“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, we can fix it,” she said. “And, may I say, that was an excellent move, Stan. If Charlie were in any condition to fight right now, he would have lost the match due to taking damage from both you and Kat. And Kat! To produce a strike with a stone sword that does that much damage to someone wearing a diamond helmet! Very impressive, both of you!”
Stan tried not to look too proud of himself, seeing as he had just injured his best friend. Kat, meanwhile, was trying to hide the fact that she was blushing.
“Well, Charlie, you’d better not fight any more seeing as you don’t have a helmet, but we still have to finish this fight. Kat, where’s your sword?”
“Over there,” she said sheepishly, gesturing to a handle and several chunks of stone. The impact with Charlie’s helmet had reduced her weapon to rubble.
“Girl, you are good at this!” Sally laughed as she picked up the remains of Kat’s sword from the floor. “It must have taken a ton of power to shatter a stone sword in one blow. Here,” she said, picking up Charlie’s sword off the ground and tossing it to her. “Match point! Ready? And … FIGHT!”
This time there was no contest. Kat was simply more talented with a sword than Stan was, and she delivered a blow to his leg and won the match in a matter of seconds.
“Point to Kat! Stan, zero … Kat, three. Kat wins!” she boomed. “Now, come on, I still have crafting to show you guys.”
The three friends stripped off the training suits with pleasure – they were really quite uncomfortable after a while. They followed Sally down the ladder and into the crafting room below them.
Sally explained that the tables with tools on them were called “crafting tables,” and that they used these to create a wide variety of different items. Sally handed them each a copy of a book exactly like the one Stan had gotten out of the chest that first day in Elementia.
Sally gave Stan, Kat and Charlie instructions to craft certain items, and she said to use anything in the chests to do so. They all proved to be quite capable of crafting. They crafted their own wooden planks and then crafting tables, and then some sticks, a stone sword, a stone axe, a bow, some arrows and leather armour.
After they had learned how to craft sufficiently, and Sally had explained how to smelt (changing the properties of certain blocks by putting them in a furnace), they headed back to the room, with a long, hard, successful day behind them. Sally once again came to talk to Stan. He was waiting – it was becoming a thing that they did. She sat down.
“You’re really good with a sword,” she said.
“No I’m not! Kat was better!” he said, wondering why she would say this.
“Yes, she is better with a sword than you are. But you were innovative. Once you realized what you were doing, you managed to score two points with two people going against you. That’s not something just anybody could do.”
“Thanks,” he said, smiling at her. “I had a good teacher.”
She smiled back at him. “You’d better get to bed, noob. Tomorrow’s your day with Jayden, and you can’t expect him to be as nice as me. Get some rest. You’ll need it.” And with that she went to her own bed.
Stan woke up the next morning to a hissing sound.
“Very funny, guys,” he mumbled. “That actually sounds a lot like a real Creep—aaauuuggghhh!”
This time, it was no prank. An actual Creeper was standing right next to Stan, and he was staring right into its horrible, empty face. The monster was beginning to swell, and in the split second before the inevitable explosion, Stan flew at the monster and punched it in the face.
To Stan’s amazement, instead of exploding, the Creeper flew backwards. As it walked back towards him, it suddenly keeled over sideways, an arrow protruding from the side of its head. Everyone woke up to the sound of Stan’s yell, and Rex started barking. Archie still stood with his bow in hand, aiming exactly where the monster’s head had been. The body disappeared, leaving a small mess of grey powder beneath it.
“What’s going on?” yelled Kat, holding her sword up.
“Yeah, what’s with all the noise?” whined G. “I’m trying to sleep here!”
“A Creeper got in,” said Stan.
“What?” said Sally, looking dishevelled, not at all like her usual self. “How did a Creeper get in … hang on. Why is it so dark in here? Where are the torches?”
She was right. The windows around the edges of the building provided the only source of light. Besides that it was dark.
“Yeah, where are the torches?” asked Jayden, who was still breathing heavily. “Did someone steal them?”
“I guess so,” said Charlie, looking around. “But why? Why would somebody break in here just to steal the torches? And the door?” he added, for he had just noticed that the door, too, was missing.
“It was probably just some random Griefer. You know, a player that likes giving other players crap for no reason,” said Archie, putting his bow back into his inventory. “Felt like having a laugh by making it so that monsters could just come in here in the night.”
“Yeah,” said Stan as he remembered how Mr A had attacked them for no apparent reason. “Yeah, a Griefer would do something like that.”
“Well, it’s good that thing woke us up, actually. I was about to oversleep,” said Jayden. “It’s my turn to make breakfast, so I’ll go get some stuff for that. Sally, you go down to the storehouse and craft us a new door and some torches.” Sally nodded and ran out of the hole where the door used to be, followed closely by Jayden.
Sally came back shortly, and she put new torches on the walls and fixed the new door in the frame. Jayden arrived not long after, holding some wheat and a brown powder. He put it on the crafting table, and before long he had created a batch of cookies. Everyone had some – they were chocolate chip, and they tasted delicious.
“OK,” said Jayden after they had all finished and Kat had calmed the still-barking Rex by feeding him some rotten flesh. “Come with me, you three. We have axe training and farming today.”
Kat and Charlie filed out of the room with Stan in the rear, feeling sure that he would not be very good at axe fighting. Frankly, he had always been slightly awkward, and he did not imagine that swinging a long stick with a hunk of metal on the end would be his forte. As he realized this, Stan felt suddenly sullen. Charlie had proven to be exceptional with a pickaxe, and the same with Kat and her sword. If he couldn’t master axe fighting, what would he have to fight with? But as Stan left the room, he could have sworn he heard Sally whisper, “Good luck, noob,” in his ear and instantly, he felt more confident.
They followed Jayden down the road and were surprised when they entered Crazy Steve’s farm.
“What are we doing here?” asked Stan.
“Well, what better place to learn about axe use than at a farm?” asked Jayden. “As part of the programme, you’ll be doing some volunteer work here, helping my brother with the farming.”
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