Descent Into Overworld: An Unofficial Minecraft Adventure (13 page)

Another fireball crashed into the ground. The sound of the blast nearly drowned out the barking behind them. Jaina followed the noise to an opening in the top of the cliff of netherrack. A small furry shape stood in the cave mouth.

“Bones!” she shouted. “You found a place to hide! Good doggie.” Jaina’s pet wolf had followed them every step of the way through the Nether. His sharp nose had already saved them from stumbling into a wandering pack of zombie pigmen. Now he had sniffed out the perfect spot to wait out the ghast bombardment. Jaina studied the cliff, plotting a path up to the safety of the cave. “Let’s get climbing.”

“And get blasted to pieces?” Ant said. “No way.”

“You got a better plan, Ant?”

Even if he did, Hamid didn’t think Jaina would listen. Ant’s carelessness had brought the ghasts down on them. Jaina had little patience for Ant, even on a good day.

“One of us needs to distract them while the others climb,” Hamid said.

Jaina turned to Ant. “You still want to get that achievement, Slugger?”

Ant gulped. Even with his blocky Minecraft avatar, it was easy to see he regretted his earlier boasts.

“I'll stay with you, buddy,” Hamid said. “We can get the achievement together.”

A diamond sword appeared in Ant's hand.

“Let's do this,” he said.

The pair of ghasts drifted closer.

“Here they come,” Hamid said. “Get ready to climb, Jaina.”

Jaina crouched like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun. “Do what you do best, Ant. Get big and blimpy’s attention, and I'll get moving.”

Ant didn't need a second invitation. He jumped to his feet and waved his blue diamond sword.

“Over here, noobs!”

The ghasts screeched and turned to face Ant. Hamid jumped up beside his friend.

“Show us what you got, you big marshmallows!” he shouted.

Flaming orange balls burst from each ghast's mouth, fireballs shooting straight at them.

Hamid readied his sword. “Go, Jaina!”

Jaina raced up the cliff, hopping and climbing her way up toward the cave mouth.

The fireballs raced closer to Hamid and Ant.

“I got the one on the right,” Hamid said. “You get the other one.”

“And who gets that one?” Ant pointed to the far side of the lava lake. A third ghast had rolled into the canyon. Its own fireball was already zooming toward them both.

Hamid cursed his carelessness. They had been so busy bickering that they hadn't noticed the new arrival to the party.

“Time for Plan B!” Hamid dove behind their pathetic netherrack wall.

“There’s a Plan B?” Ant said.

Hamid pulled his friend down beside him. Three fireballs blasted into the wall, sending chunks of rock scattering. The ghasts screeched in frustration and floated back out over the lake of lava.

“They’re coming around for another attack,” Hamid said. He looked up to the cliff. Jaina was only halfway to the cave. “We need to distract them again or they’ll shoot their fireballs at Jaina.”

“This wall won’t survive another blast,” Ant said.

“That’s why we’re abandoning it.”

Just as the ghasts finished their turn, Hamid stood up from behind the low wall. He waved his arms over his head until the red eyes of the ghasts locked onto him. With an ear-piercing screech, each monster sent a ball of flame hurtling toward them.

“Now you’ve done it,” Ant said.

“Run!” Hamid scrambled up the cliff.

The fireball smashed into the wall, wiping it from existence. Exposed and out of ideas, Ant charged up the cliff behind Hamid.

“For the record,” he shouted with each step, “I don’t like Plan B!”

Hamid wasn’t a fan of Plan B either.

It involved too much fire and too many chances of dying. But everything in the Nether involved fire and nearly dying, so Plan B was their only option. Hamid scrambled up the cliff face with Ant a step behind.

The second ghast fireball crashed into the ground beside them. The ground around Hamid burst into flames.
This must be what climbing Mount Everest feels like
, Hamid thought.
That is, if Everest was made of firewood and guarded by fireball-throwing monsters.

Now that they had flushed out their prey, the ghasts were raining fireballs down on them. With each blast, more blocks burst into flames around them. If the fireballs didn't get them, their fires would.

Above them, Jaina made it to the mouth of the cave. Bones jumped to greet her with barks and wet licks.

“Hurry up you two!” she shouted from the cave mouth.

“What a great idea!” Ant called back. “I was planning to have a nap out here.”

