The Complete Elementia Chronicles: Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message

“Let’s look around here. Maybe there’ll be some more!” She was about to take her pickaxe to the adjacent section of the wall when she heard a bloodcurdling cry echoing from the top of the cave.

“Aaaaauuuuughhhh! Stan! Heeelllllpppp!”

“Come on!” Stan shouted to Kat, and the two raced up the mine and into the light.

After Kat and Stan had vanished into the mine, Charlie stood up and walked around, a scowl on his face.

Stupid girl, he thought, looking around and spying a patch of wheat next to a sign that said “Take what you need, but replant.” Why should she get to be in our group? She nearly killed us! What does Stan see in her? It was true, he thought as he harvested the wheat, that the girl did seem to know her way with a sword. Ah, what am I talking about? I don’t know that. I didn’t see her actually fight! For all I know, she’s never killed anything in her life. I’m ditching her first chance I get, the arrogant brat.

And now look what she’s done, he thought as he began to break the leaf blocks on the trees. He had read in Stan’s book that every now and then an apple would drop from a leaf block if you broke it. She’s gone with him into a mine, delaying us from getting to the Adorian Vill— Wait a second, he thought, not noticing the apple dropping from the block he had just broken.

What if it’s a trap? What if she’s just lured Stan down there to kill him, and she’s going to come back and finish me off? I have to go find them! He quickly picked up his sword and was about to dash into the mine to save his friend when something stopped him.

A little way into the darkness of the mine, he saw a figure. It looked like a monster of some sort. He was about to run, but his curiosity got the better of him because it was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen. He edged slightly forwards to get a better look. It was as tall as he was, two blocks high, but it didn’t have any arms, and it stood upright on four stubby legs. He couldn’t see well, but he could have sworn that its body was flecked with different shades of green, with some white in there, too. He edged a little closer. This turned out to be a huge mistake.

The creature suddenly turned towards him. He had gotten too close. It stared at him, and he had never seen such a terrifying face in his life. It looked like a morbid, green-speckled jack-o-lantern. It had empty black eye sockets and a gaping hole of a mouth that was open in a horrible upside-down grin.

He swung with his sword, and the monster was knocked back, but his wooden weapon had reached the end of its life. The spent blade splintered into a thousand pieces, and Charlie threw the useless handle aside as he screamed into the mine for his friends to help him.

This creature was fast but silent as well. The Zombies made moaning sounds, the Spiders made a clicking sound, and you could hear the rattling of a Skeleton’s bones as it moved. But this thing was absolutely silent. As it chased after Charlie, he could barely hear the sound of its footsteps. Also, the Zombies and Skeletons burned up in the sunlight, and the Spiders hadn’t paid him or Stan any attention. But Charlie was running around in the path in direct sunlight and the thing kept following him, not slowing down or taking any damage. Charlie did not want to know what would happen when the thing finally caught up to him.

Kat and Stan burst out of the mine just as Charlie was running back towards it, still being followed by the monster.

“Guys, thank God! I’m so glad that you’re—”

“Get down!” Kat cried.

The monster was upon them, and it was starting to hiss and swell like an overinflated balloon. Kat pushed Stan, who fell backwards into the mine, and she tackled Charlie out of the way just in the nick of time. There was an earsplitting explosion, and a cloud of dust rose over the road. Then, all was quiet.

As the dust cleared, Stan got up and came out of the mine. The monster was gone, and in its place was a huge crater, blown right into the middle of the dirt path. Stan stared at it, and Charlie and Kat got up. Kat turned on Charlie.

“How did you get a Creeper on your tail? I thought you were staying out of the mine!” she yelled at him.

“Wait … that was a Creeper?” asked Stan.

“Yes, that was a Creeper! Why did it start following you?”

“So that’s the thing that everyone talks about?” asked Charlie, wide-eyed with shock and horror. “I’ve seen the posters online … but I always assumed that they, like, broke into your house and stole your stuff or something! They blow up?”

“Yes – now for the last time, Charlie, how did it get on your tail?”

“I went down into the mine.”

“Why?” Kat demanded.

“I … uh …” Charlie thought that it would be a little bit rude to tell Kat that he’d gone in the mine to stop her from betraying him and Stan after she had just saved both of their lives from the Creeper.

