My Craft Chapter 149: Tell Me A Tale, a minecraft fanfic

AN: This Chapter has more words and horizontal lines than any other Chapter. Just let that settle in for a bit.

I recommend reading this Chapter in short bursts. Don't read it all at once. Seriously. There's a lot of content. It's like it's own mini series.

Also, hope everyone is staying healthy from this Corona Virus. Wash hands often and all that. My hours got cut at work, but at least I'm still working. A shame I can't spend money since going outside is akin to risking your life.

Congratulations to TheForthcomingStorm for getting last Chapter's riddle correct. The answer: Legs! Enjoy your Cookie and your acknowledgement.

(::)

Here's a mindf*ck for ya.

Puzzle: The day before yesterday I was 21, and next year I will be 24. When is my birthday?

Disclaimer: I don't own Minecraft.

Check out our server if you're quarantined and bored.

Chapter 149

Tell Me A Tale

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 1]

[Preface]

I didn't know about paper until three months ago. I didn't know that combining three sugar cane in a horizontal line could make paper.

I didn't know about books until two months ago. I didn't know combining three paper with a hunk of leather could make a book.

But it's only now after journeying to the eastern coast and slaying a squid, that I know how to make a book and quill. One book, one feather, one ink sac.

For the first time in my life, I can actually make a record of things. I can write. And what I can write can be read. This is what I've been searching for. The written books can even be copied once signed, and then copied again. With this, information can be given to others. All the ideas I've been storing in my brain can be penned on paper as opposed to the cramped wooden signs I leave everywhere.

No longer will I have an idea lost to my memory. With a book and quill, I can record it all.

I've already shared this discovery with the others. Jeb and Dinnerbone, like me, are ecstatic! All the ideas and theories we've had bouncing inside our skulls or off each other's skulls can stick to something that can be held and passed around and passed down for all time. Even if we die, our ideas can last for all time. Even Notch can appreciate the possibilities. He's already hard at work scribbling down our adventures. It'll make for an engaging tale.

I shall endeavor to do the same in between writing about this world and the crafting recipes and items we've discovered and the different environments and Mobs and flora and fauna. Gods, there's so much to write about now that we can actually write! Come to think of it, I can learn things I never knew about once everyone learns about books. I still can't believe it. It's like a dream.

But, ah, I suppose I've rambled enough. This book isn't called 'Herobrine's Ramblings', after all. Time to tell you a tale.

This is how I started.

[Day 0]

The Void.

Not a Crafter alive could hear that word without reliving what it was like. We've all been through it. You, reading this, you've been through it. Some may try to forget the crushing emptiness and isolation. Some may have been there too long and suffered the garbled names and broken dialect for it—Jibbermen. But we all know what the Void is, and comparing it to life is like comparing night to day.

But what we experience can vary greatly, even in that dark abyss.

Where am I? I thought to myself.

I opened my eyes… or did I? I fumbled for my eyelids and saw a hand. Yes, they were open. There was just nothing around. Complete and utter darkness. But there had to be a light somewhere, otherwise how could I see my hand. My sleeve. My torso, my clothes, my legs, my feet.

I had a cyan shirt almost completely tucked into blue jeans. A corner of my shirt hung out, but just a corner. My skin was tan, my shoes were gray. And I was…

…

Who am I?

I was disoriented, as if waking from a deep sleep or only gaining awareness at that very moment. Years were as likely to have passed as seconds. My existence felt transient. I wondered if I was even real.

Also was I… falling?

There was nothing to stand on, so I had to be falling or floating. But since every direction was nothing but black emptiness, it hardly mattered. There'd be no splat. There'd be no death.

Unless, of course, I was already dead.

I was devoid of memory or purpose, lost in a void of fathomless darkness. No bounds. No content. Just myself and my thoughts.

…And there was one thought.

A name.

"…bert… hineb…" I spoke, giving my self sound. And what a deep sound it was. I could voice my thoughts, but I needed to try again. My voice hadn't seen use in a while and my vocal chords were scratchy and without practice.

"Rob… rt… Rhi… ck…"

Robert Rhineback.

That was the name I was trying to convey.

It was the only memory I had. A self-introduction that my mind defaulted to. 'Hello, my name is Robert. Robert Rhineback. My friends call me Rob.'

But there were no friends here. No one to introduce myself to.

I was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

…

But! There was always a chance I'd meet somebody. Nothing could stretch forever without something, right?

And if I ever met somebody, I'd have to give a proper introduction.

Though… my name felt… distant. Was it even my name? It didn't sound familiar and I don't remember anyone addressing me by that.

So why did that name pop inside my head.

I had this weird sense that it was… normal to be called that. I couldn't explain it, but this… Normal Sense… was telling me that that was my name.

But I didn't want a name like that.

I wanted a name that meant something to me. Something I could proudly call myself and know that it was who I was.

But what was I? What did I want to be? What was my name going to be?

"I… wish I could… tell someone about this…" I spoke in a scratchy voice. It was getting stronger. Clearer with use.

I needed someone to bounce ideas off of. I needed to find people. I needed to escape this emptiness!

I needed… to be useful.

Yes… more than anything… I wanted to be useful…

I wanted my knowledge and experiences to help someone. I didn't care who.

In their eyes, I wanted to be the wise mentor. The experienced Hero. I wanted to guide and instruct and…

…

Hero…

Hero… I thought to myself. Robert… Rhineback…

Hero Robert Rhineback.

I strung the words together.

Hero Rob Rhine.

I strung them tighter.

He-Ro-bRine.

I spoke them.

"Herobrine." My voice was clear, strong, and sure.

"My name is Herobrine."

Colors exploded into being.

[Day 1]

I landed face down in a meadow, choking back lush grass and fragrant flowers. I smoothed out my hands, feeling the grass between my fingers before pushing myself up and onto my knees, gazing upon my surroundings. A dense forest hung on the outskirts of the meadow, towered only by the massive mountain in the distance. The sun beat down, bathing my body in warmth.

Compared to the Void, it was like a blind man seeing color for the first time.

I breathed the fresh air and the sweet scent of the flowers. I ran my hands along the grass, chuckling in disbelief. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up, feeling the sun's rays bake my skin. There was a slight breeze, ruffling my hair and causing goose bumps across my skin.

This was life. The sights, the feelings, the smells.

I felt the grass more, rubbing it harder and harder in my appreciation, and, to my surprise, I broke it.

I glanced down and saw that I had made a hole in the ground. About half my size. Not only that, but something flew into my hand.

Dirt.

A square block of dirt.

I turned it over in my hand and noticed some strange tattoos on my arms. Ten hearts and ten drumsticks and ten circles and a black bar.

And… since when did I have a belt and backpack?

I turned on the spot, trying to glance at it before reaching back under the flap. It was empty. So was my belt… save for the block of dirt. Both the belt and the backpack were a dark blue, but I didn't have them while I was in the Void.

After checking myself, I started walking towards the only other location: the thick forest. I also started calling out, hoping to find someone.

"Hello!" I shouted to the wilderness. "Anyone out there?"

No reply.

Once I reached the forest, I made sure to keep the meadow in sight, skirting around as I observed the environment. The trees were sturdy, and something about the color of the bark and leaves told me it was oak. It was that same inherent instinct that reminded me of my old name.

My new name, however, was Herobrine.

Just to verify I clawed at the tree as I did the dirt. It took longer and aggravated my hand, but I eventually broke the middle of the tree… leaving the rest to hang suspended instead of toppling to gravity.

"…That's not normal."

At least the wood was oak.

While I was waving my hand in between the gap I had made, I noticed the surroundings growing darker. I glanced up and saw the sun dipping below the horizon. The shadows of the trees grew larger with the passage of time, making it hard to see a few feet in front of me.

No point looking when I can't see. I thought, stowing the oak log at my belt with the dirt block. But where to go? It'll be just as dark at the meadow.

*RATTLE*

I slowed to a stop upon hearing a clickety clack sound. Like hollow tubes knocking against one another.

"Hello?" I called out, hesitantly. It was getting darker faster, but the faint moonlight provided enough to outline a humanoid silhouette between the trees. "Hello? Are you lost?"

*TWANG*

I jerked back, my shoulder slamming into a tree, an arrow sticking out of it. My mouth hung open in soundless agony. And my arm… the Heart tattoos… two and a half had gone from red to black.

Were the Hearts… my life!?

*CLACK*

I looked up and paled when the shooter stepped into the moonlight, revealing a skeletal assailant with a bow and a sinister leer. It fired another arrow, but it went wide as I turned and fled.

I weaved through trees, keeping the rattling noises of my assailant at my back. I heard the arrows thud sporadically against the thick trees I used for cover. The Hearts on my arm started to heal themselves and the arrow in my shoulder fell out, but my other meter—the Drumstick Meter—was slowly falling. There was a rumble in my stomach, reminding me I hadn't eaten anything.

I weaved between two trees, only to shout as I came across a sickly green face and dead eyes. A green, clawed hand swiped at my torso, hurting me further. I shoved the creature away, but it came back after me with outstretched arms and a moan.

*UHNN*

I turned and picked a different direction, my heart pounding in my chest as I ran as fast as I could. All around me, new horrific sounds emerged. Hisses, grunts, rattles, moans, cackles. The forest was teeming with wicked creatures seeking to do me harm.

The meadow! I thought with a single focus. The meadow would be safe.

I turned on the spot, narrowing my eyes as I spotted gaps in the tree line. That way!

I ran forward, only for a light green creature to emerge from the left. It had a deep grimace and four legs, no arms. I ran by it, barely registering the hissing before I was well away.

*BOOM*

Bits of dirt pelted at my back and my heart just about leapt into my throat at the loud explosion, but I was unhurt. Whatever that green thing was, I made a mental note they were explosive.

I sprinted out into the meadow… only for my hopes to plummet.

There were monsters there too. Every dark corner of the glade was filled with horrific creatures. Some black and tall with long limbs, more of those light green exploders, skeletal archers, sickly green men with tattered clothes, giant spiders. It was terrible!

I panicked. There was nowhere to run. They had seen me. One of the men with sickly green skin moved towards me with outstretched arms and sharp claws.

An arrow struck it in the back.

The monster promptly stopped and turned its focus on the skeletal archer. It had been aiming at me, but the other monster got in the way of the hit. And now…

Now it looked like they were infighting.

The skeleton didn't start shooting at the green monster until it was right in its face. Claws tore apart bones and arrows sunk into dead flesh and tattered cloth.

But other monsters were getting closer.

I finally snapped out of my stupor and did the only thing I could.

I fell to my knees and started digging. My arms worked furiously at the grass and dirt, tearing it up and throwing it behind me. Again and again. The malicious sounds were growing closer, but I paid it no mind, focusing solely on the hole I was digging.

Finally, when it was big enough, I threw myself into it and took my one piece of dirt to block the ceiling. I was instantly smothered in darkness, terrified of the sounds above.

My heart was practically beating out of my chest as I waited for the monsters to pry up the dirt and feast on my body.

I waited in darkness…

And waited…

[Day 2]

Sitting in that dark hole, I had dozed off without knowing it. Awaking in that darkness, I bolted upright for fear of my return to the Void, only to bump my head on the dirt wall and make a small noise of pain.

What had awoken me, however, were the pained sounds of the monsters above. There were pained moans and violent rattles. I weakly got to my feet and pressed an ear to the ceiling, listening carefully to determine if the monsters were close.

It was only after steeling my resolve that I broke the ceiling and let warm sunlight flood my makeshift shelter. It blinded me for but a moment before I reached up. It took every ounce of strength I had just to pull my body out of that hole. Was my upper body that pathetic?

No. I was just hungry.

Looking out onto the meadow, I saw what had been causing the monsters such discomfort. They were being consumed by flames.

Those sickly green men and skeletons caught fire like dried kindling and flailed around in search of something. Many of them died, dropping little yellow and green balls of light or else other items I couldn't discern.

As for the other monsters, the giant spiders and four-legged exploders remained unaffected, idly trotting amongst their burning brethren. The big-nosed humanoids with tipped hats were similarly unaffected. The tall black creatures with long limbs merely vanished in a blink.

But what had caused the monsters to catch fire?

My answer came easily when I saw one of the sickly green monsters reach the outskirts of the meadow, taking shelter under the shade of a tall tree. Within moments, the fire subsided and the creature was spared.

The sun! I realized, looking up at the big ball of fire and gas rising into the sky. They can't stand the sunlight!

No wonder those creatures appeared at night. They came from darkness. Therefore, they could be extinguished by light! Not all of them, of course, but some of them.

I kept my distance from the exploders, spiders, and big-nosed humanoids and explored the meadow in the wake of the fires that burned many of the monsters. Those green and yellow orbs that fell from their burnt bodies flowed towards me and into my arm, causing the black bar tattoo on it to gradually fill up green until, with a chime, it had a green number: 1.

Then it filled up more, going to 2. Then 3. It didn't hurt, so I went about gathering the tiny orbs and letting the tattooed number rise.

I also inspected the items the monsters dropped upon dying. Bones, arrows, and—*shudder*—rotten flesh. Oddly enough, one of them dropped a carrot.

My stomach grumbled painfully and I looked at the carrot with glazed eyes. It was down my throat before I could blink… and it restored some of the drumstick tattoos on my arm!

Not all of them were filled by that meager carrot, and my hunger was far from sated. I needed more to eat, but all I had were bones and—

I grimaced as I took out a hunk of rotten flesh. It smelled rancid and, really, when it was labeled 'rotten flesh' what more could you expect? Was it even safe for consumption? Did I care?

I sighed, stowing it away. I wasn't completely desperate, but I was getting there. If it came down to starving to death, the rotten flesh would be my final failsafe.

I also happened upon one of the bows the skeletons had been firing at me with. It was quite worn-out and chipped in places—the string was loose—but it was something. I took out one of the arrows I had gathered and notched it with the bow before taking aim and firing.

It launched in a smooth arc for at least ten meters before impacting the soft grass. I went over and found the arrow undamaged and still usable. This was an unexpectedly good find. I had a way of defending myself now.

"HOLY CRAP!"

My throat was getting sore with how often my heart leapt into it. I could've sworn that exclamation startled me a foot off the ground. I spun around and saw, to my great surprise…

Another person.

"An actual person!" The man exclaimed, laughing. "I feel like I've been alone forever!"

His name was Notch. Not only did he introduce himself as that, but the words were hanging suspended above his head in white. I tried to grab at them, but found them to be incorporeal. Also the action seemed to unnerve Notch, so I dropped it.

He had a bald head that was more than made up for by his big, black, bushy beard. He had beady black eyes, a brown short-sleeve shirt with tattered sleeves, light grey pants, black shoes, and a grey backpack and belt.

Now that I finally had someone to talk with, I assaulted him with questions.

"Why is there a name hanging above your head?"

"Wait, I have one too!? I thought it was just you, Heroine."

"Er… it's Herobrine. There's a 'b' in the middle."

He squinted his eyes. "Oh, sorry, Herobrine." There was a pause. "What's a Herobrine anyway?"

"It's my name."

"Well, what's it mean? I chose my name so I could have a cool catchphrase. Check it!" He turned around before performing a dramatic head whirl, raising finger guns. "It's time to kick it up a Notch!"

If crickets existed, I am sure they would be chirping.

"It'll grow on ya." Notch waved off.

"So you were in the Void too?"

"You mean that black empty nothingness? Yeah, I hated it. I mean, I could perform some cool triple backflips, but after that it got kind of lonely. Nobody to impress."

"Did you always have a belt and backpack?"

"What are you talking ab—whoa! Where'd these come from!?" He tugged at the strap of his backpack, and struggled to unfasten his belt. "Urgh! I… can't… take… them… off! What's holding these things on, superglue?"

I tested my own belt and found Notch to be correct. The belt and backpack would not come off. Neither would my clothes.

Already I was learning much from the new man.

"Hey, what color are my eyes?" Notch asked, leaning his face towards mine.

Oh, right, he didn't have a mirror. "They're black and beady."

"Like a rats!? Aw, weak!"

"What about mine?" I decided to ask.

"Blue and beautiful." Notch spat sourly. "And you have a full head of hair! What gives? I'm practically a bald rat!"

"You have a fine beard." I offered.

"You think?"

"Absolutely."

"Aw shucks, thanks."

We went back and forth, asking one another about the Void, our tattoos, what our minds remembered, and even about that strangely nostalgic sense.

"You have that too?" He asked. "It's weird. I know things that sound like common sense, like the sky should be blue, and clouds are made of water vapor, but I don't remember being taught any of that."

"It's instinctual." I put words to his thoughts.

"Yeah, that's it. Instinct! And right now my instinct is telling me to explore! Onwards, to adventure!" He then started to run towards the tree line before my panicked voice stopped him.

"You can't go out there! It'll be night soon!"

"…And?"

"And monsters come out at night."

"Pshh, oh, right, like the boogeyman and the tax collector, I've heard those stories before—"

"No, I mean actual, literal monsters. Men with sickly green skin, skeletons that shoot arrows, giant spiders! They only come out at night, but I've seen them. And if the heart tattoos on your arm run out, you…" I trailed off, the implication clear. If pain was equivalent to losing a few hearts, an empty meter meant certain death!

"Well then we can't stay here. We need something to fight those monsters. You've got a bow and arrows, but I've got nothing. And I won't find anything in this meadow." He pointed to the forest. "I need sticks and rocks and leather. Maybe then I could fashion one of those rock hammers like those survivalists always do."

I didn't know what survivalists he was talking about, but at the same time, I had a nostalgic sense that I understood what he was getting at. This strange Normal Sense could give us ideas to follow… even if we'd never seen them before.

"At least wait a day." I tried again. "It'll be dark soon. We need to dig a hole and hide until daybreak. The monsters burn up in sunlight. Then we can safely explore."

"Sorry, Herobrine, but danger waits for no man!"

"That… that doesn't even make any sense!" I reached out and grabbed his sleeve, hoping to hold him back.

What I didn't expect was to so easily yank him back that he lost his balance and fell onto me.

"GAK! What the… you're a strong one aren't you?"

"N-No, that's impossible…" I looked at my hands, wondering where that strength had come from. Notch was the more muscular of the two of us, yet that simple tug had overpowered him. Not to mention, my drumstick meter and heart meter were lower than his. "By all accounts, you should be stronger."

"Hmmm. Maybe it's because your bar tattoo is green and has numbers on it." He pointed out, tapping my arm. "Mine's still empty, but it looks like you got yours filled up. How'd you do it?"

"Well, I-I just happened upon some dying monsters and they dropped these little green and yellow balls and they sort of… floated into my arm."

"Then that explains it!" Notch shot to his feet. "You're powered by monster balls—!"

"Can we dub it something more respectable?"

"—And if monster balls make you stronger, then I got to get me some monster balls! You can't stop me now!"

With that, the bald man took off towards the forest.

"You fool! You don't know what you're doing!" I ran after him, worried over exhausting my drumstick meter anymore.

Actually, calling it a drumstick meter was getting stale. Hunger Meter sounded like a better term. And the line of hearts would be my Health Meter. The green bar… Strength Meter maybe? I still needed to verify Notch's theory that the strength came from accumulated… monster balls. Ugh. What else could I call them?

I caught up with Notch while he was in the middle of punching a tree. Like me, he expressed confusion at how the tree remained suspended without its center, but didn't linger long. He broke a few logs before examining the ground.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Rocks. How else am I gonna make a rock hammer?" He got onto his knees and ran his hands along the forest floor, frowning. "Not even a pebble…"

"Don't you need some kind of binding as well?"

"I'll cross that bridge after I find a rock. I'm more of a here and now kind of guy than a future planner." He crawled around a tree, examining the ground closely. "Heeeeere, rocky rocky rocky."

I took a worried glance at the sun as it began its descent towards the horizon. It was nearly sunset.

"We shouldn't be here, Notch. It's nearly dark."

"Instead of being a walking talking clock, you could make yourself useful and help me find a rock."

"Nnnn! Waste your time for all I care! I will do something productive, like building my shelter for the night." I started digging into the ground with my bare hands, wincing at the rough dirt getting between my fingernails.

Notch looked up with a sad frown. "You have a weapon, yet you're gonna hide from these monsters again? Are you planning to do this every night?"

"Until I can think of a better idea, yes." I huffed, digging deeper and deeper… until my fingers jammed on something hard. "Ggg! OW!" I whipped my hands back and shook them to alleviate the pain. Notch, however, looked down into the hole I dug and whooped enthusiastically.

"Rocks!" He pointed. "Herobrine, you're a genius!"

"A genius with jammed fingers." I winced. "Forget about digging it up, Notch. It's too solid."

"Psh. You just need the right finger strength. Here, watch my finesse, and style." He cracked his fingers impressively and thrust them down into the stone, where they bent at unnatural angles. His smile turned brittle and I caught a tear in his eye as he stuffed his fingers under his arms. "Hmm… hmm…"

"Notch…?"

"Hmm…"

"It's okay to yell."

"YEEEOW!"

He hopped in place, waving his broken fingers around. It would have been funny if not for the darkness encroaching upon us.

"Notch, it's too dark. Hop in." I moved aside, expanding the hole so I wouldn't have to dig through solid rock. He complied, but he held off on the ceiling.

"I wanna see what the monsters look like."

"They look like monsters. Happy? Now let's shut this—"

"Just let me take a look at them." He begged.

"…Fine. But then we cap it."

"Yessir!"

I lowered myself into the hole, only the top of my head poking out. Notch did the same and we waited as the sun fell below the horizon and the moon came out. Last night had been a full moon. Now it was a waning gibbous. But… the phases of the moon usually took thirty days to cycle through. How could it be a quarter of the way done after a mere two nights?

"Whoa…" Notch marveled, his eyes zeroing in on one of the sickly men that had attacked me the night prior. "Gosh, it looks like a zombie."

"Zombie?"

"Yeah, you know, reanimated humans, can infect you with a bite, they eat your brains." I clutched my treasured noggin worriedly. "You're telling me you've never heard of a zombie before?" I shook my head no. "Well, don't let them get too close. If they bite you, you turn into one of them." I shivered in fear.

