Young Writers Society

Blake nodded.

"This is what the game looks like when you play it," he clarified. "Being there is...different. It's not really made of blocks."

He still didn't entirely understand it. Circe had hinted at there being more to the game than met the eye, but that was all he knew. May was the one who had friends. Dresden-Marius' quarry were both from Minecraftia. Herobrine was, too. Bartimaeus was from another version of Earth, and Marius was presumably from that Earth, too.

His stomach twisted at the thought of how in the dark he was right now.

Speaking of the dark...

He looked up.

The sun was setting. The mobs didn't normally spawn, but things were different now. Nikolai was here when he wasn't supposed to be. May was nowhere to be found. For all Blake knew, the mobs could spawn and actually hurt them.

It was a risk he couldn't take.

"We need to go," he said. "Mobs-monsters spawn at night. We can take shelter in one of the buildings here, or we can go further up towards the town. If we had weapons, we could fight them, but..."

He looked Nikolai and himself over. The only swingable weapon that they had the last time they were stuck in a dangerous situation was the axe. Blake wished he had that axe right now, even though he couldn't swing it as his normal self.

Bartimaeus could do more than that, Blake thought. Spirits can control the elements. They have their own kinds of attacks. If I could just...

He pushed that train of thought away and gave Nikolai a strained smile.

"It's your choice," he said.

"I don't like the sound of monsters," Nikolai mumbled.

What kind of creatures would this place have? Maybe there would be all those monsters from the Greek legends, if Raptor thought that had something to do with here. Or maybe they'd be more like all the strange creatures they'd encountered in the caves.

Nikolai shuddered. He really didn't want to run into any of them.

"How far is the town?" he asked. "If they just come out of nowhere when it's dark, would we have time to get there and not get caught in between?"

He wasn't sure what would even be there, but it sounded like there could be something helpful. Maybe they'd even have people.

Blake glanced over his shoulder. Nikolai's question was a good one. He could hope that they could get to the town in time, but he doubted they would be able to. They would have to wait the night out in the building he had left before running into Nikolai.

"We won't be able to make it to the town in time," Blake admitted. He turned and pointed at the little building near them. "We'll have to wait the night out in there. If no monsters spawn when night falls, we can leave it. If they do spawn, we need to stay in there."

Nikolai nodded. If the town wasn't quite in sight, and the monsters might spawn at sundown, then there was no way they could make it there in time. Even at a sprint, they'd be lucky to even get down from this roof before it was night.

He started walking towards the building. The door didn't have a handle, or any other visible way to open it. Maybe it was the kind you pushed to get open? It would be hard to get out of if the other side didn't have a knob either.

Nikolai frowned and and pushed against it. Suddenly, with a sound that was like a click but deeper in pitch, the door swung open, seeming to rotate at a right angle without moving between the two. That was weird. But right now they needed to get inside, so he didn't wonder about that for too long.

He stepped inside, waited for Raptor to follow, and then pushed the door again. The door snapped back to its original position immediately.

"They're not going to be able to get inside, right?" he asked hopefully.

Blake followed him inside. He hadn't missed Nikolai struggling with the door, but he decided not to mention it right now—he knew Nikolai was already feeling out of place.

"Most of them won't," Blake reassured him. There were still zombies to worry about, but they didn't usually go for houses that didn't have villagers in them. To be on the safe side, Blake moved a cauldron from the corner of the room to in front of the door with little trouble. Even though it was made of iron, his dream version of Minecraft kept it light.

"If there are any that break down the door," he said, turning back to Nikolai, "we should be okay now. They can't move anything."

Nikolai was a little confused as to how Raptor could move a metal cauldron with ease, but that it’d be sufficient for a barricade. It couldn’t simultaneously be light and heavy at the same time, could it? There was so much that he didn’t understand about this place.

He saw that none of the windows had curtains, which didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t want to see anything lurking around just outside. Would there be claws? Teeth? Too many pairs of eyes? He’d already seen monsters he couldn’t have imagined in the caves, but something told him he was far from having seen everything.

“At least we can take a bit of a break here,” he said, looking around the space. But he had to admit that not only he was he unsure if they could rest in a dream, the inside of the building wasn’t very restful from appearances. The furniture was all cubes and square edges, just like outside. Nothing looked soft or cozy.

Nikolai walked towards a painting on the wall. It was clearly a sunset, but even this was turned into cubes, with little squares of different colors illustrating the orange and pink light of a sun against the blue and grays of an approaching night. It honestly didn’t look bad, though it felt as odd to him as everything else.

“As an artist, I’m not sure whether to be impressed at this invention of a more literal cubism style, or distressed at how it’s a little too unconventional and… artificial for art,” he told Raptor.

Blake very much wasn't an artist, but he could understand Nikolai's distress over the painting. If he stared at it for too long, it started looking weird to him, too. Which it really shouldn't, but May and him had never really gone in this building before. They hadn't ever played around with the paintings in or out of the tutorial.

Blake gave a tiny smile.