“I, uh, wanted to help you guys. I wasn’t finding any food, and I didn’t want to be useless, so I, uh, went in after you guys. Followed the line of torches … Yeah! And, uh, then I saw that thing and tried to fight it off but my sword broke, so I called you guys for help because I knew you had swords that were … uh … un-broken?” he finished lamely. Kat was staring at him with a look of half exasperation and half amusement.

“Uh-huh,” she said in a teasing voice. “Well, we’d better get going. We should really get you an ‘unbroken’ sword, and I don’t know how to make one. So you didn’t find any food at all?

“Well,” replied Charlie, “I found some wheat and a few apples. I don’t know if we can do anything with the wheat, but the apples are edible.”

“Well, that’ll have to do,” replied Kat. “Let’s go.”

As the three players continued on the road to the Adorian Village, Charlie sighed, resigning himself to the fact that now he could never abandon this girl who had saved his life.

They still had plenty of daylight left. The path was going in a straight line, and they were beginning to see hovering chunks of leaves with no trunks on the side of the road. This meant that they were definitely close to civilization.

“Excellent,” commented Stan as they passed a watermelon farm with a sign that was identical to the one at the wheat field. “We can get some food from this field. Just don’t destroy any of the vines.”

Each player picked a watermelon and destroyed it. There were multiple watermelon slices yielded from every destroyed watermelon, and the players ate all the juicy fruit to completely assuage their mounting hunger. Kat, who was particularly hungry, even ate the two raw pork chops that she had in her inventory.

“Hey,” she said through a mouth full of watermelon and uncooked pork chop to the two disgusted-looking boys, “ih mayna be preddy, butet getsa zhob bun.” When their faces changed to confusion, she swallowed and said, “Hey, it may not be pretty, but it gets the job done.”

Charlie rolled his eyes at her. Stan was about to crack a joke when, for the second time that day, a player burst from the woods with a sword in his hands.

This time there was no hesitation. Within seconds all three players were on their feet. Kat held her stone sword in front of her in a guard stance, and standing behind her were Stan, clutching his heavily damaged wooden sword in shaking hands, and Charlie, who had balled up his fists and was getting ready to fight, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet.

This player was dressed like a Secret Service agent. He had on a black tuxedo and black shades covering the eyes on his olive face. He was holding a golden sword in an attack stance, ready to kill the first one to make a move.

Kat spoke first. “What do you want?” she asked.

The player’s eyebrows creased as he pointed his sword at her. “What do I want? Well, there are a lot of things that I want. I want my old life back, for one. Everything was perfect—”

“Yeah, yeah, we couldn’t care less about your ‘oh, woe is me’ story. Get away from us before you do something that you’ll regret. There’s three of us and only one of you, and two of us have swords. I suggest that you just crawl back into those woods you came from.”

The player looked mortally offended. He pointed his sword at Kat.

“I will not have you telling me what to do! You are all noobs, armed with primitive weapons of wood and stone, while I, I am the most honourable Mr A, the most powerful warrior this server has ever known! If you knew only half the reasons that I want new players like yourselves dead—”

“Oh, just shut up!” Stan interjected. “There is no way you’re going to win against us, honourable Mr A! Besides, if you really were honourable, you wouldn’t attack players armed with ‘primitive weapons’ through ambush. That’s just a low thing to do. I don’t care what you were – it’s obvious that you’re nothing special now. Just leave us alone! We haven’t done anything wrong. You’re just being a … a … a Griefer, that’s what you are!” He didn’t know exactly what the term meant, but it had the effect that he’d intended.

Mr A charged the trio. Stan was glad for an excuse to fight. He was getting heated. As Mr A’s sword was about to come down on Stan’s head, Stan raised his own sword in a parry. Both swords broke at once; the wooden blade shattered just as Charlie’s had, and the golden blade bent back in on itself and fell off the hilt. Furious that his sword had broken, Mr A flew at Stan with his fist. Stan raised his arms to guard against the blow when, at the same time, Kat sliced Mr A’s leg on one side and Charlie punched his head on the other. The Griefer went tumbling head over heels and slammed hard onto the ground. He immediately got back up, but he held his torso with his hand, his face in a grimace.