"All the more reason to cover this hole." I put up a dirt ceiling while Notch admired more of the deadly monsters. He saw the skeletons and the giant spiders before I finally shut us into darkness.

"Good." I sighed, relieved as the monster noises were muffled by the dirt. "Now we just wait here until the sun comes up."

I heard a drawn out sigh. "Well this is a barrel of fun. Don't you have a deck of cards or something?"

"I have dirt, bones, arrows, a bow, rotten flesh, and a log. That is the extent of my entertainment supplies."

"What about food?"

"I have dirt, bones, arrows, a b—"

"Okay, okay, I get it. Guess we'll just chew on the scenery then." There was a moment of quiet in the darkness—just a moment—before moonlight flooded the hole. Notch had broken open the ceiling.

"Notch! What are you—!?"

"There's no air down here. I needs me some air." He countered, pushing his head up, only to freeze. "Hey there little guy…" He said nervously to something unseen.

There was a hiss and then a loud explosion that blew up the ceiling of our shelter.

Notch fell back with a groan and I panicked now that we were exposed to the monsters of the night.

My fingers fumbled before they successfully pulled back the string and fired and arrow at the nearest zombie. It struck true, but the monster persisted in its haunting march towards us.

Notch, to his credit, whipped out his fists and started pummeling a giant spider. "Get some! You may have eight legs, but I got my two best pals, Mr. Fisty and his wife Elaine!"

I shot at the same zombie again, knocking it back a bit before my final arrow succeeded in ending it. My first kill! However, more monsters took its place. I fell back a bit, taking stock of my arrows. If every monster was as durable as that zombie, we'd be dead before sunrise!

"There's too many!"

"We'll have to fight back-to-back!" Notch stated, punching a spider in its many eyes.

"Back-to-back?"

"Haven't you ever read a comic before? Back-to-back!" At his behest, I pressed my back against his, ensuring neither one of us would get caught by surprise. Then, with my back guarded, I started firing at the closest monsters.

Skeletons and the exploders took precedence. The tall, black ones didn't seem to want to fight and the zombies were slow moving, outpaced only by the spiders.

Notch, however, threw caution to the wind, getting up close to an exploder before punching it back and watching as it detonated to kill nearby monsters. Notch didn't escape unscathed, but his tactic killed more creatures than my bow.

One of the zombies I killed held a wooden sword, which it promptly dropped. My eyes flashed and I darted forward, hooking my heel around the weapon before kicking it to Notch. He caught it handily and flashed a smirk before thrusting it into a zombie.

"Finally, a weapon!" He cheered, flicking the monster into an oncoming arrow. He then darted forward, swerving around the skeleton's fire before getting up in its face. "Yo!" He taunted, slicing the monster apart and raining down arrows and bones. "Here!"

He threw the arrows to me, which I caught before loading into my bow and firing at more exploders. Any arrows he got, he gave to me. And anytime his weapon broke, I replaced it with another sword carried by an attacking monster.

Throughout the night we fought a gruesome, bloody war against the monsters. Our Hunger Meters became depleted and our Health Meters took a few heavy hits. It felt like we were fighting for days, yet we persisted through the sweat, the pain, and the hunger. We leaned on one another for support and protected each other when we stumbled.

And then, a golden glow started to appear.

The zombies and skeletons, noticing the rising sun, attempted to flee only to catch fire and be dispatched by our weapons. The exploders were used to take out any stragglers and the spiders… stopped attacking the second they were bathed in sunlight.

Within a few minutes, the sun was shining brilliantly in the sky, and we were left panting in a forest dotted with craters and littered with the remains of our foes.

Unable to stand anymore, I collapsed onto the dirt, Notch joining me. And then he did something strange.

He laughed.

Was he crazy? Why would he laugh now? We nearly died and we were so weak that a stiff breeze could kill us.

"Ha…haha…"

To my astonishment, I started laughing too.

Why, though? There was nothing funny about what we just did. We could have survived simply by staying in our simple hole. Instead we took on the dangers of the night, survived by the skin of our teeth, and… and…

"Hahahaah… hahaah… hahaha!"

I couldn't help the laugh that burst forth. It was so full of relief to be alive. To not have to return to that loathsome Void.

We were alive.

But more than that. After fighting with Notch, I realized I had found something I never could have obtained in the Void.

A brother.

[Cobb]

"So that's how it started." I said to myself, tracing over the last words of the current page.

This was how Herobrine met Notch. The First and Second to spawn. I was reading history word for word, and I knew that somehow, these two would pave the way for all the Crafters that spawned after them. This all happened five-hundred years ago.

My teeth ground together reading the word 'brother'. I was a guy who cared the world for my guild like a family, and here he was already throwing around that word.

If he was your brother, why did you kill him?

I flipped the page.

[Day 3]

As elated as we were to survive, even Notch had to admit that another night of that would be the end of us. We needed to get a plan together, and the piles of items left by our felled foes seemed a good place to start. The green and yellow monster orbs had already been divided amongst us, flowing into our arms and filling our bar tattoo.

I struggled to my feet, only to feel my stomach twist in agony. "AUGH!" I cried out, clutching my belly and falling to my knees.

"Herobrine!?" Notch was beside me in an instant. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

I struggled to form words while my stomach gurgled audibly. "F-f-food…"

"I'm hungry too. Maybe one of these monsters dropped a steak or someth—oh no!" He pointed to my Health Meter, where my hearts were slowly ticking away. My Hunger Meter was already completely empty.

"Food…" I moaned, reaching into my belt and resorting to something desperate. The rotten flesh.

"Whoa! No! You can't eat that!" Notch warned. "It's nasty! It could kill you!"

"Can't… kill me faster…" I reasoned, licking my lips nervously. Notch had mentioned that zombies could infect you with a bite. Eating their rotten flesh filled that criteria, but Notch had taught me that life wasn't worth living without taking risks. And if I wanted to live, I had to—

Notch chomped the rotten flesh right out of my hand.

"—!"

"BLEGH!" He grimaced, moaning as he swallowed every morsel of the rancid flesh. "Ugh… I'm—urp—I'm still alive. It's safe to eat."

I only paused for a moment before that same twisting sensation snapped me into taking my own bite. It was just as bad as Notch made it out to be, but it refilled my Hunger Meter… though the drumsticks tattoos looked a bit rotten. Also, there was a new tattoo with a timer of a man throwing up. Nausea?

"Uuuugh, it's like solid sewage." Notch bemoaned. "Dry, sewage jerky that's been soaked in—"

"Would you stop talking about it!?" I raged. It was bad enough trying to keep it down without his—ulp—vivid descriptions. "Just pretend you're eating cookies."

"Right… well, bottoms up…"

With great reluctance, we gathered all the rotten flesh we could find and forced it down. It refilled our Hunger Meter, though never for long as we kept throwing up any progress after a few seconds. It got to the point where we had to gorge ourselves just to get any nutrition from the rotten drops. And, every moment our Hunger Meter was full, our Health Meter would start to regenerate, fixing our wounds and healing us.

"Ulp… it seems this new tattoo is a direct result of consuming rotten flesh." I noted before heaving into a crater. "The timer… keeps resetting… with every bite…"

"So it's edible, but it costs us." He summarized, wiping away some sick from his mouth. "There's gotta be better grub. I can't go through this again."

"Agreed. We… ugh…" I got to my feet, teetering slightly with a stomach full of rotten flesh. "Let's return to the meadow. Grab everything those monsters dropped. Some of them had weapons."

We picked everything up and stowed it in our backpacks, coming across some interesting items. A leather cap, string and spider eyes, gunpowder, bones and arrows, wooden and stone swords, a few half-used bows, tons of rotten flesh… and a single carrot.

"No! We can't eat it yet!"

"But I have the taste of sewage in my mouth! I'll take carrots over sewage any day!" I held back his hand as he struggled to bite the carrot.

"We might be able to plant it! Think of the future!"

"The future can suck my fanny!"

I managed to swipe the carrot from him by the time we reached the meadow, though Notch was glaring at me traitorously. There was also a surprise waiting for us.

Another person. One with bronze skin, a simple white smock, green eyes, and the name Tanner.

"SOCIAL ACTIVITY!" Notch screamed before bull-rushing the poor sap.

To his credit, I would have run in the opposite direction to if I was greeted with that. I chased after Notch, trying to tell him he was scaring the new guy, but my protests fell on deaf ears. They ran about the meadow, Notch chasing Tanner, and I eventually gave up, instead examining what we had gathered from the monsters.

Actually, monsters was too long a title for the mob of horrifying creatures… mob of… Mob. Yeah, that sounded better. Mobs. Short and sweet. Plus, I could name anything whatever I wanted, I was the first to be.

So I examined the Mob dropped swords. The stone ones were clearly stronger than the wooden ones, but both of them had wooden handles. How had the Mobs gotten hold of these? They looked well-carved. Was there any chance of us making them, or did we need the Mobs for any weapons we were to gain.

It was the same with the bow. Lacing tight string through a wooden handle was no mean feat. Just how had those skeletons made it? And why did they have access to an endless supply of arrows?

I was turning over some string when Notch finally caught the exhausted Tanner. He didn't look too fit, so I suppose it made sense he'd get caught.

"Let… me… go…" Tanner panted.

"But we just met! My name is Notch, and that one over there is Herobrine. It's a confusing name, I know."

I rolled my eyes before fiddling with the oak log in my hand. Was it possible to make a wooden sword from it? It was the same material as far as I could tell. Maybe I had to process the log into smaller piec—

Suddenly, the log split apart in my hands, a few different blocks sliding loose and tumbling to the ground. My eyes widened and I quickly scooped up what I had made.

Oak wood planks.

"Notch, get over here!" I called, excitement clear. Notch was over in a second… with Tanner.

"What's up?"

"I made these planks with the log, just by thinking of it. But they're so perfectly made that…" I trailed off, my eyes sliding to Tanner and his unfocused expression. "Maybe we should bring him up to speed?"

"Oh right." He turned to the newcomer. "We're building things. You have Heart Tattoos. You probably die when they run out. Eat food. Monsters come out at night to try and kill us. Any questions?"

Tanner blinked, his mouth hanging open.

"Alright, he's up to speed."

"That's not—" I sighed. "Moving on. Try making planks out of those logs you gathered. Like I did."

Notch quickly took out his oak logs and turned them over in his hand a few times, glancing at the planks for reference. Sure enough, there was a small 'pop' and four wooden planks were laying in his open palm.

"Sick! I'm a carpenter!"

"Strange how they're so straight." I observed. "And each log yields exactly four planks."

"Tanner, would you like to try?" Notch offered him a log, to which he shakily accepted. He focused on the log before splitting it up just like we had. Four planks. "Good going."

"Uh… thanks?" Tanner said a bit awkwardly before taking two planks and putting them together. There was another faint 'pop' and suddenly I was looking at four sticks. "Oh, sorry, I ruined the planks—"

"No, no, this is good!" I waved aside his apology, mashing the planks together in the same manner and making sticks. "Sticks! We're getting closer to making swords. Maybe we just need to sharpen them a little. They're pretty durable, though."

"And smooth." Notch ran his hand over them. "Did we all prestige our carpentry class or something?"

"This goes beyond what we should be capable of with just our hands. We would need saws, hammers, and nails to make planks like this."

"Uh… Heroine?" Tanner said.

"It's Herobrine." I snapped, tearing my eyes away from the wooden crafts we were making… only to spot two more people in the meadow. It wasn't just one at a time or one per day.

Zipshin, a strong man wearing a purple tank-top. Ferriday, a man wearing a blue-striped shirt and an artist's beret.

"Hello friends!" Notch called out. "Come over here and help us work out this wood!"

I didn't have the heart to tell him how wrong that sounded.

Surprisingly, they did come over, and I filled them in on the mysteries we had uncovered over the last two days. It was… honestly nice. Teaching them what we knew, hearing their questions and their inquisitive minds and offering my best guesses. Sharing my knowledge felt… fulfilling.

But there was more to learn. Like how to make swords. We'd all need to be armed if we were to survive the night. Zipshin took the offered sword and wielded it with gusto, swinging it around with a remarkable amount of poise and technique. I asked if he had prior training, but he said he couldn't remember, only that it felt instinctual.

An instinctual sense. Nostalgia. But that spoke of a time before the Void, forgotten by us all.

We tried combining the planks and sticks to make swords, but we could never fit more than four items at a time in a packed recipe. We made a wooden pressure plate, but that was it.

It was the newest arrival, Ferriday, who suggested we try and put the broken planks back together to make a log. We tried, but what we made was no mere log. It was the basis of a Crafter's entire existence, their bread and butter.

"Crafting Table?" I looked at the strange item before setting it down between us. We all gathered around, staring wordlessly at what we had made.

"It's no log." Notch observed while I traced my fingers over the curious three-by-three square grid at the top.

"Crafting… table…" Ferriday sounded it out. "It's a table… but for crafting."

"Crafting…" I hummed, taking out some sticks and planks. I arranged them in a vague shape of a sword. One stick, two planks.

They combined into a wooden sword.

Our eyes all widened at the weapon sitting on the table before Zipshin took it up, twirling it around.

"Perfectly balanced." He commented.

"…this is the answer." I whispered. "Normally, we can only craft items in a crude, two-by-two pattern, but with this, we can make things by a three-by-three recipe. We can combine raw materials more freely to make items. Like…" I took out sticks and string from the spiders we had slain. I moved them about on the table, trying different combinations, until I made what I was hoping for. A bow. A fresh bow, with taut wire and strung to perfection.

"This means… we can try out different combinations. Mix and match." Ferriday caught on.

"I bet you we can add rocks to make those stone swords." Notch caught on. "But… how are we supposed to dig them up?"

"Shovels and pick-axes are what miners use." Zipshin pointed out.

"Okay, but how do we make them?"

"…Let's test that, shall we?"

[Day 4]

By the fourth day, we had run through many recipes, going back and forth to the crafting table so many times we gave up and made five separate ones to work from. By changing the amount of sticks and planks, we made a number of new tools. Shovels, axes, hoes, picks, swords, and bows. We combined the planks and sticks in any way we could imagine or think to make certain items. Others, we suspected we needed other raw materials.

"I want to make trees into paper." Tanner said. "I want to write stuff down so I remember it, but I don't know how…"

"I could use a good book, also. Not just to write, but for others to read. I'd like to record what we got figured out so far."

Surviving the nights became so much easier with our new allies and weapons. Zipshin was belligerent and took note of my warnings of how the monsters behaved. Pretty soon, he had gotten more green and yellow orbs—or EXP—from the monsters than all of us combined. And, predictably, the higher the green number on his arm got, the stronger he became. Physical strength was tied to the EXP orbs.

More people arrived. Well-spoken scholars and scientists, Jeb and Dinnerbone. Like me. Adventurers like Grum. Like Notch. Builders, like C418. And an earnest farmer, Qorn, who took to the wooden hoes like he had been farming all his life. He also took our supply of bones and shocked us by making them into bone meal to fertilize the soil. From our lone carrot he grew a tiny farm that kept us fed and worshipping him as a god now that we didn't have to choke down zombie flesh anymore.

He was Qorn, god of the harvest.

The fighters fought, the farmers farmed, the scholars experimented with the crafting table, and the builders built. The ten of us had a system. Ferriday and C418, wonderful artists and a talented builders, made the first shelter, a small house surrounded by Qorn's carrot farm. It kept the cold and monsters out, and it was secure.

Jeb came up with the idea of keeping a record through the use of wooden signs. We would use them to keep track of what we've discovered as well as everyone's number, which I made sure they'd follow. We were each given a number correlating to the order we arrived in this strange new land. A land where we crafted and mined.

…

Minecraftia.

[Cobb]

With that, the first journal was done. I reached over to the second journal in the series, contemplating how normal a guy Herobrine was.

There was no sign of evil in his thoughts, and he genuinely cared for passing down information and working as a team.

So how did he become the Founder of the Endward Cult?

There were still a lot of books to go through to find the answer… but a part of me was still terrified of what I'd find.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 2]

[Day 10]

It was Notch who suggested we move north.

It wasn't that he was dissatisfied with how our system was working, it was more the fact that the plains we had settled on was getting too crowded.

Fifty people had spawned over the course of ten days, and the plain was littered with Crafting Tables as everone learned the recipes to protect themselves. The first ten of us to spawn became the leaders of sorts. Sure, there were disputes, but they were amended when we explained that only we knew how the dangers of the world worked, and it was our foremost priority to gather information and protect the freshly spawned Crafters.

That's what we called ourselves. Crafters.

Everyone was also assigned a number to help keep track of our population. Jeb and Dinnerbone wrote signs everywhere to keep track, though some knuckle-headed Crafters broke them, thinking it was funny. They quickly changed their minds after Zipshin knocked them flat on their asses.

Qorn couldn't feed everyone with his small carrot farm. It didn't even have water.

Our stone weapons and bows were all we had to take on the world, but Notch was determined to see what else was beyond our forest. I shared in that burning desire to explore and learn more, but I was also scared of taking that first step.

Notch assured we'd only journey to the other side of that large mountain off in the distance. So, we arranged a small party. Qorn and Dinnerbone would be left behind to look after the Crafters. The rest of the eight of us started our journey, keeping the massive mountain as our destination.

[Day 11]

There were caves and rivers, flowers and… animals! Sheep and cows! Tanner killed them before we could stop him, but he picked up raw beef, leather, mutton, and wool. It was a fresh plethora of items to play with.

We already had wool combining string and making beds, but to see where it actually came from made it more of an available resource, should we find more sheep. Ferriday suspected that wool could be used to make paintings if he had enough of it. That artist was practically foaming at the mouth.

Leather, Tanner reasoned, could be used to make leatherback books, though he still lacked the necessary resource for paper.

But the meat. Good God, the meat. Notch combined cobblestone into a furnace and used charcoal for fuel and we ate like KINGS! The Kings of Minecraftia! The meat was so tender and the fat content was so delicious and the way the grease dribbled down our chins when we ate. It was ten times better than the rabbit food we were used to, or, God-forbid, the rotten flesh. Ugh.

We found caves where strange ores were found. Iron and coal, which, when mined and smelted, provided EXP and a new medium for our tools. IRON. Zipshin took all our ingots and made a set of iron weaponry AND armor! We were pissed that he used it all up, but became elated upon realizing he could stand up to Mobs better while wearing it. Soon, we all were clad in metal.

[Day 12]

Every day, it seemed we'd find something new. Flowers could be mashed into dyes, grass could be trimmed to yield seeds. Leaves could be cut to reveal apples and saplings. Seeds could be grown into wheat to make bread. (Qorn would've wanted to be here for that.) Mushrooms could be shoved into wooden bowls to make creamy mushroom stew. Wool could be dyed. Animals would follow you with the right foodstuffs. Seeds for chickens, wheat for cows and sheep, carrots for pigs, raw meat or bones for dogs. Zipshin loved taming dogs and having them follow him around.

[Day 13]

I told him he was crazy to try it, but Notch took on one of those tall black monsters that warped around. He was covered in iron armor and had iron weapons, but even then he almost died. It dropped something called an ender pearl. Jeb threw it and, to our surprise, warped away. He took damage and… spawned some small purple lump that tried to kill him. All in a day's work.

Someone should really make a book about Mobs.

[Day 14]

We took a day off to mine. Pure mining. Iron picks are capable of mining a lot better than stone ones. They can also pick up ores we couldn't normally obtain. Gold and redstone and lapis and… diamonds.

Zipshin was fascinated by the diamonds, and made a sword out of them before any of us could stop him. Jeb and I made pimp armor—I mean, gold armor, but it proved worse than iron. The redstone, however, Jeb and I found some fascinating uses out of. It would light up whenever we made contact with it, and it seemed able to transfer a kind of energy when combined with the pressure plates. There's a whole world of possibilities with this redstone, we just know it. We were sure to gather a stack of it to bring back for Dinnerbone.

Ferriday and C418 loved the lapis lazuli. It dyed the wool a deep, calming blue, though it didn't seem useful for anything else. We also stumbled upon something frightening: A wooden mineshaft.

Had someone been here before?

There were support pillars and a whole system of rails and platforms—many disconnected. The purpose seemed to be for mining, though we found plenty of useful things. Torches and seeds for Qorn. Melon seeds, pumpkin seeds. He'd love them.

The mineshaft wasn't without dangers. Some mined corridors were gunked with cobwebs and spiders. Only these spiders were smaller, a sickly blue, and had venomous bites. Our Heart tattoos would turn a sickly green anytime we were bitten, we'd get a new tattoo of a poisoned heart, and strange green particles would swirl around us. What seemed like a mild inconvenience turned into a nightmare when our hearts would tick away every second we were poisoned. We had to barricade ourselves in before burning the webs and spiders with our recently discovered flint and steel. Only then did we stumble upon the source of the cave spiders: a dark cage with the spiders swirling within.

It would spawn the cave spiders relentlessly. I wanted to experiment with it, but when we broke it, it didn't drop as a block. It was gone for good. All we got for our trouble was a couple orbs of EXP.

And the knowledge that not all Mobs came from darkness.

[Day 15]

Our little mining excursion taught us much, but it was time to move on.

We quickly grew the melons and pumpkins from the seeds we had obtained, but all we got were some standing vines. No food. We were clueless without Qorn and his farming knowledge.

We left the vines and continued north, reaching the base of the large mountain. As Notch so aptly put it, 'it was a lot bigger up close'.

Still, he was determined to reach the top, and then the other side. He knew we'd be able to see for miles in any direction should we reach the top. We stocked up on food and began our ascent.

[Day 16]

I learned how to make arrows. Flint from gravel, sticks, and feathers.

I also learned that I hated mountain climbing. Of course, Notch and Zipshin are part goat, so they had no trouble.

What I wouldn't give for a stack of those ender pearls.

[Day 18]

As we neared the top, we came across snow. Iron armor, for all its protection, does not keep us warm. The other idiots found another use for shovels, digging up the snow and making snowballs. They're having a little snowball fight like children, but scholars like Jeb and myself are above all that.

