Preface: Hello, again! Now that we're in the home stretch for Act 3, I'm going to try to upload three chapters this week! Let's get started with the finale of the Challenges of the Code...
MINECRAFT MANIACS:
LIGHT AND DARK
Previously...Danny, Liam, Kevin, and their companions were summoned to the kingdom of Rabborgia to retrieve three artificial Gadgets of Order, which they used to fill the final Key of Balance. While they did so, Andy and Mark went to Kevin's lab to defend some new technology of his, only to find that it was merely a diversion to lead them away from their lair.
Now...the players head to the Multiversal Gateway to find the final Cube of Balance, unaware of the urgency before them...
Roll Call
Danny - Alfred von Any: Hero with emotional issues. The leader.
Liam - Willy Blanq: Expert crafter. The maker.
Kevin - Nevile Napoleon: Part-gangerman player. The brains.
Pork Chop - Dee Bradley Baker: Danny's companion. The pet.
Spawny and Spawnette - Damien Laquet: The rabborg siblings. The heart.
Balancia - Marieve Herington: Guardian allay. The fairy.
Chapter 24:
Prelude to Manipulation, Part One -
The Last Two Trials
[Main Party Selected: Danny, Liam, Kevin, Balancia]
[Supporting Party Selected: Pork Chop, Spawny, Spawnette]
[Character Selected: Liam]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Public World, Multiversal Gateway]
[BGM: C418 - Danny]
The entire journey back to the Multiversal Gateway, Liam couldn't shake the feeling that their adventure in Rabborgia was only set up to allow their current adversaries to advance their own plans. And he could sense that his expression of his worry caused the others to have such a thought as well. Whatever. We can probably still stop the Manipulator, he told himself. We've done this kind of thing before.
Eventually, the group found themselves back at the Multiversal Gateway, facing the three keyholes that led them to the Challenges of the Code. There was only one more keyhole to use, and Kevin had the honors. "Alright, this is it. Last two trials," he told the others, holding the Key of Balance in front of the keyhole. "Any last words?"
"Mmm…nah, I'm good," said Danny, shaking his head.
"Ditto," said Liam.
"Okay…" Kevin braced himself and stuck the key into the hole. Just like the previous times, the hole expanded into a large hole that the heroes were able to step into, which led to a small area with an invisible floor that they all fell through within a second. Nothing that didn't happen the first two times happened there.
Unfortunately, in their haste to accomplish the trials, they failed to realize the video screen appearing behind them. "Gah! We just missed them!" shouted Mark, restraining himself from bashing the keyboard. Both he and Andy were back in their lair, assessing the damage that had been done while they were gone.
"Okay, dude, calm down," said Andy, putting his hands up. "I get it, the situation is tough, but they can't be gone forever."
"I know, it's just…" Mark paused. "We fought so hard to keep Doppel under wraps after we defeated him. There's no way Per and Don are gonna do anything good with what they took…"
[Character Selected: Danny]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Minecraft Code, Fourth Code Trial]
I'll tell you this for free - falling down that long shaft and passing through that filter that empties your inventory does not get any easier. But I reminded myself that I wouldn't have to do it again afterward, so I just took the fall, the pass, and the weird pose I made when I harmlessly hit the ground. Then I helped the others up so we could walk into the chamber and get a sense of our surroundings.
It was actually rather modest compared to the previous trials - just an enchanting table with bookshelves around it and a table with three brewing stands. There wasn't anything that we could use for either of them, though. "Well, this is…unusual," I said, confused.
"Let's face it - nothing is usual down here," said Liam. He walked up to the enchanting table and inspected it. "Maybe we have to figure out the right ingredients or…" He opened the interface and saw an empty screen with a falling line of orange blocks. "Or it's just a game of Tetris," he said, disappointed.