“Fine! You win. But don’t think for a minute that this is over. I will find you again, and when I do, you are worse than dead! Now, good luck getting out of this!” Mr A whipped out a bow and fired an arrow. He wasn’t aiming for the players, but at something in the woods. Stan, Charlie and Kat watched the arrow fly as Mr A sprinted into the woods on the other side of the path.

They heard a pained yelping noise as the arrow connected with its target, and a moment later, a white beast with glowing red eyes jumped out of the woods. It was a wolf, provoked by Mr A’s arrow, that set its sights on the nearest target: Stan.

Stan was unarmed. It was all he could do to try to outrun the wolf, but it was swift as it ran, faster than the Creeper, faster than Stan could sprint. The wolf pounced on him, pinning him to the ground. The beast growled, its evil red eyes glowing, and was about to tear into Stan’s throat when there was a whistling noise from behind it. The animal’s head whipped around.

Kat was standing near Stan and the wolf, holding out the bone that she had just snatched from Charlie’s inventory. The boys watched in awe as the wolf’s eyes stopped glowing red, becoming a sad, black colour. The wolf cocked its head slightly to the left, paused, and walked slowly towards Kat. It came to a stop in front of her, and she gave the wolf the bone.

The wolf wasn’t on the attack any more. It sat down in front of Kat with its tongue out and its tail wagging. Kat grabbed a red collar from her inventory and fastened it around the wolf’s neck. The wolf had been tamed by the bone.

“That’s twice I’ve saved your life now,” Kat said smugly to Stan as she petted her new dog on the head. “I think I’m going to call him Rex.”

“Oh, imagine that, a dog named Rex. How creative,” mumbled Charlie under his breath, but Kat didn’t hear.

“Stan, could you look up dogs in that book of yours? I want to know how to take care of this little guy.”

Stan obliged, mouth still hanging open at the way she had tamed the wolf. He opened his book and flipped through the pages of animals and monsters, but he didn’t find anything about dogs.

“Try wolf,” she suggested.

He looked up wolves, and there was a page on them.

WOLF

A wolf is a neutral mob found in forest regions. It usually travels in packs. A wolf is usually not harmful towards a player, but if attacked a wolf will become hostile and attack with similar speed and jumping ability to that of a Spider. When a wolf is attacked, all other wolves in its pack will also join in attacking the wolf’s attacker. A wolf can be tamed by feeding it bones dropped by Skeletons. A tamed wolf can be made to sit still or to follow the player around. When a player attacks or is attacked by a mob, the player’s wolves will join the player’s attack. A wolf’s health is indicated by the angle of its tail. The lower the tail droops, the lower the animal’s health is. The wolf can be healed by feeding it any kind of meat. It will not contract food poisoning from rotten flesh or raw chicken as a player might.

Kat glanced at Rex’s tail. Though it was still wagging, it was drooping almost to the ground.

“Looks like he took a lot of damage from that arrow, and he must’ve been separated from his pack. Poor little guy,” said Kat with a look of pity on her face. Stan looked at her, baffled, as he rubbed at the scratches Rex’s paws had left on his neck.

“Charlie, let me see that rotten flesh you have.”

Charlie extracted the meat from his inventory. He handed it to Kat, and Rex started eating it out of her hand. Instantly, his tail shot up.

“Well, looks like we’ve got a dog!” she said to Stan and Charlie.

“Wait,” said Stan. “What do you mean, we? I thought you were ditching us as soon as you got that sword of yours.”

“Are you kidding?” she said with a grin. “If it weren’t for me, you would be torn to pieces by Rex here,” she said, gesturing to Stan, “and both of you would be lying in pieces around that mine thanks to that Creeper. Without me, you two would both die, and let’s face it, that would just be a lot of tedious paperwork for the ops of this server. Now come on,” she chirped, blind and deaf to Stan’s and Charlie’s indignant faces and stammers of protest. “Let’s get to that village. I need a sword!”

And they continued down the path, munching on Charlie’s apples, the boys still fuming, the girl still laughing. By the time the sun had started to sink in the sky, two towers came into sight, and the three players heard someone yell.