[Day 19]

A snowball struck the back of my head. It suspiciously came from Notch's direction.

This means war.

[Day 20]

It was a brutal, bloody ordeal, but I claimed victory in the snowball fight. Never again will Notch terrorize us with his icy projectiles. Today, we are free men!

YAAHHHHHH!

(Currently undergoing Mountain Madness.)

[Day 21]

We reached the summit.

From the snow-capped peak, we can see the meadow where we all started peeking through the clouds that float by like foam on a lake. We can see forests and mountains for miles in every direction. It's a truly breathtaking view made even greater with the knowledge that we ascended such a landmass. It speaks of the potential of man. 'Ain't no mountain high or low', as they say.

There's a river to the northeast and a desert to the west… and a village to the north.

I couldn't believe it either, but those are definitely wooden buildings down there. Perhaps I wasn't the first I thought I was. But this is a good thing! Perhaps they had books and knowledge to pass onto us. Everyone was in agreement; we had to get down there.

[Day 23]

Descending the mountain took less time than ascending it. Luckily, the village wasn't too far from the base, and we reached it by nightfall. I was eager to meet with any inhabitants and learn what knowledge they had to share, but there was a problem.

The village was overrun with Zombies. Zombies with… unusual appearances. They had noses like those witches and looked more… human. Their foreheads were enormous.

Thankfully, their foreheads were not indicative of their strength. They were no better than the standard Zombie and we dispatched them with ease before taking stock of what was left of the village. Almost every house had its door knocked off, but the architecture was fairly advanced. Ferriday and C418 gaped at the glass windows, throwing ideas on how to make the see-through frames.

There was only one building still with a door. It had a blockier structure than the others, wooden, sandwiched between a stone roof and floor, with a furnace and adjacent pool of lava. Zombies were climbing the steps leading up to it, intent clear to beat down one last door.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!" Came a girlish squeal from within the building.

A person?

My immediate response was to draw my sword and start hacking away at the monsters. They were so preoccupied with the door and the trapped individual inside, they paid me little mind.

"HELP! THE DOOR WON'T HOLD MUCH LONGER!"

"Notch! Get the others! Hurry!" I called behind me before taking on a calming tone. "Don't worry, miss! We're going to save you. Are you okay?"

"NO! Zombies are beating down my door! Who are you anyway!? How are you going to save me without Ferric!?"

Ferric?

"We're armed! We can handle a few Zombies."

"How can you be—never mind, just save me! Hurry!"

Notch, Zipshin, and Grum arrived on the scene in mere moments, and, with their assistance, we wiped out the mob of Mobs and cleared the door. I reached for it, but, thinking better, knocked politely. The person inside was probably still scared.

"The Zombies are dealt with. May we come in?"

There was a faint noise before the door was opened and a woman stepped out. This woman had a big nose and a large forehead, and she was shaking like a leaf. She didn't look like the rest of us.

"It's safe now. You're safe, miss…?"

"H-Helena. My name is Helena." She blushed. "Th-Thank you."

I led Helena out of the house and past the others. I had to. She was paying more attention to me than she was her own two feet. And what was that dreamy look in her eyes?

[Day 24]

Our existence was as foreign to Helena as her existence was to us. She was unfamiliar with Crafters—those that could craft items from raw materials. She—a Testificate—couldn't do that. What she could do, however, was trade with us. Carrots for emeralds. Like Qorn, she was a farmer, though she couldn't actually harvest the carrots from her farm. She didn't even need to eat. The only thing that could kill her was the Zombies that attacked every night. Ferric, an iron golem according to her, was supposed to protect the village. However, Ferric had fallen down into a cave three nights ago, leaving the village defenseless. The Zombies had beaten down the doors of each and every house, preying upon the Testificates within until only Helena was left.

I couldn't imagine how Helena was coping with that. Her whole village was gone and she was alone.

Much like I was in the Void.

If Notch and the others weren't around anymore… I wouldn't know what I'd do.

But Helena was far stronger than I gave her credit for. She asked to come with us, claiming her village was too compromised to stay. Notch was more optimistic about it, claiming the village would be perfect for housing the Crafters back at the meadow, and that Helena would be safer in the village after it was repopulated.

"What's the name of this village anyway?"

"Ringwood."

"Hm. Catchy."

Though Helena was sentient, she hadn't spawned like the rest of us in the meadow. No, her earliest memory was of just appearing in the village as a child like the other Testificates. She also spoke of strange pulses in the world that would result in new phenomena being introduced. She called them Bounty Days, and they greatly interested me. We spoke at length over many things.

She and other Testificates could predict the weather forecast, having been around long enough to feel the changes in air pressure and humidity. She had a marvelous memory, recounting the previous Bounty Days and the many things they brought, though she couldn't recall ever seeing another Crafter until today. She didn't even know she could trade with Crafters until today.

Emeralds, though pretty and gleaming, were only useful in making blocks. We could trade them back to Helena for trivial items, leading me to believe, correctly, that if we were ever to find another Testificate, we could trade the emeralds with them.

Using emeralds as a currency was a promising concept, though we'd need to encounter more Testificates for it to work.

One thing was for certain; the village was no longer safe for Helena. We agreed to escort her back to our base—a prospect which excited her. She also asked to talk further with me while we traveled. Notch wiggled his eyebrows, giving me a knowing nudge. I didn't like what he was insinuating about Helena and me.

She was still reeling from losing her fellow Testificates. This was just her latching onto a protective presence. Nothing more.

[Day 51]

Escorting Helena back took a bit longer than our journey to her village on account of the Zombies we had to protect her from. She also loved to stick to me, earning endless ribbing from the others.

Bastards.

Upon reaching the meadow, we saw that the number of Crafters had swelled to a total of one-hundred. Helena could hardly believe our population, claiming her village could never hold this many people.

She also became the center of attention. Many people spoke of us bringing back a native. I shielded her from some of the ruder onlookers. I just wish she would stop blushing around me!

We passed around the items we had found and told tales of our adventure. Qorn worshipped the ground we walked on for bringing back melon and pumpkin seeds. Dinnerbone took an interest in the redstone. Everyone took an interest in our iron gear and Zipshin's gleaming diamond sword. When we showed our supply of cooked meats, their mouths watered. Seems they too were sick of Qorn's rabbit food, though he had done a commendable job keeping everyone fed.

It wasn't all about fascinating items and delectable meats. We spoke of poisonous cave spiders, crafty witches, dangerous Endermen—Helena's terminology for the tall, black monsters that warped around. It did little to curb their enthusiasm. After hearing of our exploits, the entire meadow wanted to test their luck out in the wilderness. No matter the warnings we shared, they wanted to take the risk.

There would be other expeditions whether we gave our consent or not.

So, the First Ten got together and discussed things. We were the de facto leaders for keeping the Crafters fed, protected, and informed. Qorn and Dinnerbone had stayed behind to care for the others, but they felt left out and were eager to explore the world themselves. Notch suggested to take them to Ringwood as a starting point.

I was worried the Crafters wouldn't survive the journey, but Notch convinced me that they had to get kicked out of the nest sometime. There was still so much I wanted to teach them… but I acknowledged that there were some things you had to learn for yourself.

If only I had the books to teach them.

After careful consideration, we decided to vacate the meadow in mass exodus. The First 100 would go north to Helena's village and set up there. As for any more Crafters to spawn…

…

…We were at a bit of a loss.

We couldn't just leave the meadow unattended. More Crafters were sure to spawn. They'd be lost without a guiding hand. And who would keep track of their numbers? We were trying to put a system into place. Everyone needed a number. But who would be willing to stay behind?

There was only one woman I could think of.

[Day 52]

I couldn't believe she agreed so easily.

Actually, no, I could believe it. So long as I asked it, she would do it. God, I should have had someone else ask her. At least then I'd know she'd give an honest answer instead of one aimed to please me.

She really was the best candidate for the job. She had a good memory and would live forever so long as we built her a secure house surrounded by torches… and a series of fence walls around the meadow. So long as the area was lit up and fenced off from the woods, Mobs couldn't get to her. I wish we had a better way to keep her secure, but it wasn't like we could make the meadow into a non-violence zone.

We made the house as comfy as possible. We still didn't know how to make glass, but we gave her a bed, a furnace and crafting table. A teary-eyed Qorn even made her a custom carrot garden.

She kept saying this was something she wanted to do for us. We were her saviors. Without us, she would have been turned into a Zombie like all her friends and family. Besides, she loved to meet people. Well, working here, she'd meet every person that ever came into existence.

Her task was this: Keep track of the Crafters and instruct them on the basic crafting recipes and combat of Minecraftia. She swore to uphold the job and protect the innocent fresh-spawns as they arrived.

She asked me if I would come back and visit sometime. I told her I couldn't make any promises, since I had no clue if I would survive whatever threats the world had waiting for me, but then Notch swooped in with his big mouth and said he would keep that promise for her and drag me back if that's what it would take.

Helena's beaming smile was the only thing that kept me from rebuking him.

With that taken care of, we set off into the world, this time in a group of one-hundred.

The First 100.

[Cobb]

"There's Helena." I murmured, shutting the second volume of Herobrine's journal. So that was how Helena was given the role. I smiled, realizing that it was just as Helena said it'd gone. Herobrine carved through the Zombies while she was hiding in the blacksmith's place. And her village had been called Ringwood…

It was on the northern side of Mt. Mur. Was that how the Kingdom started? A small abandoned village populated by Crafters and swelling to become something greater, with Notch as the king.

My hand moved to the next book in the series only to let out a noise of confusion, then realization.

Volume 3 was missing.

Alexicon had said that some of Herobrine's books had been burned while fleeing the aboveground Akashic Records. She could only save a few from the ACC.

Instead I moved onto Volume 4 of Herobrine's journal, mentally preparing myself for a significant time gap.

[Carys]

"We should go back!"

"Ma'am, please, be reasonable." Kal grabbed my arm, but Z7 swiped at it with her dagger. Nobody touched me. "They had reinforcements. We barely made it to the surface. Didn't you see—?"

"I saw quite clearly!" I snapped, forcing myself into a somewhat calm growl. "I saw Executive-tiered opponents back there. Ember_Waves and that masked archer for one. Then there were all those Lieutenants. Teal, Leadstripe, Margaret—"

"Pretty sure that was a cover name."

"The POINT," I gnashed, "is that they were throwing everything they had at us. We could have crippled the cult tonight—we still can!"

"Carys. Stop." Baltic took a brave step forward, his expression grim. "Anibal is knocked out. Kal and Z7 can barely stand." His words gave me pause for thought. I hadn't even noticed how Z7 trembled under her own weight. Yet she would have followed me back in there if I'd gone. "We lost half the force we took in—maybe more. We were not prepared to fight the brunt of the cult's might tonight. Heed my advice when I say, we need to let this go."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, wanting to scream my opinion to the old man. I knew, inherently, that he wasn't calling me weak. But the other Paragons had to be thinking it. I was their leader. Their Angel of Death. The one whom they pinned their hopes for revenge against the cultist bastards. I didn't lose.

And yet, here I was. Running with my tail between my legs. It didn't matter that I was outnumbered. I should have been strong enough to wipe them all out. Didn't I train hard enough? It couldn't be because my EXP took a hit. I had gotten it back up pretty easily dispatching those cultists. My level should have been high.

But then… there was Ember's level. The EXP she had accrued over however long she's been around and however many people she'd killed.

There was green number 105 on her arm.

Kal must have seen it too. For a second, her naturally obtained strength was enough to match his Hacker Strength, but only for a second. She could stop attacks cold with the tip of that fragile rapier. Plus, she was a sharp one. She suspected I was the leader… but she wasn't entirely sure. Nowhere_Man blew off my armor, and Cobb took my Wither Skull mask. Without either, my identity as the Angel of Death couldn't be verified.

It didn't change one irrefutable fact: She had more EXP than me. That meant she had me beat in physical strength. If we clashed, I'd be the one giving ground. To challenge her, I'd need to bring up my EXP to one-hundred-and-five, but the highest I had ever gotten was fifty-seven, and each level cost more EXP than the last.

How had Ember gotten her level so damn high!? Did she never enchant in her life?

"You should listen to the old man." Someone called out, causing every able-bodied Crafter to point a weapon their way. "He's right. You can't beat the cult tonight."

It was Ciro_Che. He casually leaned on a birch tree as he watched us. Far enough away that if we tried to launch an attack, he'd be gone. He was clearly on guard.

My eyes zeroed in on the bow in his hand and the stick at his belt. His hand was twitching over it, ready to draw, but willing to wait and see what we did first.

I decided to break the ice with a fact.

"You covered our escape."

The Paragons all looked on with confusion as I lowered my scythe and rested a hand on my hip, looking just as relaxed as Ciro. Someone had shot an exploding arrow at Ember before bombarding the cultists. Who else could it have been but him?

"Those exploding arrows came from you, right?" I pointed to his bow. "That's one of those eight cursed items, isn't it? Just like that stick and just like Teal's blue cap."

He narrowed his eyes at my astute observation. "That blue cap was what I was going for all along. I didn't make a diversion for your sake, I was going for Teal. I'd have had her if not for that masked archer intercepting all my shots."

"So you're chasing down Herobrine's items." I noted, recalling the ones Nowhere_man had and already filing it away as possible leverage over this man.

"Given that they're my best chance of ending the Endward Cult, yes. They're what I'm going for."

"And you've come to speak with us, because…?"

"Haven't you ever heard the old expression, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?"

"I don't do friends."

"Allies, then." He decided on. "We all want to see the cult be done with. Why not team up and make it easier?"

"You sure you can handle that tall task?" I challenged. "I didn't seem to need one of Herobrine's fancy toys when I took down the Southern Division."

"And we're all very impressed." He made a slow clap, irking me. "But it's not far from the truth to say that the Southern Division was the noisiest and boldest… and the weakest. It was a wake-up call to the others, and they've only gotten stronger these past few months. But, you tell me. After fighting some of the heavy hitters of the other three divisions, what are your thoughts?"

Fuck. He had me there.

"You're proposing a partnership?" Baltic asked, picking up from where I left off.

"It'd be more fair to say that I've burned a good bit of bridges and am in dire need of connections." He confessed. "I worked for the Berserkers and earned a good bit of emeralds bounty hunting—all of which I spent on rumors and intel to lead me to Herobrine's artifacts. As you can see, I got two for my troubles, but I don't think the Berserkers will be too happy to see me again. We didn't part on the best of terms."

"Well, you're just selling me on this partnership deal."

"I'm being up front." He defended. "I'm telling it like it is. And, frankly, it's desperate. My leads are cold and attacking the Endward Cult for the Voda Shlem is the lesser of two evils. I can't do it alone. But if I had the Paragons at my side…" He trailed off meaningfully.

Kal piped up. "The Endward Cult is the lesser of two evils?"

"That's right." Ciro replied coolly. "I think you know what sort of people I'm talking about."

Kal's Hacker lines stood out in the moonlight.

"How'd you get those artifacts in the first place?" I asked, genuinely curious. "How'd you hear about them? How'd you even know they existed?"

He closed his eyes, comfortable enough to do so in our presence. He must have been desperate for allies. He clearly wanted this partnership.

Finally, he said, "It's a bit of a story… and we're not completely safe in this forest—the cultists might still be searching for us. Lead the way and we can walk and talk."

He had a point. The cultists would never just let fleeing enemies go. Not after the blow we delivered to their weapons outpost—and we did deliver a blow. We smashed up and burned any items we could and crippled their workforce. It would take months for them to get the materials needed to mass-produce weapons again and even longer to replenish the stockpile we'd taken care of. We didn't lose men for nothing, even if we ultimately had to flee.

I needed to rethink our strategy against them. No point in targeting essential bases if they could simply nether portal to our location with reinforcements. How they could do that, I had no idea. Portals were supposed to be tricky—they carried a risk of connecting to Minecraftia's side outside the Border, killing a Crafter instantly. So how'd they get it where they wanted to go?

"Alright. We'll talk." I then started barking orders. "Baltic, Kal. Try and coax Anibal back to consciousness. She's the expert on powerful enchanted items. I want her to hear this. Shroud, Doyle, Aurand. Scout ahead. I don't want any cultists getting the jump on us. We're heading east to the Kawa River. If you're too weak to walk, we're leaving you behind."

"She's joking!" Baltic quickly assured, though under his breath he ordered his men to tend to the injured with food and healing potions.

"You." I pointed to Ciro with my scythe. "You're with me, but I want you to stow that Knockback stick in your backpack so I know you can't draw it easily."

"It's called the Destierro del Palillo."

"Whatever. If I see so much as a twitch for it, this partnership and your life will be over in one fell swipe. Got it?"

"Got it." He sighed, making a show of stowing it deep into his backpack. The bow wasn't much of a threat, despite its explosive potential. I was fairly confident I could slice up his arm before he could notch an arrow. Getting knocked back several hundred miles at the touch of a stick, however, would be a setback. My guard was still up when he moved to stand beside me and we both started walking after the rest of the Paragons.

"Anibal's gonna be a while." I noted. "So, start talking. Where'd you learn about the artifacts?"

"It started like this…"

[Year 120: Ringwood's Palace]

"Your Eminence." Ciro greeted, kneeling before his king. "I have unfortunate news from the council."

King Notch stood from his throne, expression thunderous. "Those bastards vetoed my request to send aid to Nitebane again, didn't they?"

"…I'm afraid so."

"I can't believe them!" Notch raged, kicking at his throne. "Can't they see that we have an ally in need!? The people of Nitebane are starving and terrified while we're fed and happy. It's bullshit!"

"Your hero complex aside, the guards here have families, Your Eminence." Ciro advised, choosing then to stand. "A decision to send them away from their home into a dangerous den of Griefers will not be met with approval. And with their King," he spat with disgust, "missing for almost fifteen years, I fear Nitebane is lost to us."

"…Fuck it, I'll go there myself and wreck house with the Severe Shield." Notch jumped to his feet and started marching out. "That'll teach those Griefers to take advantage of a scarred Kingdom."

"Your Eminence…" Ciro bemoaned before following his king out.

"No! We can't stand idly by anymore. If we were in a similar position, the kings would leap at the chance to help. They're all just afraid of fighting a Wither, but there isn't going to be another monster like that. Herobrine promised."

"Right now, Herobrine's word doesn't mean much."

"Jeb's still looking for him and so am I."

"You might be trying, but do you really think Jeb is doing his best?"

"Jeb, Dinnerbone, Herobrine. Those three were always the redstone trio. Why wouldn't they care that he's missing? What happened wasn't his fault, okay?"

"So you keep insisting."

Notch bit his cheek, choosing not to share the colorful words he was thinking with his Captain.

As Notch climbed to his quarters with Captain Ciro beside him, there was a blur of movement by the window. Notch caught it and quickly glanced outside. Whatever he saw, his eyes widened and he ran up the steps two at a time.

"Your Eminence…?" Ciro questioned before going after him.

Notch slammed open his bedroom door and stood there in the threshold, his voice caught in his throat. Ciro was just about to ask what it was when he heard a voice.

"Notch…"

Standing in Notch's quarters was the very man they had been talking about. Herobrine. His glowing eyes, like twin lamps, were unmistakable.

After being missing for fifteen years, he was standing here like it's where he always was.

"Herobrine…" Notch took a few steps forward before he was standing right in front of his old friend. He raised his arms, paused, lowered them slowly, and then slugged him right in the mouth.

Herobrine fell back against the bed, one hand clutching his jaw and looking at Notch apprehensively. Notch was on him in an instant, but not for another strike.

He was hugging him tightly.

"You knucklehead!" Notch shouted, embracing him like a brother. "You absolute bonehead! I thought you were smart! Why the hell did you drop off the face of the earth for fifteen years! Didn't you know how worried I was?"

"Y-You… were worried…?" Herobrine asked tremulously, confusion clear on his face and those high-beam eyes starting to leak tears. "B-But I thought… I thought you hated me. You never wrote back…"

"Never wrote—I've been looking for you for fifteen years!" Notch moved him so they could talk eye-to-eye. "If you gave me your address, I would have moved Minecraftia to get to you! You're the one who never wrote!"

"But… but I did write." Herobrine assured. "I sent letters five times a year all this time WITH my return address. When you never replied, I feared that you… you didn't want to speak with me." He glanced down.

"Are you kidding!? I never got a single letter. If I had I would have visited you in person. What happened to them all?"

Suddenly, those eye beams narrowed dangerously. "If I had to guess, I'd say your mail office saw my name and decided to destroy the letters before they reached their beloved king."

"You know, I think you're right." Notch scowled. "I'm gonna have words for those nimrods."

"To be fair, they have every right to despise me… considering what happened in Nitebane—"

"I don't want to hear you talk about that. It's in the past, and it wasn't your fault." Notch reassured. "People keep holding a grudge, but they act like they've never made a mistake before. You made amends and the world shouldn't hold it over you for the rest of your life."

"Make amends…" Herobrine smiled warmly. "That does sound nice."

"So what the hell have you been up to? You got—two, five, twelve—a bunch of letters worth of stuff to fill me in on! We can talk in the dining hall, you're probably hungry—"

"Actually, maybe it's best we avoid other people." Herobrine interjected. "I… uh… I don't want to cause anyone any discomfort. I actually had to sneak into the Kingdom with an invisibility potion and these boots." He tapped a pair of white-dyed leather boots. They didn't look enchanted, but Herobrine seemed to think they were important.

"No, screw other people! I want to treat my friend to the finest dinner Ringwood can offer. If they don't like it, Ciro can escort them to eat in the toilets, right Captain Ciro."

However, Ciro was eyeing Herobrine suspiciously the whole time during their conversation. Only when Notch addressed him did he remember his manners.

"Yes, Your Eminence."

"Well… if you think it'll be okay." Herobrine reluctantly agreed before allowing Notch to lead him downstairs. Along the way, he pulled off those white leather boots and stored them deep in his backpack.

As they left, Ciro glanced at the King's quarters one last time. Notch's room was high up. Even invisible, how had Herobrine climbed up there so fast?

