Snake punched a tree really fucking hard, watching the middle of the tree pop out as a conveniently small block. Of course, everything was blocks, but this one was small enough to fit in the inventory. A quick crafting table later, and she could harvest logs much faster with a wooden axe.
Kat: [Oh my god. Just mine three stones and make a stone axe.]
Kat was of course very unhappy about her inefficient use of time and resources.
Snake: [Who even are you?]
Kat: [I’m Kat? The incredibly awesome super gamer? The guy who could totally speedrun the game in half the time it would take you to reach the Nether?]
Snake: [Nope. Doesn’t ring any bells.]
Kat: [I’m Kyki’s brother? That they’ve probably told you about?]
Snake: [Oh yeah! I remember now. You’re that guy.]
Kat: [Are they doing okay? They just disappeared and then today sent me an IP for a Minecraft server.]
Snake thought about it. For a second. For two. Then three, four, five.
Snake: [I think so. They’ve been working here for a while now. And they haven’t run off anywhere, though they do take really long walks in the evening.]
Dave: [I finished! The house! The base house!]
Dave had finished the basic house, out of oak logs for the corner and planks for walls and floor, as well as a door and pressure plates.
Dave: [My masterpiece!]
Kat: [Not as good as a treehouse.]
Dave: [Your treehouse doesn’t even have leaves! It’s a dead tree!]
Snake: [I’m just going to build a lab on the side of the mountain.]
Dave: [A lab? On the mountain side? Why not a house?]
Snake punched Dave for half a heart of damage for the stupid question, before continuing to dig out the stone wall. Unze sent out a broadcast to everyone on the server.
Unze: [Welcome everybody to the grand opening of the Unze SMP! Because my viewers like Minecraft. It’s just a vanilla survival server for now, but there might be more later!]
Den had trouble manipulating the keyboard and chose instead to fish for long hours into the night, with mechanical precision. There was only the rod and the water. Lure III, Luck of the Sea III, Unbreaking III, and Mending. The infinite fish. The endless fish. Cod and salmon and boots and hooks and string and lilypads and books and gunpowder and once even a strange totem. Oh, what fun.
Vola swayed, back and forth, on top of his watchtower he had “appropriated” from some very angry pillagers. Now he watched the grassy savannah plains, crossbow at the ready. He had many stocked up in chests, all loaded, ready to fire.Any intruders would be met with a hailstorm of arrows.
Rico brought down the pickaxe upon the rocks, cracking them with every strike. Soon the stone crumbled, releasing its prize. Chunks of raw iron fell to the floor, enough for many bars. He trembled with exertion, putting one hand on his sword. Was that a groan in the darkness? The rattling of bones? The tapping of spidery limbs on the hard rock floor? He kept his shield at the ready.
The iron golem lumbered through the village at a slow, plodding pace, watching the villagers craft, build, farm. It did not know how old it was, and did not know too much. It thought only of its solemn duty: to protect those whom he was made in the image of. Zombies, skeletons, spiders, and even those strange winged menaces of the night, phantom in appearance and swooping down with angry vengeance. Creepers were the only exception. They did not attack the village, so the golem turned to them a blind eye.
Kneeling down, it handed the rose it was holding to a little child, watching their eyes light up. So the kid ran off with the flower, eager to help wherever needed. A community like theirs required resources to maintain, so some became miners, digging into the crust in search of rarer ores. Others hunted to bring extra meat to the storehouses. And a few declared their desire to strike out for better lands, though they never returned. Sometimes the big golem thought about the generations it oversaw and those few who turned their eyes to the great wide world in search of treasure, glory, and discovery.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The villagers passed down stories of giant pyramids for the kings and queens of the desert sands, and trapped temples hidden deep within the heart of the jungle. Abandoned mineshafts built by the old ones, and great big monuments sunken into the sea, guarded by the fiercest constructs. Always there were those who sought to discover and loot their depths, though they usually disappeared forever.
Did they succeed in what they sought to do? Had they truly found paradise and explored the whole world? Or had they perished long ago, their bones joining those of their forefathers and the many that tried before them? No one knew for sure. The answer was shrouded in mystery… until They Came.
