Mythical Artifacts

Chapter 7: The Sword

In no time at all, I was in a game of Bedwars, ready to find the mythical sword. We were paired into three groups: Ferbooper with Melon, Typo alone, and Mine with me, strategically yet hastily decided. We had paired everyone with an MVP+ so that each group would be able to select the Dragonstar map — and since there was nobody to group with Typo, he said he'd try and get an MVP+ friend to help him.

I had no idea what the others were up to as my game began; as Mine and I grabbed iron and gold from the generator, I could only imagine how close the others were to The Sword. I didn't know how many copies of each map there were or how many were currently in use, so I had no way of calculating how long it would take to find The Sword.

We quickly had issues with another team building to us. We had originally planned to grab as much wool as we could and simply bridge to the center, not worrying about our bed, but this team was foiling our plans. They relentlessly went after us, but we managed to take them down every time. Eventually I managed to destroy their bed and just nearly save ours.

Now able to focus, we stacked up on wool and headed for the center of the map via the diamond generator. Once we got up, we noticed a few other players scattered around the center. I got closer to the middle structure and began speedily building a wool staircase, Mine close behind. One player laughed mockingly at us as he grabbed emeralds, but soon died by the hand of another player.

I felt my heart pumping as we went higher, but I tried to calm myself: It's probably not here, I thought. When we reached the top, I looked around momentarily and then at the beam. As I stared closely into the beam, trying to spot any silver or gold, I was reminded of only eight days prior when I had been looking very closely at an identical beam.

Still eager to find The Sword, I quickly concluded that it wasn't there. Intelligently, Mine suggested that we message everyone else the map number, so nobody would waste their time here, so we did that. Then we headed into the next game.

"Kinda ironic that the moment the team officially forms, we're off to find The Sword," said Mine as we collected iron.

"Yeah, well, I'm just stupid," I replied.

"But if you still intend on splitting the rewards, then it's really a gift to everyone," he said.

I looked away from him to buy as much wool as possible. "Well . . . we didn't make any promises to be loyal like I had wanted to, but uh . . . I intend to act just the same as if we did."

We started bridging over to the diamond generator again and then up to the middle island. It wasn't long until our bed was broken behind us, but we weren't worried: we were after The Sword and nothing else, and it wasn't like everybody knew where it was. I bridged upward until I ran out of blocks, then Mine took the lead and finished the staircase up to the very top of the structure.

"Maybe this time," I said to Mine. I looked closely inside.

"I can't see anything," he said. "Can you?"

"Not yet," I said gruffly, entering the beam to feel for The Sword. I came out, and I could tell that Mine's downhearted expression was mirroring my own.

"Well, that's a disappointment," he said. "I sure hope somebody doesn't stumble upon it — wherever it is — before we find it."

"It's almost been two weeks or so, and nobody's found it yet."

"True, but it's still possible that one of us five won't be the ones to find it."

We went into the next game, surprised to find Ferbooper and Melon in an otherwise empty lobby. We talked as we waited for the game to fill up and start. I also checked the server number to ensure that we had not yet visited the map.