EnderEye/MineGirl- I figured out that the people who knew T_Claw would probably want to call her Claw for short, if that's OK by you. I can always go back and edit that chapter if you really want her name to be T_Claw all the way through though.
Sparkgirl64- Spark is awesome. She just suffers great misfortune, but trust me, she knows the way back to Earth. Remember, she ran into a rogue Templar, and then somehow appeared on Earth knowing full well the dangers of the Minecraftian night.
ABoxOfCrayons- Geez, thanks! The chapters keep getting longer. -_- It's like anti-writer's block. Unfortunately, I had Bob back this week, all week.
iPinkNinja- Yeah, believe me, under the calm appearance Tilly's still extremely shocked. She'll vent a little in this chapter.
Casaric- Wow again… your reviews make me SO happy.
Michael- Your character came in too late, unfortunately.
Skagui the sniper- Tilly and her friends are currently in Minecraftia, the world of the Yogscast, and expect to see more references.
xoxLEXIxox- Omigosh. You made me feel so proud of myself. Your review… wow. It's a relief to hear that I'm not copying off of anyone. As for the arriving-on-Minecraftia scene, it's Attila speaking to Spark, and they're alternating, but I understand that you might've thought it was Will talking.
I've changed TrollCount to SpammerCount. It's currently on 2. And I'm SO sorry for the slow update!
This chapter is in my opinion just a filler, so… And by the way, I don't own Minecraft, but I'll tell you when I do. The time has to come…
Chapter 4- Meeting Minecraftia
"Geez," Tilly remarked as she punched through another block of wood and added it to the 'magic compressing chamber,' as Ethan called it. "You could never do this on Earth."
"It still hurts though," Will remarked. Attila looked down to her own knuckles and saw that they were indeed red and sore.
"How can you even do this?" she asked. It seemed amazing how she had suddenly been able to punch through solid tree trunks, a square metre of dirt and even stone.
"Minecraftian physics," Eris replied in a lofty voice. "Everyone knows that." Tilly frowned inwardly. Her dislike for Eris had increased over day. She seemed to take any opportunity to show off her greater knowledge of Minecraftia, and often bragged about being the next Skylord to Hugo, Ethan, Will and Attila, but she was sure Eris had just made that up. Or so Ethan said.
Eris was chopping wood blocks with her iron axe, which she had happily shown off to Tilly and Will. It was becoming increasingly annoying, the violet-haired girl telling everyone how good she was. Actually, there had been a kind of challenge-tournament in which people challenged each other to duels in the small camp in the morning, ending with bruises and minor cuts for most of them. Attila had been easily defeated by Hugo and Will. Hugo had lost to Ethan, who won against Eris. Eris lost again to Will later on. The last duel between Will and Ethan had been a draw as it had gone on for half an hour. By that time, the two boys' legs looked like they were going to give in from underneath them.
Since Attila had only her knife (which she still felt uncomfortable with), and both her and Will had no form of armour, Hugo had offered to show them how to craft their weapons. Minecraftia offered some kind of basic sword, crafted on some sort of magic portable table. The sword was useful if you needed one in a hurry, but Eris had said that the 'new-style' swords were the best.
"Do you have any guns here?" Tilly asked. Eris and Hugo stared at her blankly. Attila and Will looked at each other blankly as well, but for a different reason.
Drat. Living forever in a medieval life was going to be so tough. Attila loved computers.
"Have you ever heard of… computers?" Will asked hesitantly, reading her mind.
"There's an inn in… what was it? Some village to the east, right?" Hugo mused, his hands tangled in his messy brown hair. "It's called… Weklista? Weird name... are you sure you don't mean the inn there Come Putters?"
"The food there is terrible," Eris scoffed. "I think they reuse the scraps from a month ago."
"Don't exaggerate," teased Hugo. "Anyway, you don't want to go anywhere near Come Putters. We've been there once. New inn, new village, new minimum standard of food."
"Back to work," chided Ethan gently. Attila punched her brother softly on the arm and bent her head over her magic crafting table, where she was magically creating wooden sticks. Then she got a piece of string and quickly crafted a bow. She had five bows already, two on her back and three in the Magic Compressing Chamber. She loved archery and even Eris had had to admit that she showed an unusual talent at it.
Eris strode over to Attila's table. "To make a sword," she instructed, "is pretty easy. You need all the proper materials, though. You've used all your wood to make sticks, go and get more wood." Attila scowled at Lady Skylord Moonchild and did as she was told. Her knuckles began to hurt, but she didn't stop. She had to beat Eris at something.
Returning to her crafting table, Attila put on her sweet sugary voice and said, "Eris, could you please teach me how to make one of those cannon things you carry? They're awesome." Eris blinked, obviously unnerved by the sudden change, and Tilly felt extreme satisfaction inside her.
"Well… it's kind of a secret…" she stuttered. Attila set off making a new pickaxe. In reality, she was learning more from copying Will next to her than listening to Eris, because she automatically blocked out anything the silver-eyed girl said.
