Mythical Artifacts

Chapter 5: Desperate Searching

There was no way that it was The Sword. It had just been my vision playing games on me. Still, nobody has found it yet, I thought, but I knew it was nothing. I — of all people — could not have found The Sword; it just wasn't possible. . . .

I sighed, getting out of bed to get changed back into real clothes. I couldn't rest until I knew whether or not I had seen The Sword. When I was ready, I headed out of my house, the moon giving me a little light as I made my way to the Bedwars lobby.

As I hurried toward my destination, I went over the events: I had met MICHAEL5, and in the Dragonstar map, I went to the middle, only to encounter one of our enemies. We ended up at the top of the structure in the center of the map, fighting, when the roar of a dragon signaled my bed was broken. My foe had knocked me to the ground, and that's when I saw the faintest of gold and silver in the bright, red beam. Then I had died.

Immediately I had wondered if it was the elusive artifact, but I doubted that it would be in such an obvious and popular game as Bedwars. I had been tired, so I departed from Michael . . . but then I was restless in bed, thinking about what I might have seen.

After reaching the Bedwars lobby, I went over to the NPCs and picked Dragonstar using the map selector. When I reappeared in the map, my eyes were momentarily blinded by the sun, which never went down in minigames. The apparent change in time made me feel a little less tired.

When the game began, I stayed in my generator, getting as much iron as I could. I put two layers of wool on my bed, then continued to gather resources. Luckily, nobody was attacking me — which was somewhat common in Dragonstar — giving me time to focus on my real goal: getting to the center.

Once I got to the middle of the map, I started bridging up the towering structure at the center. When I was at the top, I surveyed my surroundings, seeing players fighting; they have no idea that The Sword is in this map, I thought. I felt exhilarated, feeling like I just had to have seen The Sword.

I turned to look at the glorious beacon — the supposed resting place of the mysterious artifact. The beam almost seemed like a blazing fire, rising into the sky. I stared into the core of it, trying to look for the slightest hint of silver or gold . . . silver or gold . . . silver or gold . . .

I bit my lip: I couldn't see anything. I stared as hard as I could, but I couldn't see any silver, nor gold. I got closer and closer, circling the beam continually, but could not see anything. I was so sure that it had been there before . . . that I had seen it! Someone could have taken it, I thought, but surely . . . surely nobody had gotten it!

There's no way I'm giving up tonight, I thought. I stared at the beam some more, thinking hard. Then, not knowing for sure what would happen, I stepped into the beam. It felt hot, but it didn't hurt; I couldn't see, but I could feel. I knelt down and felt around, looking for the tip of a sword or anything more than flat ground. For minutes I tried relentlessly, but there was nothing; I tried pounding the ground in case I could have broken anything, but nothing transpired.

Stepping out, I sighed. I guess I was wrong, I thought, taking a second look at the entire map and then at the beam. I slowly took out my compass and left the map, hopeless. I had seen wrong; I was no closer to The Sword than anybody else.

I got to my feet and dashed down the flights of stairs, eventually reaching the bottom, where I once again found my friend Melon at my front door. It wasn't surprising, as I had asked him to come over for an important conversation: I was going to explain to Melon my thoughts on forming a team. I had known that the next step after failing to find The Sword is to find others to help me, so that's what I was going to do.