“Quit yapping and keep climbing.” Hamid looked up to see a cube of red slime hop onto the block behind Ant. “Watch out!”

Before Ant could jump away, the magma cube jumped again and covered his arm in goo. Ant stumbled back from the deadly slime, frantically wiping the glowing goop off his arm.

“It burns!”

The magma cube slurped closer. The living block of slime was hungry for more. Another splash like that and Ant would be too dead to worry about the ghasts circling for another attack.

Hamid jumped from his rocky perch and swung at the slime with his diamond sword. The blade cut through the cube with a loud squelch. The blow knocked the magma cube down the cliff.

“Nice one. Now there are four of them!” Ant said.

Hamid’s strike had given Ant the time he needed to scramble further up the cliff face, but it also quadrupled the danger.

Below Hamid, four smaller magma cubes slurped up the steep incline of the cliff. Everyone knew hitting a slime only cuts them into smaller, deadlier slimes. He watched the approaching cubes and hoped he hadn’t just made a big mistake.

The deep red bodies of the magma cubes blended in naturally with the red netherrack. Hamid backed away up the steep cliff face, keeping his eyes on the approaching slimes. Something wasn’t right about the creatures. Within their red bodies, a green light pulsed, like a heartbeat. Hamid had never seen anything like that before in the Nether.

In the air, the ghasts shrieked and drifted in closer, ready for another fiery attack. This time there was no netherrack wall to stop the fireballs. Hamid continued climbing up the cliff, desperate to be anywhere but right there.

An arrow thunked into the ground behind him, just missing the slime slurping at his heels.

“Sorry!” Jaina shouted from above him.

Hamid stole a glance to the top of the cliff. Jaina had a bow in her hands, another arrow notched and ready to fly. Ant had found a clear path and now scrambled onto the ledge of the cave mouth at Jaina’s feet. They had grabbed a lot of gear from Slashax's lair before stepping through the Nether Portal. Now, Hamid was glad they had taken the time to come prepared.

Another arrow thudded to the ground right beside Hamid. He just wished Jaina had taken the time to practice her archery skills.

“Shoot the slimes, not me!” he shouted.

The ground two blocks below Hamid exploded from the impact of a ghast fireball. With any luck, it had blasted the magma cubes into a million pieces. Hamid wasn’t wasting a second to look back.

“Almost there, Hamid!” Ant shouted from the safety of the cave mouth.

Hamid threw himself up the final blocks and allowed his friends to drag him into the cave. The three of them collapsed in a heap just as the latest blast of fireballs rocked the cliff face.

“We made it!” Jaina jumped to her feet and ran to the cave mouth. “Let's get ourselves secured in here.”

A netherrack block appeared in her hand. With the swift movements of a Minecraft pro, Jaina blocked the cave mouth with netherrack blocks. In seconds, they were safely cocooned inside the mountain. They were also pitched into complete darkness.

Hamid found a torch in his inventory and stuck it to the nearest wall. The cave lit up with warm, flickering light. Bones curled up on the ground below the torch and watched the walls nervously. Outside, the screeching of the ghasts echoed around them. The dog whined with each screech.

“Easy, boy.” Jaina rubbed the fur behind Bones’ ear. “We should be safe in here for a while. As long as those ghasts can't see us, they can't spit fireballs at us.”

Hamid checked the remaining hearts hovering at the bottom of his vision.

“One more ghast blast and it would have been game over for me.”

“Same here,” Ant said. He winced as he spoke.

“You okay, Ant?” Jaina moved to Ant’s side. “You better sit down. Looks like those ghast fires got you bad.”

Ant waved Jaina away with a blocky arm.

“Ghasts, fire, magma cubes, I can take them all,” he said. The way his head drooped suggested otherwise. Hamid helped Jaina lower Ant to the ground with his back against the wall.

“Get some rest,” Hamid said. “We're safe here. For now.”

Ant slumped against the netherrack wall and closed his eyes. Hamid felt his remaining energy drain away at the sight of his friend resting. Their journey into the Nether had started with such promise. They had spent time packing supplies and preparing for the worst the Nether could throw at them. They had stepped through the Nether Portal totally ready and in high spirits. At first, they tracked Principal Whiner like a pack of bloodhounds. But as the hours stretched into days, their excitement faded. Soon they were wandering around the fiery realm, lost and bickering.