Tilly rolled her eyes at Will, who shrugged then returned to work. After glancing at how he was crafting a wooden sword, she glared at him then copied how he had laid out his materials. Before long, both she and Will had a sword, axe, pick, shovel and hoe each, but Tilly couldn't see how these weapons would be the slightest bit useful, as they were made of wood.
Attila darted behind Eris and asked Hugo, "How are these weapons useful? They're made out of wood."
Eris, having overheard the question, replied, "Of course, they're not useful. That wooden sword would break if you hit anything with it, and it always seems to do that in the middle of a battle. 'Course, you can get stronger magically-made weapons, but they're pretty rare." Meaning that Eris wasn't prepared to give up her carefully-guarded secrets.
Hugo however, punched Eris on the arm and said, "Of course, you can also make stone tools, they're a bit stronger than your ones. Then after that is iron, but iron is pretty rare and nearly all of it is used to make new-style weapons. You'd have to look everywhere to find a person carrying one of those. Gold kills things pretty fast, but it's incredibly weak. Diamond… well, if you had a diamond sword you'd have to be extremely lucky or extremely rich. They look so cool, but as I said, the new-style swords are the best, and they're cheaper. Diamond swords are mostly used by the rich people for ceremonies. Now, if you want to make a stone sword, you'd have to dig stairs down into the dirt until you reach stone." Attila and Will followed his instructions. "Here, you'll need torches so that no mobs spawn." He threw down two compressed stacks of torches. "Once it starts getting dim, plonk one down."
"Now, you've reached stone, right? Get out your pick, mine some stone, and come back up here. To make a stone sword, just replace the two top blocks of wood with some cobble. The stone, you idiot. Don't you know it breaks into cobble when you mine it? Probably not."
"Of course they don't," Eris snapped. "They lost their memory." The tone in her voice alone made Attila scowl. Her temper tended to flare even more these days, now that she was stuck in a completely new world. She might appear calm on the outside, but inside, her thoughts were swirling together like a boiling cloud.
"That's it," she snapped, banging down her sword. "Eris, shut up. I don't care what you way, you're probably the most arrogant, annoying jerk I've ever met, and you're annoying me right now. As I said, shut up before I put an arrow through you."
All present blinked, but Eris was the first to recover. "Really? You'll challenge me to a duel? Because unless you're incredibly fast, you won't win. I have Blaster, and you have… what? A crafted bow and barely ten arrows? Forget it. I don't want to kill you."
Attila kicked her in the shin, but Eris punched her in the jaw. Two hands pulled her arms back, and she shook them off only to be caught again. Her jaw was throbbing and aching, like it always did when she was holding back tears. "What do you think you're doing?" hissed Will into her ear. Hugo was holding Eris back as well.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ethan said, stepping in the middle. "I don't know about you, but it seems like we have a misunderstanding here." Hugo rolled his eyes from behind Eris's back. Attila glared at the violet-haired girl, furious. Her shoulder-length brown hair drooped over her eyes and she shook her head to get it out of the way. The strands had probably slapped Will's face, because he jumped a little. "You can let go of me now!" she shouted. "I'm not going to murder anyone, you know." She glared at everyone in turn.
Will and Hugo let go of Eris and Attila, hesitated, then continued on with their work. Eris glanced bitterly at Attila, smirked, then twirled the axe she was holding.
Attila saw a flash of mottled green near the shrub behind the camp. Quick as a flash, one of her bows were in her hand, an arrow at the ready. She drew the bow, aiming it over Eris's shoulder. She definitely had seen a Creeper.
Eris panicked and shouted, "She's shooting at me!" Attila had already loosed an arrow and it grazed off of Eris's tunic, tearing the fabric and probably leaving a very shallow scratch. "Wait!" Attila said, watching her arrow thud into a hissing Creeper, knocking it back a metre or so. "See?" she smirked. "I probably just saved the camp from a creeper."
"What?" Eris said, confused. Then she turned and saw the Creeper, now totally ignoring the camp, with a wound in its leg.
"Oh right," she snapped. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she headed down into the growing mineshaft. Attila squinted after her, tossing mental insults like stones against her retreating back.
By midafternoon, the travellers had almost made it safely to Terrorvale after gathering some iron, so now Attila had an iron sword and pickaxe, what Ethan called the two most important tools in Minecraftia. She swung her sword experimentally, and was taken aback by how light it was. She hated how the sword felt like it was going to slide right out of her hand, but it was much, much lighter than she had expected to be. It was almost like the wooden sword, but more powerful.
"Hey guys, I see Terrorvale ahead," Hugo shouted to the others, striding ahead like usual. He raised his double-sided axe high and charged straight for the small cluster of buildings about a kilometre away.
"Is he really going to run that far?" Will asked Ethan apprehensively.
"Don't worry." Ethan slapped the younger boy's shoulder. "He can run from the Cave of Terror to the Yogcave Ruins without even tiring, just you wait and see."
