Minecraft Monarchies – #8

When Dean and Dad headed back to Port City, dark clouds were rolling in. After they talked to Brian Blacksmith and got their reward for finishing the first quest, they looked out the windows of his shop to see a powerful storm dropping rain everywhere.

“Well, Dean, do you think we should head back to the castle and call it a night?” Dad asked.

Dean laughed. “No way. We’ve got magic swords and we’ve got some iron armor”, he said. “We can take them.”

Brian stood next to his anvil, watching them.

“It will be a dangerous quest. Tell ya what, I can fix you up with iron leggings and boots, give you a complete set. Just give me back the emeralds I just gave you and we’ll call it even.”

Dad looked like he was going to protest, but Dean pulled out the emeralds and handed them over at once. “10 emeralds for 4 pieces of armor is a great price,” he told Dad, beaming. “Thanks, Brian. We’ll have those pillagers taken care of in no time.”

Brian smiled back and nodded. “Be careful you two!”

They saluted and were just out the door when Brian shouted. Alarmed, the two of them turned back.

“Oh good! You didn’t leave yet! The pillager outposts are magically bound. Pillager spirits return to the outpost and respawn, slowly, over time. You need to break all of their banners, kill all of them, and then place this in the center of the outpost.”

The two of them looked down at it. It had a label on it that read, “Pillager Colonizer 2.0”. Dean put it into his inventory.

“Thanks Brian. Got anything else you forgot to tell us?” Dad asked.

“Nope. Happy fighting!” Brian said. Then he turned around and went to bed.

Dean and Dad left Port City, running through the rain as fast as they were able, laughing like crazy men. It felt good despite look like long square icycles falling from the sky. Cool and fresh. And although they could see mobs off in the distance in pretty much every direction, their speed made the mobs uninterested in chasing them.

They ran through the outpost and out into the wilder blue yonder. The path continued, snaking right and then left, and it didn’t take so long before they could see the lights of another village. This one was quite large.

“Yes!” Dean exclaimed. “I bet they sell awesome stuff here!”

Dad nodded happily, pointing to a sign. “Asbury. Looks like a nice enough place to visit. while you go shopping, why don’t I check out the hills and see if maybe this mod left us some secrets.”

“Alright,” said Dean, pointing up and to the right. “While I’m shopping I’ll ask the villagers if they know where the pillager outpost is, too. Let’s split up and meet at that house on the hill in one hour.”

Dean and Dad split up, heading their separate ways. Dean headed first to the water, noticing a large stone house with lots of windows. Peeking through, he saw that there were a lot of villagers hanging out and talking.

Dean walked over and knocked on the door.

“Just a minute,” one of the villagers called. The door clicked open and a fisherman gazed at Dean. Behind him clustered a bunch of other fisherman and farmers, eyes wide open and curious. “Oh, my gosh, a hero. Come on in! We have tea. And coffee!”

Dean stepped into the house. It was still a little weird dealing with actually talking villagers, even after knowing Brian and Fred. Now it was getting even weirder. Here they were offering him snacks and tea!

He smiled. This was awesome.

“I don’t really drink tea. But do you have hot chocolate?” he asked.

The villagers shared a look.

“Weeelllll, we have a little. But only if you have 100 emeralds,” the fisherman said.

Dean gasped. Why was hot choco so much? But then the villagers started laughing.

“We’re just kidding. Here, let me go make some. We love hot choco just as much as anyone else.”

The villager pulled out a copper kettle and soon he had cow’s milk bubbling over a fire. Then he took some cacao beans and ground them up on a pestle. Next he mixed that with sugar, then he poured it all into the kettle.

It was a long process that took almost half an hour. Something that Dean suspected would take him just a minute since he apparently followed a different set of heroes rules when it came to crafting.

But even though it took so much time, the smell that wafted out from the boiling kettle was amazing.

And drinking it, well, hot chocolate had never tasted better.

And even while he waited, he chatted with the villagers, checking out their goods. One was trading gravel for emeralds. Another was asking for emeralds in exchange for tuna and bass. There were so many more types of sea food in this mod than he was used to, and Dean wanted none of it.

He hated fish in real life.

Still, he did buy a few carrots from one of the farmers, and then he drank his hot chocolate, telling jokes and savoring his rest time with the locals.

And finding out about the pillager camp. Apparently a village of rough-looking villagers with crossbows had been set up just in site of the horizon. The villagers thought they looked scary, but so far, the people there hadn’t attacked Asbury.

Yet, Dean thought, finishing up his hot chocolate. He said his good-byes and a couple of them saw him out as he left to go find his dad.

Dad, meanwhile, was off to the mountain, following the city paths and looking for anything that seemed out of place. It was quite beautiful here, and he admired the many flowers even as the rain came down onto his head and down his face.

He even didn’t mind the water running into his mouth when he yelled his surprise at finding an actual secret.

There, in front of his nose, was a door heading into the stone side of the mountain. A sign next to it said that it was the Asbury Coal Mine.

Opening up the door, Dad peeked in and gasped. There were quite a few coal blocks. Maybe as many as a hundred. He pulled out his pickaxe and went inside. Everything was lit up, torches were all over, and he scratched his head wondering at the waste of it.

Why would villagers make this mine and then not mine it?

He shook his head. Maybe, just like in regular Minecraft, they just couldn’t. Seemed like the most likely answer.

He pulled out his pickaxe and went to work, not noticing the slow swirl of coal dust coming together behind him. He didn’t even notice when it became an all-black coal golem.

He only noticed it when it came right up behind him and took a swing.

It was only by luck that he happened to move out of the way at the same time.

“Woah!” Dad yelled, staring at the thing. “You’re the reason the villagers stopped mining here!” he yelled at it.

He didn’t answer, instead spitting a cloud of black smoke at his face. Suddenly he was down three hearts, and he could barely see a thing.

“Dean,” Dad yelled. “Dean are you out there! Help. Heeelp!!” He struck out ad felt his glowing blade hit the monster. It yelled in anger, so he hit it again. And again.

It smacked him and he flew backward into a wall. Dad felt around himself, hoping to feel the door. But it was just stone wall as far as he could feel.

And he could hear the monster coming back at him. It smacked him again, and he hit it back.

His hearts were down to just three left. Desperate, he jumped up and forward, timing his sword strike to land just and he started his descent.

Critical hit. He’d finally defeated it.

He knew he’d won because he heard it make a long and loud death sigh, and moments later his vision returned. He saw loose cool everywhere . . . and all of the coal blocks missing.

The coal he’d been mining had been the monster! And he’d just destroyed it!

That was good. But Dad soon realized that there was a bad thing as well. Digging through his inventory, Dad saw something terrifying.

He was out of food!

Minecraft Monarchies – Table of Contents