The Accidental Minecraft Family: Book 15 Read online

  “Listen,” Dad said, his voice serious and his gaze making eye contact with all four of them, one after the other. “You guys have a lot of responsibility here. Big responsibilities like keeping others safe. We all need to put the arguments aside and work together to find a solution.”

  “Lavapoof!” Jack said. “I’m being serous. It worked great the other night.”

  Dad shook his head. “It probably would work, but I was thinking this is a great opportunity to get experience for enchanting. Lava tends to burn all that up.”

  “I know!” Kate bounced on the balls of here feet. “We turn you into a creeper!”

  Dad looked at her, confused. “We what now?”

  Jack's eyes lit up. “That’s BRILLIANT, Kate!”

  Kate smirked. “Yeah, I’m pretty awesome.”

  Dad grinned. “Yes, yes, you’re both awesome. What the heck do you mean, though?”

  Kate told him the plan, and he frowned, not loving the idea but also realizing it was probably the best one.

  Chapter 9

  “I still don’t understand why I have to wear this mask,” Dad said, fumbling around. “It doesn’t have any purpose and I can barely see out of it.”

  “Just go with it, Dad. It’s fun. It fits the plan.”

  Dad sighed, looking around through the small holes in the creeper mask. He was standing on top of a pillar in the middle of the hole they had dug inside the bunker.

  “Alright everyone!” Kate yelled. “On three, tear down the walls and get out of here!”

  Villagers were stationed with pickaxes, ready to open up the walls to the horde of husks pounding against the building. There were escape stairs for the villagers to climb, the animals already up and out of harm’s way, with other villagers ready to knock out the first step as soon as their friends passed.

  “One!” Kate shouted, and all the villagers prepared themselves.

  “Two!” The villagers raised their pickaxes.

  “Three!” The air filled with sounds of pounding and particles of sand blocks as the villagers mined huge holes in the walls, big enough for mobs to get in. Without looking back, villagers bolted for the stairs into the safe areas, the bottom steps mined away so they couldn’t be followed.

  Husks aren’t the smartest things in the world. It took a few moments for them to realize what the giant holes in the bunker meant, but once they did, they poured inside. The husks wandered around the hole, a few falling in but most ignoring it. Until Dad activated his taunt ability. “Look how tasty I am!” He wiggled his butt down at them.

  The husks went CRAZY. They ran towards him, falling into the hole, filling it so full of husks that it looked like an ocean of undead hands reaching out for him. They kept coming from outside, like they were starving, and Dad was a delicious pumpkin pie. The hole was so full husks were almost spilling back out.

  Jack was watching from the roof, running from side to side. He poked his head into the hole down to the main area. “That’s most of them! Go Dad!”

  Dad sighed. “I’m not going to like this part. I mean, I didn’t really like any part. I still think-”

  “Dad!” Jack shouted. “NOW!”

  The plan was to place a TNT block and light it as soon as the mobs were in the hole, then Dad was supposed to jump-stack his way out of the mess. He had taken off all his gear and emptied his inventory beforehand, just in case.

  Holding the TNT in his hand, he looked for a spot to place it, but it was so crowded he couldn’t even see the ground.

  He frowned and stuck the TNT to the side of his pillar. “Here we go!” He put the flint and steel in his hand, lighting the TNT. It started flashing and immediately dropped like gravity had just gotten ahold of it, falling to the floor. Dad watched for a moment before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. “Oh! Right!”

  He quickly grabbed the stack of dirt from his hotbar and jumped in the air to stack a block underneath him. But dads aren’t the fastest things in the world, and he was just a little too slow.

  The TNT went off.

  Mom gasped, holding her hands over her mouth as Dad exploded into a cloud, along with a truly massive number of husks, and the ground. The explosion sent sand, experience orbs and loot everywhere.

  Chapter 10

  Dad respawned on the bed on top of the bunker where had reset his spawn point. “Dad,” Jack said, “you weren’t supposed to actually explode like a creeper.”

  “I got distracted,” Dad said, sighing. “I’m just glad I took off my armor first. I would hate to lose my shiny shiny!”

  Jack rubbed his hands together with a greedy smile on his face. “Should we go down and get that XP now?”

