Pixaron: A Minecraft Story

Chapter 1: Snow

The tale was abruptly ended by the slamming shut of a book as particles of dust puffed out from between its faded yellow pages. "Right! That's quite enough adventure for one night" the young woman reading the book smiled at a pale young boy who sat upright in his bed with gleaming eyes, clinging to her every word.

"Oh please Laura! Just one more! What about the one about the first adventure into the nether? Or the battle against the wither? Oh I love that one..." the boy protested.

"No Snow" Laura insisted as she rose from her chair and placed the book on the shelf. "You know, we named you Snow after the snow we found you in as a babe. But in hindsight we should have named you something like adventurous, or incessant... that would have been much more fitting" she chuckled as she playfully rubbed Snow's head, roughing up his pale lavender hair. "Now, off to bed, like I said"

Snow pondered for a moment as he sat upright beside the torch light. "Laura...?" he asked reluctantly.

"Yes?" Laura asked, a concerned look on her face.

"What's it like?"

"What is what like?"

"The kingdoms the four founders built, the world at the foot of the mountains."

"You must have asked me this question about a hundred times. It's like I said, we have plenty of books in the temple about the outside world"

"Yeah but... you actually lived there. The books talk about the boring old history and how they were built. But what was it actually like to live out there?"

Laura sighed and placed her hand on Snow's. "It was nice and all, but I came to these mountains for a reason. I much prefer my life as a monk of Devus" she smiled. "Right, I mean it this time, bed"

Snow pondered Laura's words, before finally deciding to give in and lie down.

Laura wrapped her kimono tightly around herself to defend against the bitter cold of night as she walked towards the door. She picked the torch off the wall and blew out the flames, turning its orange glow into pixels of black smoke. "Goodnight Snow"

"Goodnight Laura".

Snow was a young boy who was found and raised as a baby by an order known as the monks of Devus. The monks of Devus were an order of men and women who, much like the goddess they worshipped, fled the noise and chaos of their homes, and chose to lead peaceful lives of seclusion in the snowy mountains of pixaron. The monks of Devus were known for their skill as builders as they built picturesque green and white temples in the snow capped peaks. They renounced all violence, and chose instead to grow farms for food, refusing to hunt innocent animals.

Snow loved his life with the monks of Devus. He spent most of his days helping tend to the farmlands and scouring through tomes. The monks of Devus were also excellent song writers and had many instruments strewn about their temples ready for anyone to pick them up and start playing. People would say that you could tell when you were near one of their temples due to the beautiful sounds of harps, chimes and flutes emanating from them. This is where Snow's passion for music originated. After returning from the farm, he would climb to the roof of the tallest temple, and play his joyfully crafted melodies on the lute to the empty ocean of glittering snow that surrounded him. Sometimes, he would even find himself miraculously sitting atop the roof in the dead of night with his lute in his hands after sleepwalking up there. Snow would often sleepwalk. Usually during his episodes he would simply mimic his day to day tasks. His sleepwalking was so frequent that Laura even sometimes joked that that's probably how he ended up in the mountains as a baby. That he'd probably sleepwalked from his home and all the way to the monks of Devus's temple without knowing. But on occasion, he would go missing from the temple entirely, and Laura or one of the other monks would find him halfway down the mountain, as though attempting to subconsciously venture into the world below.