The Nether would do that to you. Located beneath the Overworld, the Nether was a land of fire and not much else. Red, sand-like netherrack covered the ground, blowing on the heat-infused winds and piling into high cliffs and mountains. Rivers of lava carved through the netherrack and poured into massive lakes of molten rock. Fires dotted the landscape, like the aftermath of a massive battle. There was no sky down here. And no sun. The netherrack engulfed the whole land, rising high into the air to form a massive ceiling. It was like being stuck inside a giant cave.

Hamid never liked venturing into the Nether when he played Minecraft. Back in the real world, when things were normal and Minecraft was just a game, he could log out when he’d had enough of the Nether’s burning landscape. Now, he was stuck here, as far away from home as he had ever been. Home was the one place he wanted to be right now, away from the computer, hanging out with his dad. Not even doing anything special, just helping him shovel the driveway or take out the trash. Normal stuff. He’d even settle for doing homework at the kitchen table. Anything was better than being stuck in the Nether.

At least he wasn’t alone. He had his friends. Aside from their usual bickering and the odd screw-up from Ant, they all agreed their only way to escape was to find Principal Whiner and the Seed before he gave it to Herobrine. That wasn’t happening any time soon, while they were trapped in a tiny cave with a squadron of fire-breathing ghasts lurking outside.

“Come back, Hamid,” Jaina said from the far corner of their little cave. “You've got that lost look on your face again.”

Hamid grinned. “You can tell even with me looking like a blockhead?”

“I haven't known you as long as Ant has, but I can tell when your mind is walking over paths better left alone.”

“That's pretty deep,” Hamid said.

Jaina shrugged and pulled a strange gray block out of her inventory. She set it on the ground and studied it.

“Blame my grandma,” she said. “She's always saying heavy stuff like that.”

The block lit up with colored lights on each side. Hamid immediately recognized it as the command block she had salvaged from Slashax’s lair. The skeleton king had stolen the Seed for Herobrine and used the command block to speak with him. Jaina had insisted on bringing it with them into the Nether. What use it would be against the lava and fire of this realm, Hamid had no idea.

“Any luck turning that thing on?” he said.

“Not yet,” Jaina answered after a minute. Her focus was fully on the block. “Give me time to work it out.”

Time. That seemed to be the thing Jaina always wanted. She had taken her time gathering supplies before jumping through the Nether Portal after Principal Whiner. In addition to food, torches and the command block, Jaina had brought along redstone dust and a bunch of levers, buttons and repeaters.

Out of their little Minecraft group, she was the redstone whiz. Ant was the creative builder who could construct amazing structures that boggled the mind. Hamid preferred to work behind the scenes in the game. He ran the server they played on at home and the one they used for their Minecraft club with their teacher, Mr. Rodinaldo.

Ant moaned from where he slumped against the wall. He was definitely asleep and dreaming, but it didn’t sound good.

“Should we wake him?” Hamid said.

Jaina poked her head around the command block.

“Leave him,” she said. “He needs to rest.”

More ghast screeches came from the other side of the cave wall.

“Those ghasts aren’t going anywhere,” Hamid said. “It’s like they know we’re in here, and they’re just waiting for us to stick our heads out that hole.”

Jaina studied the cave mouth she had covered up.

“True,” she said. “We can’t fight them, but maybe we can sneak away.”

“Sneak away? How?”

“There’s a small opening in that far wall.” Jaina poked the command block. The colored lights covering the sides of the block were dull and lifeless. She frowned. “I saw it when I first got in here. Before I saved your butts.”

“You mean before you nearly shot off our butts.”

“Details.” She smiled. “See where it leads. You’re clearly not going to sleep, and you're making me nervous hovering around like that.”

Hamid had to agree. It was a good idea to see where it led. They didn’t want to be surprised by more slimes or zombie pigmen looking for their next meal. He left Jaina to her tinkering and Ant to his troubled sleep.

The tunnel was low, only two blocks high and narrow at only one block wide. It climbed like a set of stairs. Hamid wondered if it was natural, or if it had been carved out by an earlier explorer. Had Whiner come this way? As far as he knew, they were the only people from the real world on the Seed Server. Every other being they had met had been either a non-player character or a monster.