  Dad shook his head. “It’s for Mom, remember? Since she stays out of combat the most, she can use it with anvils to make stuff for us.”

  “HONEY!” Mom shouted. “We have a problem!” Dad raised an eyebrow and looked down the hole. “Honey! Come down here!” Mom sounded frantic.

  Dad dashed down the stairs to the main landing area of the bunker. “Oh boy,” he said when he saw the problem.

  The TNT had blown up the husks alright, and a good amount of the floor, exposing a large cavern system that they couldn’t see the end of. All the awesome loot and experience orbs had fallen through the hole and laid on the ground.

  Among more husks than anyone could have imagined.

  Suddenly, the first group of husks seemed like a small family gathering. The cavern below them was a sea of husks so deep that it really did feel like there were more than grains of sand.

  The most alarming part of the situation were the convenient paths the hole had created for the husks to get up and out of the cavern, which some were already using.

  “We’re all gonn-” Elijah started to shout, but Layla clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “Run!” Dad shouted. “Get everyone out!”

  It was utter chaos as the villagers and animals made a dash away. “Jack! Get down here!” Dad shouted, and Jack leapt from the hole in the ceiling, doing a flip to land on his feet by Dad. Dad didn’t even acknowledge his cool move, but Jack gave him a pass since he was under a bit of stress.

  “Don’t let the husks get them. Kate, give us some covering fire. Mom, lead the villagers out of here and gather them together safely outside.”

  Jack nodded, running to where the husks were climbing out. There were many areas now that acted as stairs to the caverns below and the husks surged forward like a tidal wave. Jack hit them as they came up, knocking them back. Occasionally one would domino others back down the path, but they just stood up and started again. He only had plain iron swords and just couldn’t poof them fast enough.

  Kate took careful aim, firing on as many as she could. She knocked many back in the hole, but it was like trying to stop a wave with a bucket.

  Mom ushered the villagers out in an orderly fashion, showing calm and restraint, the peace on her face helping to keep the villagers from panicking.

  Once they got outside, Ethan ran to the other end of the building, shouting, “I have an idea!” as he went. Elijah followed him, his face serious now and not so silly. When they got to the other end of the building that had a massive hole in it, they started placing blocks to fix the wall. “Jump-stack yourselves out of there!” he shouted through a hole to the family inside as they fought.

  The side of the building sealed off before any husks could escape, and the double-E’s met back up with the others. “Seal it off so the husks can’t escape!” Ethan shouted to the group.

  “But my family is in there!” Mom said, panic on her face.

  Ethan nodded and grabbed her hand. “They’ll get out, Mrs. Smith. I know they can. But if we don’t seal up this bunker, the desert is going to be more husk than sand.”

  Mom looked at him, then looked at the rolling swarm of husks as they poured out of the hole in the ground like someone had turned on a fire hose of mobs. The last villager made it out of the bunker, and she gulped, then nodd
ed slowly. “Seal it up.”

  Without hesitation, they got to work, closing the last holes quickly, but several husks made it through.

  The husks were immediately peppered with arrows as Charlotte, Marigold, and Alex fired away, poofing the desert zombies just as they were going to attack.

  Mom looked at the sealed wall, a tear sliding down her cheek, knowing her family was in there among the countless husks.

  Inside the bunker, Jack and Kate jump-stacked their way to the ceiling, and mined a hole out, escaping onto the roof. Dad cleared his throat from on top of the bed he was on, having just respawned.

  Bruce was sleeping on the bed and looked up, annoyed to be interrupted.

  “Have you seriously been up here sleeping the whole time, you lazy cat?”

  “Meow, hiss!” Bruce said to Dad, turned once in a circle, and laid back down.

  Chapter 11

  Jack built stairs down the back side of the bunker, and Dad, Kate, Bruce, and Jack walked down together. They turned the corner of the bunker toward the waiting group, side-by-side. They were walking slowly, and Jack wished so badly the bunker behind them would explode like a cool movie scene.

  It didn’t.

  Even from their distance, they could see Mom’s eyes light up as she noticed them, and she rushed over and hugged them all at once, squashing everyone too tightly together. “That was terrible! Oh, I was so worried. Are you all okay? How are there so many of them?”

