The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 16

  Tank takes another bite out of the one he’s already unwrapped. “It’s still good.”

  “You’re gonna get sick!” Jake flips the box over. “The expiration date on these was—oh. I guess they’re still good…When did these get here?”

  “There’s so many preservatives in these, they’re fine. I mean, it probably doesn’t taste good. Only one way to test, though.” Emily holds her hands open.

  Tank reaches into the box in Jake’s still-shocked hands and tosses one at Emily.

  She bites into the cake and shrugs. “Not the best. Bet it would be great deep-fried. You wanna try?”

  Jake shakes his head.

  “Oh, come on.” Emily grins at him. “You scared?”

  “No way!” Jake takes a Twinkie out of the box and unwraps it. It looks like a normal Twinkie, unnaturally yellow, and bits of cream on the wrapper. He takes a tentative bite.

  “Tastes like a Twinkie,” he admits.

  Tank brings the box with them back to the computer lab, where they get to work mining and gathering what they need for the Potions of Water Breathing. “I think we’re all set,” Tank says. “Got the sand, made the glass, plenty of glass bottles. You know what would be pretty? A greenhouse. I’ve made one before—I mean, you can’t really grow crops in it, but they’re real pretty with the glass walls.”

  “Sounds nice, Tank,” Emily says. “So we have everything we need for the potions?”

  “Nether wart,” Jake says.

  The three of them exchange nervous looks.

  Emily is the first one to say it, her mouth hardened into a tough line. “We need to go to the Nether.”

  Jake’s phone beeps.

  Dad 5:32 P.M.

  Still at community service? Made pesto linguini and chicken!

  “I have to go,” Jake says. “But yeah. Let’s plan for the Nether tomorrow.”

  “Same time?” Emily powers down her computer and grins at him.

  “Absolutely,” Jake says.

  Tank offers his hand to Jake for a fist bump, and he taps it with his own before pulling it back and miming an explosion. Tank mimics the gesture, shaking his head, but his eyes twinkle with amusement.

  Tank offers his fist to Emily, which she gently taps while rolling her eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow. First thing: Nether. Be prepared.”

  “Tomorrow,” Jake says, like a promise.

  Tank clasps him on the shoulder before he leaves, and it dawns on Jake how strange this should be, playing videogames with the last two people he ever would have thought he’d have anything in common with. And yet it feels natural and right. Something warm blossoms inside him, deep in his gut, and the feeling is new and strange.

  It feels like friendship.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TANK

  Tank doesn’t want to admit he’s nervous about going to the Nether, so he suggests working in the second storage room first. This room is filled with books and art supplies that they box carefully.

  Emily blows the dust off a book decorated with cartoon mermaids.

  “What’s that?” Jake asks.

  “Someone’s old sketch pad. Or journal?” Emily gingerly turns the page, showing it to Tank. Crayon illustrations of mermaids holding tridents, and fish and dolphins swimming in the ocean fill the pages, each of them lettered carefully in childish handwriting.

  “There once was a mermaid princess named Bella,” Emily reads from the first page. “Kingdom of Kelp, that’s original.”

  Tank chuckles as he points to the name scrawled on the inside of the front cover.

  “Bella, age seven,” Tank reads. The large letters and awkwardly formed E’s and L’s make him think of Viv’s early drawings and things.

  He feels a little guilty; he hasn’t told her he’s been playing Minecraft with Jake and Emily. Part of him wants to have something that’s just his, but he knows—he knows Viv would love the mystery of the world. She’d probably be great at all the puzzles.

  He flips the page. A group of mermaids drawn in crayon swim in front of a clumsily decorated underwater village. Scales meticulously drawn one by one decorate each mermaid’s tail. On the next page, a massive sea monster with monstrous teeth crashes into a fortified wall as terrified mermaids swim away.

  The whole morning has been spent deciding what to clean and keep, and what should be trashed, but no one asks the question “Trash or keep?” about this.

  Tank stares at the hand-drawn book one more time before saying softly, “We can put it in the box with the photos and stuff.”

  Jake nods. “Good idea. Eventually Mrs. J will want this stuff.”

  Emily gingerly places Bella’s storybook inside the box with the mementos, and Tank shuts the box.

  * * *

  —

  Tank hangs back, watching Jake and Emily methodically sort through their inventory. There’s no more putting it off, it’s time to go.

  “Are you sure we need to go to the Nether?” Tank asks. He’s seen Viv with her friends—he’s never gone himself, and Viv’s never asked him to. She knows the music alone is enough to creep him out.

  Tank doesn’t like to admit to many things, but everything about the Nether—how you can die at any minute, whether from lava or the terrifying mobs of monsters and those things that shoot fire, and how it’s an endless expanse of fire and that deep, dark red of his nightmares—terrifies him.

  “Yeah. We need nether wart to brew the potions,” Jake says.

  “Torches, we’ll need a ton of torches,” Emily’s muttering to herself. “How are our weapons? I’m going to go enchant more—which armor set are you bringing?”

  “Diamond. I don’t have enough for—do we have more diamonds?”

  Jake and Emily are working away. Emily’s already disappeared into the house, humming to herself, “Gonna go to the Ne-ther…”

  Jake looks up from the crafting table. “Tank, do you want some more armor?”

  “Do we have to go?” His voice sounds small and scared. Weak. Tank regrets saying it immediately because he’s not, he’s strong and tough and—

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  “I’ve just never gone to the Nether before.”

  “Yeah, it’s scary. We’re probably going to die. But in order to find the treasure, we gotta do it. The first time I went, I had no idea what I was doing and died immediately, but I’ve learned a lot. Emily’s a super strong fighter, and we’re gonna stick together.”

  Jake’s words are so sure that Tank finds himself nodding. He’s not ready, but he picks up the diamond armor Jake crafts for him and puts it on. His enchanted pickaxe glimmers in his hand, and he follows Jake inside the house where Emily’s pacing back and forth in the library in front of the enchanting table.

  “What are you doing?” Jake asks.

  “C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t have a ritual,” Emily retorts.

  “It’s random!”

  “Don’t question my process!” Emily groans. “Now I gotta start over. One, two, three—and enchant!”

  Emily whoops. “Yes, Looting III and Breaking III!” She turns to Tank. “You got a bow?”

  Tank hands over his bow.

  “We gotta go, Em,” Jake says.

  “Lemme make sure Tank’s got all the best equipment first,” Emily says, continuing her pacing as she enchants the bow. “All right, now we’re ready. Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  —

  The portal is in one of Emily’s mining shafts, and they get lost a few times but eventually find the level where she keeps it.

  It looks just like an arch, albeit made of obsidian, but Tank swears he can feel the evil energy emanating from the blocks even though it’s just a structure. He hangs back, watching Jake activate it with flint and steel. The purple portal blooms with
in the obsidian frame, churning with a dizzying speed.

  Emily stands next to him. “You got this,” she says. “We can do it.”

  “If any of us die—you have to get our stuff and get home,” Jake says.

  “Me?” Tank takes another look at his inventory. Even with the last-minute equipment and the new enchantments, he doesn’t feel ready.

  “Well, any of us, but I think you’re most likely to survive.” Jake stands in front of the portal and turns back to regard Tank. “You ready?”

  Tank bites back the comment about how both Emily and Jake are way stronger than he is, a pleased comfort settling in over his shoulders. It’s steadying, his friends’ confidence in him. It feels good, in an entirely new way. Shark and the guys have always been second-guessing him or offering ideas on what kind of shoes he needs, how his hair should be, what kind of jackets he needs to wear.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Tank says, surprising himself with his own boldness.

  “YEAAAARGH!!!” Emily roars, charging into the portal. She disappears into the purple swirling void.

  Jake pauses, like he’s waiting for Tank to step through.

  Tank takes a deep breath and approaches the portal. For a second, nothing happens, but then the whole world seems to spin, clouds of purple swirling forth.

  Everything goes dark.

  The world is red and fire. Lava streams down from tall, dark cliffs, the monoliths casting shadow over everything. Emily is already running ahead, disappearing over the dark horizon.

  “Wait up!” Jake calls as he exits the portal. “We gotta stick together.”

  “We gotta find these warts is what we gotta do,” Emily retorts. “Let’s go!”

  Tank wields his sword at the ready, nervous. “We’re surrounded!” He yelps as he notices strange creatures advancing on them. He’s never seen these mobs up close before—they’re pig-headed people, covered in moss and heavily armed, and they’re everywhere.

  “No, no, don’t attack!” Jake calls out suddenly. “The zombified piglin will leave us alone, but if you attack one then they’re all going to go after us and we’re goners.”

  Tank shudders but follows Jake’s lead as they carefully pick their way through the lava and ruin to catch up to Emily.

  She’s hacking away at the ground. “Nether quartz. Get some if you see it, but let’s keep moving. Maybe we’ll find a fortress.”

  Tank can barely handle a stronghold in the Overworld. He takes a deep breath to calm his nerves. Time seems to pass by slower than normal, and the foreboding music rising all around them doesn’t help, either.

  They wander for what seems like forever, but according to the computer’s clock, it has only been ten minutes. There’s endless mottled dark red rock, some mushrooms that Tank starts to gather until Emily informs him that they should keep their inventory for essentials only, and they can find red and brown mushrooms anywhere.

  “Up there! Do you see it?”

  Tank can’t see anything. He tucks mushrooms into his inventory. Just in case.

  “It does look like some sort of building with columns,” Emily says, bouncing up and down.

  Tank follows her gaze to the top of a tall, skinny rock outcrop. “How do we get up there?”

  “Carefully,” Jake says. “One fall and that’s it.” He picks at the outcrop, hacking stairs into the blocks, and slowly makes his way up. Tank follows with trepidation up the switchback stairs in the narrow one-block-wide hallway that appears, hanging back so Jake has enough room to keep working.

  RoxXStarRedStone has made the achievement [A Terrible Fortress].

  MCExplorerJake has made the achievement [A Terrible Fortress].

  They must have made it inside already. Tank’s still a few switchbacks behind, so he hurries ahead, trying to catch up.