Nobody was pleased to see Herobrine after how well-known the Tragedy of Nitebane had been. There were many who claimed the King had a hand in it, and many council members feared Notch was sheltering a mass-murderer.

Notch, however, wouldn't hear any of it. He made his position clear and stated that anyone who had a problem with it could finish their meals in the bathrooms. The room was vacated in moments, leaving Notch, Ciro, and Herobrine. The latter proceeded to talk about what he's been up to.

"I've been spending a lot of time by myself." He said between bites of cooked chicken and hot mouthfuls of mushroom stew. "Mmm. I decided to take another look at Command Blocks. Speaking of, how've Jeb and Dinnerbone been doing with the copies I sent them?"

"Oh, I don't know. Those two drone on and on about comparators and hoppers, I need subtitles just to understand, know what I'm saying." The two shared a laugh while Ciro kept his hand on his weapon and his eyes on the danger. "You should get back together with them. The redstone trio, back together. It'll be good for you."

"Thanks, but…" He glanced down. "I don't know if the other kings are as compassionate or understanding as you. I mean, you were there at the Tragedy."

"So were you." Herobrine nodded wordlessly before Notch went on. "You need to let them make up their minds, but not without telling them the whole story. If they knew, they'd forgive you in a heartbeat, I'm sure of it."

He sighed. "How I wish I had your optimism, Notch." He wiped his nose before setting down an empty bowl. "Anyway, I went back to the Origin Zone. The Command Block protecting it is still working great."

"You did? Man that takes me back. Our old meadow where our story began." Notch's eyes took on a reminiscent gleam. "I bet Helena was happy to see you, huh?"

"Must you keep teasing me with that?" Herobrine groaned to Notch's enjoyment. "She's a fine woman, but I don't see us making out."

"I'm sure she'd want to see you two making out." Notch grinned when Herobrine threw his empty bowl at him. "Haha—CIRO!"

Ciro had his bow drawn and aimed at Herobrine the second he threw something at his king. Herobrine looked on with only mild surprise that settled into understanding.

Realizing he had drawn his weapon unnecessarily, Ciro reluctantly lowered it. "Apologies, I—"

"No, it's fine, it's…" Herobrine sighed before pushing himself to his feet. "Maybe I should excuse myself."

"No, no, no! Herobrine, stay. Don't let my Captain's nerves get you down. He, aha, he does his job too hard, right Ciro?" Notch grit his teeth, glaring at his Captain who could only nod. He had acted out of turn, but he was just too suspicious of the man. Anyone would.

"All the same, perhaps it's best that I leave." Herobrine fished in his backpack for an invisibility potion, but Notch held up a hand.

"At least spend the night here. I want to talk with you more in the morning."

Herobrine smiled. "I'd like that. Thank you, Notch." He put the potion away before Notch asked Ciro to perform some other duties. By how vague he made the order, it was obvious he was trying to get rid of the Captain.

Reluctantly, Ciro made himself scarce and allowed the first two Crafters to reconnect.

The next morning, the two were joking and bantering over breakfast like brothers. Most of the conversation included the types of things Herobrine learned he could do with Command Blocks.

"You're lying!"

"Swear to God." Herobrine leaned back into his seat. "I can make a Command Block that can dispense cake to the nearest Crafter."

"Holy. Bawls." Notch made a mind blown gesture which got Herobrine chuckling. Ciro watched the two from a reasonable distance, willing himself not to reach for his bow.

"I'm learning to do a lot of stuff." Herobrine admitted. "I'm testing with status affects and spawning items, but each one has a code and it's… ah… I won't bore you with the complicated details. I just wish these eyes could give me a few hints." He smiled, tapping his glowing, high-beam eyes.

"I mean, you say the commands just come to you when you're in the Command Block interface, right?" He pointed to his own beady eyes. "Jeb and Dinnerbone only know how to use them because you gave them some basic copying commands. They're the ones operating in the dark. But you. Your eyes let you see in the dark."

"They don't actually let me see in the dark, BUT," he waved his hand, "that's what Night Vision is for."

"It's funny, I think I heard rumors of people with strange eyes." Notch spoke through a mouthful of apple. "Maybe there are more like you."

"I wish. The world could use more Command Block readers."

They were talking about trivial things, leaving Ciro to wonder if he was really needed here. His King surely had everything under control, and Herobrine already said he'd be leaving in a bit, though he would come along to visit again. He even gave Notch a viable means to communicate with him.

"Here, I can set up this Command Block so you can send me a message—whatever you want, whenever you like." Notch leaned over to look at the block wonderously. Herobrine smiled. "I can make one for myself too. I should have done this earlier but I wasn't sure how you'd… anyway that's all in the past. With this, we can communicate with one another whenever we want."

"It'll be just like we're neighbors."

[Carys]

"It was the flying boots." I said after Ciro had finished that particular part of the story. "That's how Herobrine got into Notch's quarters."

"Yes." Ciro nodded. "The Bottes Zephyr. That was my second encounter with an artifact, the first being the Severe Shield. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but Herobrine was tampering with Command Blocks to make them. He'd gift them to Dinnerbone later."

I refrained from mentioning that Nowhere_Man was in possession of that artifact. If Ciro wanted that information, he'd have to prove himself an asset. For all I knew, he could still be keeping things to himself.

I noticed that Anibal was finally awake. Good. She'd want to hear all about the artifacts. I beckoned her over, giving Ciro pause for the next part of his story.

[Cobb]

Reading this was taking time. There were no windows in the secret underground library for obvious reasons, but I had a clock and it said it was late at night. I set it down beside me before flipping open the next available book in the series.

Right away, I noticed a gap of over fifty days between Volume 2 and Volume 4.

"I hope I'm not skipping anything life-changing."

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 4]

[Day 115]

Our journey north has come to an abrupt and grisly end.

Amongst snow and frost, past mountains and spikes of ice, across the treacherous tundra, we found a mysterious and deadly roadblock. One of the higher numbered Crafters was scouting ahead before he suddenly died.

There was no warning. He just exploded in a shower of gear. His Health hadn't been low and there were no Mobs we could see.

Two others ran up to see what had happened before we could warn them. They died just as instantaneously, their Heads joining their friend in the snow.

Everyone began to panic, but Zipshin, Notch, and I remained as calm as we could be. Jeb memorized the spot where they had crossed and died, realizing it was exactly the same spot, and set some cobblestone to mark it.

He was fine walking right up to the line, but he didn't dare cross it.

It was like we reached some kind of… border. It was a place we couldn't cross. The edge of Minecraftia.

Perhaps Crafters were never meant to reach this far.

Jeb and Dinnerbone ordered the others to make a cobblestone line as far in either direction as they could to prevent this from happening again. We had to mark this so nobody dared to risk their safety again. Jeb was in the middle of making warning signs when there was another two deaths. One to the east and one to the west.

It was only then that we understood that the border wasn't a line. It was a curve.

After that, everyone refused to get anywhere near the Border, but Jeb and Dinnerbone had finally figured it out. The Border was an arc. A circle. One that they believed encompassed all of Minecraftia.

And if that were true, then all of us—and everyone who spawned after—were trapped.

With no way to proceed further forward, we turned back and fled that land of icy death.

[Day 120]

To liven things up, the others used one of Qorn's pumpkins and two blocks of snow to make a snowman.

It came alive.

At this point, I'm not even surprised.

This place is weird.

[Day 136]

Things got warmer when we returned to the spruce forest. We needed to pick a different direction to travel, though many of the higher numbers demanded we scout ahead. They were terrified of running into the same border that had claimed five of us.

Zipshin opposed it, but we decided to use his dogs as forward scouts. The Border killed Mobs and animals just as easily as it killed Crafters. Their sacrifice would prevent any of us from dying.

And, really, they were just some mangy mutts.

When Zipshin heard me mutter that, he broke my nose before Notch pulled him off of me.

We were close to Ringwood, but we hadn't been gone very long. Instead we headed southeast and found a lake that fed into a mighty river. Growing along the sides was a rather strange plant.

Qorn said it was either reeds or sugar cane.

We harvested some and found they could only be planted adjacent to water. We took a few buckets full just in case and turned the sugar cane into sugar.

But we found a better use when we arranged the sugar cane into a horizontal line on the Crafting Table and discovered paper. Tanner and I were ecstatic. Surely we could use the paper to write!

Sadly, it wasn't that simple. We needed to craft it with a writing tool.

We tried using sticks and charcoal, feathers and coal, dyes. At one point we just chucked rocks at the thing we were so mad.

WHY!? WHY CAN'T WE WRITE!

We cried ourselves to sleep that night.

[Day 137]

C418 had the brilliant idea to go boating out on the lake, which made sense. We finally had a body of water large enough to swim and enjoy.

What we didn't expect was how much faster they were on the water. They zoomed all around that lake, some of them riding tandem. C418 sure seemed to enjoy himself.

"I feel at home on the waterfront." He mentioned. Another instance of that nostalgic sense, no doubt. "I just wish we could do some fishing."

"Well," Notch shrugged, "maybe we can."

Turns out, fishing rods are as easy as sticks and string. We enjoyed fresh cooked fish for the first time, enjoying the crispy skin and light meat. Eating it was different from the cloying flavors of greasy, fatty game. It practically fell apart in our mouths.

We also caught a Pufferfish. We couldn't cook it and Zipshin ate it raw on a dare. I won't say I was the one who dared him, but I will say the man broke my nose yesterday.

I took great enjoyment in watching him get poisoned and inflicted with hunger. He also said that the ground was spinning and he hurled into the lake. A new status effect, perhaps? He said afterwards that his vision warped and wobbled like he had spun around too fast for too long.

I made a mental note to dare Zipshin to eat more potentially dangerous foodstuffs in the future. For science, of course.

[Day 140]

We decided to cut travel time by floating down the river connected to the lake via our boats. We wouldn't be able to tell where the Border was, but Grum and Jeb had an answer to that. They combined those compasses with the paper we discovered to make a map. It showed a white blip of our current location and revealed the topography of the surroundings.

Furthermore, by adding paper, we could expand the map to include places we had yet to visit. They filled out as we went, but with this, we could have a better sense of navigation. We could even make copies to track all our positions.

I was bummed that we didn't have a better way to write, but paper still showed it had a use.

We sailed southeast, Grum at the front with the map.

[Day 145]

We've come to a crossroads. The river diverges north and south.

However, with maps, Grum suggests we split up to cover more ground exploring.

The idea has merit. With the maps, we can track each other wherever we may be. And whatever we explore updates every map copy. Exploring Minecraftia would be a lot easier if we split up, though whatever discoveries we make would be divided amongst us.

Ultimately, we decide to split into two groups. C418 and Ferriday would take some braver Crafters north. The rest of us would go south.

We bid our farewells and promised to meet again in the future.

[Day 150]

We docked our boats beside a peaceful birch forest. While there, Zipshin went on a mining excursion and discovered that a diamond pickaxe could break those dense black blocks we encountered whenever water was poured over still lava. Hardened lava—or obsidian, as the block was called—was finally in our possession.

However, we found little to do with it, other than annoy others by blocking passageways and forcing them to dig around it.

Jeb, however, refused to believe it was worthless.

[Day 157]

More sailing had us arrive in a jungle biome. The air was humid and the foliage was so dense we only traverse via the river.

Grum loved it.

Apparently, he must have been an ape in a past life because he climbed vines and jumped from the tall trees like a spidermonkey. We also discovered cocoa beans, which could be used to make brown dye as well as cookies.

We also ran into some kind of cat. It was skittish and terrified of us, but Grum managed to gain its trust with some fish. Now he has a cat following him around everywhere. He named it Mr. Mittens.

He had to keep it away from Zipshin and his dogs. Since when were we a traveling zoo?

[Day 162]

Traipsing around the jungle, we discovered a stone temple. Eager to explore, Notch and Zipshin ran in only to run back out, riddled with arrows.

There wasn't any Skeletons, though. Inside, there were strange redstone devices that could fire arrows, tripwires, levers and a strange contraption that could push and pull blocks.

Jeb, Dinnerbone, and I picked the place clean, marveling at the redstone contraptions and trying to uncover their secrets. Like we thought, redstone could carry a pulse, but we had no idea we could use the pulse to power items. Items that could fire arrows or move blocks. This was revolutionary!

There was also treasure! Diamonds, gold, iron, emeralds, horse armor, and… a book!

We immediate glee was short lived when I realized this book was called an Enchanted Book. It glowed and had Sharpness II, but I had no idea what that meant. I couldn't write in it, that was for sure, but this proved that books were possible. Whether they were only available in these odd Jungle Temples, I had no idea.

Who had even built this? The redstone traps hinted at intellect, and Testificates couldn't build.

So who had been here before us?

The horse armor was another issue. We hadn't even seen horses, but there wouldn't be horse armor without horses. Maybe they only existed in a certain environment, like the wide open plains.

But what to do with the Enchanted Book?

[Day 166]

We took another step in uncovering how to write.

After studying the Enchanted Book, Tanner put together that it was bound in a leathery material.

Using the ample cows populating the jungle, Tanner got some leather and mixed and matched it with some paper until he found the recipe for a book. A real, bonafide book!

We still couldn't write in it, but we were close. So close! I could just feel it.

What was the final missing piece?

Only time and further exploration would tell.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 5]

[Day 170]

Once again, we find our way barred by the Border.

This time, we only lost a dog, but it's clear we can't move further southeast.

While we're mulling over which way to go, Grum makes the decision to stay in the jungle. He says he likes it there. He feels like he's home while petting his cat and climbing vines.

It's his choice. Plus, he has a map. We say our goodbyes and decide where to explore next. From our map, we see that C418 and Ferriday's group have split up. One group discovered a vast ocean to the east and the other doubled back to the icy tundra and then further west.

We can meet up with the ocean group if we go northeast, or we can try our luck to the unexplored west.

Once again, we opt to split up. Zipshin, Tanner, and Qorn decide to go west with half the group. Notch, myself, Jeb, and Dinnerbone go northeast.

The First 100 have whittled down quite a bit. To my knowledge, however, none of the First 10 have died. Perhaps it is destiny for us low numbers to survive. We were the leaders for a reason.

[Day 176]

We've chanced upon a rather strange biome. It's full of stone spikes jutting from the ground at odd angles. No grass or greenery to speak of. It's all cold, inhospitable stone.

Our food stores would go fast. Nobody wanted to eat rotten flesh.

We turned north towards a friendlier meadow, finding a village full of Testificates.

We traded with them, obtaining emeralds and foodstuffs. We even happened upon a librarian who sold us paper and books. Unfortunately, I had as much luck writing in these as I did with the other ones.

The Testificates were nice, and we caught a glimpse of an iron golem. A massive hunk of aged iron that protected the peaceful, big-nosed Testificates from Mobs.

We spent the night there.

[Day 185]

Jeb has done something beyond my understanding.

He was tampering with the blocks of obsidian, building a frame of some kind. He said a shady Testificate in the village gave him the idea. Once the portal was built, he lit it with a flint and steel…

…And it lit with a purple glow.

It was also making some unearthly sound which hinted at something sinister. Every bone in my body was screaming that we were tampering with something dangerous.

So why the hell did Jeb walk into that thing!?

Whatever madness possessed him, he vanished into the swirling purple portal.

And Notch, the brave man that he is, jumped in after him.

[Day 186]

I wanted to go after them. We all did. But we were too afraid to try.

What if this was a one-way trip? What if it was instant death? What if…?

…

No.

Notch would say that adventure waited for no man.

This portal had taken our friends, and if I was half as brave as Notch, I would have jumped in a day earlier.

No more caution.

While everyone was asleep, I suited up and went into the portal, determined to get my friends back.

[Day ?]

I found myself in a hellish dimension of fire and lava and death. Good God, what was I thinking stepping through.

Everywhere I looked I saw hues of red and orange. It was so hot and the landscape was of strange mounds of a material known as Netherrack.

And the monsters! Zombified pig people with rotting flesh and golden swords. They oinked and snorted menacingly, surrounding me and… and…

Ignoring me.

Indeed, they were passive as lambs. I slowly walked by them, keeping my sword sheathed. I knew so little about them or this strange dimension. Where was Notch and Jeb?

Moving past the strange pigmen, I stumbled upon a group of them huddled around a tall pile of netherrack. At the top were my missing friends.

"Notch! Jeb!" I called out, hurrying over. The crowd of pigmen were angrily oinking and trying to get at them.

"Herobrine!" Notch called back. "Why aren't they going for you? They're positively pissed at us!"

"What'd you do?"

"I just attacked one that got too close to Jeb. Then they all bore down on us like a swarm of locusts! They hit hard!"

"You have to get us down from here!" Jeb begged. "We're nearly out of food."

"I'll think of something. Just hang on!"

So the pigmen worked as a group. Much like the Endermen, they only attacked when upset. So to draw their attention away... I would have to hit one.

I looked around before spotting a ledge overlooking the sea of lava below. I walked over, making a bridge of netherrack before breaking it to make a lone floating island I could jump to. There was a gap large enough for the monsters to fall into the lava.

Nodding in satisfaction, I took out my bow and fired a shot at the closest pigman. As soon as it was struck, they all turned and swarmed towards me with angry oinks and grunts. It terrified me and I cowered low as the hoard approached with raised swords. Notch screamed out in warning.

But, just as planned, the pigmen ran towards the ledge and fell away into the lava like a waterfall of bacon. All of the angry Mobs surrounding Notch and Jeb's safe space filtered towards me before falling to their fiery, molten doom.

Only, they took to the lava like an apple to water, bobbing about and angrily swarming beneath my island. Seems they were fireproof.

But they were too low to be a threat. I hopped back over and rejoined my friends as they climbed down.

"You beautiful bastard, you did it!" Notch cheered, hugging me.

"Thanks. I-I shouldn't have walked in here." Jeb apologized. "My curiosity got the better of me."

"Don't mention it, my friends." I replied. "Curiosity gets the better of us all at some point. I still wish to explore this new dimension, but carefully. For now, let's return to the others. They're worried."

"Not worried enough to come in after us." Notch muttered.

"Let me just check my compass and… uh…" I froze upon glancing at my compass.

It was spinning wildly.

"Where's the portal again?"

[Day ?]

We walked aimlessly in search of the portal. Our redstone devices weren't working; both our compasses and our clocks spun chaotically. It was impossible to know just how long we'd been there.

We tried to keep track of where we'd been and which direction the portal might be, but it was slow going. We had to carefully map out which way everything was, assuming we didn't go far enough away from our portal.

For food, we had to rely on indigenous fungi to make mushroom stew. There were no trees, but we brought bowls with us. We used cobblestone to mark where we've been.

We encountered more pigmen, but they left us alone. We didn't dare aggravate them with violence.

There were other monsters, though. Flying, ghostly, wailing tentacle monsters that spat fireballs at us, jiggly blobs of magma with orange molten cores, and, in a maroon fortress, spinning wraiths of gold and fire that also spat fireballs at us.

As Notch eloquently put it, "Why does everything shoot fire at us!?"

There was an even more dangerous Mob in the maroon fortress of Nether Bricks.

Tall black Skeletons with stone swords. They hit hard, and when they hit, they inflicted a status effect I'd never seen before that drained our health.

They dropped bone, coal, and stone swords, but whenever we spotted one, we went the other way. They were far too deadly.

Deeper into the fortress, we found a crop growing on a soft block known as soul sand. Nether Wart. If only Qorn were here. Maybe he could make heads or tails of it.

"Netherrack. Nether Bricks. Nether Wart. That settles it." Notch stated. "This place is the Nether."

It was as good a name as any.

Wait…

"Isn't Nether synonymous with private parts?"

[Day ?]

The spinning Mobs of fire and gold rods dropped things called Blaze Rods, so we named them Blazes. The jiggly lava globs we called Magma Cubes. They dropped Magma Creams. The pigmen we called Zombie Pigmen. The large, pale, flying ghost things dropped Ghast Tears when shot down, so we called them Ghasts.

And the tall black Skeletons…?

We called them Wither Skeletons because of their withering status effect that turned our heart tattoos black and made it hard to track our Health. I think it also replenished their health.

The Mobs here were a lot more dangerous than the ones we'd seen in Minecraftia.

Once again, I wished I could catalogue them. But, to do so, I needed a writable book.

[Day ?]

Every day is a risk.

Notch tried to sleep in a bed he had on him.

It exploded and very nearly killed him, blasting off his iron armor.

I hate this place.

[Day ?]

Bored one day (or maybe it was night, my clock couldn't tell), I mixed a blaze rod with some cobble and discovered something interesting.

A Brewing Stand.

It was a brand new recipe, but it looked like I could fit bottles into three slots. The central blaze rod was warm to the touch, likely intended to heat the brews.

Many times, I watched Witches throw potions, wondering if I could do the same.

Could I—with the Brewing Stand—harness the power of status effects?

[Day ?]

Jeb is getting tons of EXP mining the white ores he finds littered about. Nether Quartz. He also has a bucket which he constantly refills with lava to use as fuel for smelting Netherrack to make Nether Bricks. It's not as if we didn't have enough lying around.

Our levels are filling up nicely, making us stronger.

But he's combining the Quartz with other redstone items to make something called a Comparator. It outputs a signal depending on whatever block it's attached to.

If only Dinnerbone could see this.

…

I want to go back.

[Day ?]

Mushroom Stew tastes bland on my tongue. I crave meat, or at least something to wash out this taste.

Remembering I carried a bucket of water, I placed it down to take a refreshing sip.

It evaporated instantly.

I am one sad panda.

[Day ?]

This could still be today for all I know. What's the point in living like this? There's nobody to share our knowledge with.

I might never get to experiment with the Brewing Stand or the Comparators.

How are the others hanging onto their sanity?

[Day ?]

Why was there a fortress in the Nether? Who built it? Was it like the Jungle Temple and Villages we'd happened across where nobody knew how it came to be? All they knew was that they were here.

As a scientist and philosopher, how can I be expected to accept that?

Why did we keep feeling waves of nostalgia over things we had no memories over? What was Normal Sense? Why were we here?

