A skeletons tale [A mine craft story]

                                                  By Lawrence Nichols             Chapter 1: Everything has a beginning…

Blinding light filled my eyes and I awoke to find myself near a cave with an ocean not too far from view. I suddenly grew very hot and then nothing…. Again I awoke but this time I was greeted by darkness pure darkness I stood still fearing that I would have the same experience of heat. To my surprise nothing of the sort happened rather it was cold and I could feel my bones chattering, I took a few cautious steps forward and noticed that it appeared to be night time. I examined my surroundings once more and saw the sky was filled with twinkling specks and a round sphere that appeared to be giving off light, however this light didn’t burn me. I also noticed that I was in the same area that I had burned before, after a while of walking about in darkness I stumbled upon a creature that was the same height as me but looked nothing like me it  was green with four legs. It seemed to be uninterested in me so I ignored the it and continued, I saw many other creatures  some made strange noises others made no noises at all which worried me.  The most beautiful happened I saw a light in the distance my curiosity got the better of me and I began to sprint towards it as I later learned this was a bad idea. When I got closer to the source of this light I felt the same sensation of heat,  it begin to tingle in the tips of my toes reaching up and up until it consumed my body then darkness . As I now inferred the light was a bad thing and I had only a certain time to explore during the night before I would feel the sensation of heat and be sent to nighttime. This time I had a plan to, I set my plan in motion by trying to find a friend. After a while of not seeing anything (to my surprise) I finally set my eyes on a very tall black figure which was holding a block of something and appeared to be floating? As I got closer it began to stare at me and shake its head in anger and suddenly it disappeared. Great I thought the only creature tonight didn’t want to communicate with me. Then with a loud bang it was right next to me yelling and swinging its arms in what appeared to be panic which confused me, have I scared it? I was faced with an option to run or stay and try to calm the “thing” down. As I was willing to risk my life for a friend I stayed. I waved my arms in an effort to say I was friendly; this had a negative effect it swung faster and began to hit me. I fell to my knees and began to cry in pain and it suddenly stopped and stared at me once more. It appeared to be confused and I looked into his eyes, upon closer inspection he was quite ugly and a very sad looking figure. Had it been angry with me because it didn’t like being looked at? Was it an enemy or could it become my friend? These questions lingered in my mind but I had to take action, I was on the floor my tears had subsided I decided to take the friendly route with this creature in hopes that it would respond in the same way. I bent over on my knees and held out my hand in an apologetic manner. To my relief it held out its hands with the thing that upon closer inspection was the material I was kneeling on. I took this assuming it was a peace offering. As I took the material it lifted my up with a strength that I could not match and it stood across from me in silence. “I am sorry, I will harm you no longer, please follow me”. As appalled as I was I did not think the danger I could be in if I followed him, so I did as I was told. We did not walk for long and we arrived at what appeared to be the ruins of a castle with deteriorating walls and towers that are falling apart. The tower that was less damaged than the others was the one he led me into and as I entered I saw it was a makeshift home built around and over broken pieces of stone. He brought out a piece of stone and replaced a broken piece with that stone. He was rebuilding I thought to myself. “This was once a great empire before…” his voice trailed off and he had looks of concern and hatred. “Before what?” I said fearing that I might anger him more. “ So you can further understand what happened to our civilization you must first know this, our race was skilled in the arts of crafting and digging, We had stumbled upon a new mineral deep within the earth it was black the color of death.” We had no idea what it was and we had our best miners dig up this new substance, and our top crafters construct instruments of this rock.” “Unfortunately this block was too sturdy to break apart and craft into things such as picks and armor, after years of research we found that it had magical properties.” “We have never experience magic this was the specialty of only one of our kind his name was folorn, he was one of the elders of our city and took part in founding the empire. He was first apprehensive on the new substance as he for tolled it would bring danger.” “Us, being this was a new substance we were eager to learn more about it and didn’t head his warning which turned out for the worse.” “A few weeks later of tampering with this he crafted a portal of sorts and concluded that this was the only purpose for this material.” “This material harnessed the power of natural forces all around us but hidden within another dimension and only this being the only means of access.” “He warned us of the danger could lie in the other dimension, and that we should not tamper with the natural forces.” “Of course we did not listen we blindly ran into our demise….” “ After we arrived in this place which was on fire everything was made of new material which made me and my fellow men excited with anticipation on what we could do with these new items…. They caused more destruction than they caused good in this world.” “ As you now understand we tampered with nature and this is our result a great curse came upon this land new creatures and lava poured from the portal we had created in our city and quickly overtook our nation.”” These new creatures were savages, one resembled a cross between a zombie and a pig, and the other resembled nothing known to us, it made screeching noises which pierced our ears and stunned us in our place, it shot projectiles that we could not protect ourselves against even with our strongest armor.” “ Our greatest warriors were no match, I survived this bye being the only person that headed forlorn’s warning and hid away underground until just a few months ago.”” Again I apologize for attacking you I did not mean to harm you I feared for my life, I assumed that you were from the “other side” and had found my hiding spot.”” After this