  “Okay, it looks like this bridge here leads inside—”

  “AAAGH!”

  Tank turns the corner and takes the last step up just in time to see a bright red-hot fireball careening right at his face.

  TankFarms has made the achievement [A Terrible Fortress].

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EMILY

  Emily backs up, switching from her sword to her bow so she can put some distance between her and the blazes. There are three of them, clouds of smoke swirling around their fiery bodies. Should have packed snowballs, she thinks. Should have prepared better.

  A blaze hurls a fireball directly at the staircase.

  No.

  No, not her friends!

  Friends? A small voice inside her questions. When did she start thinking of them as friends?

  “TANK!” Emily shouts. She shoots an arrow right at the blaze, ignoring the damage she’s taking from another one to her left. “Go back down!”

  Tank ducks just in time, disappearing back down the stairs until she can just see his head poking out. “What’s going on?”

  The bridge is too narrow and they can’t afford to die, not here, not yet. Not until they’ve found what they need and one of them can make it back.

  “Blazes!” Jake says, plunging his sword into the last fiery blaze. “That was close. Did we get them all?”

  Emily sinks another arrow satisfactorily into the last blaze, and picks up the rod it drops. “Yeah. Come on, Tank.”

  She quickly eats a couple steaks; Jake next to her is doing the same with a noisy cronch cronch cronch.

  “Are you all right?” Tank offers her a stack of bread.

  “Yeah. There’re going to be more. Are you ready?” Emily looks at Tank and Jake, who follow closely behind her, their weapons glimmering in the scant light from the lava below them.

  “Let’s stick together,” Jake says.

  “Thanks for handling that,” Tank offers, his voice sounding small.

  “Anytime,” Emily says.

  She leads the way into the fortress. There are more blazes inside, but the trio makes quick work of them, alternating between Jake’s melee attacks and Tank’s and Emily’s arrows. They’re a well-oiled machine.

  “On your right!”

  “I need more arrows!”

  “I’ll craft them. Cover me!” Tank scoots backward and sets a crafting table down.

  Emily pulls her sword out and charges at the blaze.

  “Emily!” Jake calls out.

  “They have a cooldown period—wait until they shoot three fireballs and then go!” The blazes look really funny when they’re not on fire, a sickly green swirl of arms that disappear into a puff of smoke. She exhales with relief when the cavernous hallway is empty once again.

  “More blaze rods, yes!” Jake hands her a few. “Are you holding them? How’s your inventory?”

  “I’m okay, still got space,” Emily says.

  “Can we build things with these blocks?” Tank asks curiously.

  “Yeah, but let’s keep moving. We’re here for the wart. Don’t get sidetracked. Tank, what are you—why are you still picking mushrooms?” Emily shakes her head as she sees Tank lingering behind them.

  Tank shrugs. “Habit, I guess. I dunno. We can eat them if we run out of food.”

  “Yeah, I guess stew is helpful,” Emily admits. “Nice job, Tank.”

  The great hallway intersects with another one; all of the mottled-red stone halls look the same. “Did we already go down this way?” Jake asks.

  “Yeah. I left a torch there. See?” Tank gestures at the glimmering trail in the distance.

  Emily looks at the other intersections—two out of three have torches. “Great idea. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

  The hallway leads to a dark room with a small grate. “What is that? Treasure?” Jake asks.

  “No—spawner! Run!”

  They run away from the blazes, and Emily nearly crashes into Jake, who’s stopped right in fro
nt of lava overflowing the hallway.

  “This way’s clear!” Tank shouts.

  They turn back from the lava and go down a new hallway until they’re back out in the open on a bridge to a floating chunk of netherrack.

  “Nether wart! I see them!” Jake shouts.

  The bridge is covered with a stream of lava, pulsing red hot as it flows down from the floating landmass. Emily darts forward, jumping up onto the raised edge of the bridge, speeding forward right after Jake. It doesn’t make her nervous, going out for long stretches at a time like this, but the Nether is different—this mission is different. There are people counting on her.

  Jake’s almost to the other side of the bridge. “Good, there’s a whole bunch of them, I’m gonna—”

  MCExplorerJake tried to swim in lava

  “Agggh! I was carrying so many blaze rods!”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Emily slows down, picking her way carefully across the bridge now. Behind her, Tank is doing the same.

  She picks as much nether wart as she can. Tank works quietly next to her until they’ve gathered all the plants. He peers off into the dark Nether horizon. Zombified piglins roam in circles, and Emily is out of arrows. Even her enchanted weapons are starting to wear down, and she doesn’t think she can survive another fortress run.

  “How many potions can we make with this?” Tank asks.

  Emily doesn’t know, but they’ve got bigger problems. Three blazes have just spotted them, rising up on the sides of the bridge.

  “Tank, take the wart! I’ll cover you! Run back to the portal!”

  “Emily, I—”

  Emily throws all the loot at him and brandishes her sword at the blazes. She can do this. They can’t have come all the way here for nothing.

  “Here. I have arrows,” Tank says softly.

  Emily turns back to grab the arrows lying at her feet. One blaze is already setting itself on fire, swirling and turning menacingly toward both of them.