Ch.2 Snow Covered Wasteland

I struck out over the dips and gulley's, slipped and slid across patches of ice, and climbed up a steep Cliffside just to climb tall trees to look out across the snow covered land to find it bare of any type of hills or mountains, just flat raised ground that was only waist high. I decided to go across anyways; surely there would be something past the wintery fog that had risen with the coming sun. I went on forcing my way through the knee high snow that I had suddenly sunk down into. Within at least five minutes I couldn't feel my lower leg or my toes.

I put down my workbench and made a boat out of planks to travel across the water seeing as how the land had turned to the right sharply. Climbing down the embankment after picking up my workbench I took the boat out and placed it in the water. I wasn't sure where I was going to go but it had to be warmer than the place I was already in. I slipped and slid across the thick sheets of ice that covered the ocean below me. It was now midday and I was still not past the ice.

I was heading in a westerly direction, at least I thought. I slid on across the ice making my way through the rest of the day, the sun slowly sinking above me, my shadow getting longer and longer to the left of me as the sun fell and the day beginning to set. I noticed out in the edges of the ice there was lapping water. Was I getting out of the cold region? I felt wind coming from the West.

The winter air had yet to make it cold and I felt for the first time warmth that I seemed to have missed, even if it had been a day. I walked on further trying to hurry before the night fell when I noticed a beach on ahead of me. "Land!"

I noticed there was an ice bridge to the land and slid across it, hopping gaps in the ice that had melted away. I landed on lush green grass, the smell of oak trees and the smell of the beach made me get all excited. I was in a better climate! I took off my shoes and raced across the sand giggling as the warm sand seemed to bring life back into my toes. Falling to the sand face first I began to make a sand angel giggling while the pigs and chickens oinked and clucked at me.

They looked at me in confusion wondering why I was wallowing in sand. I sat up enjoying the warm air and leapt to my feet. I needed to build a new shelter! The sun was getting lower and lower, the sky was becoming purple. I hurriedly began to gather wood to make a better home but decided to save the wood and gather dirt, since it was a common resource.

I built a six by seven shelter, a little bigger than the one I made in the winter region. Knocking out a window to look out a skeleton shot at me which I narrowly dodged. I heard a thunk as the arrow buried into the window sill where I had just been. I hid in the corner of my shelter and slid to look out with my sword ready. The skeleton slid with me letting me strike at his head and slay him.

I sighed in relief when a creeper was suddenly face to face with me hissing. I yelped springing back in time so he wouldn't blow and watched him calm down. I stood two blocks from him and smacked him three times to kill him. My heart pounded in my chest from the sudden surprise. Sitting on the other side of the shelter against the wall that faced the ocean I stared at the hole in the wall I had made.

Nothing seemed to be coming up to it anymore. Was it safe to check outside? Knocking out three blocks to check my surroundings I saw a zombie roaming the forest twenty paces away beyond some trees, a sheep swimming on the beach and everything else seemed to be clear enough. I knocked the dirt from the door and looked both ways before I saw a creeper appearing from behind a tree in front of me and running. I backed inside my house and replaced the dirt block, doing the same thing I had with the first creeper.

I felt like I was getting the hang of living out in the wild alone. The next thing on my agenda was to conquer a cave or my fear of caves. I'm taking one step at a time, getting my bearings of being alone, and realizing that survival is harder than I expected it to be. My parents made it look easy. Even my brothers.

I stared out at the ocean in the back of the house and sighed. "I wish I had a radio."

I gasped and face palmed myself feeling like an idiot. I fished around a secret compartment in my backpack and took out my MP3 player. Putting my ear buds in I leaned on the wall listening to some of my favorite anime songs. Yes, Minecraftian's did make anime, manga, and comic strips. Of course we had newspaper.

We can make bookshelves and paper after all. Where do you think the thrown away paper goes? We reuse thrown away paper. Each day a garbage collection comes for the paper in our unused chests that we have in a location of our homes and they take the paper to a plant that's near a river. Next day we have newspaper.

This goes on and on in an endless cycle. There is also a reed plant next to the newspaper building that the newspaper building built just for the news. You see, we are a race that is making our way to a bright future. We are ecofriendly in a very high way. We gather resources from the land, gather food from the animals instead of making fast food restaurants, and we are fit to live a hard life that is normal here in Minecraft.

On the far side of town there is a large site that's been cleared, several hundred miles long with a cobblestone wall around it to make sure no one can see inside. Each day a yard service comes to take care of the trees within the town and in our yards. They use a ton of bone meal, I don't see how they can collect that many bones but my brothers knew exactly what was going on when the place was being cleared and constructed.

It was a massive amount of monster grinders. My family's farm is on the edge of the town a little bit a ways hidden behind large hillsides along with other farmers. We never hear anything coming from the hidden area but something within me knows that deep within us Minecraftian's there's a dark spot for death that we crave for. We love it when we make simple contraptions that kill the mobs instead of getting killed by them. Makes our life that much simpler.