What was our purpose?

[Day ?]

I could cry right now.

We found the Portal.

We wasted little time and just jumped right in, desperate to return to our familiar blue sky.

[Day 221]

Five weeks. We spent five weeks in the Nether.

Only Dinnerbone and a few others were there waiting for us. The rest had given up and moved on. I can hardly blame them, but Notch sure as Nether did.

Those that had stayed had built small homes and had cordoned off the Nether Portal. We were given fruits and meats and warm beds that didn't explode. After a good night's rest, we told them of our adventures and of the horrors we'd encountered.

Dinnerbone and Jeb started experimenting with the Comparator and Quartz right away while I took an interest in the Brewing Stand.

We wouldn't be planning another Nether excursion anytime soon.

[Day 226]

Continuing our travels east by northeast, we happened across the same ocean our compatriots had explored. The sandy beaches proved a welcome change from the hellish dimension from earlier. We fished and swam with the squids, killing a few.

And that's when we made our biggest find, bringing us to the time I write these books.

Squids dropped ink sacs, which could dye wool black and, more importantly, be combined with a feather and a book to make a book and quill. An actual writable book.

We could actually write.

This was it. The key to civilization. My purpose in Minecraftia. I could feel it in my bones.

The glorious book.

I spoke with the others at length of my idea.

"Kingdoms?" Jeb asked.

"Yes!" I practically shouted in earnest, slapping the book's cover. "Don't you see? With books, we can keep records. We can write information on Crafters—their name, number—and keep track of them all. We can build villages and Kingdoms all across Minecraftia with us as the pillar of civilization!"

"…You think so?" Dinnerbone smiled, liking the idea.

"Yeah, yeah…" Jeb nodded. "We can gather the most intelligent minds to uncover the secrets of redstone and recipes. With books, we can spread what we know easily enough—Gods, we could have a library!"

"And a Hall of Records!" I added. "We can charge a toll for entry and-and provide citizenship licenses or a pass…"

"Emeralds would make a great currency."

"Yes! Great idea! We could invite some Testificates into our walls, they can trade and circulate emeralds. We can also barter items for services and goods."

"We need to get the others in on this." Notch smiled. "Ten Kingdoms. One for each of us."

"Yes! Together we can tame this wild realm and leave a legacy for future generations." I smiled widely. "We can teach new Crafters how to survive and live. We can protect them, teach them how to fight Mobs." I clutched the book close. "I-I can write the Mob books I always wanted, and it's all thanks to this first book."

I started to tear up.

"I-I can see it now."

"Herobrine…?"

"This is *sob* this is too good to be true. It's all I've ever dreamed of, and we can make it happen!"

"Hey, it's okay buddy. It's an emotional moment, but it's not set in stone yet." I looked up at Notch and his wry grin. "We got a lot of work to do before we have any kind of legacy."

I wiped away my tears, laughing and crying and hiccupping. I was in hysterics.

But this was my greatest ambition. To leave behind a legacy. To instruct and protect the future generations.

I made a wish in the Void, and today, for the first time, it looked like it was going to come true.

I had found my purpose.

[Cobb]

"What the hell happened to this guy!?" I snarled, slamming the book shut and slapping it onto the floor.

The second he discovered books, his mind jumped to civilizations, record keeping, instructions. The whole world opened up to him after killing a fucking squid.

And I could see it! I could see how genuine his feelings were. He wrote so passionately that… that it was impossible not to side with the guy. He wanted to leave behind a legacy. He wanted to teach all the newbie Crafters about how to survive against Mobs. He wanted it so badly that he spent months trying to make writable books. He went in after Notch and Jeb when nobody else did. He was a good guy. He was… he was…

Herobrine was the Founder of the Endward Cult.

"What sort of legacy was that to leave behind!?" I screamed, my hand already reaching for the next book in the series.

Like before, there was a missing Volume. No Volume 6, but there was a Volume 7.

I tore it open, ready for another gap in time.

Almost a three year gap.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 7]

[Year 4]

Today, all of Minecraftia has been explored.

It was a long journey, but our maps had everything catalogued, even the borders. Jeb and Dinnerbone said they would calculate the exact placement of the Border so that no one would ever die to it again. They'd put up warning signs as well.

Everyone's already made settlements. Qorn wishes to make a Kingdom in the plains to the west. He plans to make it the breadbasket of Minecraftia. A Farmer's Paradise. He wishes to call it Dover Plains.

Zipshin took to the harsh, sharp lands of obsidian and lava to the far west. He's a combative man, but only the toughest could live out there. Well, to each their own. He wants to name it Exter. He claims he's going to mold the people there into the most powerful soldiers the world has ever seen. He's certainly got drive.

Grum, predictably, wants to settle in the jungle. He calls his settlement Jolin, because he feels 'jolly' there? He was never any good at naming.

Dinnerbone's been looking at the southern hills. He says he likes the breeze, though he hasn't decided on a name yet. C418 is a man of the seas and is already hard at work harvesting the oak trees on that peninsula to the east. It's not much land to work with, but he wants to build a Kingdom on the sea. He'll call it Oak Docks. Hopefully he'll think about making a bridge to get around all those Guardians.

Tanner found horses galore in a mesa environment. He wants to make it a center for books and learning. If anyone loves a good book, it's Tanner. I'm sending him copies of my Journal Entries. He's thinking of calling the place Akasha.

Jeb's still undecided on where to settle, though he's promised it will be the most technologically advanced Kingdom in Minecraftia. A tall order. Dinnerbone and I are looking forward to it.

Ferriday went north to that icy, inhospitable tundra. He affectionately calls it a winter wonderland. He's settling on a mountain in front of an iced over lake. He's named it after the blue crystal he adores so. Lazuli.

Notch? He's a simple man. He chose to reside over that dinky village where we first met Helena. Only, it's not so dinky anymore. More and more Crafters have spawned and naturally traveled to that massive mountain north of the Origin. From there, they saw Ringwood and went to settle there. I hear the population is over ten-thousand strong. He'll definitely have a head start making a Kingdom with numbers like that.

As for me…

I chose to settle in that land of stone spikes.

Why? Well, when I first discovered how to make books on the beach with my closest friends, I saw, in the distance, a rocky cliff that rose high above the ocean to overlook everything. And it came from that rocky, spiky environment.

I knew it would be difficult living there, but Notch taught me something important. He taught me that the hard things in life are the things you remember the most. If it were easy, anyone could do it.

So I would take that sharp land of jagged rocks and mold it into a Kingdom of learning. And anyone that chose to settle there with me as their King, I would wield my intellect towards their betterment. I would uncover every recipe, solve every problem, assist every Crafter I could. I would unearth the secrets of Minecraftia. I would ask the deep philosophical questions that all Crafters held. I would create a civilized land where Crafters could learn and thrive and live.

And it would be the bane of any Mobs that even tried to attack it.

The bane of the Mobs of the night.

Nitebane.

[Year 7]

I think I've finally cracked potions.

The key is to use Nether Wart as a base to make Awkward Potions. From there, I can add a number of different ingredients to make dozens of potions. Strength, Healing, Poison, Harming, Leaping, Swiftness, Invisibility, Night Vision, Slowness. The whole shebang!

When I revealed them to the public, they suddenly took an interest in exploring the Nether. I warned them of the risks, but I have yet to publish the Mob books in my head. I haven't even drafted them. I'm just so busy with everything, it's crazy! Haha!

I've revealed the potion recipes to the other Kingdoms to do with what they will. Knowledge belongs to everyone, after all.

I think I'm doing a good job, though. The other day, a group of citizens approached me and thanked me for all I did for Nitebane.

I thought of holding elections to let the people choose who wanted to lead them, but they wouldn't have it. They said I'm irreplaceable.

It's words of praise like that that make it all worthwhile.

Time to throw myself back into my work. I'll probably be writing these less and less.

[Year 11]

We've finally got a reliable mail system down. Crafters travel between Kingdoms with written books, sending messages to all. We need a lot of mailmen, though.

I got messages from my fellows in the Redstone Trio. Dinnerbone is doing great in the hills. He's calling it Zeppil. Meanwhile, Jeb chose his spot a bit strangely. He spoke of combining Ender Pearls with Blaze Powder from the Nether to make something called an Eye of Ender. I tried the recipe myself and found it to be an interesting novelty.

Anyway, Jeb threw these Eyes and followed where they led, coming across a pair of chasms that bisected one another in an 'X'. He chose to settle there, feeling the Eyes of Ender led him there.

If it's anything like how he was led into the Nether, I should be worried.

He's been kept busy mining out the chasm, expanding, and tinkering with redstone. He's got some crazy idea to use slime blocks to make elevators.

Notch wrote too. He said he discovered something called a Notch apple while he was drunk. Simply surround an apple with Gold Blocks. Expensive, but he said it makes a powerful food item with beneficial effects. Maybe I'll do a bit of splurging in the market.

I've been tinkering with redstone myself. I've realized that, with hoppers, I can make a Mob grinding system. I intend to have it encompass the entire Kingdom to provide my people with a steady supply of EXP. Crafters are capable of bottling it by pressing an empty bottle to their arms.

To make my Kingdom-wide Mob grinder, I'm going to use a sewer system. It'll have to be built at an angle so that the water flows into a pit of some kind filled with hoppers. The items will be collected and the Mobs would die from the fall. It's perfect.

It'll be like making EXP Factories.

[Year 16]

EXP Factories are underway. Sewer system is looking good.

Zipshin sent a letter. Haven't heard from him in a while. He brought interesting news.

Combining diamonds, obsidian, and a book is a recipe for an Enchanting Table.

It was nice to finally get an answer to what that enchanted book was for. Zipshin wrote that anvils could be used with them to enchant gear. This enchanted gear is more powerful, whether in duration, strength, breaking speed, fire, infinite arrows, etc.

It requires lapis lazuli and EXP and bookshelves.

Once my EXP Factories are up and running, the citizens of Nitebane will have the chance to explore all the wonders of the Enchanting Table. I can't wait to see what they do.

[Year 23]

I got a letter from Ferriday up in Lazuli. He's established a system of guards to patrol the outskirts. Says there are some untoward Crafters harassing people and destroying homes. He calls them Griefers.

It's terrible to think some people would destroy the hard work of others. These Griefers sound no better than bandits.

One interesting thing he brought up. He has his guards wearing blue-dyed leather caps to signify their status as guards. It makes me think each Kingdom needs a representative color.

And what better color for Nitebane than black?

[Year 25]

The other Kings like the dyed caps idea and the need for an armed and trained militia. They're all deciding on colors and banners to represent their Kingdoms.

But when it comes to training a militia, Zipshin is the expert. Hell, his population is already a militia with how he's been kicking them into shape. There's a hierarchy there. A chain of command. Captains to keep the guards in check. Griefers don't stand a chance.

I can't help but feel a bit bad for Griefers. They're only the way they are because they can't understand the crafting recipes or how to procure food for themselves. Or they choose not to.

Maybe they think it's too much work, and it's easier to just band together and pillage what they want. That line of thinking is dangerous… and foolish.

Look at what we Kings were able to make for ourselves through hard work and dedication. Surely the Griefers could employ a fraction of our drive to care for themselves and coexist.

Notch agrees, and the both of us wish there was some way we could help.

This doesn't have to end in violence.

[Year 29]

The sewers and EXP Factories are up and running, and the people have never been happier.

We're bottling EXP by the gallons and we're considering making it a major export. With the discovery of the Enchantment Table, all of Minecraftia will want easy access to EXP. The list of enchantments flowing into the hands of my people are providing them with better tools and gear. Gold is a better conductor for EXP, but is generally weaker than diamond. Storing the enchantment in a book is a gamble.

Looting and Fortune are the money ones, but so far gold is the only medium that works. With anvils we combine them with Unbreaking to make them last longer.

The EXP trade will bring new wealth to Nitebane.

[Year 33]

There was a strange rumor.

Sightings of a flying, smoking man among the construction sites. Some say he was helping to build.

There was no name or appearance to go on. Upon further investigation, I found no sightings of the mysterious smoking man.

It might've just been a rumor.

In other news, I mentioned construction sites. With our newfound wealth, Nitebane could afford the building materials to construct new housing developments and markets in the form of skyscrapers. It saves space by stacking floors atop one another.

Of course, there'll still be the standard homes and buildings and colleges, but the skyscrapers represent progressive change. The spoils of our hard work and wealth.

If nothing else, it gives the people something to look up to. (Ha!)

[Year 41]

Another letter from Zipshin. He got himself a top tier blacksmith who purportedly can make unique weapons. His name is Tinker, and from what he sent in the mail, I believe he's found himself someone truly special.

No matter what I do, I can't replicate his work. This Tinker is an artisan of metals and ores. A true master.

Just as Qorn's talents lay in farming, Tinker's lay in smithing.

I expect Exter will have some unique weapons in the future.

[Year 61]

I haven't written in a while. Things have been… hectic.

Not bad hectic, just… I got a lot on my plate. Being King isn't all fun and games.

The first skyscrapers got completed and the EXP Factories are so profitable we're raking in diamonds and emeralds by the stack… in block form! I'm ensuring that all that wealth trickles down to the general public through construction projects across the Kingdom. Libraries, colleges, churches. They get paid to build, they spend on goods and services, the money gets circulated.

Importing goods is a bit trickier. Caravans got to be guarded lest bandits and Griefers get at them… or Mobs.

Speaking of Mobs, I actually finished my first book. I gave it a whimsical name and sent it to a publisher under an alias. The reason for that is that if they knew the King of Nitebane wrote it, the publisher would trip over himself to get it out there, regardless of if it was good or not. I want an honest opinion unlike the other books I sent out regarding Normal Sense or the Void or philosophy.

I'll work on the other two books after the first one gets the okay.

[Year 62]

The first one didn't get the okay.

I'm… taken aback. I figured books on how to survive the more basic Mobs would have been invaluable rather than placed on the backburner.

I read the publisher's notes. He said a sword can't block Creeper explosions and I shouldn't make stuff up.

That whore.

I mean—uh—that was unbecoming of me to say… I shouldn't revert to how I was with Notch and the rest.

…God, I haven't seen the guys in a while.

Anyway, uh, I put in a lot of research to uncovering the Mobs' secrets and their Health and how much damage they inflicted. I blocked one or two explosions with my own sword for crying out loud.

This rejection has shaken my confidence. I don't think I'm ready to publish anything. I'll try and amend the first draft, resubmit in a few years.

That is, if I'm not already busy keeping Nitebane going. Hahaha.

[Year 70]

Hello again, old friend.

Today I celebrated my seventieth birthday. No, let me rephrase that, the entire Kingdom celebrated my seventieth birthday. I've provided so much security and wealth for my people that they hold a lush celebration for the day I spawned into existence. I assume the other Kings have similar celebrations and parades, and they're nice, joyous occasions. My Captains came to congratulate me and hand me gifts and there was cake.

But tonight, I find myself thinking…

I was born seventy years ago… but it feels like I haven't aged a day.

I'm certainly wiser and more experienced, but I don't feel any loss in strength compared to all those years ago.

I still feel as young as I did back then.

…Are Crafters… immortal?

[Year 71]

I've taken a look at the Hall of Records and seen the numbers that have spawned. The highest number within the Kingdom is three-million seven-hundred-and-forty-five thousand two-hundred-and-eighty-two. For the first time, I noticed the towering skyscrapers and the densely packed streets.

Minecraftia had a set volume, yet the Crafters spawning in continued without end. I thought this would be balanced out by mortality rates, but… but nobody gets sick. Nobody has failing bodies. We're all as healthy as our Heart Meters are long.

We don't age. We're immortal. We can live forever if we're careful.

…Should we?

[Year 72]

My Kingdom is at the peak of prosperity. Hell, with the council, they can probably run themselves for generations without my input and be fine.

In all respects, I've left behind a legacy. I've crossed the finish line.

So… what was there left for me?

My Normal Sense was telling me I was approaching an age that should have been beyond me. Humans were never meant to live this long. Maybe if Minecraftia had no border, things would be fine, but resources are finite. Space is finite. Air is finite.

Or is it…?

I've gotten letters back from the others telling me I'm worrying too much. Some of them are comforting, like the one from Qorn about our food supply. Skeletons spawn in darkness and drop bones, bones can be used as bone meal to grow grass for seeds or wheat or whatever crop we want. In that line of thinking, there would be food to feed the people of Minecraftia forever.

But what about Iron and Redstone? Those were finite. But then Zipshin and Jeb wrote to me saying that Testificates could trade iron and redstone for emeralds, which could be obtained by trading other resources to them which can be traded in turn.

Animals could be bred. And C418 said that squids spawn on their own in a large enough body of water. Who'd know more than him?

Even cobblestone could be farmed with a single water source and lava source. And if it was space we needed, the Nether was unbounded by any border, though that was a last resort. Building portals in the Nether was dangerous since there was a chance to warp outside Minecraftia's Border and die instantly.

Their letters calmed me down, but I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling I had. We were immortal. Notch claimed that was a good thing. We could go on helping Crafters forever until we died naturally.

But… was that our purpose here?

I already fulfilled a purpose. I had a legacy. I was a beloved King showering wealth and prosperity upon my people. I learned so much about Minecraftia from exploring and reading the journeys and studies of other Crafters.

And it was… it was…

Fullfilling.

I enjoyed teaching others how to survive. I enjoyed passing down my knowledge. But… but everything they needed was largely written down. We, the First Ten, built a society. We built Kingdoms.

What could be a greater purpose than that?

I-I suppose I could finish making my Mobs books. Publish them and give all Crafters a better chance at what was killing them.

But… then what?

I was still no closer to discovering the meaning behind Normal Sense. Why was my mind telling me that I was living beyond my means? Why did the other Kings have talents and attractions to things they had no memory of? Why did we spawn in that meadow? Why was I the first one? Why were we thrust into this unfamiliar world of dangers and crafting recipes?

Why? Why? WHY?

It was the ultimate philosophical question. Why were we here?

And I was still no closer to answering it.

There had to be a reason. There had to be more to discover.

There just had to be…

[Year 78]

I just got a strange letter from Jeb.

He said he found something buried in the deep recesses of Daymonte. Some kind of stronghold.

He wants to invite the whole gang for old time's sake. He says he thinks this might be big; the reason those Eyes of Ender guided him there in the first place. He wants us there and he wants us to bring our best enchanted gear.

It's been decades since I've seen these guys. We've all been so busy. It'll be good to see them again, and my Kingdom can care for itself.

Who knows? Maybe this stronghold will be the answer to the questions plaguing my restless mind.

[Carys]

"Alright, Anibal's all caught up." I nodded to the dark-skinned woman who stared at Ciro and his exploding bow with rapt attention. "Continue."

"Very well." Ciro cleared his throat. "After reconnecting with… Herobrine… the two would use the Command Blocks to talk for hours on end every week for five years. Little did I realize Herobrine was merely laying the groundwork for something more sinister."

[Year 125: Ringwood's Palace]

"You know, you really should get back in touch with the guys." Notch said.

"I don't want to touch any guys. I don't swing that way."

"You know what I mean, doofus!" He shoved his head away playfully which got Herobrine chuckling. Despite being ordered to stay away, Ciro kept two mismatched eyes on that bright-eyed killer. "Anyway, what do you think? Are you ready to explain things, because the longer you take, the harder it'll be."

"I'm fairly certain they'll be steamed no matter what." He sighed. "I mean, just to get them to listen would require a peace offering or something—"

"Hey, yeah! That's it!"

"What… What's it?"

"Peace offerings! I know what they like and you can get it for them. It won't completely win them over," he warned, "but it'll get them to listen to you."

"…You really think so?"

"Yeah! I'll send everyone a letter, invite them over, we'll have a little dinner, explain things, exchange gifts, and boom! Everyone's friends again!"

"…Well… I guess I could make some cool stuff with Command Blocks…" He offered.

"Yes. Yes! That's great! Zipshin's always been wanting something like the Severe Shield. Do you think you can make eight items like that?"

He nodded with a mysterious smile. "I think I can manage."

"Great. I'll send the letters. I'll bring up your name, but I'll mention the gifts and to give you a chance. If I know them, they'll bite. You just work on your apology and explaining things. I'll handle the rest."

"Thank you Notch. For everything." Herobrine smiled warmly. "Without you… without you, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself after my involvement with the Tragedy of Nitebane. I still feel responsible… but I took your advice. I found meaning in that pain, and I feel like I've grown as a person because of it." He let out a breath of relief. "I want to move forward from this."

"We'll get there, buddy. I promise." Notch slapped a hand over his shoulder. "I've been with you since the start and I'll be with you till the end."

[Year 126]

The First Ten of Minecraftia hadn't gathered together since slaying the fabled Ender Dragon back in 78. Jeb had that Dragon Egg as proof of the deed, but the point was the Kings had been so busy they never had a chance to convene all at once. They were always carried away with their projects.

But once they heard that Notch and Herobrine wanted to talk, and that Herobrine would present peace offerings to all who showed up, they made their excuses to their Kingdoms and arrived one by one. Dinnerbone had even arrived in style, flying his patented airship: The Mother of Invention.

Dinnerbone, Jeb, and Qorn arrived first, being the closest or possessing air transportation. The last to arrive was C418; the king had to cross the perilous eastern ocean and its Guardian invested waters.

There was no misconception why the Kings were really there. They arrived with their Captains and armed guards and the atmosphere leading up to the scheduled dinner was tense, even without Herobrine present. They were obviously only there for Command Block enhanced items like Notch's Severe Shield

Ciro stood beside Notch at his place at the table, gazing at the Kings and Captains ready for a fight.

There was a light knock at the door which caused a stir as everyone glared at it. Then, in stepped Herobrine, his glowing eyes downcast and timid.

"Frie—Kings." He amended wisely. "I'd like to thank you for meeting with me like this after… after everything that's happened."

"When do we get the cool items?" Zipshin asked with little tact, earning a glare from Notch and… nobody else.

"Right… perhaps we should start with that." Herobrine nodded, unperturbed, before reaching into his backpack. The Captains all tensed, but he pulled out a handful of things before walking around the table.

