19 – YOU DON’T RAID ENOUGH GARDENS, MY DEAR

It was the middle of the night when the red button, which he placed as soon as he got back home, was pressed. He was ready, though, because despite what he told Tyla he had no intention to just let the elves fight the beast alone and die.

During the few hours of experimentation, he tried to see what parts of the world came from the mods he played, and what did not. Overall, he concluded that the mod and game aspect only affected him and not the world nor the other people who lived in it. Asking around, in fact, he was told that most of the mechanics he tried to describe made no sense, or that many of the items he tried to show them were not supposed to exist.

The only connection between what he knew about this world and his modded Minecraft games, was the world generation. It all began with fact that the ores he mined from the ground were exactly the same as the ones he expected to find. Plus, of course, a huge variety of things he had never seen before. Countless types of dirt, of stone and moss, plants and animals which were never in the game. These aspects were part of this world, but reinterpreted through the lens of his ability.

Same thing went for the forest. While it was a natural forest for everyone else, for him it was a treasure trove of things that he knew were part of this and that mod, among the many novelties. Flowers and trees that hinted at botania or thaumcraft were randomly placed among the many native species, the blue leaves or the magically glowing flowers quite easy to spot among the rest of the vegetation.

The elves did not have much to say, except that it was all natural to them. It ruled out the possibility that certain elements had been added when he arrived, but also begged the question of where they came from if not from him, and why they were exactly identical to those of the game.

Even then, he had no idea how to use most mods. His playstyle mostly revolved around tech and exploration, while he discarded magic and mysticism as useless. Which they weren’t, not here at least, where many seemingly useless things were not useless at all. They just assumed a different meaning, now that he was in a real world and not playing a game on a computer screen.

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He tried to make guide books, to access the wiki or to access the usual helping book slash screen each mod almost always had. But there was nothing. His interpretation of this was that there had been nobody who had written those books yet, or if there was, then he had to go and find them in some ancient ruins.

He had no time for this. The bell, connected to the button, rang just as he was in the middle of his musings and pacing back and forth in his basement room. He hurried up the stairs, and opened the door.

Greeting him were disheveled Tyla and a panicking Lumia, and behind them the whole village was in upheaval. People were running everywhere, and screams of pain and terror at times pierced the night. The beast was running rampant among the wooden buildings, and destroying everything. Entire trees were being uprooted, or smashed through, while the mechanical horror chased defenseless elven women or children.

A few hunters were still alive, and tried to hit the iron wolf with their arrows. It was pointless, the arrows bouncing away harmlessly, not even enough to pierce the synthetic hide of the machine.

“Get in.” He hurried the two.

“What about the others?” Tyla asked.

Her face was streaked by many spent tears, her eyes tired and her mind far away. Yet, her determination was still alive, clinging to hope and trying desperately to save everyone she loved.

“Don’t worry. I have a plan, and a backup plan.”

Relieved, she hurried inside and shut the door behind her. Immediately Jacob set out to place iron blocks on the ground, making a T-shape. On top, he put a pumpkin and took a step back to watch the magic.

While it was true that he could not make seeds, it occurred to him that he could just take the necessary pumpkin from one of the lush gardens of the elves. He found one, fortunately, which gave him enough confidence to come up with this plan.

The iron blocks slowly morphed into a humanoid shape. Jacob looked attentively.

“Behold, the Iron Golem.”

The golem immediately turned around, its speed and precision clashing with his heavy and bulky appearance. He locked eyes with the beast, which in turn stopped what it was doing and concentrated on its new rival.

It leapt in the air. The golem outstretched its gigantic iron arms, ready to take on the enemy of its creator.