The Quest for the Diamond Sword Read online

  “That’s nice.” Lucy nodded her head.

  “If we let you join us, will you take us to your wheat farm?” Henry asked with a smile.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid it may be taken over by zombies. When I was helping the local villagers, I dropped my armor, and now there is an armed zombie on the loose.”

  “Armed zombies are super powerful,” said Max.

  “I know!” Steve agreed.

  “We will help you slay the zombie,” said Henry.

  “I have a plan,” Steve said. He realized he couldn’t battle the zombies alone, and since he had nothing for these guys to steal, he had to trust them. He needed help. So he told the gang his plan to find forty diamonds and craft the most powerful sword.

  “That’s a genius idea,” Lucy smiled.

  “We want in,” said Henry.

  “Why?” Steve couldn’t shake his suspicions.

  “Our home was destroyed, and we’d rather hunt for treasures than build a house. If we lived on your wheat farm, we could go on endless treasure hunts collecting jewels,” Henry told Steve.

  “And Max is an expert fighter,” Lucy added. “So you really want him on your side.”

  “Okay!” Steve replied. He was going to trust these new people—he was going to make new friends—but suddenly, as he walked further into the temple, he realized he might be stepping into a booby trap.

  5

  BOOBY TRAPS

  “WATCH OUT!” SCREAMED LUCY.

  Steve looked down as he almost fell into the temple’s chamber. As he looked at the ground, he saw nine blocks of TNT and colored wool.

  “That’s the pressure plate,” Max told Steve. “You’ve never been in a temple before, have you?”

  “No,” said Steve humbly, “I’ve never traveled further than the village by my wheat farm until now. Since the zombie attack, I’ve been to the Nether—”

  Max interrupted, “You survived the Nether?!”

  “How impressive!” said Lucy respectfully.

  “I’ve been everywhere,” Henry said quite confidently. “And I’ll show you the ropes. First thing, don’t step on a pressure plate, or you’ll be a goner.”

  “We have to dig around it.” Lucy showed Steve, and they all started to dig deep underneath the temple in search of the four treasure chests.

  “I hope these treasure chests have diamonds, and we can use them to build the sword,” Steve said. He was excited.

  “We can’t talk about what we’ll find. We have to concentrate on getting there. This takes a lot of skill,” said Max.

  “Let’s take the wool and the TNT from the booby trap,” suggested Lucy.

  “Good idea!” said Henry. “It’s valuable and it’s also fun to blow stuff up.”

  “Henry!” Lucy was upset as she continued, “It’s not about blowing stuff up. It’s about finding the treasure.”

  Steve loved listening to their banter. He had spent so much time alone, and now he understood the importance of friends, especially other explorers and adventurers such as himself. These new friends could help Steve—they made sure he didn’t walk on the pressure plate—unlike the villagers. Steve was able to help them, but they could never reciprocate, because they were defenseless and couldn’t battle hostile mobs.

  The group mined their way past the pit, descending with a splash. They landed in a chamber. Steve looked up and saw flames burning on the torches lining the walls of the chamber. As they made their way through the belly of the temple, they looked carefully for booby traps and moved slowly around this foreign landscape.

  “We are getting closer to the treasure!” exclaimed Max.

  “We have to be careful,” explained Henry. “If we set off the TNT, not only will we die, we’ll blow up the four treasure chests and destroy the loot.”

  Steve was impressed with Henry’s treasure hunting skills. The group slowly mined their way into the secret chamber and made sure they didn’t set off explosions. As they banged their pickaxes against the temple walls, the sandstone bricks crumbled at their feet. They walked into a large tan room filled with bricks of sandstone and four holes in a group. Henry approached the first hole, and the group followed closely behind. It was empty! The other two holes were also empty. They finally made their way to the final hole, and they found a treasure chest.

  “Stand back!” Henry warned the group.

  The group stood against the wall. “What’s wrong, Henry?” asked Max.

  “I don’t trust it. Why would somebody leave one treasure chest? That makes no sense,” explained Henry.

