I knew it! I knew it! I knew she likes me! Oh, man, I am definitely coming back to this village as soon as I can! Wow, I don’t know what I expected from this game, but that was not at the top of my list! Wow …
These were the thoughts that filled Stan’s head as he sprinted out of the Adorian Village, tailed by Kat and Charlie, as the rain started to fall. They had not been thrilled when he told them that they had to leave, but they were very excited at the prospect of new weapons.
Kat now ran right behind Stan with a bow slung over her back, a quiver of twelve arrows and a gleaming iron sword dangling at her side. Rex was dashing along at her heels. Charlie was close behind the dog, with an iron pickaxe in his hand, and a whole mess of watermelons in his inventory. He held the group’s food. Stan was in the lead, holding an iron axe in his hand and a crafting table, furnace and some coal in his inventory. They were well trained and on the move. In their minds, any enemies that they encountered out here, in the light rain that had started, were dead meat.
In due time, they stopped to take a breather. While they caught their breath, Charlie said, “Wow, what a day, right?”
“Yeah,” replied Kat. They certainly were in no mood for laughter, but they had recovered from the initial shock of Crazy Steve’s death.
“I still don’t get it, though,” she said. “Why did that guy pick Crazy Steve out as a target? He was a farmer! He helped lower-levels!”
Something connected in Stan’s mind as she said this. Crazy Steve’s last words came back to him. Them in Element City, that run the government, they don’t like people like you. Freshies. Beginners. Noobs.
“You don’t think that the assassin was with the government, do you?” asked Stan.
Charlie and Kat looked at him in shock. “Why would the government send out assassins to kill people that gave food to their lower-level citizens?” Kat asked sceptically.
“That’s just it, though,” said Stan, standing up. “He gave food to lower-level citizens.” He told them about his conversation with Crazy Steve and what the old farmer had said about the government.
This left Kat looking bewildered, while Charlie asked, “Why? How does that make any sense?”
“I don’t know,” Stan replied. “Crazy Steve was just about to tell me when …” He sighed, looked away from the other two, and sighed again. They got the message.
“It’s certainly a weird theory,” said Kat, also standing, “But we’ll think about it later. We need to get going!” She had to yell to be heard over the sound of the rain, which was falling hard now. Stan saw a lightning strike in the distance, which Rex barked at. In the illumination from the lightning, he noticed a tower a way off, right in the middle of the path.
“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing to it.
“What’s what?” yelled Kat.
“That, the tower up there!” he yelled back, and another lightning strike illuminated the sky, letting Kat and Charlie see the tower as well.
“Maybe it’s a shelter! Or another player’s house!” yelled Charlie.
“Maybe! Let’s go there, because we need to get out of this storm! This lightning is getting dangerous!” screamed Kat over the whistling wind and pounding rain.
The thunderstorm was beginning to get dangerous, with the bolts extremely frequent now. Once, lightning struck a tree right next to Kat and it caught fire, causing her to give a screech of surprise. Fortunately it was immediately extinguished by the rain.
As they approached the tower, they noticed that it was actually a pyramid, and that it covered the entire road. Stan was suspicious. Something felt wrong. As he walked closer, his suspicions were confirmed. The entire pyramid was made of stacked blocks of TNT.
“Why would someone put this here?” asked Kat.
“I don’t know, but I don’t feel safe near it,” replied Stan.
“Why?” asked Charlie, walking up to the pyramid. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
As if on cue, the worst thing did happen. Lightning struck the top of the pyramid, and the powder in the block was ignited. It began to flash dangerously.
“RUN!” screamed Stan as the block exploded. As the three players and Rex ran for it, the entire tower exploded from the top down, with each explosion sending lit TNT blocks flying everywhere like lava spewing from a volcano. Luckily, they escaped the range of the explosions with top-speed sprinting. As they gazed at the exploding pyramid it became clear that the explosives were underground, too. They could hear the explosions continue on for about sixty seconds before the tumult finally stopped.
The rain had died down, so they could talk in normal voices again. There was dust in the air now from the explosion, just like the Creeper explosion in the mine on the way to the Adorian Village. But this explosion was much larger, and it had blown a huge fissure in the middle of the road. They were cut off from the other side.
“The woods, then?” Stan said in an unnaturally high voice. They looked at each other. They remembered what Sally had said. The Griefers avoid the main road in case they come across well-armed travellers. Straying off the road would lead them directly into enemy territory.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, we don’t—” started Charlie, but he was cut off by Kat.
“Don’t kid yourself, Charlie. Stan’s right.” They could tell from her trembling lip that Kat was making a determined effort to keep her cool. “Come on,” she said, and she started into the woods, Rex at her heels, growling in a low tone. Charlie made a high-pitched squeal, but he forced himself to follow Stan into the forest.
It was dark. Stan could barely make out the neon orange of Kat’s shirt. Every now and then, there was another flash of lightning, and Stan could make out a Spider web, a tree trunk, a Zombie lumbering in the distance.
Suddenly, there was a rustling to Stan’s right. There was something in the underbrush, and it was running straight towards him. “Run!” he yelled, and he started running, hacking branches out of the way with his axe. Kat and Charlie looked confused for a second, but when they heard the rustling they followed suit.
Stan burst out of the forest and into the light, now on the other side of the giant crater. Kat burst out right after him, closely followed by Rex and Charlie. Stan whipped out his axe and raised it above his head, Kat drew her sword and dropped in a fighting stance, and Charlie held his pickaxe in trembling hands. Then, the thing that had been chasing them burst into the clearing.
“Are you kidding me? You were scared of this little guy?” laughed Kat as she walked up to the pig and stroked it behind the ears, which it seemed to like. Rex came up to the pig and started sniffing it.
“Honestly, Stan, don’t do that!” said Charlie, his eyes wide, holding his chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“I’m sorry, all right?” said Stan, but he was smiling. It was a cute little pig. “Kat, get Rex away from that pig. I could use some meat.” At Kat’s command Rex left the pig alone and sat at her feet. “Bye-bye, little guy,” said Stan, and he raised his axe and brought it down on the pig, just as lightning struck.
His axe was countered by a golden sword.
Kat’s jaw dropped, Charlie gave a yelp, and Stan nearly fell back, eyes wide, as he saw the monster that the pig had transformed into upon being struck by lightning.
It was like a player in form, and it had the general colour of a pig, but the flesh was rotting off all over its body, and part of its skull was showing through the side of its head.