[BGM: Hirokazu Tanaka - Korobeiniki]
"Tetris, huh?" said Kevin. "Let me try." Liam stepped aside to let Kevin have a try, and we watched him as he waved his hands over the enchanting book, controlling the tetrominoes' movement and rotation. After a little bit, he got a match, and… "Hmm?" He checked his inventory and found a wooden sword enchanted with Sharpness I and Fire Aspect I. "Oh, so that's how it WOAH!" He quickly got back into the game.
"So, uh…" I asked, awkwardly. "What should-"
"Shh! I'm in the zone!" Kevin snapped. "I'll take care of this. You guys see what's going on over at the brewing stands!"
Liam, the rabborgs, Pork Chop and I all shrugged and walked over to the brewing area. "No cauldrons, Nether wart, or blaze powder in sight," said Liam, looking the area over. "But the stands do have bottles in them, and there's this button." Curiously, he pressed the stone button, and suddenly, a fanfare began as the brewing stands lit up. One had its bottles turn red like healing potions, another had dark green bottles like poison, and the third had light blue bottles like a swiftness. Three chains of ingredients slowly descended from the ceiling - one consisted of Nether wart, sugar, and redstone; another consisted of Nether wart, a glistering melon, and glowstone; and the last had Nether wart, a spider eye, and a lump of gunpowder.
"Hmm…" I said, putting my hand to my chin. "Looks like we gotta match the recipes to the stands." Curiously, I tapped the leftmost brewing stand, and it and the one next to it slid across the table, switching places. I did the same with the right most stand, and it too switched places to the one next to it. Now the recipes were matched up, and when they fell into the stands, three of each potion popped out. "Huh, it's a matching game."
[BGM: Gareth Coker - Double Time (Tumble)]
I'm actually embarrassed about how long we then spent playing the matching game while Kevin continued his game of Tetris. I can't help it - for some reason, it actually felt relaxing in a way. After many trials of fighting monsters, dictatorial maniacs, omnipotent beings, and what have you, now all we were doing was playing a game. And the more we played, the more stuff we got. I even noticed that Kevin was slowly getting better gear.
I lost track of time as I became drawn into the game. By this point, the equipment was spilling out of our inventories because they were so filled up. Armor, bows, swords, tridents, and potions were all filling up the floor. It's a wonder our games didn't lag.
It seems like at that point the universe finally decided to say, "Hey! Enough playtime! Get back to your mission!" And so, one wrong swipe from Pork Chop caused the ingredients for a strength potion and a weakness potion to be mixed up. The brewing stands lost their light, and a "wah-wah-wah-wah" fanfare played. "Aw, rats! We were doing so…whoa." Liam looked at the ground and realized how many potions there were.
At that same time, Kevin put one tetromino in the wrong place, and just like that, his game was over, too. "No! I just got a high score!" he cried, grabbing his head. Then he saw the amount of gear on the ground. "Wow! Look at all this stuff!" he said, holding his hands out.
[BGM: End]
I dug through the equipment to see exactly what we had. "I gotta say, that was more exciting than what he had back at the Cave of Experts," I told the others. "But if this really is following the same format, then we must be going into a mob arena next."
"We better divide this up equally," said Liam. We spent the next few minutes sorting through the gear, dividing it up. We ultimately ended up with a mix of iron, diamond, and netherite armor, all with decent Protection and Unbreaking enchantments; some diamond swords and tridents, a bow with Infinity and a single arrow, potions of healing, regeneration, strength, fire resistance, harming, poison, weakness, and slowness (two of each); and a backup set of armor. We also gave the rabborgs and Pork Chop some helmets and swords so they wouldn't be sitting ducks.
"Woo! Even if it's not my usual gear, I'm feeling pretty good right about now!" I said, delighted. "But I do wonder why there isn't any food."
"I'd have expected some saturation," said Liam, "but we don't have that, so…" He turned to the door in the back and opened it to find…a room with chests full of food. "Oh, jackpot, guys!" he called. "It's an all-you-can-take buffet in here!"
And that's how we all sorted through the chests, taking as much food as we could. No gags, no tricks, no twists. I settled with one full stack each of steak, pork chops, chicken, bread, and golden apples, and the others went with similar options. When we were all outfitted with food, we turned towards the other door. "So…ready to see what lays behind that door?"