"Right." Will picked up speed and chased after Hugo, and Attila chased after him. Ethan soon followed. Eris halfheartedly jogged after them, then picked up speed, determined not to be outdone.
Half a kilometre out, Attila slowed to a brisk walk, her sides aching. Her legs were alright, but she wasn't incredibly fit. Ethan and Eris passed her, and she sprinted after them, fully recovered.
Hugo was waiting for them in front of a small inn. "C'mere, guys," he shouted. "Slowpokes. Someone's here waiting for you!"
Interested, Attila scrambled after Will once again, her sides aching. She started walking for most of the way, then charged up again in the last hundred metres, sprinting as fast as a sparrow towards the inn. Once she had reached the impatient-looking Hugo and Will, she put her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Luckily, she recovered quickly.
"Hey," a female voice said.
Glancing up, Attila saw a girl, about eighteen years of age, with blonde hair and vivid blue eyes. "Oh. Hi," Tilly replied. "How are you?"
"Pretty well thanks. My name's Selene. And you're Attila, and you're Will, and you both lost your memory?"
Mentally, Attila gagged at the fake politeness she had to show. But she had to make a good impression on the people of Terrorvale, so she assumed a good-student voice.
"Yeah," said the brunette.
"Nice to meet you." Added Will.
Eris made an impatient noise, then slung her arm around Selene's shoulders. "How've you been going?" she asked. "Claw OK? 'Coz she seemed a bit down last time we met her... do you know what's wrong?"
"Who's Claw?" asked Attila and Will simultaneously.
"A friend of ours," replied Hugo. "You'll find her… interesting. Her real name's T_Claw, with an underscore between the T and the Claw. She's younger than you guys, she's thirteen- hey, what's your age, anyway?"
"Seventeen," replied Will.
"Sixteen," replied Attila.
"Claw'll seem much, much older than you guys though. She might look small, but she's really mature, and she hates it when people say she's cute or little," said Ethan, who had been quiet until then. "And you don't want to get onto her bad side. She scratches you."
"Scratches?" Will asked, sounding a bit scared.
"Not going to tell you more," Selene said, swinging to door of the inn, the Skeletal Arms, open. "And here," she said proudly, "is where I sometimes work."
Not a very nice name for an inn, Attila thought.
Seeing the what's-there-to-be-proud-about look on Will and Attila's faces, Ethan quickly told them the inn's significance.
"This is where Knight Peculier worked and lived, and where the legendary warriors Xephos the space-man and Honeydew the dwarf from Khaz Modan met Daisy Duke and Peculier. Daisy eventually got kidnapped but they saved her in the end, and this inn became famous because it's where Knight Peculier lived. You need to be good even to get a part-time job here. There's some paintings of the heroes in the corridors."
Selene led them on a tour of the Skeletal Arms, mainly for Attila and Will's benefit. There was a painting of the inn, so old the canvas was partially missing at the corners, the paint was scuffed from all the hands which had touched it and the colours subdued and dull. From the washed-out painting, Attila could see a small inn made from wood, and three old men and a lady posing in front of the front door. The taller of the men had his arm around the lady and was wearing a formal uniform, the second tallest was standing rather stiffly, sporting a shirt so faded Attila couldn't see what the exact shade was, and the third- a dwarf of a man- had pronounced ginger hair even in his old age. The inn was undoubtedly the Skeletal Arms from the sign which hung above, but it was so small compared to the triple-storey miniature mansion that the travellers stood in now.
"The three guys are the heroes from 'bout a couple of hundred years ago," explained Hugo. "That tall guy's Knight Peculier, he used to be called Old Peculier but when he got his Taint of Israphel cured he turned young again. The dwarf's Honeydew, the lady's Daisy Duke and the spaceman's Xephos. They were all heroes in the Battle of Israphel, and they're all really famous. I can't believe you've never even heard of them or Israphel before."
"Even a three year old has to have heard of Israphel," Eris put in. Attila and Will both glared at her, a little insulted.
"Anyway," Selene said sharply, "are you going to stay in Terrorvale for a bit longer? We've got plenty of spare rooms, the Creeper accident scared a lot of people away from this neck of the woods." Hugo, Ethan and Eris shifted their feet, blushed and looked away rather guiltily. "And it wasn't you," Selene added. "I don't know what you've got up to these past few months, but I sure didn't see any torches near Terrorvale that night."
"What happened?" inquired Will.
"Oh, some Creepers went on rampage through the wheat fields. Now we've been getting bread from a nearby village, but it isn't nearly as fresh and some tourists have been scared away."
"The equivalent of a terrorist attack," whispered Ethan into Attila and Will's ears.
"Hey, Selene... I've been wondering what Terrorvale looks like," said Will, in an attempt to cheer up the mood. "It seems pretty cool, and I'd really want to see it. We've pretty much walked all the way through the Skeletal Arms already."
"Well," said Selene more brightly, "let's show you around our little town then. I'd think you want to meet the new villagers. They're very interesting."
I wonder what Selene's version of interesting is... well, we'll find out in the next chapter, won't we?