"For Qorn, I present the Voda Shlem," he handed over a light-blue dyed leather cap. "This magical helmet has been magically enhanced to super irrigate soil. In addition, the power of water will surround the wearer, slowing down Crafters and projectiles within a six-meter radius. I offer you this, Qorn, in the hopes that you use it as a farming tool to boost your Kingdom's agriculture."

Qorn's eyebrows lifted up in delight as he accepted the gift. "It can really do all that?"

"I want to make things right. If you have your doubts, try it out." He took out some soil and laid it on the floor, much to Notch's chagrin.

"The maids just cleaned that…"

Qorn whipped out his diamond hoe and farmed the land before putting on the Voda Shlem. Slight water dripping particles emerged in a radius around him. He walked around the hoed dirt, marveling at how it irrigated itself.

"Incredible! This is… huh?" He turned to his Captain and was surprised to see him moving slower while within the radius of the Voda Shlem.

Zipshin bolted to his feet. "That's awesome! Do me next! Me next!"

"Now, now. There's an order to this." C418 proposed. "We should go in reverse number order since Qorn was number 10. So next would be 9—Oh! That's me!" He acted with mock surprise.

"What a coincidence." Jeb rolled his eyes and Tanner huffed.

"C418." Herobrine continued. "I remember you saying that populating Oak Docks is a problem due to the Guardians patrolling your waters. Rather than a bridge, I offer you the Arcticum Arma, chainmail leggings that can freeze enemies cold with chilling kicks and allow you to freeze and walk on water."

"Wait, walk on water?" He replied, accepting the chainmail leggings. "So then… I can make my own ice bridge?"

"The ice will melt eventually." Herobrine admitted. "But it should last long enough for you to bring a large group of Crafters to Oak Docks without incident."

"This is just what I need! The population's been lacking and there aren't enough resources to make a bridge." C418 turned to Grum with a grin. "Hey, Grum, what do you say to supplying Oak Docks with lumber? I can give the shipping a proper foothold now."

"We'll talk later." Grum nodded. "But, if I'm not mistaken, I'm next on the list."

"For Grum, I have an item made of wood." Herobrine took it out for all to see.

"…A stick? Is this a joke?"

"It's a stick with Knockback M! One tap of this in any direction can send a Crafter hurtling towards the Border."

Ciro narrowed his eyes. "That sounds suspiciously dangerous, Herobrine."

"It's only a danger if the flung Crafter makes contact with the Border." He waved aside. "Place a wall to catch them and you can make a—"

"Bough Terminus…" Grum whispered breathlessly.

"A what…?"

Grum snatched away the stick before Herobrine could change his mind. "I gratefully accept. So what do you call this thing?"

"Destierro del Palillo. Banishment Stick."

[Carys]

I covered my ears after Anibal's unprofessional squeal.

"This is the origin of the cursed items! This is how they were all handed out! You were there to witness the legends pass hands." She clutched at her hair, her eyes excited and wild. "And to hear that Notch had one of his own—the Severe Shield—is news to me. I always thought there were only eight."

"The Severe Shield was the first." Ciro explained. "Herobrine made it for Notch, but he never elaborated on the circumstances. I have a guess, however." He glanced aside. "Anyway, Herobrine passed out the artifacts to all the Kings, winning their favor and softening them up for his 'apology'."

[Year 126: Ringwood's Palace]

The Kings all showed off their unique gifts—Zipshin accidentally blowing a hole in the palace wall with the Yanhua Gong.

"Okay, no more artifacts at the dinner table!" Notch chastised, cowing the others into putting their gifts away. He let out a great sigh before smiling at Herobrine. "Now that you've all accepted Herobrine's generous gifts, I do hope you'll hear out his apology."

"We're listening." Jeb spoke with folded hands.

"You can start with how you were responsible for the Tragedy of Nitebane like we all know you were." Ferriday spoke coldly. He wasn't going to make things easy on him.

"I will explain myself now." He sighed. "The Wither blueprints originated from the painting you showed me, Ferriday. I had been studying the drops of Nether Mobs at the time for my books, so I knew about the rare Wither Skull drops and their resemblance in the picture. I became convinced that three skulls atop a soul sand cross could create a manmade Mob, similar to the iron and snow golems we've seen in the past."

"And you decided to unleash such a thing on your own Kingdom!?" Dinnerbone yelled, aghast.

"It was never my intention!" Herobrine defended with a slam of his fist. "I was going to run careful tests in the End Dimension, far away from any Crafters. One of my students, however, caught wind of my research and wished to have a demonstration in class to impress my research upon the audience. I warned him no, and kept the skulls in an ender chest, but… but he brought his own and spawned the thing without my consent, leading up to the Tragedy we're all familiar with. I know it sounds like I'm foisting the blame onto someone else, but I don't deny it was my teachings and findings that spawned that abomination. As Nitebane's King, I bore the full weight of the destruction that creature wrought, and still do to this day."

At his words, the listening Kings and Captains quieted. Many were still skeptical, but some were showing signs of pity.

"You know what I say is true." Herobrine continued. "How often did I arrange for projects to advance Nitebane's prosperity? How often did I give wealth back to my people? How often did I ship out bottles of EXP to my friends and allies across Minecraftia? You all know the kind of legacy I sought to leave behind."

As he went on, his words had many Kings looking down in shame. Herobrine was always looking to guide the misinformed. He was always thinking on how to instruct the younger generation. Any discovery he made he was sure to share. It was because of him that potion recipes were as widely known as they were. And he was the foremost authority on Mob characteristics and weaknesses.

They knew this… and yet they had let rumors sway their opinion of the man.

They all felt the fool.

"That crushing guilt I felt…" Herobrine spoke, balling his fist and narrowing his eyes so that those searchlight beams slanted. "It almost destroyed me…"

He turned to Notch.

"But one man believed in me. He, alone, found me in my depression and convinced me that there was meaning to be found in my suffering. That I shouldn't let my life fall apart by one mistake, no matter how horrifying it was. It's because of him that I realized something."

Notch smiled warmly, glad to have helped his friend find purpose again.

"Life and death don't matter."

Notch's head jerked and the smile fell from his face to be replaced with confusion. The other Kings mirrored that sentiment.

"When we defeated the End Dragon and stepped back through that return portal," Herobrine continued, still holding the floor, "we all received those words. We all heard the ethereal words whispered into our ears. Many of you chose to ignore them or forget them, but they've been plaguing my mind all these years. It was only after the Tragedy of Nitebane that I accepted the truth of those words." He raised his hands triumphantly.

"All of this, is meaningless."

His words were starting to make everyone nervous. They exchanged quick glances with one another, the Captains moving to their weapons.

"We're all just players in a game." He urged. "Minecraftia is a foreign realm, a purgatory for our souls to linger aimlessly. You might not accept it, but ask yourself this: Why do we feel nostalgia for things we should have no recollection of? Why does C418 feel at home with an ocean breeze at his back? Why does Grum swing from vines like he's grown up in the Jungle all his life? Why are we aware of thoughts and ideas and techniques when our minds should be as blank as driven snow? Why did we have names before we spawned here? Why don't we age? Why are we immortal?"

"We're not immortal." Someone, Zipshin, spoke up for the first time. "We can die just like any man."

"YES!" Herobrine snapped his fingers. "Exactly right! We can die, just like any man. We can all die! And that's okay." A few of the Kings leaned back, away from Herobrine. "At first, I was horrified knowing all the Nitebane citizens I inadvertently killed with my research into the Wither. It was only after I accepted the truth that I recovered. Their lives and deaths never mattered, because I simply sent them to another realm."

"…You're unhinged." Jeb muttered.

"No, this is the basis of my Next Life theory." The First Crafter slammed a fist into his palm. "I postulate that our existence in Minecraftia is because we all died in a distant realm and spawned here. That's why we have memories and ideas and thoughts and why we exist as fully evolved beings with working brains. We might not remember, but our Normal Sense does. And yet, there are things in this realm that we find beyond the norm. Mobs and crafting recipes and these odd tattoos on our arms—how could I have not realized this was all just one big game?"

"Life isn't a game, Herobrine." Notch spoke up, worried. "You're… you're basically saying that life is meaningless, but we still feel happiness and sadness. This is real."

"It's only as real as we accept it to be." Herobrine countered. "I believe that those that die are actually sent away to a different realm. There, they're spawned into existence—just like we were—but in a new realm with new rules and natural laws. They have no memories to go off of, but their Normal Sense lets them feel nostalgia because, at some spiritual level, they've already experienced those things before. It's like the feeling of Déjà vu."

"That's a fine theory," Jeb said sarcastically, "but there's no way to prove it. It's not like the dead can come back and—"

"Haven't you been listening? We're the proof!" Herobrine slapped his chest. "We've already become masters of this realm. We live as kings. We've won! It's time for us to hang up our crowns and start fresh in a new realm. Nobody can live forever and neither should we."

"You saying we should kill ourselves?" Grum frowned.

"It won't be killing ourselves. We're simply moving onto a new life. A Next Life." He reasoned. "What more is there waiting for us here? Minecraftia is a land fraught with perils and dangers. It's no place to live! It's plagued by monsters every night. The Crafters of Minecraftia would be better off trying their luck in a new realm."

There was a sharp slam on the table as Tanner got to his feet. "I fucking knew it." He growled under his breath. "I fucking knew you had something to do with them."

"Whatever are you talking about, Tanner?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about you psychopath! The group of crazies slaughtering Crafters and calling themselves the Endward Cult!" The was movement from some of the other Kings as they turned to glare at Herobrine.

He stood straight, his expression unreadable. "I don't have a clue what you're referring to—"

"Don't bullshit me! They're wearing your colors!" Tanner went on, pointing at the man. "They've been killing Crafters in the name of 'freeing their souls' and that sounds an awful lot like the garbage coming out of your mouth."

"I've gotten word of them in my Kingdom too." Dinnerbone added. "I thought they were just bandits or Griefers… but the black caps are unmistakable. Are you going to stand there and tell us that you and they are unrelated?"

Herobrine held up a hand. "I cannot be held responsible for their movements. If they act as they do, it's only because they find merit in my theory—"

"You son of a bitch!" Zipshin roared, whipping out the very artifact Herobrine had gifted him and aiming it so that he was in his sights. "You're behind those cultists cropping up! Admit it!"

"I assure you I do no more to lead them than any of you. However, their actions bring me to the point I've been trying to make." He spread his arms out. "I appeal to all of you to embrace this Next Life theory and accept that this life is merely temporary. All the people you've lost—all the loved ones reduced to dust in the wind—they all still exist somewhere. Their souls live on in a new realm. You can see them again. You just need to follow their example—"

"Enough!" Ferriday threw his arm down. "You think you can give us a few toys and we'll just magically follow these suicidal teachings!? Life is precious and we would never squander it, regardless of whether Minecraftia is 'livable' or not. This is life for us."

"If you're smart, you'll share what I've told you with your people." Herobrine said. "Let them choose if this is the world they want to live in. How many Griefers do you think wish for a simpler world where they didn't have to learn complex crafting recipes or how to farm? Personally, I think ending all life is a mercy. Maybe the next realm will be more palatable."

"Herobrine!" Notch cried out, aghast. "How could you say—?"

"Forget it, Notch. You're wasting your breath on this crazy sack of shit. He's not sorry at all for killing all those people." Zipshin spat. "Coming here to hear him out was a mistake."

"Couldn't agree more." Ferriday pushed himself away from the table, taking his Captain and leaving without a word. A few Kings joined him, taking Herobrine's gifts as they exited.

"I'm sorry you all see things differently." Herobrine sighed.

"Do us a favor, Herobrine." Dinnerbone had a parting shot. "Demonstrate this Next Life theory of yours by jumping off the palace ramparts."

They all filtered out until it was just Notch, Herobrine, and Ciro standing guard.

"Herobrine…" Notch turned to his friend—his brother—and shook his head sadly. "You can't really think that. You can't…"

"I do, Notch." He nodded. "I found meaning in those deaths I caused, just like you told me."

"I never wanted you to think like this!"

"It's okay, Notch. I understand everything now." His eyes stuck out more in the darkness, causing Ciro to take up position before his king. "I shouldn't let the deaths affect me, because the deaths can't affect anything. The soul will always live on. I know that now." He sighed forlornly.

"I just wish the others could've seen reason."

"What… what do you mean by that? What are you going to do?" He asked sharply, concern worming its way into his tone.

"Me?" Herobrine lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "I'm not going to do a thing."

Notch searched his friend's face, but was unable to tell if he was speaking the truth or not. It frightened him what his friend had become. Even more so learning that his own supportive words had fueled this madness.

"I need to know something, though." Herobrine said suddenly. "You said you'd be with me until the end. Has that changed?"

"Wh-What?"

"I'm asking if you're giving up on me, Notch." The bright-eyed man pronounced every word. "Do you think I'm a mad man too? Have I lost your trust?"

"No! No, I meant every word." Notch assured. "We're brothers you and I. We started this together. And I'm… I'm not giving up on you. Ever."

"Good." Herobrine smiled. "I'm glad. For a second I thought I'd lost you."

"N-No." Notch faltered slightly before reaffirming his resolve. "I refuse to give up on you. Got it?"

"I'll take you as a man of your word. There's something I need to ask you. Something very important."

"…What?"

"Do you know where Jeb keeps that Dragon Egg?"

[Carys]

"The shot heard round the world." I hummed once Ciro was done with his story. "I'm surprised Zipshin didn't blow that bright-eyed bastard up the first chance he got. And what was Notch thinking caving like that?"

"He wasn't caving." Ciro shook his head. "Notch was too good. He was still trying to be the peacekeeper. He was hoping that staying as Herobrine's friend would give him the chance to lead him on the proper path, away from all that Next Life nonsense."

"Oh, it's nonsense all right." I scoffed. "Once you're dead, you're dead and gone. Simple as that."

"Yes. As much as I would love to accept that Notch was somewhere in the great beyond, waiting for me," he sighed, "there just isn't enough proof."

It would also dry up most of the Paragons' motivation for revenge. Why care if the Endward Cult killed your loved ones if they're just waiting on you somewhere else? Like they've been sent to a different building along the road.

"That still doesn't explain how you got your hands on the Yanhua Gong." Anibal piped up. "Didn't the King of Exter have that?"

"Zipshin died in the Stigmata Wars repelling the Hackers coming for this bow." He waved it lightly. "I was there at the time and managed to steal it off his corpse before concealing myself."

"Awfully brave of you."

"Would you have preferred I died and let the bow fall into the Hackers' hands?"

Shit. He had me there.

"Anyway, I've been hunting artifact leads ever since." He shrugged. "Notch fought Herobrine. He died. Herobrine went missing. And the Severe Shield was given to—given to the great unknown for all that Notch seemed to trust me."

I narrowed my eyes. Did he know that Nowhere_Man had the Severe Shield?

"Well, that's quite the story." Anibal remarked. "Carys, if these artifacts are legitimate, I think we should devote a bit of time to finding them. With power like that—power that even the Hackers salivate over—we could pound those Executives into paste."

I hummed, thinking of how that Severe Shield had wrecked my armor. In the proper hands, it could be a powerful tool.

But it would only ever be that. A tool. A crutch.

I preferred a power I alone could count on.

Myself.

[Cobb]

"The Stronghold in Daymonte… That's gotta be the same one Lenz and I stumbled into." I grimaced, remembering that frightening episode. I tried to assume what the First Ten found going in.

Jeb unearthed the Stronghold and brought the band back together to explore it. They had to have gone into that End Portal. There was nothing else of value there and Herobrine referred to the End Dimension in his entry on Endermen.

So they all went in, and they found… what?

Nothing. Just towers of bedrock and Endermen, right? Then they went into the return portal and that was it.

But…

What if there was something else there? Something that caused those craters we found. What if there was something on arrival, and those First Ten got it.

Curious, I opened the next volume.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 8]

[Year 78]

It was my first time visiting Daymonte, but it was clear Jeb delivered on his promise to make it a redstone wonderland. Slime block elevators and landing pads, carts and rails with hoppers to deliver and unload mined ores and rocks, flashing lights, moving pistons. It was like the Kingdom was alive.

We met Jeb at his fortress at the bottom of the cross-shaped chasm. Some of us had it easy, getting there via the Kawa River. Among those who entered Daymonte via boat included myself, Grum, Dinnerbone, Ferriday, and C418. Notch, Zipshin, Tanner, and Qorn had to walk.

But we were all together. For the first time in a long while, the First Ten were reunited.

But we had been called there for a purpose, and it was clear by the gear everyone brought.

I had max enchanted everything, Zipshin wore diamond and a Tinker's weapon so big it must have weighed more than me. It was a massive diamond battleaxe. The rest had similar arrangements of potions and weapons, though Notch brought his famous Notch Apples for everyone. Did he even realize how much gold those cost? Him and his big heart…

Anyway, Jeb showed us to the entrance of the underground Stronghold. It had been blocked off ever since digging into it caused strange gray parasites to pop out and attack nearby Crafters. Keeping this in mind, we entered the Stronghold without breaking a block.

As we explored deeper, we came across aged, mossy stone bricks, iron bars in series like something out of a prison, long corridors that led to nowhere, iron doors and cages, cobwebbed libraries, stairwells, chests with standard loot.

And then, in the inner sanctum, something I've never seen before.

A room with iron bars and a pool of lava. There was a spawner that we quickly dispatched, but beyond that, atop a sort of altar, was a ring of strange blocks.

They were shorter than the standard block, white with a green tinge almost stitched around the top edge. And a perfect hole at the top, as if it could hold something.

Not every block had a hole. Some were filled with a greenish eye that looked a lot like…

"Oh!" Jeb exclaimed, taking out an Eye of Ender and fitting it into one of the empty holes with a slight 'Ding!'

Everybody tackled him to the ground after he did that.

"Are you nuts!?" Dinnerbone chastised.

"You'd put a block into something without first testing what it did!?"

"We could have all exploded or a trap could've gone off!"

"I have a natural curiosity for these things." Jeb defended before getting his face shoved into the cracked stone by half a dozen hands. "Grborry." He apologized.

I swear, this is what got him trapped in the Nether that one time.

Thankfully, nothing world-ending happened as a result of placing that Eye of Ender in the slot. Probably because there were a few more slots to be filled. Jeb brought plenty of Eyes, however. We could fill it.

"I say we go for it." Notch reasoned. "I mean, we came all this way."

"Yes. And my battleaxe is getting cold." Zipshin muttered sullenly, giving the thing a swing that nearly decapitated someone. "Oops."

"Hopefully we're not unleashing something terrible upon the world."

"Way to think positive, Herobrine."

There were six slots missing Eyes. Jeb passed them out. One for Notch, one for Zipshin, one for Dinnerbone, one for Grum, one for Qorn, and one for me. We gathered around the ring, careful not to touch the pool of lava below it, nodded to each other only once, and placed the Eyes in the slots.

There were several rhythmic dings before a sound like thunder made us all jump. The frame was completed, and a portal of liquid black connected within. It made a sound like an empty stomach, smoke simmering out of it like it was trying to escape.

Jeb took a step towards it and we all tackled him to the ground again.

"Don't even think about jumping in!"

"The hell is wrong with you!? You don't know where this leads!"

"Were you dropped on your head as a baby?"

"Why you all gotta be so mean to me!?" He shouted before his face was roughly pushed into the stone bricks.

We didn't know what we had on our hands. We had guesses. The frame and strange liquid all hinted at it being a portal. We tossed in bits of stone on one side only to have them disappear before touching the lava at the bottom. It was definitely a portal to another realm. We just weren't sure if it would be a hospitable realm. I hadn't forgotten the five weeks Notch, Jeb, and I spent in the Nether. What if this new place had no food?

What if it had Mobs more terrible than the Wither Skeletons and Blazes?

We were well-armed, sure, but were we ready for anything?

We decided to err on the side of caution. We went back to Jeb's fortress, stocked up on tons of food and arrows and milk buckets—enough for weeks of exploration—and Qorn brought his full farming kit complete with dirt, a hoe, saplings, water buckets, bone meal, seeds, and potatoes. We weren't going to starve.

We brought the best potions we could make. Armor, diamond blades. We were armed to the teeth. With what we had, I could argue we could take on a force of five-thousand.

After a week of preparing for the worst, we all slept in the same room. The next morning, we returned to that Stronghold and jumped in together.

The End.

Just to be clear, this isn't the end of the journal. I'm just saying that… we wound up in a dimension I dubbed The End. Even the 'The' had to be capitalized because it's so important.

The End.

Anyway, I named it The End, because it had a high concentration of Endermen populating it. Upon arrival, we found ourselves underground and stood on an Obsidian platform. The rest of the blocks were of a pale stone in a similar shade as the portal frame we stepped through. We brought pickaxes and dug to the surface where we found all the Endermen waiting for us. We all averted our gazes and looked anywhere but at those tall Mobs' eyes.

Wherever we landed, from a glance, looked to be a floating mass of land made out of that same pale block. Outside of the pale stone there was… nothing. An empty black Void that fed many of our fears.

"Oh God… are we in the Void again!?"

"We are aren't we!?"

"I've seen that same empty blackness in my nightmares!" Ferriday moaned. "It's the Void!"

"Everyone relax!" Notch called out harshly. "This isn't the Void. We've got solid ground." He stamped down as if to expel our fears. "Anyone remember seeing a pale speck in the Void, because I don't. This isn't the Void." He bravely looked up despite the Endermen and pointed at something. I followed his gaze and saw what he meant. "Look! I don't remember those obsidian towers either. Do you?"

"No, but…" Dinnerbone narrowed his eyes. "Is there something on top of—"

Suddenly, there was a great gust of wind as something large passed overhead. It was so large, that the mere passing of its mass created a change in the air currents, and that was without speaking of the great beats of its wings.

It was a massive dragon as black as the Void and with insidious purple eyes. It roared over its domain where it was king and the Endermen only lived because he allowed it.

