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!”
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 – they waved to Stan and one of them even yelled “Nice dog!” to Kat.
“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