Survival Till The End - DISCONTINUED [A Dream and George Story]

Mob Trouble

It took a while to figure out how to get a crafting bench, but not as long as it took us to make wooden planks. All you had to do was place four wooden planks in a square and the menu reappeared to give us a crafting table. The result is much bigger than we thought it would be.

George bends down and inspects the thing, evidently surprised. I ask him what’s the matter and in response he prises off a saw from the side of the table.

‘Ok, woah,’ I say. ‘How the hell did we get that?’

George also pulls out an axe. ‘I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have got this with just four planks.’

I grab the axe from him. It’s surprisingly light, given its height. I check if the head is made of iron and a broad grin splits my face.

‘We won’t have to get iron for an axe now,’ I say. ‘Give me the saw, too.’

George hands it over. It’s also made of iron, but won’t be of much use unless we use it to kill mobs. I hang the saw back on the crafting bench, but keep the axe.

‘Do you want the axe or...?’ I ask George. He eyes it and then shakes his head.

‘I’m good. What do we do next?’ he asks as I experiment with pushing the axe into my pocket. I laugh at George's expression as the axe easily goes in.

‘We have a large inventory in Minecraft, so I thought I’d be able to do this.’ I tell him. George nods, his eyes still on my pocket.

‘What do we do next?’ he repeats.

‘Well, we need a pickaxe. To mine stuff,’ I add at George's questioning look. ‘We also need a sword, since I’ve got an axe and you don’t have anything.’

‘So, uh, how do you make a sword?’ he glances at the crafting bench. I make more planks using the wood George got and make him a sword.

‘That was quick,’ he says, taking the sword from me. I turn back to the table as he inspects his new sword.

A minute or so later, both of us have a full set of wooden tools, minus the hoe. I mean, who needs a hoe? I don’t make a sword or an axe for myself since I have the iron axe. I realize how much I like the axe, since you can use it for two purposes. None of the other tools can do two things, unless if you use a shovel as a spoon.

‘So, uh, what do we do now?’ George asks me.
‘I think we should both split up. You get some food for us and I’ll get us resources.’

‘Resources? Like what?’

‘Stone if we need it, iron, water buckets. Water buckets are pretty useful.’ I add at George's puzzled expression.

‘Okay. What provides food here, anyway?’ he asks, looking around for a food source.

‘Sheep, cows, pigs. If we want to go vegan – which we don’t –’ I give George a look, who laughs, ‘there’s bread, beetroot –’ George pulls a face – ‘carrots and a lot more which I don’t feel like listing right now.’

‘Okay.’ George rubs his hands together. ‘Let’s do this.’

I wish him luck and look around for a suitable place to start mining. I find a small pit a few yards away from where we stopped to get wood and start digging from there.

‘CLAY!’

I whip my head around. ‘George?’

‘CLAY! CLAY, HELP!’

‘George!’ I drop the stack of cobblestone I’m carrying and start to run up the path I carved out. ‘George, hold on!’

I’ve mined a lot more than I thought I had. It takes me a while to get out of the place, even though I’m going as fast as I can. ‘George, I’m coming!’

‘CLAY!’

I pin his voice as my compass and head towards him, running as fast as I can while pulling out my axe. I register the time of day. Is it night-time already? I hope feverishly that George is still alive.

I can see George in the distance, surrounded by so many shady figures that I can’t even count them. George is trying to hold them off, and a few he manages to kill. I can hear the sound of a bow creaking and an arrow whooshing towards him even from this distance. I increase my speed. George catches sight of me and calls my name again. ‘CLAY!’

‘George, I’m coming, hold them off!’ I shout at him. Some of the mobs turn and look at me.

‘Yeah!’ I yell at the mobs. ‘Come here! Come to daddy!’

More mobs turn. They abandon George and come toward me. I kill the first zombie that reaches me without thought, shuddering at its appearance. A spider makes its way up to me, clicking its pincers. I stab it through the head and jump back to avoid a skeleton arrow. The point of another arrow, however, finds its mark in my thigh. I hiss and jump back again reflexively, breaking the shaft. What’s the survival lesson? Never yank out weapons that might have been buried deep. I look back up at the mobs. Maybe yelling at them was a bad idea. I try and decapitate as many as I can, and George joins me to help despite his numerous wounds.

‘Do you have any wood left?’ I ask him as I cut a zombie's head into two.

‘I think so – wait, what are these green things?’

I whirl around as fast as I can.

Creeper.

‘George, look out!’ I push him aside as the creeper inflates alarmingly.