"FUCK! Go back, go back!" Notch exclaimed, shoving everyone back in the hole. We were not prepared for a dragon. How could we be?

We were even less prepared by the fact there was no return portal.

"Shit-tits! How do we get out of here!?"

"I don't know!" Jeb panicked. "Th-there should be a return portal. We can't be stuck here!"

It's obvious, then." Zipshin growled, hefting his battleaxe. "The only way out is through that dragon."

"Are you nuts? Did you see the size of that thing?"

"What did we prepare and arm up for, nitwits!?" He shot back. "We're the strongest we've ever been. We're the First Ten, for corn's sake!"

"Hm?"

"Not you, Qorn."

"Mm."

"He's right." I nodded. "This could be our greatest trial. What we've been leading up to our entire lives. Our legacy." I took out my bow and wore a determined expression.

This has to be what I've been looking for all along.

"Yeah," Notch clenched his fist, amping himself up. "We're the kings of Minecraftia. And no oversized flying lizard is gonna stop us from getting back to our Kingdoms! Who's with me!?"

"YAAAAAAH!"

We all charged from the hole, gaining the dragon's attention. It turned gracefully in the air and surged towards us. Dinnerbone and I shot at its eyes, damaging it and causing it to veer sharply. It slid along the ground close enough for Zipshin to carve at its soft underbelly. It roared in pain before flying back into the sky.

"HA! It's a wuss!"

A beam of white light flew from the top of the obsidian towers and connected, revitalizing the dragon and giving it the strength to dive-bomb us.

"Wuh-oh."

We scattered like skittles, the Dragon phasing through the pale stone without destroying it. Its sweeping tail caught Qorn by the torso, ripping off two-and-a-half Hearts. There was an eerie quiet as we lost sight of it.

"How did it heal up?" Jeb asked.

"There's something atop the towers. Some sort of crystal." Dinnerbone noted. "They all have one. The dragon must be drawing power from them."

"I'll take them out." Grum flexed. "If there's one thing I excel at, it's climbing." He ran over to the nearest obsidian tower and withdrew a stack of vines he had brought with him from the jungle. He placed them along the tower, climbing them as he did so with such dexterity that he reached the top in no time.

There was a shuffle of movement as he struck the crystal with a pickaxe… and then it exploded him off.

At the same time, there was a great roar of pain as the dragon reemerged from the side of the floating landmass. It twisted in the air before gunning for us again. Grum saved himself by grabbing onto the vines, but the dragon was upon us, colliding straight with Zipshin and cutting his Health down to two-and-a-half Hearts.

He cried out in pain, but managed a strike on the dragon's flank. It retreated to the sky again, giving us time to check on Grum.

Unfortunately, we had forgotten about the Endermen. Notch must have crossed gazes, because soon he was getting swarmed by quite a few.

Qorn solved this by bucketing down a few blocks of the farming water he had. Endermen and water didn't mix, so they couldn't touch the Crafter swimming within.

"Thanks Qorn." He nodded, grateful.

"Those crystals explode!" Grum complained, slightly crispy. "I need a timeout to get my Health up before I try that again."

"So then let's speed it up!" Ferriday offered, taking out a snowball from his belt, aiming, and throwing it at the top of the lowest obsidian pillar. He struck the crystal dead on and it exploded, wounding the dragon further as indicated by its pained roar. "I knew bringing these was a good idea!"

Ferriday went to work on the lower pillars, but the higher pillars were out of his reach. It came down to Dinnerbone, Jeb, and I—the Redstone Trio—to snipe them.

Qorn kept the Endermen away by laying down water, growing pumpkins, and handing them out for everyone to wear (Endermen didn't attack if you stared at them while wearing a pumpkin). Notch, Zipshin, Tanner, Jeb, and C418 kept the dragon occupied. Grum climbed one or two more towers to do his part. We were all working as a team to defeat this menace.

I had never felt more alive

With each destroyed crystal, the dragon became more and more incensed, trying its hardest to kill us. The distracters took a few hard hits, but kept themselves healthy with Healing and Regen potions.

When there were no more crystals, we all focused our fire on the dragon, damaging it with projectiles, baiting it close for Notch and Zipshin to tear off chunks of its scales. Everyone chipped in, and, after nearly an hour of labored fighting, my arrow landed the final blow.

There was a high-pitched, ghostly scream as the dragon ascended upward before bursting open. Blinding purple and white rays of light shined out, explosions snapping like popcorn from its dying body. The lights grew brighter and brighter, the black scales and body of the dragon disintegrating and exploding into balls of smoke and gold until finally, it vanished.

Leaving behind a descending clump of EXP.

It spilled over us like foam or fairy dust, swirling around in an effort to fit into all ten of our EXP bars. But that was nothing compared with the pounding in my skull. I could still see that blinding flash of light swimming in my vision, even when I closed my eyes.

There was a great burning beneath my eyelids and I could feel something threatening to burst free.

"Herobrine! What's wrong!?"

That was Notch's voice. He was always there, worried for me. Looking out for me. I tried to focus on it as the blinding light took over my vision, growing brighter and brighter, searing my very mind with some new information. Something heavy landed in my Inventory with a resounding 'thump'.

A brilliant light burst forth from my eyes, forever replacing my blue orbs and shining like high-beams.

"Herobrine… your eyes!"

"What… what's happened?" I quivered, touching my face and blinking. With every blink, I was told that my high-beams winked out, like twin curtains drawn over offending sunbeams.

"Can you still see? Are you blind?"

"N-No, I-I can see just fine." I assured, running my fingers over my eyes. "…Is it over? Did we finish it?"

"We just gained a shit-ton of EXP." Zipshin remarked. "But we're still here. That might not be a good—"

"Hey, look!" Jeb pointed out, spying a strange bedrock structure in the distance… with something on top.

We all hurried over, Notch supporting me as we went. There, in a kind of bedrock fountain, was the same inky dark portal we had used to get here.

And atop it was a black egg.

"The hell is this thing?" C418 questioning, leaning on tiptoes to get a better look.

"It looks like a lump of poo." Zipshin offered.

"I think it looks more like an egg." Jeb tried to break it, but the second he touched it, it warped away. "Whoa, it's a teleporting egg!"

"Must you touch everything?"

"I bet you this puppy came from the dragon we just killed." Jeb lit up. "Maybe I can tame my own dragon."

"That would be quite a reward." Dinnerbone smiled. "I would fly it across Minecraftia with the wind in my face. How wonderful."

"Mine!" Zipshin called dibs, jumping at the thing. However, upon touching it, it warped again. "Ugh, it's playing hard to get."

"Hmm, I got an idea…" Jeb pulled out a piston and set it down next to the egg before shoving it aside. It popped loose, becoming a holdable item. "Ha! Chalk another one up for redstone!" He plucked it off the ground and gazed at it in wonder.

"Can we get the hell outta here now?" C418 begged before jumping right into the bedrock fountain. The rest of us followed, Notch helping me into it.

There was a brief lull in which I lost the sensation of Notch's presence. And then I felt words entering my mind. Two voices…

…

'I see the player you mean.'

'Herobrine?'

'Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.'

…

And then we woke up in our beds.

We all sat up with a start, wondering how we ended up back in the fortress, in our own beds no less. Our worries if we all had the same dream were quickly dashed upon noticing our latest acquisitions. My new high-beam eyes and Jeb's dragon egg…

And the peculiar beige block in my backpack.

A Command Block.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 9]

[Year 79]

It's been a year since slaying the Ender Dragon. So much has changed… and yet, I feel like I'm in the same rut. I'm no closer to understanding Normal Sense or why we're here. I still show no signs of aging. I was so convinced that The End would have been the end, but it wasn't.

All I'm left with is the Command Block and this strange… sight. My eyes forever changed the day I dealt the killing blow to the dragon.

It seems my new high-beam eyes have their uses. I showed the others the Command Block and Jeb and Dinnerbone went to work on it immediately, opening up an interface with a keyboard where letters and numbers and symbols could be imputed. They wrote random things, thinking it some kind of note-keeping system. But when I took a look, I saw something different. I saw… words… swimming through my vision. My thoughts kept fueling the numbers and symbols playing across my high-beam pupils. I found myself inputting specific words and symbols almost instinctively. I was a safe-cracker, and this was the combination to the vault.

A few simple words and I powered it with a button and I received a cake. It was placed directly into my free hand. I didn't even require a Crafting Table.

My discovery had the others staring in awe. I changed the item number in the code to be something different. It was a random guess, but I was secretly thinking of cooked rabbit.

With the press of a button, a stack of cooked rabbit was in my hands, still hot.

Jeb and Dinnerbone pushed me away, pressing the button and obtaining cooked rabbit of their own. It only targeted the nearest player—I mean Crafter, but I could change it to be specific to an individual pla—Crafter, purely by name.

The others demanded how I did this, but I spoke the truth. It came to me as easy as reading.

I could tell there was more I could do with the Command Block, so I started tampering with it. Jeb asked if he could take it to his personal redstone lab to experiment, but we found that the Command Block was indestructible. Not even TNT could destroy it.

Instead, I changed the item number and created multiple Command Blocks from nothing, sharing it with my fellows of the Redstone Trio. They were ecstatic, and we started tinkering with it immediately. I made more progress than the other two, who were forced to copy whatever commands that came to my mind. With a bit of practice, they too could spawn items. Even the unobtainable bedrock.

It was at that point we took a step back and questioned whether we'd have a way of removing these unbreakable blocks. Fortunately, the proper command came to mind almost immediately.

I could remove blocks from a person's Inventory.

Dinnerbone squawked indignantly when I removed the bedrock from his backpack. Jeb jotted it down, keeping the commands I thought up in a codex.

We wondered what else we could do with the magical Command Block.

One idea that swam in my vision had me grinning, thinking I was about to become Dinnerbone's favorite person in all the game—Minecraftia. In all of Minecraftia.

What if I could make a Command Block that animated a structure and made it move freely through the air, turning and ascending at the behest of the pilot.

In other words, an airship.

Dinnerbone nearly kissed me when I built a miniature flying machine and made it rise and fall with the flick of a few levers. And at the heart was the Command Block. He demanded I show him all the neat airship tricks.

Jeb was more adamant of figuring the commands out on his own. As a fellow scientist, I respected his decision.

It was clear that these Command Blocks could command the very laws of nature themselves. We were basically Gods with these things.

Immortal Gods…

I sighed, feeling a strange emptiness with my newfound coding powers.

Was there more of a legacy I could make at this point?

[Year 86]

I'm learning more and more tricks with the Command Block. One of my most noteworthy is making a no-Mob zone. Mobs de-spawn as soon as they enter the space. I've also developed a non-aggression area where playe—Crafters can't be hurt.

I took a trip back to the Origin and said hi to Helena. She was in hysterics, crying and hugging me and asking if she did a good job counting the Crafters. I told her of course. I said whatever I had to just to calm her down and stop her crying.

She told me that over four-million Crafters had spawned. Four-million people. And she gave a number to each and every one of them. She told them stories about us. The First Ten, and Herobrine, who rescued her from the clutches of those Mobs all those years ago.

It was like remembering a little brother. I was so much more powerful than I had been then. I had gained experience and knowledge. It was her complimenting me on my glowing eyes that snapped me back to reality and made me somber.

Ignorance really was bliss. How I wish I could just… forget about Normal Sense.

Instead, it kept gnawing at my mind.

I erected a Command Block and spawned several kinds of stone bricks. I spent a week building a platform for the Crafters to spawn in on, setting up the Command Blocks above so that the Origin would be a no-Mob zone where no blocks could be destroyed (except Helena's carrots), and no play—Crafters could be hurt or harmed.

There. Now nothing could hurt them upon arrival.

Just another legacy to the pile.

[Year 90]

There's really nothing for me to do anymore.

Nitebane is self-sufficient at this point. I could go without being seen for months on end and nobody would bat an eye. All I do is stay holed up in my private lab, tinkering away at the Command Block. It's too powerful for any Crafter to possess, so I don't make a habit of spawning too many or leaving any codes lying around. I keep it all in my head, since my high-beam eyes can pull them anyway.

I don't even need to go out to get food or materials. I just spawn them in.

Because I'm a God.

Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

[Year 93]

I finally got around to rewriting the first draft of that Mob Book. I also learned how to spawn Mobs to better study them. With the Command Block, I could study Mobs in the comfort of my own lab. I can also make my own enchanted items. I can make whatever I want.

And it's less fulfilling than if I actually bothered to obtain it the difficult way. The fun way.

A week later, I stopped using Command Blocks to give myself items. Instead, I go out and get my own stuff. The only thing I use Command Blocks for is for spawning Mobs to study.

[Year 95]

Ferriday wrote to me. He said he knows how I've been studying Mobs and he's got something for me. A painting of a peculiar scarecrow in a T-shape. I spent most of the night cycling through paintings until I found the one he was referring to. A cross of soul sand—just like the iron blocks of an iron golem—but the head… there are three heads.

And they look suspiciously like the skulls of Wither Skeletons.

[Year 98]

I started a class on Normal Sense and Mob Survival, just to get out of the lab. Keeping busy seems to help with my boredom. I'm almost a hundred years old. How does Notch keep himself entertained?

Anyway, one student, a really bright one, heard of my studies with Mobs and he wants to be part of it. Sdraw's got a sharp mind. He says I'm his biggest hero.

I did need help researching that scarecrow painting. He says he's terrible with a sword, though. I'll just have him watch as we go into the Nether.

Apparently, slaying a Wither Skeleton with a Looting III Sword has a better chance of it dropping a Wither Skeleton Skull. I need three of them to make this work.

[Year 104]

It took a lot more farming than I'd hoped, but I finally got three. Sdraw was so excited. He didn't know what it would make, but he assumed it was a golem minion, and that we should unveil this new discovery for the next class.

I told him that was out of the question. We had no idea what this thing was used for. Better to spawn it somewhere safe to study. Like The End. I'd contact Jeb and see how about arranging a visit. I even promised Sdraw that he could come along.

He didn't look satisfied with that, but I had the skulls and I kept them under lock and key in my personal ender chest.

[Year 105]

I MADE A MISTAKE!

[Cobb]

I recoiled at the large, brutally scribbled text. It was just so jarring. The rest of the journal was left empty after those four words.

I knew the scarecrow picture Herobrine was talking about. It was the same one Lenz and I had found in that bunker. The skin-crawling one that made me think I was looking at something insidious. I didn't like that scarecrow.

If the timelines were right… this led up to the Tragedy of Nitebane.

But Herobrine didn't spawn the monster. He even said he wasn't going to spawn it in a classroom. So… how'd it get loose?

Did that Sdraw guy have something to do with it?

Seeing how the last Journal ended so abruptly, I was surprised to find the next one just waiting for me to open it.

The last one.

[Herobrine's Journal: Volume 10]

[Year 105]

Notch found me huddled away in the Nether, wallowing in my misery.

"Herobrine! There you are!" He hurried over, kneeling down beside me. "Hey! Nitebane's under attack! Your Kingdom—your people—are fighting for their lives against some three-headed skeleton-vampire thing! Why aren't you out there kicking ass!?"

"…my fault…"

"Huh?"

"It's all my fault." I sobbed, shaking my head and clutching at my hair. My high-beam eyes stared at the ground, unfocused. "I did the research. Sdraw, he… he had his own skulls. B-But I'm the one who brought him along. I delved too deep into the unknown, and now… and now…" I broke down all over again, sobbing into my knees. "Oh, God, my people!"

I could feel Notch distance himself away from me. Why wouldn't he? It was my fault that thing was out there blasting apart skyscrapers and slaying thousands. If I had known how dangerous that creation could be, I would have never farmed for those skulls!

What have I done!?

"They said it was your fault." Notch murmured, his expression grim. "I didn't believe them, but… but that doesn't matter right now." He shook his head. "It's your fault, it's his fault, it's my fault—who cares? Right now, there's a big bad monster wrecking your Kingdom, and you need to go sort it out."

"I-I can't…" I cried. "I don't know its weakness… I don't know… I don't…"

He smacked my head. "Then just try until something works. Think of something, alright? I'll go and distract it. I brought a lot of my Kingdom's best as soon as I heard about the thing. We'll handle it."

As he stepped away, I lunged out, grabbing him desperately. "You can't! You'll die! Just like the others! You'll just end up like the hundreds of Heads lining the streets!"

He tore his arms free. "At least I won't be hiding, wallowing like some crybaby. You can't let this one mistake break you, Herobrine. You've done so much good in Minecraftia that I've lost count. You're the one who lit the path to civilization. You were always the one with the big picture. The man with the plan! Surely, you of all people can find the will to go on! Take those deaths and make sure they weren't in vain! Find meaning in them! Get off your ass and fight with me, just like we did that first night we spawned!"

I looked to him, my memory replaying that night we fended off countless Mobs. It was just Notch and me. Back to back. Us against the world.

I didn't realize he went back through the portal until he was already gone.

I quickly wiped my eyes and shuffled in my backpack for a Command Block.

"Find meaning in their deaths…" I repeated to myself, recalling every last bit of information I had gleaned from studying the Command Block.

I needed an item fit for a king.

Once I finished my work, I dove through the Nether Portal and made my way to Nitebane's surface. I could hear the monstrosity of my own creation tearing deep gouges into the streets and straining against the solid skyscrapers as if they were the bars of a cage.

Arrows pelted the thing from below—Notch and his guards—but they did little to stop the Mob. It shot forth projectiles similar to its own screaming heads and they exploded on impact, inflicting that debilitating Wither effect that stole away a Crafter's health and gave it to the monster.

The Wither.

I hurried over, jumping over craters and potholes and dodging the projectiles as they targeted me. One by one, Notch's guards were drained of Hearts, dying in succession and helpless to stop it. Notch was nearly at his limit before I threw him a bucket of milk. He drank it fast and it dispelled the debilitating Wither effect.

"About time you showed up." He groaned. "You got a plan? What's with the chestplate?"

I held out the diamond armor with a firm expression. "Take it. Take the Severe Shield! It's enchanted with enough firepower to stand up to that creature. It's our only hope!"

"You sure this will work?"

"With a strong enough Crafter wearing it, it will. And there's nobody stronger than you, Notch."

He grinned at my words. "Can't argue with that!"

He quickly put on the Severe Shield and marveled at the newfound tattoo effects emerging on his arm. There were so many. I really over-stacked it, but this Wither had hurt my people. It was time to pay!

"Just be careful. It has Thorns and a large damage output. One wrong swing and you can kill an innocent Crafter."

"Then I better focus everything on hitting that floating bastard!" Notch roared, whipping out his bow and firing an arrow at the beast.

His damage output carried through the bow, the arrow striking the Wither and knocking it and its health down a few pegs. It was still airborne, however. Even with the maximum damage output, it was beyond my expectations.

"It didn't work!"

"No, no it did!" Notch assured. "It's hurting. I just need to get it down to my level so I can really go to town!"

He fired more arrows at the Wither, nicking its health piece by piece. After ten successfully shots, the creature started to descend and flash, gaining armor. Arrows didn't work anymore, but it couldn't keep flying either. It lowered itself to our level, still flinging screaming heads at anything that moved.

Notch swapped to his diamond sword and got right up in its face, stabbing it with the full power of the Severe Shield protecting him.

It only took four or five up-close stabs for the Second Crafter to finally slay the man-made Mob. It let out a dying wail and dropped a tiny star as well as a hefty sum of EXP.

And with that, the Wither that terrorized Nitebane for two weeks was defeated by the hero Notch.

That is how history will always remember it.

[Year 107]

I had to flee Nitebane. My own people wanted me gone.

Turns out rumors spread about who caused the disaster, and many witnesses said the monster came out of the classroom I was teaching in. I'm not even sure Sdraw survived when that creature first spawned in. It went off like a bomb.

Even if he was alive, the blame wasn't entirely his. I had been studying it, after all.

I finally finished my Mob books, not that it matters. No publisher would dare to print it. I'm the kind of villain people speak of in hushed whispers, as if saying my name too loudly will cause calamity. Like the Tragedy of Nitebane.

That's what everyone's calling it.

My Mob books will never be read. I took a trip to the Origin to clear my head and Helena asked for something to remember me by. In a sort of daze, I just handed over the first book of my series.

The other Kings despise me. They based it all on the rumors, which painted me as the worst Crafter in history for choosing to spawn that thing in my own Kingdom. A densely populated Kingdom of prosperity.

Now the Griefers were using it as a hub.

All my hard work building up my legacy, and I ruined it in a day.

It's kind of hilarious.

Even these Journals probably won't sell. They'll be burned long before anyone cares to read them. I'll drop them off at the Akashic Records. Alexicon could never turn down a book, regardless of the bastard who wrote it. I'll even throw in the third of my Mob books. The second one, Advanced Mob-Slaying, I might just keep on me.

I'm not even sure if Notch would want to see me. I know I wouldn't. He has the Severe Shield. He could kill me if he wanted. Death was looking pretty tempting right about now.

Every time I thought about all those lives that were lost, it felt like I was drowning in something thick and cloying, yet beyond me. The grief was so unfathomable that even the Void's emptiness couldn't equate to half as much of what I felt inside.

But then… Notch told me…

To find meaning in death…

How, though?

How could I find meaning in death?

If I could, I could make that unbearable grief and sorrow go away.

But how could I just accept that death had a purpose?

Was it our purpose to die?

What was…?

…

Normal Sense…

Why do we remember things we shouldn't?

Why do we forget a time before Minecraftia?

Where have we been before we spawn?

Where do we go after we die?

Perhaps… death does have a purpose.

Like the phoenix going out in a blaze of glory, the cycle continues. Rebirth. Next Life.

I need some time to think… To move forward from this.

THE ONLY WAY FORWARD IS ENDWARD

[Cobb]

There was that motto again. The motto for the Endward Cult.

Herobrine, abandoned by his friends, sought closure in the deaths he caused in the only way he could.

He reasoned that death was the gateway to a new life.

He clung to that idea… and founded the Endward Cult to propagate it.

If he was the only one with the original copy of Advanced Mob-Slaying, then that really was his lab in that bunker in Daymonte.