Easier.

Every time I went to bed my dad would sit in front of the fire whittling on a log that he had picked up from the wood pile out back and make small landscapes within the wood that he had seen or created. He even whittled his house he had built back in a world he had gone too. It was fallen in and condemned by now. It amazed me how he could be so detailed with a knife on a piece of small wood.

Every time I asked him how he could be that detailed with a regular knife he would gaze into the fire as if remembering something. His voice would get husky and he'd swallow a lump that had formed.

"You can do many things and learn a lot when you live on your own out there. Picking up a hobby here and there is normal just to keep yourself busy. When you have a place and you've done all that you think you can do these things seem natural; as if you've been doing them for a long while."

I always wondered why he would get a far off look while staring into the fire. It never occurred to me that his life, his dreams were tormented from his adventure's in Minecraft. What had dad seen to make him like this? I pondered every night of everyday on this, I even asked my brothers. The three of us couldn't really say. All my brothers said was that the wild out in Minecraft was a scary place for some.

Coming back to reality the breeze ruffled my plum colored hair making me blink and notice that the sun was rising at last. I had survived my second day. I wondered what I would do today and decided to start on a mining operation. I didn't really want to do caves right now so a mining operation seemed like a good idea. Who knows, I might drop down into a cave if I'm lucky.

I hoped that this wouldn't happen. I went to my crafting bench to find out that I didn't have any wood to make a wooden pickaxe and I had no stone to make a stone tool. I would have to gather. Checking outside I took out the door from my inventory and put it up hearing the familiar sounds of things being burned up by the sun. I went about collecting wood and lost track of just how much I intended to really get until I noticed the sun going down. I sprang from the dirt block I was using as a stool to get the last piece of wood and ran inside.

Checking my inventory I came out with sixty pieces of wood. Good god that was too much but then again also good. I decided to use the wooden planks I already had to make a wood floor. I worked throughout the night nailing and placing them just right, I also raised the roof and put wood blocks up there as my final roof. I extended the house one block on either side and made a basement.

I also added wood floors down there also and added murder holes around the house to kill whatever stalked me at night. I was already making a killing from working around the house and luring creepers and skeletons my way like this. I would have more but that would mean making my home even bigger and extending the murder hole perimeter or making a mob trap. Before I knew it the sun had risen again. It was now day three.

I giggled thinking back to what my family had told me. 'Keeping busy or sleeping makes the night pass more quickly. If you sleep you'll have the day to do what you could've done last night and be on another project in the morning.'

I began my day gathering wood and collecting seeds when I turned around to notice that three creepers and three spiders were charging for me. I stuffed everything in my bag and took off running for the water. Diving in I sank to the bottom and swam a ways away before pulling myself up onto the cold ice. The water was much colder than I thought it'd be near the bottom and my body began shivering immediately. The creepers circled around the place where I had just been and de-spawned.

I had no sword because I had used it up last night fighting off skeletons, zombies, and creepers in the murder holes. I swam back to the house and crafted a bed from the wool I had gotten from some sheep and crawled into it, my clothes on top of the furnace drying as I cooked some sand that I had gotten from the beach before coming home. Before I knew it I had passed out under the blankets of the bed nice and warm.

There was a growling sound that made me jump awake. I looked around to see that it was around midnight and the furnace had done its smelting of the glass. I slipped from the bed feeling the cold wood floor with my bare feet and removed the glass from the furnace. I began to place them in the designated holes in the wall and heard the growling sound once more. I realized it was my own stomach.

I hadn't eaten in four days and I was starving! I opened my chest that held my meat. Luckily I had gotten some when I was in the last shelter and began to eat a pork chop. Sitting in my bed eating I suddenly felt like have mushroom stew but I didn't have any mushrooms to make it. I'd forage for some tomorrow.

Next morning I got up and explored the land some to see just how big of a place I was living on. I gathered another stack of wood making a stack of sixty-four and gathered some more seeds. I climbed a really tall cliff that was a little ways above a thick coverage of trees at the base that I had to cut through. A creeper tried to sneak up on me but fell into a hole in front of me that I was looking down into. I smiled and laughed at him before leaving him to sulk.

Standing atop of the huge cliff I looked out to see that I was on an island that was surprisingly a good size. A few twenty miles in every direction as far as the eye could see. I had plenty of wood to cut from, plenty of caves to choose from. I made my way down and headed back home with dusk nearing. Tonight I was going to build my mine shaft. I made a wooden pick and began to build it in my basement where I had a two wooden plank wall that was located for my doorway and stairs.

For three days I mined that shaft, made two stacks of sixty-four ladders and sixty-four torches. I've learned how to use torches efficiently spacing them out every five to six blocks. Maybe more. My dad had a way of mining. He'd mine two blocks all the way down because you're not supposed to mine straight down. You might die in lava. Of course you get returned but you return with nothing and then you have to return home and be called a failure or what-not because you can't live up to the life of a true Minecraftian.