  “You think it’s a booby trap?” asked Lucy.

  “I’m not sure, and I’m not willing to risk it. I think we should leave it,” said Henry.

  “Henry’s right.” Max stood next to his friend as he said, “If we open it and it’s loaded with TNT, it could explode and we’d be killed.”

  Steve wondered if being killed was all that bad. He’d respawn in his bed, and this would all be a distant memory. Then Steve remembered the zombies.

  “I want to check for diamonds,” Steve told the group.

  “It’s not worth it,” said Max.

  “But I need those forty diamonds. I have to save the village. I need the powerful sword,” he cried out.

  “I know you want that sword, but this isn’t the way you’re going to get it. This will only end badly,” Lucy comforted him.

  “We’ve done this before. We know how bad it could get,” Henry informed Steve.

  “Also, diamonds are a rare find. If we open the chest and it doesn’t explode, it’s most likely rotten flesh and gold,” Lucy said. She wanted Steve to know the reality of treasure hunting.

  Steve walked over to the treasure chest.

  “Stop!” Lucy screamed at him. “A griefer could have rigged it to explode!”

  Max looked at his compass. “Everyone keep track of where we are at the moment, in case we get killed. We need to know where to find each other.”

  “I have my coordinates,” Lucy told the group.

  “Dude, you think I’m stupid enough to open it? I’m not like you guys—I don’t like to get killed,” Steve defended himself. “Why don’t you open the treasure chest?”

  “We don’t take stupid risks. Nobody would leave one treasure chest unless a griefer with mod was creating glitches and trying to hurt someone,” said Henry.

  Steve wondered how Henry knew so much about griefers.

  “Let’s get out of here. I think there’s another temple nearby that might have treasure,” Henry told the group.

  “Let’s follow this map. Take out your compasses,” Lucy said. Before they could make their escape, the ground broke beneath them and they were falling, uncertain of where they might land.

  6

  DUNGEONS AND EXPLOSIONS

  THUMP! THE GANG LANDED ON THE GROUND IN A dark room. “Where are we?” asked Steve with a shaky voice.

  “Where’s Max?” asked Henry nervously.

  Suddenly Max flew down and landed next to them. He was carrying a torch.

  “I grabbed this on the way down,” he told the gang.

  “Smart,” said Lucy. “Let’s take a look around.”

  The light from the torch helped the group navigate through the dark halls of the dungeon. A piston came from the wall and blew out the torch. They tried to weave their way through dungeon’s tunnels using the light coming from the hole above them. Each step they took seemed like an eternity. Not being able to see in the dark made them nervous.

  “What’s that?” Lucy pointed to a light coming from the wall. “Maybe it’s an exit!”

  The light had a fiery reddish glow. It vanished.

  “The light is over there now,” Henry said. He tried to point, but it was useless. They couldn’t see their feet in front of them.

  Max called out, “I see it over here!”

  Steve’s voice began to crack when he said, “It’s not a light. It’s spiders!”

  Spider eyes lined the wa
lls of the dungeon. Max rushed toward a spider and hit it with a mighty blow from his sword. The spider was killed. Max’s hit was so powerful that it made a hole in the wall, and a small beam of light shined in the room.

  As Max turned around, he could see a zombie lurking in the corner near his friends. “Watch out!” he warned them.

  Steve took out his iron sword and killed the zombie instantly.

  “There are more!” exclaimed Lucy. Four zombies spawned, emerging from the dark corners of the creepy dungeon as the walls continued to fill with spiders. Their eyes lit up the room. The light that emanated from the hole in the wall wasn’t enough to help the treasure hunters see or ward away hostile mobs that feed off users of the night.

  “We’re trapped,” said Lucy breathlessly as she killed her tenth spider.

  Steve charged at the zombies while Max tried to slay the many spiders that leapt from the walls. A spider jumped on Max, but he brushed it off with a blow from his fist and finished it with his sword.

  No matter how many zombies and spiders the team of four was able to destroy, they couldn’t stop this invasion of hostile mobs. They were outnumbered.

