heading back towards Jim's quarters, closer to the center of the base. The hallways were rather empty, as unlike a normal village raid, we did not need everyone on deck for this mission. We only needed a handful of people.
Approaching Jim's quarters, the door opened before I even had the chance to knock.
"Just the player I was looking for." He said, moving out. of the way so that I could enter. "We need to chat."
I followed him into the room, and he shut the door behind me.
"Alright, here's the deal." Jim started. "We are already down two base leaders to that damned "Ass Hunter" kid, and we cannot afford to keep on risking our leaders on missions they are not necessarily required to embark on with our allies."
"So... You're saying you're not going?" I guessed.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Jim replied. "We lose one more leader, and word gets out about it, it will hurt our status significantly. We both know what that will mean for the master plan."
"So... Who's going to lead the mission?" I asked.
"You are." Jim answered. "Despite your egoistic and self centered style of leadership, at least you and our convoy come back mostly intact, most of the time."
"You got a team for me?" I asked.
"Team will be meeting in our quarters in a couple of minutes." Jim answered.
"And the plan?"
"That's for you to come up with." Jim said. "As long as there are little to no casualties."
"Alright." I said, stepping back. "We'll head out soon."
"One more thing." Jim said, as I turned around.
"Yeah?"
"Take the horses, you'll get there faster." Jim suggested.
"Sure." I replied.
I turned around, and walked out of his quarters. Walking down the hall, I saw a couple of players walking in my direction, following me to my quarters. One of them with a Kool-Aid man skin, one in an enderman skin, a default Steve skin, and one with a creeper tuxedo skin, who had already equipped all of his enchanted armor and was wielding his sword as he entered into my quarters, followed by me and the rest of the players. We all gathered in a circle around the room, with Ann next to me, as everyone looked at me, awaiting instructions.
"Alright." I said. "First off, I need your usernames, so I know who you are."
"DarkRise700." The enderman player said. "Just call me Dark."
"Dirtman." The default Steve player said. "Steve."
The creeper player took his shimmering helmet off, and outstretched his hand to shake with mine. "I go by CreeTux. Pleasure fighting by your side."
I nodded my head, as the Kool-Aid man introduced himself as well.
"My name is Munch."
"What kinda fuckin name is munch?" Dark asked rhetorically laughing, along with a few other players."
"Shut up." I hollered. Everyone quickly went silent.
"Anyways, Dark, Steve, CreeTux, and Munch. Welcome to the team. I'm Rick, and this is Kat." I introduced myself.
"Pleased to meet you." The Kool-Aid man said.
"Anyways, first thing we need to go over is preparation. Does everyone have the weapons, armor, and materials that they need?"
Everyone shook their heads, as if to answer yes.
"Great. Now, for the plan." I started. "We are going to ride horses there, and stay close to each other. We will need to keep a lookout for any traps that could have been set. Remember, it's in the middle of a jungle biome, so it's really easy to hide traps n shit there."
"We should also remember, however, that there is a large and deep river that flows through the middle of the jungle, as well as a waterfall. There are probably going to be lots of water-based hazards that might be difficult to spot." Dark mentioned.
"Good point." I said. "It can also be potentially used as a hiding spot to take refuge in, should we be compromised."
"Any fortifications at the base?" CreeTux asked.
"There might be a few arrow launchers and TNT cannons that have not been deactivated, or emptied." I mentioned. "If that is the case, we will invade from the mineshaft below, and tunnel into the base."
"We all got torches, right?" Kat asked."
"I do." Dark said.
"I do." CreeTux said.
"I do, too." Munch said.
"I do." Steve said, also shaking his head.
"Good." I said. "Now, once we are inside the base, we will split into teams of three, and search the premises for valuables. CreeTux, you will be with me and Kat. The rest of you will be on team #2. In the event that we may have to split up earlier then we want, that will be the team order."
"Got it." Dark said.
"Understood." Munch added.
"Alright." Steve said.
"Any further questions?" I asked.
"I heard rumors that the base is still occupied." Dark mentioned. "What are we going to do if it is, and the players are prepared?"
"Same thing we do every time." I said. "If they pose a threat, we fight back."
"This is an entire base we are talking about." Munch said. "There is only 6 of us, and who knows how many people could still be in that base, if it happens to still be occupied."
"The base isn't huge." CreeTux said. "I looked at it on our massive map before I left to suit up. And, it's been on this server for as long as I can remember, and nothing has been done to that base since it was first constructed. If there were actually still occupants there, the base would have undergone a lot of changes by now."
"Probably an upsize too." Steve said.
"I'd like to stick with my gut on this one." Dark said. "If we find anything more than a few players, we need to book it, especially if that mineshaft is as big as you guys think it is."
"Are we going to minecart nuke the place if the mission is a failure?" CreeTux asked.
"I don't know about that." I responded. "I will need to await orders from Jim to set that up. It will depend on the situation."
"Alright." Dark said.
"Any final comments?" I asked.
No one spoke up. I took a deep breath, and continued.
"We are going to leave in 5 minutes. Make sure you have everything in order, then meet me at the horse stables in the back."
Everyone left my quarters, piling out of the door and into the hallway.
"Make sure you have your pumpkin helmets!" I hollered, as they took them out and inspected them. Shutting the door, I opened up my chest again, and pulled out an extra pumpkin helmet, tossing it to Kat.
"You're gonna need that." I said. "Wear it to conceal your face when we are out."
"Okay…" Kat said, catching the helmet, and inspecting it. Taking her diamond helmet off, she put the helmet in its place, trying it on.
"It looks good." I said.
"How the hell do you guys see out of these?" Kat asked. "This lowers your vision so much."
"By getting used to it." I answered. "It's a pain at first, but eventually, your mind will train itself to ignore that outline, and it will be as if you aren't wearing anything at all."
"Okay, I'll just take your word for that." Kat said, taking the helmet off and putting it in her inventory.
—Kat POV—As we walked across the hallway towards the horse stables outside, Rick equipped his armor, and so did I. As we came across the door to the outside, I looked at the moon, as it was high up in the middle of the sky, as we met up with the others, some were already wearing their pumpkin helmets and getting on horses, Dark and Steve together on a black horse, Dark already wearing his helmet, along with his enchanted iron armor, contrasted by a diamond chestplate. Munch and CreeTux were pulling out a brown one, leaving us with another black one. As CreeTux got on his horse in the front saddle, he too put on his helmet. As Rick got on the horse, I did too, and Rick put on his pumpkin helmet.
"You good?" He asked me. I put my helmet on.
"Yeah." I replied, my voice muffled.
"I will lead the way." Rick said, as our horse began moving off, as the others followed behind us, and the rest of the team put on their pumpkin helmets.