How To Move Dirt (a Minecraft fan fic)

Day 3: Torch Light

All night moaning, shrieking and tugging was crowding around my wooden box. All night I was safe but all night I was once again trapped. The same chokes and sings of pain ensured that it was nearly safe to leave, once most of the sounds were gone, I muscled up the courage to see the light and safety. I broke through, enough so that I could fit through, and saw the same peace I did the day before, but a big odd black creature with red eyes and eight legs was strolling around the area barely taking notice of me. Then… a sound came from it, a familiar sound, and the sound was that of my persecutor on my first night. But why wasn’t it attacking me like before. I came with one conclusion, this creature was only hostile during the night unless provoked and during the day it was as intelligent as any passive creature.  

I wondered, 'how did that Zombie approach me last night without any entrances?'. It was obvious, so obvious that I hated myself for not thinking of it earlier, the hostile creatures spawn at night and most of them die by the time daylight strikes, for there were no undead wandering about.

I no longer had to obtain wood and I still had enough food for two or more days, so today I have a personal mission, one that will ensure my safety at night; I will seek a source of light! But first I must prepare a home, a safe haven where I can rest in peace from the monsters of the night.

I prepared it quickly, making it seem as comfortable as I could with the resources I had in my disposal. A nine by eight rectangle was what I had made; with walls, flooring, and a flat roof made of wooden planks. There was one way in and one out which I patched up with dirt for easy access because I was the only thing that I knew I could move and pick up.

With my haven prepared, I still had to find light that I could keep for myself. So I ventured on, leaving markers (three blocks of dirt) for my return…

Seeing a Creeper form a distance was the best way to avoid them, if I could see or hear the creature before it began chasing me then I would choose an alternative way. However I had three close calls: the two I outran but the one but the other was less fortunate. I heard some distance from me before I actually saw it, but when it appeared from behind the leaves of a tree I was unprepared and driven by pure instinct. The creature was on the verge of exploding before I bolted away from it. The Creeper then calmed down back to its normal appearance; it stopped itself before it could waste its own life. I had the opportunity to either run or finish off what it started, and one thing I noticed in this world wass that everything dropped something and I was very curious on what I could obtain from this Creeper. I grabbed my wooden axe, thinking that it would do more damage than my face, which it did. And I began hacking this creature as fast as I could. It hissed in pain, attempting to explode twice, but I pushed it away till it could no longer do harm. I had killed the Creeper and what remained of it was peculiar grey powder that had an uncomfortable odor, I called it Creeper Powder at first but later on I called it Gun powder for reasons you will eventually know why.

Shortly after my encounter with the Creeper I reached the end of this island, I saw islands with trees, mountains and valleys farther ahead, but I decided that today would not be the day I would venture to them. Today I had to stick with my task for safety. The end of island was yellowish and a had a sandy texture, so I called it sand and I found it easy to obtain due its non durable nature. But as I dug lower and lower I reached another kind of sand, hard sand, I could not simply destroy or obtain it easily. After spending some time punching this hard sand, it gave way but left nothing behind. Below it was more hard sand and I knew that it was pointless to try again; it was pointless to try again without the knowledge on how to obtain such. So I went back up the same way I did to get off the cliff only this time using sand and I walked by the beach; till I saw something peculiar in its geography.

There was a massive portion of land missing at the end of the island, revealing a bare layer below dirt. I walked closer to the grey layer and tested its durability. I could not punch it so easily, it was stone, and hard sand was “sand stone.” Naming the two this felt right, the name suited their texture and hardness. And like the sandstone before, it did not leave anything behind after I destroyed it. I had to think of a way to obtain these harder substances, my fist caused them to simply disappear into thin air, and I needed a harder way through them, a sharper way.

Crafting another crafting table I thought hard on how to make this; two sticks for a handle and two sharp ends… So three wooden planks on top of the handle created a wooden “pickaxe.” Using this I destroyed the block of stone and obtained some cobble stone, even though I had no true use for this then. It will be far more important than wood in the future (though I didn’t know that then).

While “mining” (which is the term I’ll eventually use for obtaining blocks below dirt) I came across some strange looking stones with black dots and bumps on it. I could mine it with my pickaxe but unlike stone, it did not drop stone. It dropped whatever was inside it, the black stuff inside that smelled almost the same as the Creeper powder. I obtained as much of this substance as I could before packing my crafting table and returning home, following the markers I left.

The trip back was a lot safer, as if all the Creepers I’d seen had disappeared to somewhere else.

I was in my box observing my inventory, thinking how I could make use of everything I had obtained. And while I was thinking about the use of the Creeper powder, the black substance came to my mind. The two smelled alike so they must’ve had something in common; The Creepers explosion must’ve cost it a lot of energy, so is this also a source of energy? So I tried to put it on a stick, first the powder but it simply fell through, but when I placed the coal on top of the stick… It ignited! And light was emitting out of it like a beacon of hope… I could finally sleep in peace, I could finally see in the dark…