Pale shadows of the Old Ones, capable of superhuman feats of strength and capacity. Their stamina was inexhaustible if they had a source of food, and they could construct great buildings rivalling the structures from the tales of the past. Again, one appeared over the horizon, traveling straight for them. The villagers could not fight back, cowed in entirety by the power and presence of the intruder.
He stretched out one hand, and lightning sprung limitlessly from his fingertips. The houses and huts burned, roofs collapsing and so many torched in the flames and roasted by the electricity. The iron golem was shocked, awed, in fear of the Thing who came from far beyond the town boundaries. He was not like the others, bound by the need to eat or remain grounded. He flew over the treetops and the square, striking all things with a lethal fury not seen elsewhere.
All the iron golem knew was the name Unze, printed clear above his head. It was futile, yes, but it could not allow Unze to trample the village unopposed. With effort it tore chunks of stone from the pavement and lobbed them at the enemy, watching the rocks explode on contact. Unze was not even hurt, nor did he care. Then red bricks with flaming fuses fell upon the village, and all died.
Only the iron golem survived, cracked and beaten. It hungered for iron to repair its weak constitution, but could barely walk. The village it had so diligently guarded for many years had been destroyed in mere moments. Only now, among the ruins of their humble town, did Unze come down from the sky, a blackened plated axe in hand, iridescent with wavering powerful enchantments.
In its final moments the metal man thought of its circumstances, and its whole life. So much it had done, all for nothing. All broken to dust at the hands of an uncaring harbinger, who had just razed the town to the ground. In the glimmering blade of Unze’s netherite axe, it saw its own reflection, the same one it had seen in the shine of new village bells and the well in the town center. As Unze lifted the axe, it understood cruelty. And on death’s door the golem’s true colors shined, and it bashed Unze with everything it could muster, as Unze brought the axe down.
He was feeling quite good, actually. It was always fun to blow up some of Minecraft’s naturally generated buildings, watching characters form in the terrain. There was something relaxing yet visceral about the whole process that he relished. The afterglow of the massacre was blissful. This was true ecstasy.
A snowball hit the side of his face, which he brushed off like it was nothing.
Kat: [Stop killing all the fucking villagers! I need those for tools and armorsmiths!]
Unze: [Just go find another village. My server, my rules.]
And Snake had an [Epiphany].
[Unze is no longer a server operator.]
[Unze has been set to survival mode.]
Unze: [What the fuck? Actual hacks?]
Snake: [I used [Epiphany]. Gives me a moment of pure genius. At that moment, I guessed the password for the dev console. Looks like I got it right.]
Unze: [No longer fren. You lose fren privilege. It doesn’t even matter anyway, I already set my attributes super high. Literally have max armor and like ten times the health.]
Unze cackled in 100 hearts and massive damage, only for an arrow to sprout from his eye. Vola dropped his crossbow, reaching for another fully loaded one from his inventory.
Vola: [Dipshit. If it bleeds, we can kill it.]
Unze: [Fine, you bastards. Try it! I’ll wipe you all out if I have to!]
Kat grinned, slipping out an Ancient Diamond Blade from his sheath. Vola took hold of enchanted crossbows in both hands, aimed and at the ready. Dave whacked the flat side of his axe against his shield in a rhythmic rapping of metal on wood. Snake stepped forward, a splash potion between each finger and many more in her pockets.
Snake: [Let’s dance, you son of a bitch.]
And the world was a flurry of tipped arrows and potions, fireworks and swift blade strikes. Unze waved his hand, and from his palms fell mob eggs of all kinds, stockpiled before the de-oppining. And many came to Kat’s support. Mei and Beetle and Rico and more entered the brawl, savoring the chance to kill the server owner and steal their head to display. The Great Village War, as it would be remembered, would reside in the memories of its participants for years to come.
Meanwhile Kyki finished their sheep pen far out in the tundra. The weird lanterns cropping up nearby were creepy, but this place was pretty great. Especially the isolation. No people! Actually perfect! Kyki did have a vague feeling they were missing out on something, but pushed the thought to the back of their mind as they shuffled through the snow back to the house. The stacks of kelp harvested from the ocean would not cook themselves upon the campfire, after all.
Den was still fishing. Just caught an iron sword actually: jackpot!