"I usually find it impressive," he said, "when I'm not in the actual game. It's hard creating art with blocks."

Blake knew. It was tough making houses that looked good in Minecraft, and even harder making ones that didn't come across as too blocky.

“I definitely think it’s good for working within the geometric constraints,” Nikolai agreed. “It’s just…”

He leaned forward to examine it closer and confirm his thought. Sure enough, he couldn’t see even the brushstrokes. Maybe there weren’t even any to be seen. Every artist left a trace of themselves, their physical presence creating their work, in their product, no matter what the medium was. Pencil sketches had smudges, and sculptures had little etches.

Nikolai had always believed those traces were what made art so human. This didn’t have any of that, and that was what unnerved him.

But Raptor probably wouldn’t know where that was coming from, so he cut himself off.

“What should we do here while we wait?” he asked.

Blake faltered.

May and him had never had to deal with this here before. He had dealt with nights in the actual Minecraftia, but even that was different. He could sleep then. This was based on the mechanics of the game, not an actual world, so they would probably need two beds to sleep.

Thankfully, that also meant they wouldn't be in here for more than ten minutes, but those ten minutes would certainly be awkward.

"We could..." Blake started, then immediately trailed off. He had absolutely no idea. After thinking for a moment, he said, "You could ask me any questions you have on Minecraft. Nights run shorter in the game, so we only need to wait around ten minutes."

Nikolai wasn’t sure where to even start on asking. He’d had countless questions: ones that felt urgent, ones that were likely just stupid, and ones that it probably wasn’t the time for.

What he really wanted to ask was what had happened to Raptor in this time, but that wasn’t what he said he could ask.

“Alright,” he said. The closest thing he was to a couch was a set of colored wood blocks set next to each other that was carved like… steps? He sat down on it. It was a bit short for him, his legs were bent a little awkwardly, and it was about as comfortable as sitting on a log, but he was tired of standing. “So… what kind of monsters are there here?”

Blake ran through the list in his head. They would be the same ones he dealt with on Minecraftia now. Nether mobs didn't spawn here.

"There's a couple," he said. He started to count the different mobs on his fingers. "The ones that are less Minecraft-specific are zombies and skeletons. The zombies are the ones who can break down doors, and the skeletons can shoot bows. There's also giant spiders, but those are harmless in the day."

He counted two more mobs on his hand.

"We could also run into creepers, which explode if you get too close to them. Water nulls the explosion, and running away either gets you out of the blast range or stops them from exploding."

He paused, for a moment, when he remembered which mob he hadn't mentioned yet. He didn't want to think about endermen right now, but those could be dangerous if Nikolai looked at them. And there was nothing to say they'd respawn or wake up if they died.

"...There's also endermen," Blake finally said. "They're tall and can teleport. If you look at them right in their eyes, they'll start screaming at you and try to attack you. The best way to avoid them is to just not look at their faces, but you can also hide underneath shorter than them or put on a pumpkin."

...He wished he had been able to do that.

Things had stopped making sense after the zombies, skeletons and spiders. If Nikolai was being fair, those were perplexing as well, but much less than the others.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll just get a pumpkin to put on my head then.”

He realized he was smiling slightly— even though the humor was rather weak. He was trapped in a world he didn’t understand at all, unable to fulfill his quest he’d done this whole dream thing for, and he was laughing about pumpkins. At least there was something here he could laugh about.

“Is there any way to fight back against any of those if needed?” Nikolai asked.

"A sword," Blake replied. He glanced around the room, confirming the suspicion he already had—they weren't going to be finding a sword for either one of them in here.

"We can also wait out the night," Blake said, wanting to reassure Nikolai. "Spiders are docile in the day, and skeletons and zombies both burn in the sunlight. Creepers and endermen also don't show up as frequently and likely wouldn't be a threat."

There was more that Blake specifically could have done, but he didn't know how yet. He needed more guidance from Circe, or maybe even from-

His stomach dropped.

He wasn't sure he'd ever see Bartimaeus again. He wanted to think they had just gotten put in separate cells, but...

He took in a sharp, deep breath. Bartimaeus was a spirit. The cells were meant for endermen, not spirits. Bartimaeus could handle himself. He'd be able to escape.

Nikolai was pretty bad with swords anyway, so he just nodded. They were a bit heavy, and he was kind of slow. As long as they had shelter overnight he wouldn’t have to use any weapon.

Unless…

He reached into the bag by his side, pulling out one of the blue glass balls and holding it up. He had no doubt that Raptor would recognize the glowing object. He wasn’t sure about this, but at least they hadn’t turned into cubes.

“Remember that monster we fought off?” Nikolai asked. “When I threw one of these at it? I don’t know if they’ll work here, but… I do know what they do now. It’s a little different than what we thought.”

Blake remembered those orbs. When Nikolai had last used them, they had sent the giant hellhound-esque monster to sleep. He wasn't sure how something like that would work in Minecraft, but he was intrigued by what they were actually supposed to do.

"What do they actually do?" Blake asked, curious.