A Minecraft Story

Chapter 27

Steve's Point of View

The first thing Steve noticed was the sweltering heat. He started sweating immediately. He opened his eyes. Netherrack and lava was everywhere. The entire place had a reddish tint to it.

"Welcome to the Nether," Jay said.

Steve got up. He had landed just outside the portal. They were high up, on an island of netherrack. A lava fall flowed near them, into the sea of lava about fifty blocks below.

Steve saw a man-made bridge of cobblestone strecthing from their island to the 'mainland' of the Nether.

"Are we going across that thing?" Steve asked. "It's like three blocks wide!"

"Actually, it's two blocks wide." Jay grinned. "Let's go!"

Steve followed Jay onto the cobble bridge. He tried not to look down, but he accidentally did. The lava far below bubbled and spurted fire.

Steve gulped and finished crossing the bridge. Jay stood there, waiting for him.

"Way to go, dude!" he exclaimed. "You crossed a bridge!"

"Thanks," Steve muttered sarcastically.

"Alright, follow me," Jay said. "I know of a great place to find nether wart."

"Okay," Steve said, and they started across the Nether.

A few hundred blocks in, Jay stopped, and Steve almost bumped into him.

"Wait a second..." Jay mumbled.

"What?" Steve asked.

"Where are all the monsters?"

Steve had noticed that it had been unusually quiet. But he hadn't thought anything of it.

"I have no idea," Steve replied, looking around. There were no monsters in sight. He knew that wasn't normal.

"Hmmm..." Jay stroked his chin, looking around.

Steve had a feeling he knew who had done this.

"Well, this is great!" Jay yelled, catching Steve by surprise. He thought this was a somber moment.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"All the monsters are gone, so there's no one here to bother us!" Jay said, like it was obvious. "We can pretty much do whatever we want here without being disturbed!"

"I guess," Steve said uncertainly.

They continued walking. The mainland gradually brought them down to the level of the lava sea. They walked on a narrow strip of netherrack in the lava.

Finally, they reached a large patch of soul sand. Nether wart grew randomly in places.

"Let's get pickin'!" Jay said as he started pulling up nether wart.

Steve followed suit. Jay was acting like this was the greatest thing possible. But if the Nether monsters weren't here...then where were they? Steve thought he knew.

They were between a large, unclimbable netherrack mountain and the lava sea. They picked nether wart with no disturbances.

When they finished, Jay said, "Now let's go to the Nether fortress."

He walked around the mountain, and Steve followed. When they passed the mountain, they had a clear view of the fortress.

Steve was horrified by what he saw.

The fortress was about a hundred blocks away, with its nether brick supports in the lava. A bridge on top of the mountain led to the fortress.

But, the fortress was crawling with Mojang. A flag bearing the word Mojang flew on the top of the fortress. Skeletons, Slimes, and Spiders in iron helmets patrolled the nether brick bridges. Steve saw eight men carrying limp Blazes behind them.

Mojang had taken over the Nether.

"Oh my god," Jay whispered.

"What do we do?" Steve asked. "We can't just leave."

"I didn't say we were going to," Jay replied. "But there is no way that we could get into that fortress without being seen by a Mojang monster."

Steve thought for a moment. They didn't have potions of invisibility. But they did have...

"How long do the fire resistance potions last?" Steve asked Jay.

"Eight minutes," Jay answered. "Why?"

Steve leaned close to him and whispered his plan in his ear. Jay's eyes widened as he explained.

"Awesome!" he exclaimed. "Let's go!"

Steve and Jay walked down to the sea of lava. They got out their potions of fire resistance, and drank them.

And they jumped.

Swimming through lava was like something Steve had never experienced. It felt like really thick water. The lava was hot, and he could feel himself on fire, but the potions worked. They weren't losing any hearts.

Steve and Jay swam for the nether brick support tower. It took about five minutes to get there, and when they did, Jay pulled out an iron pickaxe and mined some of the brick. The two stood on the platform Jay had made.

"What now?" Steve asked, breathless from the exhausting lava swim.

"We climb," Jay said. He started mining a staircase in the brick upward. Steve got out his pick and did the same.

Hopefully no Mojang monsters noticed them. If they did, their entire mission was a failure.

"How are we gonna take this place down?" Steve asked quietly.

"I don't know," Jay said. "Got any spare TNT on you?"

"No," Steve replied. "Maybe there's a shut down button that--"

"Remember what happened the last time you tried shutting something down?" Jay interrupted. "How did that turn out?"

"Well, I succeeded so..." Steve answered.

Jay looked confused. "Wait, are we talking about the same thing?"

"I don't know, are we?" Steve asked.

"I'm talking about the monster controlling machine you tried shutting down last week," Jay said. "Ya know, and then you got captured and had your memories erased."

"I'm talking about The Iron Destroyer," Steve argued. "I succeeded at shutting down that one."

"Oh yeah," Jay said. "Good job on that by the way. Mojang has used that big lump of metal as a guard before."

"Shh," Steve whispered. "We're at the top."

They mined the final block and emerged in a small nether brick room. It seemed to have no purpose, except for the double chest in the corner.

Jay replaced the nether brick. Then they heard voices. "Hide!" Jay whispered. They hid behind the double chest and waited.

The voices came closer. There were three of them. They all sounded very familiar.

"--can't the Zombies come down here? It is way too hot," a slimy voice complained.

"Shut up," a silky voice said. "Are the prisoners ready for the brainwashing?"

"I would know, but the heat is too distracting!" the slimy voice replied.

"You never do anything right!" argued the silky voice.

Steve knew these two voices. Delta, the Slime commander, and Gamma, the Spider commander. But hadn't he killed Gamma? Apparently not.

Then another voice spoke that made Steve tense with rage.

"Stop bickering, you two. Almighty Notch said he has enough monsters for each unit. We can dispose of the rest of them," a familiar raspy voice said.

Porkchops' murderer.

Beta.

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~Radishologist