I began to rebuild, and repopulate this empire with no luck you see because all of my kind besides me has been killed off.” As he continued explaining his dire situation I realized that I have not been in this world long enough to understand most of what he is saying such as “crafting” or “mining”. As he completed his story I saw the same light in the distance.” Quickly we must run the heat is coming!” “ Do not fear the light is a source of life as it destroys it creates and we will soon see each other again. The sensation of heat grew as I felt myself dying. Darkness, this time my surroundings were different than before with no water instead the ground was a very dry, dusty substance. “My Friend!” I thought without realizing that I was speaking aloud. I looked around and was filled with sadness, for my friend was nowhere in sight. I searched frantically, I searched half the night this was with no avail and I wasted half the night, When  I stopped to rest I saw it, the very same green creature I had seen a few nights ago that seemed to want to avoid me. I approached it with caution fearing it might attack me, but as I got closer I saw that this creature was distressed. “ what is wrong” I exclaimed. When the creature heard me it turned around and bolted, I followed him in hopes that he would be friendly. As I was out of sight it began to slow and I saw it run into a cave and then it disappeared. Should I give chase or should I just leave it be? I decided to head into the dark cavern and what I saw appalled and shocked me the creature was there with another of the same creature but the other one was laying down and appeared to be sick. This other creature was also slimmer and looked slightly more feminine. When they noticed me the creature looked at me with the same distressed face that I have seen before, I again asked “what is wrong?” The creature replied by muttering to itself.”  Speak louder I said, the reply was nothing I had expected.” My wife, she’s sick and I have no way of fixing her.” Was this why he was so distressed? Is that why he ran all over the lands searching and searching for something? It appeared so, he was trying to find a remedy. I don’t have a remedy I thought so what help am I? But then the idea struck me what if my friend from the previous night learned from forlorn the ways of magic. Maybe he could aide him and create something to help this poor man.” What is your name?” I asked.” My name is Zandlot and my wife’s name is Ruliana, she was stricken with a terrible disease a while ago and I have been fending it off by giving her apples mixed with gold but I fear she does not have much longer.”” I have an idea I met a man a few days or so ago and he knew somebody talented in the ways of magic possibly he taught some of his ways to my friend, and he could possibly create a remedy for your poor wife.”” However I have lost this friend and it will be a journey to find him, there will be danger but I am sure you will risk your life for your wife.” And so the journey began, we stayed that night in his house and when daylight came I felt the sensation of heat grow. Blackness and then, this surprised me but I started where I was the night before in this man’s house more specifically the room he had provided me but this time it was night. As I walked through the house the man was preparing for the journey and also made it so that his wife would be cared for while we were away. When we walked outside and took our first steps to our journey, I realized something I had no idea where we should be going. This worried me and I told Zandlot that I had no idea where my friend was and that I had lost him the night before. He knew the land because of his journeys to find his wife food and supplies. I explained to him that my friend lived in a crumbling castle, he told me that he knew of the place and that it would be a few days journey, but he had packed for the journey and is an experienced traveler so I had no need to worry. As we set out for our journey he said his goodbyes to his wife and in his doing so I had a sudden longing for a reason to live… a family. We embarked and the beginning of our journey was relatively quiet and we did not come across any threats until we saw it. After a few days of walking and resting we came across a strange formation sort of like pillars that were crumbling and a doorway that appeared to go underground. The stone surrounding the door was filled with moss and rats scurried around the floor. Me and Zandlot shared worried looks and decided to explore the area. When we opened the door a terrible screech erupted from the dark passage and quickly stopped. I and he both decided to set up camp here and prepare with weapons and take the voyage tomorrow. We spent the last of the night gathering supplies making stones swords and cooking food. As we awoke the sun started to set, we put our supplies in a bag and headed towards the mysterious door and it was gone. It appears that an explosion has taken half of the wall and the entrance was littered with metal and stone fragments. We both unsheathed our swords at the same time and began cautiously walking through the door and were greeted with pure darkness. We walked for several minutes  before we came upon a structure which was round and appeared to have a hole in the middle twice the size of me in height and had water with a film of greenish blue substance floating on top of it. It had obviously been sitting there for a while untouched and whoever or whatever the noise came from yesterday was a dirty or lazy creature. There were two paths we could follow one that went to the right and one to the left, the one to the left seemed to have light coming from it and the one to the right was pitch black and had a cold feeling. Fearing and wanting to see light we went to the left and were greeted with a vast lake of fire and lava. In the middle of this lava lake there was a chest barely within view and next to that was a cage.” Could it be?” Zandlot exclaimed. I looked closer and saw it was! There was something lying on the floor in the cage that resembled a bony figure and looked similar to me… but somehow different. I feared what if this person was injured, or possibly even dead. I didn’t know how to get to it but as I was trying to figure a way over to the middle I saw that he was busy at work gathering stone and making a strip of land we could cross on. It was hard work but after an hour the bridge was completed it wasn’t a very nice bridge but it’d serve the purpose it was intended for. We cautiously made our way over to the island and when we arrived I was appalled at what I saw… could it be, another of me?