“New players! New players incoming! Welcome to the Adorian Village, new players!”

CHAPTER 4

THE ADORIAN VILLAGE

The Adorian Village was unlike anything Stan had seen in Minecraft. The only man-made objects that he had seen up to that point were signs, chests and torches. In this village, everything appeared to be made of manufactured blocks.

The buildings were mainly made out of three materials; there were wooden planks stacked on top of each other, glass panes in the windows and stone that wasn’t as natural as the stone in the mine but rather put together in chunks, like a cobblestone street. Torches were everywhere, and the road was paved with gravel.

As the three players entered the village through a tall wooden gate between the two watchtowers, they saw a player walking towards them. He had brown hair, and he was wearing a red jacket over a white shirt with blue jeans. As he met the players, he introduced himself as Jayden10, and told the players to come with him to meet the mayor of the town. He then walked down the gravel street towards a large brick building; Stan, Charlie and Kat followed.

Going down the street, Stan saw players everywhere in the village. One player appeared to be exchanging two apples with another player for a piece of flint and a metal ring. Through a large window, Stan saw a whole group of players sitting around tables that had tools dangling from them. One of these players gave a final strike with a hammer to the object on his table and held it up for examination; it was a shiny metal pickaxe. To the right of the brick building was a large wooden building with a vast expanse of land behind it that held multiple types of animals as well as fields of wheat, pumpkins and watermelons. Stan had never before seen anything in Minecraft like what these players were doing. He was getting excited. The players appeared to be friendly ’t as natural as the stone in the mine but rather put together in chunks, like a cobblestone street. Torches were everywhere, and the road was paved with gravel.

“Here we are,” said Jayden, gesturing to the immense brick building, “Town Hall. Our mayor, Adoria, lives here. She is the founder of this village, and one of the highest-level people here. Come inside. She likes to meet all new arrivals.” And he walked inside.

The three players exchanged quick glances with one another and then went in after Jayden, leaving Rex sitting outside.

Stan was impressed. The corridor that they were in had a red carpet, and it was lined with electric lamp blocks that surely would have been on if the sun hadn’t been streaming in through a magnificent glass roof. The parts of the wall not covered by lamps had different paintings. A small one had a sunrise on it, a wide one – Charlie jumped when he saw it – had a Creeper’s face, and one painting depicting a game of Donkey Kong took up a whole wall. All of these paintings were heavily pixilated.

Jayden pushed a button at the end of the hall, and an iron door swung open. Inside, Stan could see a player, a girl judging by the plait of her black hair, sitting at a desk, writing in a book. She looked up at the sound of the opening door.

“Hello, Jayden. These are the new players, I assume?” Her voice was kind – it reminded Stan of his mother.

“Yes, Adoria, ma’am,” Jayden replied respectfully.

Adoria stood up. Stan saw that she was wearing a pink blouse and a red skirt.

“Well, then, welcome to the Adorian Village, new players. I am Adoria1, founder and mayor of this community. But please, call me Adoria. What are your names?”

Stan spoke up. “My name is Stan2012, but you can just call me Stan. This is KingCharles_XIV, or Charlie.” At this Charlie gave a polite nod, and Stan continued, “And this is KitKat783, or Kat.”

Kat said, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“Pleased to meet you too, players. Tell me, have you ever played Minecraft before?” inquired Adoria.

Stan and Charlie shook their heads, while Kat said, “I have, but on a different server, and I wasn’t there for long. I’m not much more experienced at this game than these two.” Stan and Charlie shot her incredulous looks but they backed down as they caught her eye.

Adoria nodded her head. “I understand. In that case, we in this village will be more than glad to help you learn how to play this game. We have a programme here that teaches you everything that you need to know about Minecraft in five days. Do you think you would be interested in that? The deal includes food and a temporary place to stay.”

Stan said, “It sounds good to me.”

“I’m game,” said Kat excitedly.

“Count the three of us in, then,” said Charlie. “But what kinds of things are you going to be showing us?”

“We have a group of people in this village dedicated to training new players. Each has different strengths that they will pass on to you. They will show you how to fight, craft, create and other such things.”

“So, it’s your job to train new players to prepare them for the server?” asked Kat.