I held up the trio of Mob books. Thinking about it… the last time they were all together like this was when Herobrine wrote them, right before he went off the deep end.

And now they'd come full circle. All of them were in my possession.

Some parts may have been missing in the Journal Entries, but now I knew the whole story of Minecraftia's First Crafter.

I closed the book and set it aside with the others before bringing my hands up to my face and massaging out the stress.

"Just another average guy…"

[Floyd]

"Come on!" Sandra urged. "Get mad! Get angry!"

I screw my eyes shut in concentration, focusing every fiber of my being on Herobrine and the atrocities he's done, but every time I started getting an iota of MultiAura to the fore, I started thinking of the Hackers' snobby attitude and lost my motivation.

"This isn't working!" I expelled in one great puff of air, the smoke vanishing from my body.

"It's only not working because you're not setting your mind to it." Sandra explained. "Your anger is still unfocused. You need a specific, triggering emotion to unleash your MultiAura. Try again. And don't forget that—"

"I'm invincible! I get it!" I snapped, aggravated at my lack of progress. I needed a change of pace. Maybe a different instructor. "Where's Winslow? Maybe he's got some tips."

"He's still out. Forget about him." Sandra said quickly, her eyes smoking up and glancing elsewhere before returning to normal. "You need to keep trying."

I rolled my eyes, feeling that 'just trying' was a dead end. I had come to a roadblock and I needed an effective way around it.

That's when it hit me.

"Hey, did you ever meet Herobrine?"

"Hm?" Sandra looked surprised before scowling. "Oh, we've met. I'll never forget the day he waltzed into our camp, acting like he owned us. He was so smug…" She trailed off, her Hacker smoke flaring up and her eyes turning dark. "Just thinking about it makes me angry…"

"That's it, then!" I pounced. "You're angry. Maybe if you tell me about the day he showed up I'll have a clearer picture of how to feel about the guy."

"Hmm. I suppose fresh anger burns the hottest." Sandra contemplated, rubbing her chin.

"It can't hurt to try. Anything to get over this block."

"Alright then. The day the Hack Clan first encountered Herobrine…" She sat down, leaning her head back in an effort to remember. "We didn't have a home. We were more nomads than anything, sticking to bands of lowly Griefers at the behest of our leader. We didn't have an Obelisk to call home, but many a village fell to our powers. Our numbers increased only as rumors of our greatness spread, attracting those with similar talents." She traced the lines over her eyes.

"Of course, we never expected to be approached by a lowly Crafter."

[Year 134: Kawa River]

"Where's my food!" Winslow bellowed, startling several nearby Griefers. "I need meat! We don't keep you worms around for your company! Get me some chicken before I turn you into bloody hunks of broken meat. Double time!"

The Griefers all fled and Sandra rolled her eyes at her brother's harsh tone. Entity 303 didn't approve of the Griefers being 'mistreated'. Neither did Null. What they saw in those useless dregs of society, she didn't know. There was a history, she guessed.

Suddenly, there was a commotion in camp. It wasn't the usual Hacker teaching a Griefer a lesson.

No, this was something else.

"Hey, guys, you need to see this." PoulsenPowderkeg passed their tent, motioning them to follow him. A few other Hackers and many more Griefers followed, congregating towards the center of camp.

With a shared look, Sandra and Winslow joined them.

There, in the center, surrounded by a small army of Hackers and Griefers, was a bright-eyed man without a speck of armor on him. Indeed, he looked uninterested in the uneven odds facing him. He merely waited in the center, his hands folded behind his back.

Sandra watched his eyes. They glowed like searchlights. Was he a new kind of Hacker? It was different from the smoke that exuded whenever one of them used a Hack.

She caught hushed whispers from the Griefers. Apparently the man before them was Herobrine, ex-king of Nitebane. The Griefers would know that, considering Nitebane was now a haven for Griefers following that catastrophe that killed thousands. None of her brothers and sisters, though. That was all that mattered.

Still, what was a disgraced king doing here?

There was a parting in the crowd as one Hacker stalked forward. Then, with a rush of wind, a second Hacker floated down from the sky. Both of their Hacker smoke was on full display before this intruder.

Entity 303 and Null stared down Herobrine. Smoky, dark eyes looked into bright, glowing ones.

OcanDecagon leaned over with a smirk. "I think we're about to see the leaders in action." He whispered.

"Greetings, oh powerful Hackers." Herobrine bowed with a sweep of his arms. "You humble me with your presence."

"Why have you come here?" Entity 303 growled/echoed. His entire face was obscured by that pale hood, yet he always had a way of sounding like he was speaking from a cave. It was a ghostly voice, belonging to an entity beyond any of their power.

There was a reason he was the leader and Null the second in command.

But he was still a protective older brother, and he made sure to show it to any strangers.

"I've come here with a warning." Herobrine continued, standing tall to face them. "The Kings have become aware of your river raids. They know you possess powers beyond comprehension. However, they have obtained the means to combat you."

There was a smattering of laughter from many Hackers. Winslow himself guffawed openly at the absurd notion and Sandra barely stifled a giggle. Crafters matching Hackers? Perhaps when pigs flew.

"Your concern is unnecessary," Null spoke softly, "and most assuredly with strings attached." He was dark as pitch. He didn't have dark skin or wore a skintight ninja suit. No, his very being was made up of solid, dark matter. No skin, no cloth. Even his backpack was just a space on his shoulder—A pocket dimension from which he could draw his Inventory. Some say he was a child of the Void. His eyes were white, and so were his Hacker lines, and when he was surrounded with smoke, it was impossible to discern him from the night sky.

"You may doubt me, but it's true." Herobrine went on, undaunted by their disbelief. "It's because of the recent discovery of Command Blocks, you see. Nearly all the Kings are experimenting with them and have created eight powerful artifacts to counter your aggressive banditry."

"What's a Command Block?" Alec_Bishop asked, though no one replied.

"Only eight?" Null asked.

The ex-kind nodded. "Qorn, C418, Grum, Dinnerbone, Jeb, Ferriday, Zipshin, and Tanner. They all possess powerful artifacts." He gazed around at the faces of the Hackers. "And when they figure out where you're hiding, I'm afraid your precious family won't stand a chance."

His contemptuous words had Sandra gnashing her teeth. Other Hackers had similar reactions. Who was this lowly Crafter to question their powers? How the crowd wished to tear him apart. However, the leaders had the floor.

"Our family is stronger than you know." Entity 303 growled/echoed. "You'd do well not to underestimate us, vermin."

"I see you need some more convincing." The dead man smiled. "Very well. Before I arrived here, I used a Command Block to tamper with my Health Meter slightly. Hit me as hard as you can, and you'll see why—"

His words were cut off as there was an explosion of wind before Null blasted forward with an enlarged fist that connected with the disgraced king's torso, launching him away with tremendous force. Herobrine's face was frozen in a rictus of surprise as he crashed into several trees before coming to a stop in the river.

The sudden attack had all the Hackers laughing and grinning at the poor worm's fate. Dead before he could blink. Null never messed around.

As Null turned to leave, Entity 303 held up his hand for quiet before pointing to the river where bubbles could be seen coming to the surface.

There was a small murmur of disbelief. There was no way he could have actually survi—

Suddenly, a face broke up from the surface, gasping. Herobrine stared back, wiping his face before swimming back to shore.

You could hear a pin drop as Herobrine hoisted himself onto the riverbank, wrung out his clothes, and walked back over. Wet, but alive.

"Still think I'm a crackpot?" He asked.

Null narrowed his eyes. "Let me try once more, just to be safe."

Entity 303 stopped him. "You've had your chance, brother. Now I'd like to take a crack at it."

"Go right ahead." Herobrine allowed.

Entity 303 stepped forward, his eyes focusing solely on Herobrine as great waves of smoke emanated off of him.

Then, with a flick of a finger, hundreds of bolts of smoke shot from his body and struck like missiles, complete with explosions.

They were all precise enough that they only ever struck Herobrine and the ground he stood on, sparing the watching Hackers and Griefers who knew that each of those smoke blasts could kill any one of them.

More and more smoke blasts struck, enlarging the crater and driving the target deeper and deeper into the earth. After about a full minute of this, Entity 303 ended his attack and observed the aftermath.

A smoking hole in the ground. Deep enough to reach the stone layer… and then several more meters down.

A hand popped out from it, grabbing onto the edge before pulling himself out. Herobrine dusted himself off, a slight smirk on his face.

"Satisfied?"

"I would be if you stayed down there." Entity 303 replied dully. "But, you lived. So I'm forced to believe your warning has merit."

"If you'll let me continue, then?" He asked before going on without permission. "The resilience I've just demonstrated is a mere pittance of what the Kings are capable of with the eight artifacts in their possession. I've seen their power, and I assure you that they will present a threat to you and your brethren."

"But not you?" Null questioned. "You're just a friend who would never strike us?"

"...I thought of the Kings as closer to me than brothers. Yet, in my time of need, nearly all of them abandoned me." He looked on coldly, his bright eyes a window to his bitter soul. "It is of no consequence what happens to them."

"That doesn't answer our question, worm."

"A worm that endures." He countered smugly. "Keep in mind that I have yet to throw a punch in retaliation. I don't wish to fight you. I only came here to pass along a warning. What you do with it is your choice. Good day, Hackers."

And with that, he set down a mysterious, beige-colored block with fancy buttons, typed something into its interface, flicked a lever next to it and vanished in a blink.

The surrounding Hackers moved about nervously, wondering where he had disappeared to. Sandra used her Invisibility detecting Hack to try and find him, but there was nothing. She couldn't even spot him for miles in any direction.

Whatever he typed into that block, Alec took a strange interest in it.

[Floyd]

"After that, we arranged to attack the Kingdoms and claim the artifacts, though, suspiciously, some of them eluded our grasp, almost like Herobrine tipped them off. Still, we took out most of the Kings, forced Akasha to build us a home, settled in the savannah, and the rest is history." Sandra finished with a satisfied sigh. "So? Are you feeling any of that burning anger?"

"Oh, I'm feeling something." I growled through clenched teeth. I had kept silent throughout the entire story, hoping there'd be more, but what I was left with showed me how wrong my initial assumptions were. "You never told me you were doing raids with the Griefers before Herobrine even showed up."

"Huh? We weren't doing anything with the Griefers." She countered, looking insulted. "We'd never lower ourselves to cooperate with them. They were more like our servants."

"So you did the raids yourself, without the influence of the Griefers?" I asked instead, my eye twitching. "Don't you think that's worse? It was your own decision to attack Crafters."

"We had to eat, brother. Food doesn't grow on trees—"

"It does and it's called apples!" I shot to my feet, feeling a wave of anger pass over me. "You also didn't mention that you were just as rotten as you are today, acting like Hackers are so much worthier than everybody else!"

"That's because we are. You think Crafters can do this?" She flared her own Hacker powers, letting them gather in her eyes before stealing another glance to the right. What was she looking at?

"Herobrine proved to your leaders that he could!" I countered. "He took the hits and proved you could be knocked down off your high horse. He may have set you up to attack the Kings, but I always assumed you were innocent before that. I thought you were peaceful nomads, living out in the woods, and it was his manipulations that made you think you had to defend yourself." I scoffed. "Oh, how wrong I was. In reality, you were attacking Crafters and practicing Hacker supremacy before he even showed up!"

"Why should it matter? That bastard manipulated us! He used us like pawns!"

"You would have ended up like this either way!" I shouted, my Hacker powers flaring and a prickling feeling erupting all over my body. This was… this was that feeling! MultiAura!

It wasn't about being angry at Herobrine. It was about being angry at everything! Of being so overwhelmed by how thick-headed the Hack Clan could be. Hackers, Cultists, the ACC, the Paragons, my frustration with Cobb, with my own weakness in protecting Silent. It was all. Too. MUCH!

The feelings bubbled over in my gut and I shouted in rage as the prickling across my skin shot forth out of my body. Spikes of razor-sharp smoke fired in all directions, peppering the walls of the abandoned gym and forcing Sandra to block with her arms.

The projectiles bit deep, but Sandra weathered the worst of it with her Regeneration Hack, healing whatever damage I caused in an instant. When she lowered her arms, I was still standing tall, my Hacker smoke swirling around me in a raging torrent.

"Brother… you did it! Your MultiAura has fully manifested! You're a Level 2 now!" Sandra cheered. "Remember that feeling! Your anger at… at…" Her delight dropped like a rock as she came to a harsh realization. "At us…"

I panted through my teeth, glaring at her through my darkened eyes. "When are you Hackers gonna learn…?" I puffed, clenching my fists. "You think you're so much better than everyone else. All you're doing is pushing people away!"

"Pushing people away? Pushing people away!? What people!?" Sandra snapped, stalking forward and giving me a hard shove. "You're talking about those worthless friends of yours!? The ones manipulating you into being their pet!? They made you think you're weak! They lied to you! Now you can't do it anymore!"

"Do what anymore?"

"Be invincible!" She snarled.

"Not more of this—"

"No, SHUT UP! Shut up!" Sandra cut off, smoke flaring in response to her anger. "Haven't I told you that Hacks evolve through thoughts and emotion? E-mo-tion, Floyd! Why do you think Hackers possess invincibility, or super regeneration? Because one of the first lessons drilled into us is that we are invincible!"

"It isn't supremacy if it's a fact! And we are superior! We are stronger! Because we can make it so as long as we believe it! That's what makes Hackers so powerful—what makes you so powerful! Because the only thing we need to be special is to believe that we are! How many lowly Crafters can do that!?"

I stumbled back, the Hacker smoke vanishing upon this latest realization. I could be… invincible? Like Alec and Thed?

"So… so this whole time, you telling me to think I was invincible…"

"Was to make you evolve and manifest an invulnerability Hack." She conceded. "But I'm too late." She recounted bitterly. "Now that those so-called friends of yours got their hooks into you, you'll never believe you're invincible. You'll never gain a healing Hack. They've messed with your head and nothing I can do can fix you."

I scowled. "If I had an emerald for every time someone claims I've been brainwashed…"

"Oh yeah? You gonna deny that your buddy, Mr. Mediocre, is a manipulative rat, no better than Herobrine?"

"Hey! I only said that to prove a—" I froze mid-sentence, replaying what Sandra just said. "How did you know I said he was just like Herobrine?"

Sandra backed off slightly, a forced and eerie calm coming over her features. "It was just a guess. But let's not get off topic—"

"You…" I took a step away from her, rethinking the moments since I had that argument with Cobb. "You saw us through the walls with your X-Ray Hack. Did you read our damn lips?"

"Floyd, you're being hysterical."

No, I was looking at hysterical in the rear view mirror. Now I was incensed. And scared. If she heard that conversation, she knew that Cobb killed Alec. She wouldn't just let him go. Which meant…?

"Where did Winslow really go?"

Sandra pressed her lips into a thin line, staring impassively at me.

"Is that who you've been sneaking peeks at all those times? Huh? Where's Winslow? What's he doing now?" My mind was jumping to conclusions. Bad ones. "Did he go after Cobb?"

"…You're never going to see him again, Floyd."

I bolted out of there with my Speed before she could take another step. Cobb and the others were in danger. I had to use my Hacker enhanced Speed to find them. Now!

"You can run, but not forever!" Sandra called after me as I crashed through the gym door. "I've got my eye on you, Floyd! You'll run out of steam! And when you do, you'll see that this is the best thing for you!"

"FUCK YOU, SIS!"

[Cobb]

*KABOOM*

I was in the middle of getting up when a massive explosion rocked the surroundings and had me lose my balance and fall flat on my ass.

I looked up and panicked when I saw an avalanche of red sand about to crush me. I scooped up the Mob books and rolled away right before the sand slammed down. What was going on!?

Suddenly, alarms started blaring all over the library. Minecarts with hoppers and chests started flying around the rails to different parts of the library, though they were nearly drowned out by the cacophony of explosions overhead. More red sand started to pour down from the collapsed support beams.

Within a few moments of the latest explosion, Alexicon showed up in the Herobrine section, her expression pale.

"The ACC. They hath found us."

Inventory (Cobb): 1 Iron Helmet, 1 Leather Tunic [Dyed Green, Mending I, Unbreaking I], 1 Diamond Leggings [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Iron Boots, 1 Fishing Rod {Backlash} [Knockback II, Luck of the Sea III, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Sword [Sweeping Edge III], 1 Banner {Beginners}, 64 Cobblestone, 61 Cobblestone, 64 Gravel, 64 Gravel, 64 Gravel, 4 Gravel, 3 Feathers, 1 Bed, 36 Dirt, 7 Coal, 24 Flint, 12 Jungle Wood Logs, 56 Jungle Wood Planks, 2 Sticks, 7 Torches, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Clock, 1 Lava Bucket, 1 String, 60 Emeralds, 2 Ender Chests, 4 Snowballs, 9 Gunpowder, 12 Cooked Mutton, 27 Rotten Flesh, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {How to Kill Stuff for Numb Nuts}, 1 Book {Advanced Mob-Slaying}, 1 Book {Mobs of the Nether}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}

[EXP: 27]

Inventory (Floyd): 1 Mob Head {Creeper}, 1 Diamond Chestplate [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Leather Pants [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III] {Weak}, 1 Leather Boots [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III], 1 Iron Pickaxe, 3 Iron Ingots, 47 Dirt, 1 Fishing Rod, 1 Furnace, 18 Cooked Mutton, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Minecart, 1 Bed, 1 Boat, 1 Emerald, 1 Iron Sword {Weak}, 1 Diamond Helmet [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Diamond Leggings [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Diamond Boots [Projectile Protection IV], 1 Iron Leggings, 16 Gunpowder, 4 Ender Pearls, 1 Splash Potion of Invisibility {6:00}, 1 Iron Chestplate, 1 Iron Leggings, 1 Iron Boots, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}

[EXP: 32]

Inventory (Lenz): 1 Leather Pants [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III] {Weak}, 1 Leather Boots [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III], 1 Bow, 1 Shears, 2 Levers, 5 Redstone Torches, 1 Bed, 9 Redstone Repeaters, 3 Redstone Comparators, 23 Redstone, 17 Blocks of Redstone, 2 Hoppers, 3 Pistons, 2 Sticky Pistons, 48 Cobblestone, 1 Minecart, 1 Compass, 25 Gunpowder, 23 Arrows, 16 Jungle Wood Planks, 1 Crafting Table, 28 Cooked Mutton, 64 Emeralds, 16 Sugar Cane, 8 Paper, 5 Ink Sacs, 3 Leather, 1 Book {Airship Piloting 101}, 1 Book {Notebook}, 1 Book {How to Kill Stuff for Numb Nuts}, 1 Book {Advanced Mob-Slaying}, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Daymonte Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Akasha Entry Pass}

[EXP: 15]

Inventory (Soul): 1 Diamond Axe [Sharpness V], 1 Iron Pickaxe, 64 Iron Ingots, 52 Iron Ingots, 20 Flint, 12 Gold Ingots, 1 Milk, 1 Diamond Helmet [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Leggings [Protection IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Diamond Boots [Protection IV, Feather Falling IV, Unbreaking III], 1 Crafting Table, 1 Bed, 1 Furnace, 24 Torches, 34 White Wool, 58 Dirt, 64 Cobblestone, 62 Cobblestone, 64 Gravel, 64 Gravel, 32 Jungle Wood Planks, 1 Armor Stand, 1 Ender Pearl, 47 Cooked Mutton, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Akasha Entry Pass}

[EXP: 27]

Inventory (Jade): 1 Diamond Helmet [Protection IV], 1 Leather Tunic [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III] {Weak}, 1 Diamond Leggings [Protection IV], 1 Leather Boots [Dyed Brown, Curse of Binding I, Unbreaking III] {Weak}, 1 Diamond Chestplate [Protection IV], 1 Diamond Boots [Protection IV], 1 Iron Sword, 1 Bed, 1 Iron Pickaxe, 1 Crafting Table, 1 Furnace, 16 String, 21 Cooked Mutton, 14 Torches, 30 Jungle Wood Planks, 64 Cobblestone, 34 Cobblestone, 30 Emeralds, 24 Obsidian, 2 Buckets, 1 Compass, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 1 Clock, 9 Ender Chests, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Ringwood Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Dover Plains Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Lazuli Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Paper {Akasha Entry Pass}

[EXP: 36]

Inventory (Noman): 1 Diamond Sword [Sharpness I], 1 Diamond Chestplate {Severe Shield}, 1 Leather Boots {Bottes Zephyr} [Dyed White], 1 Black Shield {Slight Shield} [Blue Cross] {Weak}, 1 Flint and Steel, 1 Bow [Infinity], 28 Birch Wood Planks, 34 Iron Ingots, 18 Sticks, 1 Bucket, 1 Crafting Table, 10 Cooked Mutton, 4 Ender Pearls, 1 Potion of Healing II, 1 Potion of Healing II, 1 Potion of Regeneration II {0:22}, 1 Potion of Water Breathing {8:00}, 1 Bed, 1 Book {Artifact List}, 1 Book {Citizenship Information}, 1 Paper {Zeppil Entry Pass}, 1 Map {Zeppil}, 1 Paper {Akasha Entry Pass}, 1 Compass, 1 Arrow, 3 Sugar, 14 Bookshelves, 6 Enchanted Golden Apples, 1 Diamond Helmet, 1 Diamond Leggings, 1 Diamond Boots, 64 Emeralds, 1 Map {Minecraftia}, 18 Bones, 64 Gravel, 64 Gravel, 64 Gravel, 49 Gravel, 9 Flint

[EXP: 25]

AN: This Chapter, man. What a pain to write. Almost all backstory.

It's basically Herobrine's story retold via three narrators Ciro, Sandra, and the man himself, Herobrine.

Some of it was interesting to write, like how the First Ten got the ball rolloing in the first place. But with a timeline, it was a hassle. I had to go back and forth through a few chapters to make a cohesive timeline that fit. There are a few jumps between narrators, but it's pretty clear what point the character is coming from chronologically.

Whatever. Next Chapter will be action-packed, I promise.

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And stay safe my friends.