Creatures of the Void
Chapter Five
"The New Enemy"
"The New Enemy"
I'd discovered lots of new things, like pigs and cows. I obtained new meats that I cooked and ate. I found a wolf in the forest and fed it bones until it became my pet. I named him Doug and put him in my house. Tons of other things existed in this world that weren't enemies!
It turned out there was a very large cavern directly underneath my mine. I liked it when I found it, but my legs didn't. The damage dealt me hurt, but new materials more than made up for it. I had more coal than I'd need for a long time, and iron fortified my defenses and such. That is to say, I made some Iron Fences, a bucket, and some armor. I had no need for iron tools yet, as the cobblestone I'd gathered was quite enough. I thought to make a sword out of it, though. I also mined some Zelzivium and Solphis ores. The green metal was as good as iron, though I had troubles making buckets out of it. The shiny white crystal didn't do much, but I could fasten it onto blocks and I decorated my house.
It seemed that I could place it in up to nine locations on any surface of a block, in general any full 16x16 area of a block, such as the top of slabs or behind stairs. I or others could in fact make horizontal or vertical lines, maybe a diagonal plane-
NO! Not again! This was the second time. I'd been standing here in the mine for a while, I remembered clearly again. As soon as I examined the Solphis crystal I'd been hypnotized, information forced into my mind.
The green, leafy things- those were what had exploded last time. And I now knew- if I was in the world for long enough, more things would come out of forests, from dark stone, and more.
Before I could do much it was night again. I could see through my windows, but the other things couldn't. Skeleton-wolves crawled out of the forest. Long, white Sky-eels jumped strangely from the ocean into the air, where they wheeled and twisted about in stark contrast to the starry blackness. Groups of red Cluster Spiders jumped at my windows. Apparently they could see through them. Luckily for me they couldn't break them. Corpses pounded at the gate to my Iron Fence, smashing at it bit by bit.
Doug growled and got to his feet, pixel-hair standing on end. I was under assault.
A skeleton holding an Iron Club jumped to my window and began breaking it. It wasn't very strong, so I definitely had some time.
Doug ran to the window and barked at the skeleton, baring his teeth and threatening the creature. My fence was still holding strong. I'd only go upstairs if I really needed to escape. My house so far was safe.
I noticed behind the skeleton a gathering of purple smoke. Instead of spreading, it condensed into a strange, tall shape, and solidified.
The thing was black, with purple eyes. It stood three blocks tall, and looked innocent as well as evil. It tilted its head to the side, walked slowly over to my window, put out its arms... and just removed the window pane, setting it down on the ground.
The group of tiny Cluster Spiders leapt through, jumping at me and attacking. There were about twenty of them, each taking small bites when they landed. Doug chomped at one and killed it instantly. I would have been doing the same, but they were tiny and fast. My sword couldn't get them. Doug ate two more, and they seemed to restore his health. I got one of them, and Doug leapt at another. I killed three more in quick succession, and Doug got seven in the same amount of time. We took out the last five together. He was much better at pest extermination than I was.
The thing removed another window pane, placing it on top of the other.
The skeleton abandoned its effort to break the window and walked in through the hole. I took care of it by way of my sword and Doug's help, but not without sustaining injury.
The thing removed the cobblestone above the window.
It walked into my house, and screeched at me. Doug leapt at it and took a chunk out of its leg, and I sliced it with my sword. It swung at me and hit, and I fell backward. I took more swings with my sharp weapon, but it wasn't fazed. The thing continued to bluntly pummel me, and I sliced more and more. I rolled out of its grasp when Doug charged it again. It turned its attention on the dog and swung at him, but I was on my feet in a second and stabbed it in the back. I jumped backward afterward, and preparing to defend against him swung again, but this was the final blow. It collapsed into nothing and left behind a shiny blue pearl.
Doug jumped at a zombie that came through my window, and I finished it off with a few stabs. I quickly replaced the glass and cobble before hearing a big crunch: the corpses had broken my gate.
In a few seconds they were pounding at my door. One jumped to my window and started breaking it. Apparently they didn't need clubs. I smashed the pane for the corpse and Doug jumped through my window to do battle. Luckily for him the corpse was only focused on destroying me, so it entirely ignored the dog. Doug slayed the corpse for me and I found myself face-to-face with another one. There were, as I could see, eleven in total. Doug was having a party, slaying the risen undead as fast as he could. A spider crawled over my fence and bit at him, but Doug used the re-dead to his advantage, eating the dropped rotten flesh to heal himself and destroy the spider. I kept hitting the corpses through the window. My door broke and two charged into my house. I killed them in a few blows, and finished off the others outside with Doug's help in a few seconds. I put back my old wooden fence gate and one of the three doors I'd obtained when I crafted together six planks.
Doug was back inside the house, but the night was far from over.
A small explosion hit the top of my house. A Sky-eel was on the offensive, apparently. I grabbed a piece of cobblestone and used my strong hands to break it into four small rocks that I could use. Another explosion. I had a little balcony on the second floor, on the same face of my house as my door. I ran upstairs, and out onto the exposed wood. The Sky-eel, which had been aiming at me, hurled another bolt out of its tail in my direction. I threw a rock at it and they collided and exploded. I wasn't hurt, so I tossed another one at the eel. The stone hit the thing, hurting it definitively, and bounced back down onto the roof. I started using dirt to tower up. Another bolt. A rock negated it. I was now down to one.
I made it up to the top, dodged the next bolt so I wouldn't waste a rock, and grabbed my other one. I threw both, both hit and fell onto the roof. Dodge a bolt, grab the rocks, throw the rocks. Repeat. One of them, when it recoiled, fell off my roof onto the ground. There was no way I was going down there at that point. My smansion was surrounded by a veritable army of zombies, corpses, skeletons, spiders, and green explodey things. Another bolt dodged. It broke through my roof into the upstairs room, where I had plans to put a bedroom and décor once I got the materials.
I threw my last rock at it. Another blow to its side. How much health could this thing have? The stone bounced to my roof and I grabbed it. Another shot, this time a miss. The rock soared helplessly out of my reach and hit the ground. Nothing left. I needed more cobblestone.
BOOM.
I heard Doug yelp, and I left the roof, vaulting onto my balcony and inside. Smaller explosions knocked on my roof, and I saw fire light above my head.
Something had blown up one of my walls and left little orange shreds behind it. The mobs were already piled at the foot of my staircase, and Doug was barking and yelping. I couldn't see him. I used the wooden stairs that had been dropped from the roof destruction and barricaded the stairwell quickly, before they reached the top. I couldn't let them get through.
The light of day was peeking through the top of my roof and the doors to my balcony. The Sky-eel caught on fire and started to yelp, quickly deteriorating into nothing. I considered letting them into the room and hoping they'd burn from the daylight on the roof, but there would be no way I'd escape. I threw some slices at them, but it was clear there were more of them than durability points on my sword.
Another boom, but this time it was the undead that yelled. Another and another kept hitting, quick and small explosions destroying the army that was against me. I saw a small, red stick land at the end of my stairwell, and explode. Two more followed and blew up everyone that was there. I heard hitting and zombies being hurt, and my house was silenced.
Something had killed them all.
I broke down one of the blocks in my barricade and walked through. Silence and sunshine greeted me. I continued slowly down my stairs, gripping my iron sword.
"Who's there?" I yelled.
I leapt out of the space at the bottom of the stairs, into my living room.
It was a person. A girl.
"Even I haven't had this bad luck with monsters. Not since the Corruptis," she said. She looked up at me. "You have really bad luck." She was redheaded.