  Lucy hit a spider with all of her strength, making a gaping hole on the side of the dungeon wall. Lava began to trickle down the side of the wall. She banged harder, and the stream of lava increased. Henry made his way over to Lucy and started to hit the wall with his pickaxe.

  “Why are you wasting your time breaking down the wall?” asked Steve, annoyed that he was left alone to handle a swarm of zombies that were overwhelming him—until he saw the lava quickly flowing through the crack in the wall.

  “We need to flood this room with lava,” explained Henry.

  “Use your pickaxes and make a hole in the wall where we saw the light!” he told the others.

  As Max and Steve pickaxed an escape tunnel, Lucy and Henry created a waterfall of lava that rushed through the dungeon. Lucy and Henry raced toward the tunnel. The lava rushed behind them as they ran faster to avoid being burned by the hot lava.

  They made it! Steve looked back to see the spiders’ red eyes swallowed up by hot orange lava streaming through the dungeon and drowning the evil night-crawling zombies and spiders.

  The treasure hunters made their escape to the secret chamber. Henry ran toward the blue wool and grabbed TNT.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Steve was shocked that Henry had explosives.

  “What do you think? I’m going to blow this place up! It’s filled with hostile mobs and it doesn’t even have treasure.”

  They made their way up the sandstone steps, passed through the large doors, and swiftly exited the temple. Outside the temple doors, Henry placed the TNT next to a redstone torch. As they sprinted toward the sandy terrain, the temple exploded. Boom! The temple burst into flames. A large cloud of smoke lingered in the air as rubble from the temple shot high above their heads. The friends shielded themselves from the debris. The temple walls piled around the structure and left an outline of where this temple, once home to a treasure trove, stood in the barren Minecraft desert.

  7

  CAVES, STORMS, AND OTHER THREATS

  STEVE HAD TO ADMIT THE THRILL OF RUNNING OUT of the desert temple and watching it burst into flames was exhilarating, but he knew this wasn’t the life he wanted. He yearned to leave and return to the village. He needed to find those diamonds fast.

  “We need to leave the desert,” announced Steve.

  “We’re treasure hunters. We live in the desert,” his new friends told him.

  “But it’s impossible to live here,” protested Steve.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Lucy patted Steve on the back.

  “I thought you wanted to go back to the wheat farm with me,” said Steve.

  “We’d like to visit, but we love hunting treasure,” said Henry.

  Steve loved his new friends, but he also missed his home. He knew it was just a matter of time before he had to make a decision—was he going to stay with them or go back home? As they walked, Steve could see some greenery in the distance.

  “Look, Steve, you got your wish,” said Henry. “It looks like the desert ends here.”

  “I see a meadow,” Steve said as he pointed at a green patch of land.

  “Looks a cave!” Max was excited. “Let’s go mining!”

  “We don’t have enough food,” warned Steve. “When you go mining, you’re supposed to also bring a bucket of water and pickaxes. Do we even have enough food bars? I’m really hungry.”

  Steve’s food bar was almost depleted. He needed to go back to the wheat farm.

  “Lucy is a skilled hunter. She can get you anything you want,” said Henry.

  Lucy said, “I’ll get us a pig to eat. You can’t give up now Steve. You need to go home with that diamond sword.”

  Pigs were in the meadow, and Lucy took out her bow and arrow. She struck the pigs. “Now we can feast,” she announced to her friends.

  “Thanks,” Steve said as his food bar filled.

  “Trust us, Steve,” Henry said as he pointed them in the direction of the cave. “We need to mine in the cave. I promise you it will be fun. Just get some equipment from your inventory. Don’t be afraid to use it.”

  “You seem like a hoarder,” Max laughed.

  “A what?” Steve was confused.

  “You save everything but never want to use it. I bet you have an insane amount of pickaxes and super awesome swords,” said Max.

  “Last time I used my armor, I dropped it and a zombie stole it. That’s how I got into this mess in the first place,” explained Steve.

  “Yeah, that must have stunk,” said Henry. “But think about the plus side. If you had never lost that armor and gone through the portal, you would have never met us. And if you want to find diamonds, you’re going to have to mine in a cave near lava.”

  “Yeah lava and diamonds are usually found in the same caves,” added Lucy.

  “But lava kills,” warned Steve.

  “You want to beat the zombies and save the village?” asked Henry.

  “Yes, I do!” Steve replied as he grabbed his pickaxe and tried to hide the fear of his first cave mining expedition.

  “You will, Steve, if you stick with us,” Henry said confidently.

  “Let’s go find diamonds in the cave!” Lucy was excited to mine.

  The cave was dark, but it wasn’t as scary as Steve imaged. The ceilings were low, and the team stuck together as they used their pickaxes to dig deep within the cavern. Steve couldn’t hear any hostile mobs, and he began to relax and enjoy this exploration.

  “Do you hear that?” asked Lucy.

  “Sounds like water,” replied Max as he banged his pickaxe against the dark cave floor.

  “It could also be lava,” said Henry.

  “Diamonds!” Steve shouted out as he used all of his energy to dig through the cave floor. The gang began to collect coal, iron, and gold.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Henry said. Then he quickly screamed, “Watch out!”

  A cave spider slipped through a hole in the wall of the cave. They knew it had a poisonous bite, and they had to kill it.

  “We have to break the spawner,” Max told the group. “It’s the only way to stop it.”

  Cobwebs filled the cave, and the walls were crawling with spiders. “Ouch!” Henry called out.

  “Henry’s been bitten,” Lucy screamed.

  “I have milk in my inventory!” Steve announced and ran over to him. Steve handed him the milk and said, “Drink this, it will help you feel better.”

  Henry drank the milk. Milk helped lessen the effects of the cave spider’s poisonous bite, and his health bar increased.

  “And we made fun of you for being a hoarder,” Lucy smiled. “If we didn’t have that milk, Henry might have—” She stopped herself. If Henry had died, he would have gone back to the spawn point, and he may never have found his way back to the group.

  “We have to
stop the spiders,” Henry said weakly as he sipped the milk.

  “Lucky for you, Steve had milk,” Max said as he suffocated a spider that crept up on him.

  “Hold it down for six seconds,” Henry told Max, “or it won’t die. These spiders are tricky.”

  “Get a torch, Max,” ordered Lucy. “They hate light.”

  “I have one of those in my inventory!” Steve grabbed a torch.

  “Being prepared helps!” Lucy exclaimed. “And you, my friend, are very prepared.”

  Steve walked through the cave with a torch, placing it on a wall. The light revealed the severity of the spider attack. It seemed as if the cave were wallpapered with spiders that spawned by the second. Max picked up a handful of gravel and threw it on the spiders, destroying a cluster that crawled by his feet.

  Steve began to build a wall.

  “Steve, it’s not a time to build,” Henry said weakly.

  “I’m not building. I’m saving us!” Steve grabbed bricks. “Come closer to me. Max, please carry Henry over here.”

  The friends came closer to Steve as he quickly built a wall, which trapped the spiders as the group made an exit from the cave.

  “Steve you saved us,” said Henry with a smile. “You’re the master builder.”

  “And I’m the master hunter,” Lucy quickly added.

  “I’m a master sword fighter,” boasted Max.

  “And what am I?” Henry joked with the group.

  “You’re the master griefer,” said Max, and Henry shot him a dirty look.

  “What?” Steve asked in shock.

  “He was just kidding,” Henry replied.

  “Everyone knows you’re the master treasure hunter, Henry. You always plan the great strategies for getting our treasures,” said Lucy.

  “Yes, that’s what I am,” said Henry proudly. He stood up in front of the crowd as if he were accepting an award. “I am the master treasure hunter.”

  “Who gets bitten by cave spiders,” said Max slyly.

  “That’s not funny.” Henry pushed Max playfully.

  Lucy smiled at the group. “It’s nice that we all have roles.”