  Mom took each of their faces in her hands, looking over everyone carefully.

  Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. What I do know, is we cannot let them out of there.” He motioned back towards the bunker with his head.

  They all looked at the bunker, the huge structure they had built together, now filled to the brim with husks.

  “I guess that explains why this desert has so many husks in it,” Jack said. “There must be caverns everywhere below, bursting at the seams with husks.”

  “Well, that's a mystery for another time,” Mom said. “We should get out of here before they find another way up and attack. It would be hard to defend all the villagers against so many enemies.

  Dad nodded. “Yes, we need to get somewhere safer.”

  They gathered and formed a caravan, keeping close together and making sure to have people with weapons at both ends. The mood was somber, having been faced with such a mass of enemies. No one sang, no one danced. They hardly spoke.

  And thus began their long journey.

  What had taken the family days and days of walking, took even longer with such a large group. It was sandy and hot, and even hotter when they got to the badlands. This time at least, they had plenty of supplies.

  The journey was harder because of how many villagers they had to wrangle and protect, but it was also easier because of how many hands they had to build shelters and the abundance of supplies to give them cool water to swim in and safety to rest.

  “This is kind of like a traveling vacation,” Mom mused one day as they packed up to leave again.

  “Isn’t that called a road trip?” Dad asked. “A Minecraft road trip.”

  After their final day in the badlands, they entered the valley of the pink sheep. “We’re getting close to the swamp,” Jack said. “Should we go say hi to Esmerelda?”

  “NO!” Dad wrinkled his nose. “She can stay in her stinky, soggy swamp. We’ll go around it if we can.”

  Mom chuckled. “I agree with Dad. I don’t want to get caught doing her laundry again.”

  They stayed in the valley of the pink sheep that night. Kate didn’t sleep though; she had a plan.

  As fast as she could, she rounded up several pink sheep and threw together a large pen, double stacked so she’d be safe from mobs. She spent the whole night awake, breeding sheep.

  Kate was thankful she had so much wheat to encourage breeding and speed up growing lambs. When the rest of her family and villagers came outside and it was finally time to go, Kate threw back her head and laughed into the air. “Look how many there are!” She gestured to the flock of sheep that was so big it looked like a large puffy sunset cloud on the ground.

  She mined the fencing down and they dispersed over the plains, covering it so thoroughly it looked like a watermelon candy cane with all the pink and green.

  Mom came over to Kate and cocked her head, confused. “Why did you do that?”

  Kate just grinned at her. “Because it was fun! Look how cool the plains are now! People will come here forever and be shocked at how many pink sheep there are. Besides, when we were outsiders, we played Minecraft because it’s FUN. It’s hard always running and fighting and struggling. I just wanted to do something I loved to do. Sorry.”

  Mom pulled her in for a hug. “You don’t have to be sorry about that! It’s important to make sure you’re enjoying life, not just struggling. Find the time to do things you love to do. Take time to enjoy your surroundings and the wonderful things around you.”

  Kate smiled at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Mom nodded. “We’re going to get the villagers safe, then we’re going to have some fun. All of us. You’re right, there has been so much hardship that it's easy to lose track of the good things.”

  “Helping people is good, too, though,” Kate said.

  Mom smiled and hugged her again. “It is. And that’s why we’re taking it so seriously. But you can’t pour into others from an empty cup. You have to make sure you take time for yourself sometimes, too.”

  “Jack doesn’t seem to have that problem. He’s always having fun, building slimepolines and doing wacky things.”

  Mom smirked. “Jack is still a little young, he still has the youthful exuberance of children. But I bet even he gets tired of the struggle sometimes. Maybe you should talk to him about it.”

  Kate sighed. “Maybe.”

  They left, the valley of the pink sheep even sheepier and pinker than ever before.

  Before long they made it to the swamp. Dad pointed past it, to some small mountains in the distance with a path running through them. “That’s where we’re headed, through those mountains and onto a savanna that will take us to the ocean.”

  Chapter 12

  “Are we there yet?” Ethan asked as they trudged through the soggy swamp.

  “Not yet,” Dad said.

  “Are we there yet?” Elijah asked as they got out of the swamp onto the dirt path leading into the mountains.

  “Not yet,” