Redstone and a Rescuer

I found a strange desert temple today. From the outside, it looked normal, but inside, the orange clay was replaced with black, and the blue was replaced with red.

When I mined under the stained clay and into the hidden chamber, I found that rather than a pressure plate, there was a mesh of tripwire two blocks above the ground. Fortunately, I didn't trigger it; I always mine down in the wall of the chamber, so that I don't accidentally fall on the pressure plate.

Looking through the chests, I found that they were full of redstone blocks and dust, redstone torches, repeaters, and other various redstone components. I took them all, then towered back out of the chamber.

When I came out it was dark, although I pretty sure it had been before noon when I went into the temple. I walked forward a few blocks, but stopped when I noticed a mob in the distance. It was thin and black, and walked on four legs, bending its head toward the ground.

Probably a redhound, I thought, thinking back to a book that I found half a year ago. I started moving away, hoping to avoid the redhound, but then its head snapped up, looking straight at me with its red eyes. Then, suddenly, it rushed toward me, and as it got closer, I saw that its eyes were realistic and high-resolution.

I stood with my sword in hand, ready to fight it, but before it could get to me, three lightning bolts struck in quick succession, killing the gaunt creature! The sky got lighter, and I looked up to see an iron and glowstone aircraft, which somewhat resembled a flying saucer. It descended, and a humanoid figure jumped off.

The pilot was holding a scythe, and had dark gray skin, claws, and a white shirt with an interrobang (‽) on it. This strange person came toward me, and a message appeared in the chat:

"<Skylar> Hell0! MY name !s SkYlar. ! d0n't halve pr0n0uns; just use mY name. Wh0 R U?"

"I'm craftykids," I replied. "He/him. Thanks for helping me with that redhound!"

"0, Yeah," said Skylar, "! th!nk the Cult!vat0r and h!r fr!ends talked ab0ut U a c0uple 0f thYmes!  Halve U met them?"

"Well, I've met Herobrine, Heropiggy, and the Forger. Is there anyone else?"

"The!rs als0 Meran, butt ! d0n't C her all0t. She's an enderw0man! Y R U 0ut hear?"

"I was just exploring this desert," I told Skylar. "The temple over there had strange clay colors in it, and it was full of redstone stuff. When I came out, that redhound attacked me. Well, I'm going to get back to exploring. Bye!"

"C U later!" said Skylar, hopping back onto the flying saucer. I ran off into the desert.

The Easter Fluzzerbunny

Last year, it was spotted eggs...

This year, it's striped eggs!

While exploring an abandoned mineshaft, I came across a pink egg with purple stripes. Remembering the evil block-eating monster that came out of last year's egg, I was curious to see if a different creature would hatch from this striped one. I didn't want to take it home, of course, since last year that resulted in a large hole being eaten out of my house. I decided to stay in the mineshaft for a while.

I set up a temporary camp, and stayed in the general area, mining while I waited for the egg to break.

The egg refused to open, however; although I waited longer than it took for the spotted egg to hatch, this striped one remained unbroken.

Then an idea came to me. Last year, I put the egg on top of my furnace. Maybe this egg needed warmth!

I quickly placed some torches around the egg, then stood back to see if anything would immediately happen.

After about a minute of waiting, particles started coming out of the egg. Then it shattered, and a huge pink bunny jumped out! (Fortunately, I got a screenshot this time, unlike last year when I had to use a bad drawing.)

The bunny ran at me, and I pulled out my sword, expecting it to attack me. Instead, it went straight through me, dealing no damage but clearing my inventory as it went!

I watched as it disappeared down the passageway, then turned around to find a furtherman looking in my chest! Seeing that I had noticed it, the furtherman closed the chest, dropped a book, and disappeared.

I opened my chest and confirmed that my redstone was, as I had expected, missing. Then I picked up the book and read it.

---

The Fluzzerbunny Exterminators! by the Ghost Warrior

Recently, a plague of fluzzerbunnies has swept across Minecraftia, and it has come to my attention that something needs to be done about this.

That's why I started The Fluzzerbunny Exterminators! With the help of my colleague Mr. Jones, I have embarked on a quest to rid the world of these vile creatures. And it only costs one emerald, plus an additional one for each bunny killed!

(Also, please be nice to Mr. Jones. He is here to help, and will not, for example, leave you trapped in a cave. Alone. In the dark. Without any torches.)

---

So, as I said last year: if you find multicolored eggs, don't take them home with you! (Or try to hatch them.)

The Porcine Prankster

I usually put pressure plates next to my doors, but only on the inside. So today, when I walked over the pressure plate and out out of my house on one of my singleplayer worlds, I didn't expect it to do anything other than open the door.

Instead, it dumped water on my head! Someone or something had connected the pressure plate to a dispenser, which contained a now-empty bucket. I thought it must have been Dr. Chibawk who did it, so I looked around to see if he had left a message anywhere to taunt me. As I looked around, however, a pig popped out of the ground and shouted, "Sdksdfksfjsdkksdksfjsk!" The chat message said that the pig's name was Patricia Piggleton, and she was wearing Groucho Marx glasses!!

I jumped back in surprise, and Patricia said, "ROFL! I booby-trapped your house, stupid!"

I was angry. "I'm so angry!!!" I typed into the chat, before running at the pig and trying to hit her.

"LOL," said Patricia, and she disappeared back into the ground.

Hoping that the crazy pig wouldn't come back, I put the water back in the bucket, cleaned up the redstone, and went to collect some wood, which is what I had been trying to do in the first place.

Craftykids's Art: Meran

I actually made this a couple months ago, but just realized that I should post it:

Meran, flying with some of Herobrian's winged squid.

"The Horse of Doom"

I found this book in a stronghold's library:

---

The Horse of Doom by Meran

A friend of mine asked me to write this about an adventure she had.
--Meran



Emerald Glass stared at the moonlit desert, empty except for cacti and dead bushes.

There was nothing to recycle.

She looked around one last time, then teleported a couple hundred blocks to the west. Arriving in a plains biome, she examined her new surroundings. To the west: just some trees and flowers; to the south: some sheep and a pool of water; the edge of the desert was the only thing in the east, but in the north...a village! That would be recyclable!

Emerald appeared inside the librarian's house, and started grabbing the bookshelves off the walls. She could give them to her friend Meran; Meran liked writing.

After the bookshelves were gone, Emerald took the furniture, and demolished the walls, ceiling, and floor. She started to move on to the next house, but then, through the window, she saw a transparent figure wearing froggy clothes and talking to a villager. It was Rana, another agent of Dr. Chibawk! Emerald teleported inside.

"Hi, Rana!" she said.

Rana turned around. "Oh, hi! Sorry, I don't think I've met you...what's your name?"

"I'm Emerald Glass," said Emerald. "What are you doing here?"

The villager that Rana had been talking to looked between the two Chibawkians, then scurried out the door.

"Oh, I've been trying to sell clothes to the villagers," said Rana. "They don't seem interested, though. I told them that Dr. Chibawk would destroy their village, but that didn't help." Rana paused for a moment. "Hey, are you recycling the houses? Maybe that will make them want to buy my clothes!"

"We could try that." Emerald teleported on to the roof and began tearing it off. "I have been sent by Dr. Chibawk!" she proclaimed. "If you don't buy froggy clothes from Rana, your entire village will become supplies and houses for Chibawkia!" Not that I'll stop even if you do buy them! she added to herself.

The villagers, who had come out of their houses and were looking up at Emerald, now glanced at each other, then back at Emerald.

"UNLEASH THE HORSE OF DOOM!!!" shouted the priest.

The ground started to shake, and then, suddenly -- BOOM! -- a spot on the ground just outside the village exploded! Out of the explosion rushed a skeletal horse with flaming eye sockets. It reared up and let out a roar, then ran toward the house that Emerald was on, jumped right onto the roof, and attacked her! Emerald quickly teleported onto another roof. "Rana!" she yelled at the ghost, who had come out to see what was happening. "Is there anything you can do about this horse?" She teleported again as the Horse of Doom opened its mouth and shot a fireball at her feet.

"Not on my own, but I can try to contact Dr. Chibawk!" said Rana. She stood still for a moment, then said, "Dr. Chibawk says he'll send help!"

Emerald teleported into a house and waited for the Horse to notice her new location. As she was starting to wonder where Dr. Chibawk's help was, she noticed some strange particles, like the ones you find at bedrock level, hovering in the middle of the room. Then a figure appeared, and all the torches fell off the walls.

In front of Emerald stood an individual covered in diamond armour. He had no eyes; just a streak of red where his right should've been, and blackness where his left would be. Emerald recognized him as the Ghost Warrior, although she had never actually seen him before.

"Ghost Warrior!" exclaimed Emerald. "There's a Horse of Doom out there, and it's attacking me and Rana!"

The Ghost Warrior said nothing, but ran out the door. Emerald teleported into the roof to watch.

As the Ghost Warrior ran toward the Horse of Doom, the Horse turned to confront its new foe. It shot a fireball, but the Ghost Warrior disappeared into the Void, then reappeared and hit the Horse with his diamond sword! The Horse reared up and knocked the Ghost Warrior away. The Ghost Warrior disappeared again in midair, reappearing behind the Horse of Doom. He attacked it again, this time getting in three hits before before, once again, being thrown back.

They repeated this several more times. After about the fifth time, as the Ghost Warrior ran toward the Horse of Doom, it opened its mouth and spit a stream of lava blocks at the Ghost Warrior, who, after being enveloped in lava, vanished. Emerald waited for him to come back, but nothing happened. The Horse looked around, also waiting. It soon gave up however, and, seeing Rana, started running toward her. Emerald watched, hoping that the Ghost Warrior would reappear just in time, but the Horse of Doom got closer, closer...and Rana fled, gliding toward a cave opening.

Then the Horse turned its attention to Emerald, and she too left the village, and went to find a safer place to recycle things--but first, to go Chibawkia and drop off the remains of the library.

---

Based on the recycling and teleporting, I'm guessing that Emerald is a cycleman.

The Mystical Siblings

I was exploring a cave.

It was a big cave, and I was running out of torches. I had some wood, but I hadn't bothered mining any coal yet. I looked around and spotted a couple of patches of coal ore, one a few blocks above the other. I went over to them and started mining ore.

As I mined, I noticed that the coal vein seemed to be curving around and going upward, almost in a corkscrew shape.

Sure enough, as I mined higher, the vein went around to the second patch of ore that I had seen. The spiral seemed to keep going, but I had plenty of coal by then, so I jumped out, crafted some torches, and kept going.

After a bit, I came to a cave opening. I could see a village through it, and tall, thin ore block structures in it.

I went to see what the strange structures were, but along the way I noticed a chest in a librarian's house, so I stopped to see what was in it.

There were three written books, along with various other book-related items.

One of the books, "An Exciting Mine" by Happyguy, I had seen before, but the others, "How to Play Goingol" by Meran and "The Legend of Herobrian" by Happyguy, were new to me.

I opened "How to Play Goingol:"

---

Goingol is a game that endermen seem to have a natural enjoyment of. The rules are generally something along the lines of this:

1. Any number of endermen may participate in a game of Goingol.

2. On the blink of a redstone torch, all the endermen teleport randomly.

3. If an enderman finds a player, they can win by dropping sand on the player's head.  Otherwise, they randomly  teleport again and repeat this process.

Despite its popularity, games of Goingol are rarely won.

---

I closed the book and opened "The Legend of Herobrian."

---

Hey guys! Guess what?? I heard about this guy called Herobrian! He's mystical! Cool, huh??

---

I put both the books back and went to see what the ore block structures were.

When I got near them, I saw an iron golem and a snow golem walking next to the structures.

I've talked to a skeleton in the past, so I thought I might as well try talking to the golems.

"Hi," I said. "What are these structures?"

The snow golem turned toward me, and a message appeared in chat:

"<Henrietta> They're mine and my cousin Henry's houses."

"Ah," I said. "Hey, do you either of you know anything about Herobrian?"

"You mean Herobrine?" asked the iron golem, who, according to the chat, was named Bob.

"I don't think so. The book I read definitely said 'Herobrian.'"

"I've never heard of Herobrian," said Henrietta, "but I know someone who might be able to take you to him."

"Who?"

"Her name is Dieamond, and she has voidcarts, which are basically minecarts that can travel to virtually anywhere through the Void. She said that the Void can be dangerous, though, so you should only use the voidcarts if you really want to find Herobrian."

"You'll also have to pay her," said Bob. "Four emeralds, right? Plus the diamond that you mine to summon her."

"Right," said Henrietta. "See, she has these spirals of coal hidden underground, and each one has a block of diamond ore at the bottom which you mine to summon her."

"Huh," I said. "I think I found one of those a little bit ago. Thanks for the info!"

I went and harvested some crops from the village, and sold them and some coal to the villagers to get four emeralds. Then I went back to the ore vein that had seemed to spiral. I mined downward and, sure enough, there was a block of diamond ore. I mined that, too.

Suddenly, all my torches dropped off the walls, and a figure appeared in front of me. I placed a torch, and the light revealed a dark gray creature with a hunched back and diamond shards as teeth, which looked almost like they had been hammered into the creature's bleeding gums.

"Sorry about the torches," said Dieamond. "Side effect of Void-travel. Do you have four emeralds and a diamond?"

"Yep." I dropped the gems to her. She came forward and picked me up, and then we were in the void. A few seconds later, we were in a glowstone-lit stone room. It was full of minecarts which looked like they were made of a combination of iron and bedrock.

"Pick a cart, any cart," said Dieamond. "Now, where was it you wanted to go?"

I got into the nearest voidcart. "Wherever Herobrian lives."

"OK," she said, and I was back in the void. I thought I saw a flash of cyan, but then I was shooting out of the side of a mountain. As soon as the minecart came to rest, it dissolved into nothingness.
There was a building in front of me, made out of prismarine and with blue torches on it. Around the building were giant flowers.

I walked around the building, looking for some sort of entrance. I couldn't find one. Then, as I was wondering whether I should try breaking in, a faceless player walked through the wall!

"Are you Herobrian?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And I'm his sister, Herobecky," said a yellow-eyed player as she walked out of the wall.

"Hi," I said. "I was wondering...what do you do?"

"Umm..." said Herobecky. "Well, I'm an enchanter, and 'Brian is a biomancer."

"Ah. Are you friends with Herobrine? Or do you work for Dr. Chibawk or Entity 303 or something?"

"No, we generally try to stay out of that sort of stuff," said Herobrian.

"Hey, I just noticed--you two look a lot like the skeletons and zombies that were running around on Halloween."

"Yeah. I made the faceless zombies, and 'Becky enchanted the skeletons."

"Huh. I assumed that they had something to do with Entity 303 or Dr. Chibawk."

Before they could reply, Dr. Chibawk himself materialized next to us!

"Hello, craftykids," he said. "Didn't anyone tell you that Void-travel is dangerous? And it's especially dangerous when the Ghost Warrior tells me that you're Void-traveling! Hahahahaha! Chi-BAWK!" He pulled out a thin obsidian frame with a portal in it, and a villager popped out. "This is Mr. Jones. I don't believe you've met. He offered his village as a place to start Chibawkia! It was fun destroying those weird golems' houses."

Weird golems' houses? I thought. I wonder if they were Henry and Henrietta's...

"Anyway," said Dr. Chibawk, "I haven't visited you in a while, so I thought I should make sure you weren't OK!" He pulled out a diamond sword, teleported next to me, and hit me with it. As soon as he did, lighting struck me, and I ran away from him. As I did, winged squid flew out of nowhere and attacked Dr. Chibawk and Mr. Jones, who had taken out a spawn egg and was spawning skeletons. Herobecky waved her arm, and she, Herobrian, and I turned invisible.

The skeletons could still tell where we were, but I ran around and avoided their arrows. Patches of a grass-like plant with white spots on it sprang up around Mr. Jones and Dr. Chibawk. The plants seemed to slow down Mr. Jones, but Dr. Chibawk just teleported out. I ran over to Mr. Jones and attacked him, but Dr. Chibawk teleported over, placed a thin portal around Mr. Jones, and then disappeared, leaving behind a colorful spotted egg. I ran toward it, hoping to destroy it before it could hatch, but before I could get there, it broke, and an evil block-eating monster came out! The monster sheared off the corner of Herobrian and Herobecky's house before diving into the ground and burrowing away.

I looked around to see if there were any skeletons left, but the squid must've killed them. The invisibility wore off--or maybe Herobecky stopped it. Anyway, we were visible again.

"Sorry about that," I said.

"Eh, it's OK," said Herobrian. "From what I've heard, my faceless zombies seem to be able to get through walls, and seeing as zombies have been attacking Chibawkia, he might've gotten mad at me anyway."

"Thanks for helping me! Hmm. I just realized that I don't have a way to get home..."

"One of my squid could fly you."

"OK," I said, and a squid came over, picked me up, and flew off.

Ghast-Squid

I found a flying squid the the Nether that shot fireballs at me.



Brightened version: