An Explorer's Guide to the Nether Read online

  Molly and I climbed into the hole, and together we dug a tunnel to the outside. We emerged by a lava stream. Molly held her bucket in one hand. She had filled it and was ready to throw lava on any enemy.

  I took my first steps outside of the prison. Although I disliked the Nether, I was so happy to be free.

  “I can’t believe we did it. We escaped!” Molly was filled with glee.

  “I know. The plan worked.” The minute those words fell from my lips, a group of ghasts flew through the sky, aiming their fireballs at us.

  “What are we going to do?” Sean asked nervously.

  “Does anyone have a bow and arrow?” I asked them.

  “No,” Molly and Sean responded together.

  “We can hit the fireballs with our fists and send them back to the ghasts,” I said. We were running low on resources and we had no weapons to fight back with. We were going to have to make do.

  Molly took out the potion of invisibility and splashed us. “This might be easier.”

  “That sounds like an even better plan,” I said.

  Although we couldn’t see each other, we tried to stick together as we sprinted away from the ghasts.

  “I see a Nether fortress,” Molly called out to us.

  “Me too!”

  We ran toward the fortress. Once we were inside, the potion wore off and we were visible again.

  “Let’s hunt for treasure,” Sean said.

  We should have been crafting a portal back to the Overworld, but when Sean suggested that we search for treasure, we all agreed with him. It was too tempting to resist in a Nether fortress.

  We entered the room where the treasure was stored and began to unearth the chests. Sean opened the first chest.

  “Diamonds!” he called out.

  “What a find!” Molly doled out the diamonds to each of us and we placed them in our inventories.

  I opened the second chest. “It’s filled with enchanted books.”

  We quickly added the enchanted books to our inventories too. Then Molly searched the fortress for other resources. She found Nether wart, which she gathered up carefully. “This will help me brew potions.”

  I looked over at her. “Where’s your bucket?”

  Molly checked her inventory. “I must have dropped it by the lava stream.”

  “Should we go back and get it?” I asked.

  Sean and Molly paused and I could see that they weren’t sure if that was a good idea. Sean replied, “I think we should craft a portal to the Overworld. Forget the bucket.”

  We all agreed that was a good plan. We left the Nether fortress and began to craft a portal. As we finished building it, an arrow struck me. I looked up in surprise. A voice called out, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  7

  SIDETRACKED

  So the bucket did belong to them.” Toby was excited. They had a clue and they were a little closer to finding William and his friends.

  “That could have been Molly’s bucket,” said Jack, “but we aren’t even in the Nether anymore. We have to find Harriet and Oliver and get back there. Even if we were right near them it doesn’t matter, because we are far from them now.”

  Everyone agreed—they had to find Harriet and Oliver quickly and then get back to the Nether. But now it was time to sleep. They drifted off one by one, and the group dreamt about finding their lost friends and finally meeting William the Explorer. Toby dreamt of the parties they would attend in the Overworld, once they reintroduced the world to its lost explorer. The people of the Overworld would be overjoyed to see William.

  When the sun came up, Jack walked outside in search of something to eat. He spotted a chicken in the distance. With his bow and arrow, he destroyed the chicken. He retrieved it and then went back into the house and offered the others some food.

  “We need to fill up our food bars, before we embark on this journey,” he said, handing each person some chicken.

  The group devoured the chicken as they plotted their path to the desert. Toby asked, “Do you think that Harriet and Oliver are still there?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “That’s where they will have respawned and they’ll stay there because they’ll know we’re looking for them.”

  The group made their way to the desert. Ezra suggested, “I know this is a bit out of the way, but I think we should take a detour to the cold biome and replenish our supply of snowballs.”

  Everyone wanted to get to Harriet and Oliver quickly, but they realized this was a good plan. It would all be for nothing if they returned to the Nether without snowballs.

  Jack looked at the map and led the group up a mountain and toward the cold biome. As they climbed the mountain, Julian looked out into the distance and spotted his town. He missed his wheat farm and the comforts of home. He imagined returning to the town with William and Oliver. He remembered the last time they had visited his town. William’s fame had transformed him and he had acted like a different person entirely. Julian had been very upset with him. Julian hoped that when he found William, he would be more like the old William he had known.

  As they made their way down the mountain on the other side, Julian noticed the piles of snow. Just what they needed.

  The group ran toward the snow and began to craft as many snowballs as they could fit in their inventories.

  “I think we have enough,” said Toby after a while.

  “Yes, and now we really need to head to the desert,” said Jack.

  The group climbed back up the mountain. Julian stopped again to look out at his town. It made him happy to think about home, and that was something he wanted to share. “I can see my town from the top of the mountain,” he told the others.

  “When this journey is over,” Jack promised Julian, “we will all go back to your town to celebrate.”

  “I’d like that.” Julian smiled.

  The trip to the desert was long, and the sun was beginning to set. The group had to construct another house to spend the night in. They didn’t want to battle the hostile mobs that spawned in the middle of the night.

  They picked a patch of grass in the middle of the jungle and began to construct the house. As they were building it, Ezra spotted a jungle temple. “In the morning we should go to that temple and search for treasure.”

  “We don’t have time. We already lost valuable time getting snowballs. We don’t want to keep getting sidetracked,” argued Jack.

  The others didn’t agree. Julian said, “I think we need to fill our inventories with as many resources as we can. We don’t know when we’ll be back. We can’t pass up searching for treasure in the jungle temple.”

  They all climbed into bed. When they woke up, they dressed in their diamond armor, and prepared to travel to the jungle temple. They made their way through the jungle in hopes of finding a trove of useful treasure.

  They entered the grand temple and headed to the room with the treasure. When they reached the treasure room, they spotted two people wearing sparkly purple helmets. They were already there trying to unearth the treasure.

  Toby shot an arrow at them.

  “What are you doing?” hissed Jack.

  “I want the treasure,” said Toby, unapologetically.

  “But they got to it first. Let’s just go. This isn’t how we behave.” Jack was upset. Things weren’t the same without Harriet around.

  The others agreed with Jack. Julian said, “We’ll find other treasures. These people have discovered the treasure before us, and it’s rightfully theirs.”

  But it was too late. The two people in the sparkly purple helmets turned around and began to shoot arrows at the gang.

  “See what you did?” Jack shouted at Toby.

  “I’m sorry,” Toby said to his friends and then called out to the purple helmets, “Please. Stop. We surrender.”

  The purple-helmeted duo approached the gang. “What do you want from us?”

  Toby replied, “We are going to leave.”

  “Not s
o fast,” said one of the purple-helmeted people.

  “Please, we have somewhere we need to be,” Jack tried to explain.

  “You attacked us,” said the purple-helmeted treasure hunter.

  The gang knew it wasn’t going to be an easy escape. They had attacked these people and now they were going to pay the price. Jack was very upset. He didn’t want them to get sidetracked and now they were about to be in a completely unnecessary battle with these two strangers.

  “Please, just be happy with your treasure and let us go on our way,” Toby tried to reason with them.

  One of the purple-helmeted people took out a bow and arrow.

  Toby grabbed a potion of invisibility and splashed it on his friends. They sprinted out of the temple.

  When the potion wore off and they reappeared, they were in the desert. “That was a close call,” said Julian.

  Then Toby spotted Harriet in the distance. “Harriet!” he called out.

  She ran toward him. “What are you guys doing here? I thought you’d still be in the Nether.”

  “We came to get you and Oliver,” Toby told her.

  “I don’t know where Oliver is. I haven’t seen him at all,” Harriet told her friends.

  “Well, we have to find him,” Jack told the group.

  Before the group could enjoy their reunion and strategize about finding Oliver, Veronica and Valentino appeared in front of them.

  “How did you get here?” asked Julian, caught by surprise.

  “We TPed,” replied Veronica. “Now give us the journal.”

  “No. Never!” shouted Julian.

  Valentino struck Julian with his sword. “If you don’t give it to us, then you better start reading from it.”

  The gang didn’t want to give the journal away. They also didn’t want to fight again. So Julian read.

  8

  JOURNAL ENTRY: A NEW FRIEND

  Day 4: Portal

  Nobody spoke.

  The voice called out again. “I said, where do you think you’re going?”

  Molly replied, “We are going to the Overworld. Ignite the portal, William.”

  Before I could ignite the portal, I was hit by a sea of arrows and destroyed. I respawned in the prison cell. I waited for Sean to respawn in the room, but he didn’t. I hoped Sean and Molly had made it to the Overworld, but I was also sad that I was alone. I looked through my inventory and pulled out the pickaxe. I crawled through the hole and into Molly’s room. I jumped into the hole we had dug and ran down the dark tunnel toward my friends.

  I emerged back in the Nether and sprinted in the direction of the portal. I watched as two men dressed in black destroyed Sean and Molly. Instead of going through the portal by myself, I went back to the hole. I wanted to be reunited with my new friends and come up with another plan of escape. We would be stronger together. When I crawled back into the room, Molly was respawning. She looked over at me.

  “Who was the person who destroyed us?” she asked me.

  “I think it was Charles. He was dressed in black, so I’m not certain, but if it wasn’t him, I’m sure it was somebody that works for him.”

  Sean appeared too. “Guys, we have to get back to the portal. We need to get back to the Overworld.”

  “I know, but now they know where we constructed the portal and it’s too dangerous to return to that spot,” I said. “They’re obviously stronger than we are, even working as a team.”

  “I guess we’ll have to craft another portal,” suggested Molly.

  We could hear a cry for help from the other room. Molly ran to the wall, “Oh!” she cried out. “That sounds like my old cellmate!” She called out, “Esther is that you?”

  “Molly! Yes, it’s me. Please help me.”

  “We have to break down this wall, fast.” Molly pulled her pickaxe out of her inventory.

  Sean began to bang a hole in the wall. “I think I see something.”

  We joined in and helped break down the wall. I climbed through the hole, but was instantly destroyed when a blaze shot a fireball at me. When I respawned, there were three people standing by me. I recognized Molly and Sean, but didn’t know the third person.

  “Thanks for trying to help me. I’m Esther,” she introduced herself.

  “Hi. Molly told us about you.”

  “Molly told me how you guys are going to escape,” she said. “I tried to escape before and it was awful. I was alone in the Nether. I finally was about to make it back to the Overworld when Charles trapped me again.”

  “What about Thao? I thought I heard him cry for help. Is he being kept prisoner down here?” I asked.

  “Yes, Thao and Charles aren’t working together anymore.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Molly asked us. “How are we going to escape this time?”

  “We’re going to crawl through the tunnel we made and try to escape in another direction of the Nether,” I suggested. “Do you still have any bottles left of the potion of invisibility?”

  Molly checked her inventory. “Yes. One bottle left.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said, “but we should only use that when we are in real trouble. I’d rather respawn here and start over than use it up—agreed?”

  They agreed and we each jumped into the tunnel and started our journey to freedom again. When we climbed out of the hole, there was Charles, standing right in front of us.

  “You think you can escape?” he asked with a sinister laugh. It had been his voice I’d heard through the wall.

  “Yes,” I replied confidently.

  Sean took out his diamond sword and struck Charles.

  Charles grabbed his own sword and fought back, laughing, “You think you can battle me and win?”

  “Yes.” Sean struck Charles again.

  This angered Charles. “Well, you won’t. I have you trapped. Just like I have your friend Oliver trapped in the desert.”

  “Oliver? Where?” I was so happy to just hear his name. We had to save him.

  “Where is Oliver? Where are your weapons?” Charles laughed even louder. “You can’t even battle me, can you? I bet you don’t feel like such a brave world explorer now.”

  He thought I didn’t have a weapon, so I couldn’t join in the battle. But I had a diamond sword. I took it out and lunged toward Charles. Molly and Esther joined in the fight. I actually thought we had a chance, but the minute he seemed to weaken, Charles laughed even harder. He had backup, and he ordered a bunch of men dressed in black to shoot. A barrage of arrows hit us and we respawned in our rooms.

  I looked over at Sean. “What are we going to do? Now we can’t even travel through the tunnel.”

  Sean looked up at the ceiling. “I think I have a new plan.”

  9

  TREASURE TROVE

  Keep reading!” Veronica shouted at Julian.

  “That’s it. There isn’t anything else. It looks like some pages were ripped out. Or maybe he started another journal.” He showed her the book.

  “You are trying to trick us.” Veronica was angry and she struck him with her diamond sword.

  “No, see for yourself. There aren’t any other pages.” Julian showed Veronica the book again.

  Veronica was annoyed. “We have to get those missing pages. I am going to find William. I am going to get credit for discovering the world-famous explorer.”

  “We want to find William because we want him to be free. We aren’t doing it so everyone in the Overworld will respect and look up to us. We are doing it for him.” Julian looked at Veronica.

  “Semantics. We all want to find him. And I will be first.” She smiled and ran off to join Valentino.

  Harriet watched them take off. “Do you think they’ll find the missing pages before we do?”

  Julian replied, “I don’t know. But we’d better start looking.”

  “Where should we start?” asked Harriet.

  Julian said, “I think we should really spend our time searching for Oliver first. And then w
e need to make our way back to the Nether.”

  Everyone agreed. They walked through the desert, hoping they would find Oliver. They called his name aloud, but there was no response.

  “Do you think he is being kept prisoner?” asked Harriet.

  “You’re right!” Julian’s face lit up. “He probably respawned in the stronghold underneath the desert temple and can’t escape.”

  The gang ran toward the desert temple. Toby spotted the hole in the ground. “This is the entrance to the stronghold where Oliver was kept prisoner before.”

  The group entered the stronghold. The first room was infested with silverfish. They took out their diamond swords and began to destroy the small insects. Although the pesky creatures weren’t as harmful as other mobs, the sheer number of silverfish that blanketed the floor of the main room in the stronghold was overpowering.

  Jack called out, “We need to find the spawner and deactivate it!”

  “Yes, I’ll try and find it,” called Harriet. “Keep fighting!” She sprinted deeper into the stronghold in search of the spawner. She found it in a small room off the main hallway and called for help.

  Jack sprinted toward Harriet and helped her deactivate the spawner.

  They raced back to their friends and helped destroy the remaining silverfish. The gang explored the rest of the stronghold, searching for the room where Oliver had been kept prisoner.

  “Oliver!” Julian called out.

  “Ouch!” Toby cried. “I’ve been struck by an arrow.”

  Harriet looked ahead and yelled, “Skeletons!”

  A small group of skeletons approached the group. Everyone took out their weapons, but they were all very low on energy and had to win this battle fast or they would be destroyed. It was a dangerous battle. Julian struck one of the bony beasts with his diamond sword, destroying it. The skeleton dropped a bone and Julian quickly picked it up and placed it in his inventory.

  Jack battled two skeletons with his diamond sword and he skillfully obliterated both of them. They dropped bones, which he collected.

  “We did it! We destroyed the skeletons!” Harriet was excited for their victory.

  “I’m worried that our energy levels are getting too low,” Julian said as he handed potions of strength to the gang. “Drink these to regain your strength.”