“That’s right,” replied Jayden. “Almost every new player on this server came through our programme first, including most of the population of Element City.”

“What’s Element City?” asked Stan.

“The server’s capital,” said Adoria. “Element City is where most people go after they go through our programme. It’s situated on a huge open plain, surrounded by forest on all sides, and it has the greatest population of any settlement on this server. That’s where people build their houses and a bunch of crazy contraptions and structures and all that. At the centre of the city is Element Castle, where the King of this server presides over a council that makes the laws of the land.”

“Sounds like an interesting place. Do you think we should go there after we finish your programme?” asked Charlie.

“Um … yes, I don’t see why not,” replied Adoria. But her hesitation was not lost on Stan, and she didn’t meet Charlie’s eyes when she said this. Stan wondered what was wrong with Element City.

“So, is there a place for us to sleep?” asked Charlie, yawning. “I’m bushed; we haven’t slept yet, and we’ve been on the server for almost two days now!”

“Oh, by all means, go ahead!” said Adoria with a warm smile. “You’ll find some things for you in your rooms at the motel. Jayden, show these players to their rooms, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jayden. “Follow me,” and he left the room. Stan, Charlie and Kat followed him out of the hall, picking Rex up where he’d waited by the door.

“So,” said Jayden as they left the building, “what kind of materials do you guys have so far?”

“Not much,” replied Charlie, looking in his inventory as he walked. “Just … a stack of dirt, five arrows, some string and some wood. You guys got anything else?” he asked as he looked to Kat and Stan.

“I’ve got a stone sword and pickaxe, some cobblestone and a few torches,” replied Kat. “Stan?”

“Oh, I’ve just got some coal, the pickaxe you gave me, and the book.”

“Come on, you guys! To survive in this game you’re gonna need better stuff than that!” Stan could tell that Jayden wasn’t being condescending – he was just ribbing them. Stan laughed with Jayden.

“I guess Stan and I owe you a thank you,” said Charlie. “Without those swords and the bread and the book, we definitely wouldn’t have even come close to making it here. We wouldn’t even have survived the first night with those Spiders!”

“Yeah … thanks a million,” agreed Stan, shuddering as he remembered fighting off the Spiders.

“Ah, don’t mention it,” replied Jayden with a shrug. “Besides, it wasn’t me who put those out there – it was my friend Sally. She’s the one who goes out there and replenishes the stock at the spawn point every week. Speaking of which, why did it take you guys two days to get here, anyway? It’s only a day’s journey.”

So Stan and Charlie told Jayden about the time that they had had getting to the village, about getting lost, and the Spiders, and running into Kat (who added to the story from that point on), and the mine, and the Creeper, and Mr A. Jayden seemed taken aback by the story of Mr A.

“You guys ran into a Griefer?” he asked sceptically. “But none of you are even level four yet! The best weapon you have is a moderately used stone sword! Why would anyone want to attack you?”

“Well, he was about to tell us in a melodramatic monologue, but I believe that that was the point when Kat told him, and I quote, ‘we couldn’t care less about your “oh, woe is me” story,’” replied Charlie, grinning at her.

“I regret nothing,” smirked Kat. “So, Jayden, what do you do around here? It must get pretty boring.”

Jayden shook his head. “No, not really. It’s fun to teach the new guys, like you. At the school, I teach axe fighting, and I help my brother on his farm. Plus, Adoria sends me on missions. I actually just got back from one a little while before you guys got here,” he added as the four finally arrived at the motel, a sprawling four-storey complex made of mainly wood planks. Stan saw a hole in the side of the building that was closest to him, next to several chests and a sign that said Construction in Progress.

“Well, here we are, home sweet home,” announced Jayden, gesturing to the building. “You guys are lucky. You’ll be bunking with me and my friends tonight. You’d ordinarily get your own rooms, but we’ve been so swamped with new players lately that there isn’t any room left for you in the main wing, and the expansion isn’t done yet. So, come with me.” He started to climb a ladder up to the roof.

“Wait!” cried Kat. “What about Rex?”

Jayden paused. “What? Oh, your dog. Just leave him there, but don’t tell him to sit. I think he’ll find his way up on his own.” He continued to climb.