Under the new mandate, a new schedule of Spleef games was carefully set up. There were also variation to the game put in place to make the sport more interesting. All these changes made Stan very excited to see what today’s quarterfinal match would hold. He was even more excited, though, to see how DZ, Kat and Ben, as the three members of the competing Zombies Spleef team, would handle it.
Kat pulled the green leather helmet onto her head and fastened the strap under her chin. She grumbled to herself, not liking this new feature. Although leather armour had become much more lightweight in the last update of Minecraft, it now also required additional straps. Kat personally would have preferred the heavier but simpler leather cap, tunic, trousers, and boots that she was used to.
She was sitting in a cobblestone room with a chest, three chairs, and an iron door on both sides. Two chairs were occupied by Kat’s teammates, DZ and Ben (who, alongside his brothers Bill and Bob, was now a chief of police in Element City). The chest contained their gear, which they were now putting on. While one iron door led to the corridor through which they had entered the room, the other led to the Element City Spleef Arena. On this square field, the three players were expected to battle another team of three for the amusement of six hundred spectators.
“I still can’t believe that Stan makes us wear this stupid armour,” complained DZ in his heavy New York accent as he struggled into his green leather trousers. DZ had played Spleef back before King Kev had banned it, when no armour was required. He was so used to playing without armour that, to this day, he refused to wear it, even in combat.
“Ah, be quiet, DZ,” retorted Ben, who was already suited up and pulling his diamond shovel out of the chest. “He only added it so that we can whack each other with shovels now!”
“Oh, please, don’t you remember the old days? People used to hit each other with shovels all the time! They weren’t supposed to, but the refs didn’t stop it. The crowd liked it, and it was freaking awesome!” DZ replied as he finally managed to tie the straps of the leather trousers.
“As a matter of fact, I never did see any of the old Spleef matches, because my brothers and I—”
“Come on, guys!” exclaimed Kat, standing up. “We’ve got to focus, OK? We almost lost to the Ghasts during that last round!”
“We did not almost lose, I had that match the entire time!” retorted DZ, snatching up his diamond shovel.
“DZ, you taking out one guy while the other guy gets knocked into a pit by a snowball is not ‘having the match’!” said Kat. “I get that you’re probably the best Spleef player in the league, but if the dispensers hadn’t started to fire snowballs, you would have gotten destroyed by those two!”
“How do you know that?” DZ snapped. “As I recall, you and Ben were floating in a lake twenty blocks below the arena when this happened!”
“Ah, lay off her, DZ,” said Ben, reaching into the chest and tossing the last diamond shovel over to Kat. “It doesn’t matter, OK, guys? That was the last match. What matters is that we’re still the best team, and those Blazes aren’t gonna know what hit them!”
“Oh yeah!” cried Kat as she caught the shovel and pumped her fist in the air.
“You’re right, Ben! We’re gonna win ’cause we’re awesome, unstoppable, and, most important, we’ve got me! So let’s go!” cried DZ, just as the mechanical door swung open. DZ rushed out, followed quickly by Ben and Kat. All three of them were hyped up, and the crowd greeted them with raucous applause. Kat’s eyes adjusted to the bright light of the open-skied Spleef arena, and her jaw dropped.
Inside the fifty-by-fifty-block arena, surrounded on all sides by screaming fans, was a bona fide forest. Trees sprouted from the flat dirt ground, which Kat knew to be only a block thick. The trees covered a good portion of the arena. It would lead to various trapping and ambush techniques by the two teams.
Kat was shocked. It was her third official Spleef match, but this was by far the most complex arena she had seen. In their preliminary match, the arena had been the standard level surface constructed of snow blocks. Kat had liked that arena. Breaking the snow blocks had yielded snowballs, which Kat had thrown to great effect, knocking two of her opponents into the pit below.
The object of Spleef was pretty simple. In a fifty-by-fifty-block arena, with the floor only one block thick, two teams fought to knock each other into the pit below by destroying the floor and knocking their opponents into the holes using shovels and snowballs. The last team with a player standing won.
Kat, Ben and DZ, the three members of the Zombie team, had easily managed to take out the Wolves in the qualifying round. However, they had barely notched a victory against the Ghasts on a tundra field in the preliminary round. Now, in their quarterfinal round against the Blazes, they would be fighting in a forest.
Kat heard the tell-tale creak and click of the iron door swinging shut behind her, indicating that the match had officially begun. As was her pre-game strategy, she focused on the environment around her, completely ignoring the open blue skies above and the cheering of the fanatic crowds. She only allowed herself to be aware of the woodland that had been constructed around her and the two players at her side. They were now the only players she could trust until she left the arena.
Suddenly, the sky turned black, and all was silent. She had tapped into some primordial survival instinct, and now imagined herself standing in a silent forest at night. Somewhere in these woods were evil monsters, all working for a team called the Blazes. The only way for her to escape was to take them down with the help of her friends beside her.
Kat realized that DZ was motioning her and Ben forwards. As he was their team leader, Kat followed his order. She trailed DZ into the maze of trees, aware that Ben was watching her back. Kat was confident following DZ into the arena. He was a fantastic leader and had a ton of knowledge about Spleef strategy, built up from playing professionally back before the game was banned. While the other teams used the strategy of spreading out, DZ had explicitly told them that the best strategy was to stick together and watch one another’s backs.
Suddenly, Ben cried out in alarm, and Kat spun her head towards the source. A player, clad in bright orange leather armour, had burst around the side of the nearest tree, bringing his shovel down onto the dirt block beneath Kat’s feet. She leaped backwards as the block broke, revealing a pit of water below. Ben lunged forwards and swung his shovel across the assailant’s chest.
As Kat regained her footing, she became aware of DZ locking shovels with a second member of the Blazes and quickly overpowering him. Kat turned and saw both Ben and the other Blaze fall to the ground at the same time. Kat stepped forwards and drove her shovel into the block beneath the fallen Blaze, sending him tumbling into the pit below. She quickly turned back to DZ and saw that he had caught the other Blaze off guard, opening a hole in the ground behind him and kicking him into it.
Kat was jubilant. They were up three to one, with only one more Blaze standing between them and the semifinals. As the applause died down, Kat followed DZ’s motion for a team huddle.
“All right you guys, good work so far, but I think it’s time to switch our strategy. Execute Operation Zombie Swarm.”
“Right,” replied Kat and Ben in unison, and they spread out around the edge of the arena and eventually lost sight of one another. In Operation Zombie Swarm, they would all hunt the remaining Blaze separately. If they found him, they would play defence and call in their teammates for backup.
Kat quietly snuck forwards through the trees, her ears perked up, tuning out the roar of the