"Let's do it," said Kevin, and I carefully walked up to the door to open it. A button press later, we found ourselves in a dark chamber, unable to see anything, not even the flying 1s and 0s that we usually saw. Then, with a click, the lights turned on. In the back were three monster spawners. One for zombies, one for skeletons, and one for spiders. And above it, a redstone lamp display, showing a timer for ten minutes.
"Alright, this seems pretty straightforward," said Liam, swinging his sword. "We just gotta survive as long as possible. How hard can it be?"
And then the timer started, and the spawners activated. Let's just say there were so many mobs there was barely any room for us to stand. "Well, with our gear and experience," I answered Liam, brandishing my sword, "not too hard, but very tedious…"
[Character Selected: Kevin]
[Current World: Minecraftia]
[Current Location: Minecraft Code, Fifth Code Trial]
[BGM: Antimo & Welles - Mob Grinder (103 Credits) [Minecraft: Story Mode 103 OST]]
The timer is halfway down, and Danny's words have proven to ring true. The monsters just keep coming, and it has worn down your gear considerably. It feels like you and the others are doing the same thing over and over - kill a zombie, dodge an arrow, pummel a spider, eat some food. Rinse and repeat. It almost bores you.
Liam stops to eat a baked potato, then immediately returns to the fray, taking out a spider with one arrow and a skeleton with another. "Man, it feels like we've been here forever," he says.
"(You can say that again,)" agrees Spawny, clumsily flailing his sword around. "(I don't know about you guys, but these last couple of trials don't feel as well-put-together as the first three.)"
"Sure seems that way," says Danny. He kicks a zombie in the stomach, creating a domino-like chain of monsters falling down. "Whew! If there isn't a shakeup soon, I may just lose it."
His wish gets answered by all of the monsters suddenly vanishing in a puff of smoke. Confused, you look up and notice that you have three minutes left. That can't be right, you think to yourself, and you are certain the others have the same thought. But then you take a closer look and see another message above the timer: "Entering Giant Mode".
"Uh…what does 'giant mode' mean?" asks Liam, worried. As if to answer his question, the giant mob, otherwise unused in Minecraft, generates. And accompanying the oversized zombie are a similarly-sized skeleton and spider. "Oh, perfect…"
Right away, the two sides start fighting. With its humongous size, the skeleton is able to shoot several arrows at once, but you all manage to remain vigilant and retaliate with your own arrows. Then, the zombie and the spider start marching towards you. "Hmm…now what?" you ask.
"Say, I think I have an idea," says Danny. "You guys keep shooting. Pork Chop, come with me." You nod and resume shooting at the giant mobs.
Just then, an arrow hits Liam right in the chest, and his chestplate breaks. An attack from the giant spider similarly breaks your helmet. "Ooo, that's not good," you say, despondently. With no time to change into your backup armor, the two of you and the rabborgs move to the other end of the chamber to throw the monsters off.
In the background, you see Danny enact his plan. He and Pork Chop employ their springboard maneuver, where he uses the piglet as a spring, then grabs onto him as he bounces onto the spider's body. Then, they do the same thing to get onto the zombie, grabbing onto the edge of its head and climbing up. At the top at last, he brandishes his sword. "Gotta warn you - this is my first operation," you hear him jokingly say, then he stabs the sword right into the zombie's head. The zombie starts flashing red repeatedly, taking continuous damage from the sword. "Someone better catch me!" he eventually cries, as shortly afterward, the zombie finally dies, and he and Pork Chop begin to fall.
"I'm on it!" Liam shouts. Bravely, he races towards Danny, and you realize there's no one to save Pork Chop. And so, you chase after him, arms outstretched. While it's a bit of a close call, you manage to successfully catch both of them.
"(Hooray!)" Spawnette cheers, applauding. "(Bravo!)"
"Thanks for that," says Danny, getting off from Liam's arms. But then you look around. In front of you is the skeleton. Behind you is the spider. And that gives you another idea.