I don't want to return home to be honest. Not until I do everything I can. I'm just breaking the surface of what a Minecraftian can do. The memories of my family and of the town that I grew up in kept me going as I mined down into the depths of the world. Luckily I didn't hit a cave. But of course with one wrong strike I suddenly had lava pouring down from the ceiling.

I yelped and quickly patched it with a dirt block. This job had its dangerous perks. I climbed up the ladders back to my basement to smelt what I had collected while digging. As I waited for the iron to smelt I thought back to home once more. Dad had gotten a new job in a mining shaft that went through the land.

Every once in a while you'd hear a mining accident would happen from a lava pool that had been broken into. Burns had been sustained or one man had been lost. There were cave holes that some people didn't notice and would fall into them to their death. Then there the dangers of zombies, skeletons and spiders that sometimes lurked in caves that the miners sometimes broke into and were attacked. I remember when my dad came home early from an arrow to the chest by a skeleton.

He spent time in the hospital recuperating while my brothers went down in his place to do his job. Wouldn't you know they would hit diamond and bring home big bucks. When dad went back to work he had decided to have my brothers join him in mining. My brothers accepted of course since they had some knowledge of mining when they had gone off to live on their own. For a few days there wasn't any word from my dad or brothers.

Me and mom worried about them as we went about doing the farm chores. There had still been no word from them so mom decided for me to go down to the mining company and ask about them. I went down to the main office but the sign on it said closed. I found that odd and went down to the shaft operators office but it too said closed. What the hell was going on?

The only option I had left was to go down myself but I was only thirteen years old, not anywhere ready for mining or fighting. I loaded my bag with a sword, shovel, and a pick. I began to descend the ladder listening for something. As I reached the bottom and took out a mine cart from the docking bay I rode down the track to who knows where. Suddenly I saw some miners jogging up the track looking ragged and beaten up.

They leapt off the track as I flew by staring back at me like 'you're fucked' and went back to running. The mine cart hit booster rails and shot off with a burst of speed down the track that made me duck down in the cart a little more. The cart swerved around the corner almost tipping with sparks flying behind it, I prayed to Notch to watch over me as the cart hurtled down the track system to where ever it would end. I suddenly saw an end after ten minutes of riding and leapt out of the cart onto the landing pad. The cart hit a detector rail and was sent down another rail system and shot back towards the place she had come from.

I sighed and suddenly heard fighting going on down one of the tunnels. I went to each one listening and pin pointed where the sounds were coming from the most. I grabbed the strap on the bag and took off running down the hallway where the miners had been strip mining. An arrow shot past my head to the left making me duck and creep along the wall until I came to the opening of a war zone. The tunnel and broken into a large dark cavern that was pitch black at the top and monsters kept falling in from above.

"Not good one bit." I said to myself and spotted my brothers and my dad fighting back to back protecting a fallen miner.

I slid back into the strip mine thinking on what to do. I had to bring them home safe and sound. I looked around to see if I could find something to stop the large swarm of monsters from attacking and suddenly saw two lava pits located in two different places. A grin came to my face as I took out the pick and began to climb the wall of the cavern. I looked back to check on the miners to see that they had boxed themselves in a huge square from the monsters that was now circling.

I took the opportunity to begin a tunnel for the lava to flow in and fall down in the biggest spawning point for the monsters. With one last swing I knocked a hole into the pool above and had it running down the shoot I had made and fall right into the throng of the monsters, having them burn to bits. I giggled and climbed to the second pool and made another tunnel to have the lava run and fall into the second throng of monsters plus protect the exit. I knocked the hole out of the lava and had it run down the shoot and fall right where I wanted it too, burning up the monsters that were patrolling.

Mining some stone I began to make a way to the shelter that the miners had made and knocked a hole out into the side. I smiled at them. "Hey!"

"Sell!" my brothers cried out. "What are you doing here?"

I had them follow me and got a mine cart for each miner, sending them up to the surface. When we were finally all out I shut the hatch that was over the shaft and put the lock on it. The mine operator and the actual owner came running towards us in joy that everyone was alive. I gave the pick, shovel, and the sword back and looked to my dad and brothers. "Mining's over. Let's go home."

Later on in the month we read in the paper where the mining operator and owner had been sued by the workers. My brothers and dad were happy with that outcome and went on doing their farming like usual. My mom knows about the risk I took just going down into the mines to save them. What I had done instead of the owner was a lot greater than most would have done which surprises me a great deal. I figured all Minecraftians were fighters and the like until dad told me not all Minecraftians left to go live on their own.

I learned that day that bravery was in some people and different in others. Our family had the bravery like some while others didn't. It took a lot to be brave for some, to conquer their fears. I stared at the iron bars that were in my hands and placed them in the chest for later. I needed more to make the things I wanted to make.

That would have to wait until tomorrow. For now I needed sleep. I did just that and dreamed of better days back at home.