The Complete Elementia Chronicles: Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message. Sean Wolfe Fay

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       CHAPTER 6

       STAN AND STEVE

      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.”

      This made sense, and the four players walked into an empty yard enclosed by fences. In the adjacent pumpkin field, Crazy Steve was tilling some new land with his hoe. Stan was relieved to see, judging by Steve’s calm and methodic demeanor, that he was not QPOed.

      “Hey, bro,” the farmer said, and he tipped his straw hat as the teacher and three students entered through the gate. “Ya three gonna help an old farmer with his work today? Dose Mooshrooms are giving me quite a hard time, and I could use da extra hands.”

      “You’ll get your help, Steve,” replied Jayden. “We have axe fighting to do first.”

      Stan’s stomach did another flip as he thought of the pressure surrounding his mastery of the axe, which Jayden pulled out of a chest in the enclosure.

      “The key,” said Jayden, holding up the axe and demonstrating proper form, “is to let the axe guide you. It knows what to do. You are not the master of the axe. You are simply its modest guide.”

      “Oh, brother,” grumbled Kat under her breath. Jayden proceeded to explain the basic mechanics of axe fighting, which Stan understood surprisingly well.

      “To help you appreciate the art, each of you must pass a challenge.” He called out, “Yo, Steve! Toss me four pumpkins, stat!”

      Crazy Steve may have been old, but he was strong. He picked up four pumpkins growing in the field and tossed them all to Jayden in two throws. Jayden put three of the pumpkins in the chest and then pulled out something Stan had never seen before. It appeared to be a large block made out of snow. Jayden took out another. He put one snow block down towards the back of the empty lot, and put the other on top of it. He turned to Stan, Charlie and Kat.

      “Your goal in this exercise is to get across this red line.” He gestured to line of red dust behind the pile of snow that Stan hadn’t noticed before. “You also must kill the enemy that I am about to create.”

      The three new players all started talking at once.

      “What do you mean, create?”

      “Why isn’t the snow melting?”

      “Are you going to make a Creeper or something?”

      “How does that work?”

      “Why isn’t the snow melting?”

      “How are we supposed to survive without armour?”

      “This honestly can’t be safe!”

      “Why isn’t the snow melting?!”

      Jayden waited for the questions to die down before he continued. “I’ll demonstrate, and all your questions will be answered. Charlie, could you come here, please?”

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