"Wait for it…" you tell the others, holding your arm out. As the spider inches closer and closer, the skeleton knocks its arrows. Then, as the string pulls back… "Now!" You all run out of the way just as the arrows fly. A couple of them hit the spider, and in retaliation, it draws its attention towards the skeleton.
"Haha! Looks like their AI is the same!" cries Danny, watching the spectacle. While the spider is able to get a hit or two in, it ultimately stands no match against the skeleton's arrows and soon drops dead. With only the skeleton left, Danny pulls out the trident he has kept in his inventory this whole time. "Shall we?" he says.
"Let's shall," you answer, pulling out your own trident. Liam does so as well, and you all aim at the skeleton. After pulling the aquatic weapons back to charge, you all toss them at the skeleton's head. They impact at the same time, and with that, the skeleton is down for the count, just as the timer runs out.
[BGM: End]
Ding ding ding! A fanfare plays signifying your victory over the mobs. Ravenously, you all shove as much food into your mouth as you can to heal up. "Oh, man…" says Liam, exhausted. "I never want to do that again."
The wall in the back opens up, the redstone lamp display now showing blinking arrows. "Wait," says Danny. "Going by the last couple of final exams, we may have to fight this next Keeper of Code. We should stop and catch our breaths."
"Good idea," you say. And so, you all stand still. Then you slowly lay on the ground. Then you all give a cathartic groan. "Great. Now I don't wanna get up," you say, regretfully.
Pork Chop gives an annoyed huff. One by one, he goes under you and the others and picks you up off the ground. "Thanks, buddy," says Danny, giving him a pat. You and Liam change into your backup armor, then turn towards the door. "Last one, huh?" says Danny.
"Yep," says Liam. "I remember you saying you were worried about not having a purpose now that we aren't going on adventures." He turns towards Danny. "Has this been a fun adventure?"
"Totally," says Danny. "And I finally feel like I have a purpose again." There seems to be a small twinge of forlorness in his voice. "I just hope it sticks…"
"Hey, if you really think you need a purpose," you tell him, "we'll help you find one after we're done here."
Danny smiles warmly. "Thanks," he says. "Now come on. Let's see what this Code Keeper has for us." With a determined look, you all march into the open passageway, unsure of what will happen, but certain you'll make it through successfully.
To be continued...and next time: a mega keeper battle!
Next chapter: "The Fight for Balance" One more Keeper of Code stands between the Maniacs and the final Cube of Balance. But Bedro is not going to give it up so easily - this time, our heroes are going to have to fight the keeper himself! They certainly seem up to the challenge, but will they be able to pull through and claim victory?
Postface: Chapter complete! The final Cube of Balance is right within the players' reach! But Andy and Mark don't seem so calm...
Trivia time! For these last two challenges, since gear improvement and mob battling was to be the main focus, I had a bit of writers' block deciding how to adapt them to the Challenges of the Codes' wacky logic. And that's when I remembered something - in the Quark mod, one of the optional features is to completely overhaul the enchanting system to involve putting puzzle pieces into a grid to get the enchantments. I felt like the pieces kinda looked like tetrominoes, and that's how the idea to make the enchanting shakeup be a game of Tetris. And then I thought about the camping minigame in Baldi's Basics Plus, where you had to match sets of logs to arithmetic equations, and that's how I came up with the altered brewing bit. As for the mob fight, I was considering having it just be a straightforward survive-the-gauntlet affair, but I decided that was boring and decided to incorporate the unused giant mob. How would you feel suddenly having to fight a gigantic zombie?
That should be it! Please read, review, and share around, and I'll see you all next time for the final final exam! Stay diamond, everyone!
-Alfred
~Minecraft and everything related to it are properties of Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios. Tetris and everything related to it are properties of Tetris Holdings, LLC. No copyright infringement with any of these companies nor financial gain was intended in the making of this story. Any resemblance to real-world people or events are either coincidental or done fictitiously.~