He laid them on the ground: his own damaged wooden sword, a piece of bread, a pile of dirt, a piece of rotten flesh, a bone, five arrows, some wood and a whole mess of Spider string. The girl looked at them with a distasteful eye.
“I should have known. You two don’t have anything good, do you.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I don’t know. I have … this!” And Stan, who had remained perfectly still up until this time, suddenly whipped out his wooden sword. Taking advantage of the girl’s diverted focus, he cut her across the chest, knocking her backwards. She fell to the ground and cringed; the cut had not actually hurt, but the leather armour on her chest had fallen off, revealing an orange T-shirt with a heart in the middle that was the same neon-pink as her shorts.
Stan stood over her, his wooden sword now pointed at her, and Charlie quickly joined him, his quivering hand pointing his sword at her also. Stan, sounding much braver than he felt, said, “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. There’s two of us and only one of you.”
She pulled herself up and, to Stan’s surprise, looked almost bored as she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna try. There’s no point. Killing you two, which I could easily do, would accomplish nothing. You’re just a couple of noobs. Let me know if you decide to attack me or let me go or whatever. I’ll just sit here.” And with that, she sat on a nearby tree stump, put her hands behind her head, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes as if she were lounging on a beach chair by the sea rather than being held at sword point. Stan felt himself flush.
“How do you know that we’re new at this?” asked Charlie defiantly, his hand still shaking as he pointed his sword towards her heart.
“Yeah, what if we’re, like, complete masters at this game who are just carrying around bad stuff to fool people like you?” spat Stan bitterly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Stan.
“Well, one, you’re on the road to the Adorian Village, which is for players under level five. And two, any smart player would carry around any weapons he had for self-defence, now that the King passed that new law.” She closed her eyes again.
“What new law?” wondered Charlie.
She opened her eyes again. “And three, only noobs don’t know about the law that bans you from this server after you die once, instead of just losing all your stuff and going back to the spawn point like you usually do in Minecraft.” She closed her eyes again.
“Hang on a second,” said Stan. “If you aren’t new, then why are you carrying around a stone sword? If I had to guess, I’d say stone is pretty common around here.”
She opened her eyes and a bitter look came over her face. “Oh, that. It’s, like, the stupidest thing ever. I was on this server called Johnstantinople once – run by a guy named John, go figure – and I was doing really well. I found an abandoned NPC village with an iron sword and a bunch of apples in the forge chest, and I was going around killing monsters, when this Griefer came up from behind me and killed me! I went back to the spawn point, I killed a bunch of Creepers, and I got sand and crafted a ton of TNT, and I traded a golden apple for some fire charges that this guy got from the Nether, and I griefed the house of the guy who killed me by blowing up his house! Unfortunately, turns out that that guy was John, who ran the server, and he banned me.
“It is so unfair! So now I had to join this stupid server, and there’s no NPC villages anywhere, so I had to kill this sleeping guy, take this lame stone sword, and … you’re not following anything I’m saying, are you.”
Again, it was a statement, not a question, and again it was true. The boys stood there with a look of bewilderment on their faces; they had not followed any of her rant from the mention of PCD towns or whatever she said. They were utterly confused, so the girl just got up and walked away.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” yelled Charlie.
“I’m going to find some people with stuff that I actually want,” she replied, heading for the woods.
“Wait up!” Stan yelled, walking after her. “Why don’t you come with us?”
She whipped back around to face him. “WHAT?” she and Charlie yelled at the same time.
“You can’t be serious, Stan. She just tried to kill us!”
“You expect me to come with you noobs?”
“She’ll turn on us as soon as we fall asleep!”
“If you think I’ll protect you, then you’ve got another think coming!”
“SHUT UP!” yelled Stan, so loudly that both Charlie and the girl did.
Turning to the girl, Stan said, “Look, if you attack people who have better weapons than you, then you’re going to get slaughtered. Come with us to the Adorian Village. They’ll help you get a new iron sword, and then we can go our separate ways.”
The girl thought about it while Charlie stammered weak protests, which Stan ignored.
“Fine,” said the girl. “I’ll come with you, but just until we get to the Adorian Village. After that, I’m going to leave you two to fend for yourselves.”
“Good,” said Stan. Charlie looked at him incredulously, but he could see that Stan had made up his mind, and he doubted that he could change it.
“Come on,” said Stan. “The path leads this way.” He started walking down the path and the others followed.
“By the way, my name’s KitKat783,” said the girl. “But you can call me Kat.”
“My name’s Stan, and this is Charlie,” said Stan, gesturing to Charlie, who feebly raised a blocky hand. With no further words, Stan walked off, followed by the smirking Kat and the scowling Charlie.
They walked along the path in silence. Stan was followed by Kat, with Charlie taking up the rear. “I don’t trust her behind my back,” he’d whispered to Stan. They kept walking until about noon, when Stan spotted something on the side of the road. He pointed it out to the others. It appeared to be a large hole in the ground, lined by stone, with darkness inside that extended deep underground. He noticed black specs on a few of the stones that he could see.
“That’s a mine!” cried Kat excitedly. “There are minerals inside it if you mine them out! Let’s go in there!”
“Are you crazy?” snapped Charlie, still upset that Kat had come with them. “It’s all dark in there. There’s bound to be monsters.”
“Eh, don’t be a baby,” smirked Kat. “See that black stuff?” She gestured to one of the stones flecked with black. “That’s coal ore. We can make torches out of the coal to see in the dark and ward off the monsters at night. Besides, even if there are monsters in there, we can fight them off. We’ve all got swords. We’re all big boys here, except for me, and ironically, I’m probably the least scared to go in there.”
Nobody argued with her. Stan was a little unnerved at the prospect of heading into a dark mine after the episode with the Spiders. He did need to make a new weapon soon, though, and it would be nice to have a sword made out of stone rather than wood, though he had no idea how to make one. He also wondered what other kinds of minerals were in there. His desires and curiosity overpowered his fear, and he said, “All right, Kat. I’ll go into the mine.”
“I don’t care what either of you say, I’m not going in there,” Charlie retorted. “I remember the Spiders. I’m going to stay right here, thank you very much.” And with that he walked to the middle of the path, plopped down a piece of wood from his inventory, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Stan and Kat defiantly.
“Fine,” said Stan. “You stay out here. See if you can find any more food; we’re almost out. Kat and I will grab some coal and stone and stuff.” And with that, Stan turned and walked towards the mine.
“Hold