Minecraft Monarchies – #20

“Hey Dad, which item do you want?”

Dean and Dad were standing together, the items gleaming before them. Dad eyed them closely, then turned his eyes to his son. Always and forever he would want the most powerful protection to go to Dean.

“I’ll take the trident,” he said. “Why don’t you take the chest plate?”

Dean took the chest plate and Dad took the trident. Leaving the chest and its glow stone behind, they then headed back through the castle. When they reached the doors, they paused, listening.

Before, when the two of them had entered the castle, a group of skeletons and zombies had been pounding at the doors, trying to get in and kill them. But now, listening, they could hear nothing.

“What do you think, Dean? Is the coast clear?” Dad asked. Dean sighed.

“There is only one way to find out!”

He opened the door and stepped outside. Nothing was waiting there to kill him. However, in the distance, he could see Endermen playing. Why the heck were there so many of them in the Wicked Witchdom?

There had to be some secret here to be figured out.

But not now.

“Dad, the coast is clear. But we better hurry. I don’t think it will be safe for long.”

Dad and Dead ran back to the Colony of the Deep Dark. Fred the Fletcher met them at the gate.

“Did you do it?” Fred asked. They both smiled at the same time, and Fred punched a fist into the air. “We are saved!” he exclaimed.

Dad smiled. “Glad to have been of service. Now, if you will excuse us, we’ve got a lot of stuff to take care of. That was one heck of a fight!”

Dad and Dean walked away, waving at a few villagers as they passed by, and high-fiving Gary the Golem as they made their way to the shops of the colony.

Their first stop was the temple. Mr. Mann was there, ready to buy zombie flesh ‘kimchi’. And boy oh boy did they have a lot of that in their inventory. They opened the door and walked on it.

“Hey Mr. Mann, we came to sell kimchi.” Dean said, holding the rotted and crinkly bits in one hand to show him the goods.

“Say what now? Kimchi? What is that?” asked a curious Mann. He beamed a moment later when he saw exactly what Dean was talking about. And his smile got even wider when he saw how much of the stuff Dean and Dad had.

“That will be one emerald for thirty-two slices,” he said, his eyes wide and greedy. “However, that comes to just 4 emeralds for all of this delicious and useful rottern flesh. Are you sure you want to sell all of it?”

Dad suppressed a smile with one blocky hand. Clerics were crazy.

“Yep,” Dean said. “I mean, I hate to part with it, but I know that you need it a lot more than I do. So here you go.”

Dean finished selling his rotten flesh, and after that the two of them went back to the house. There was still stuff left to smelt, and food to cook. It was a good time to get both of those things done.

However, they quickly ran into a problem.

“Hey Dean?” Dad asked, his face confused. “Where’s the coal?”

“Uh, you don’t have it?” Dean asked.

“What do you mean?” Dad asked.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“Can you stop asking me questions when I’m asking you questions?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know. Can I?” Dean asked.

“I’m going crazy,” Dad said. “I think we somehow used up all of the coal. And I barely have any torches. How about you?”

“I’m fresh out,” Dean admitted. “I used the last of mine on the astle of the Wicked Witchdom.

The two of them sighed together as one, the next quest quite obvious. They would have to go grinding for coal.

They headed out of the city, their weapons at the ready. There was a waterfall nearby that cut a nice little channel down the side of the slope, running into the lava lake below. Knowing that they could swim back of the water if theings got too steep, Dean and Dad decided to follow it down.

“Meow”, said a cat as they started their walk. What the heck was a cat doing down here?

“Meow,” he continued. Dean’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, he is so cute. Can we keep him?” he asked.

Dad nodded. “He’d make a great friend. But we have a mission to accomplish first. Let’s go get fish and tame him after we are full on coal and whatever else we can find.

The two of them continued do the river, following the waterfall. A couple of skeletons tried to shoot them with their bows, but a combination of Dad’s trident and Dean’s crossbow ended them quickly. Soon the two of them were next to the lava lake.

And all around them was ore. Not coal, but there was red stone in abundance. More red stone than they had ever seen. Dad and Dean pulled out their pickaxes and went to work, pounding block to powder and dreaming about all of the devices they would later make when they got back to home.

Gold and red stone, they found both blocks all over. And even a block of diamond! But no coal. As they moved away from the lava’s light and into the deep darkness of the rock, Dad sparingly placed torches from his inventory to light the way. But the number was getting smaller and smaller the further that they went.

“We really need to find some coal soon, Dean. I don’t get it. Coal is usually the easiest thing to find!”

Dean nodded. There was nothing to say, really. Just keep going because, without coal, they could do nothing.

It was strange to think about. It was such a common mineral and yet, it was so necessary. It might have been the most important mineral in the game!

The two of them worked their way through passages of rock, and then to the ledge of another wide, lave-filled cavern.

There, peeking over the ledge, they finally saw some. It was high above on the rock face across the way. But, if they planned their route correctly, it wouldn’t take too long to get to it and mine it through.

That was what they were thinking when, suddenly, the ground shook in a way that no Minecraft game ever should, and Dean was thrown to the rock down below.

“Help!” Dean yelled from below. “I just lost half of my hearts!”

“I’m coming,” Dad screamed back. And he was. The problem was, how? And the question that lay behind both of their minds, even after the zombie hordes started coming for Dean, was this. What had just happened and how had their Minecraft world shaken?

Minecraft Monarchies – Table of Contents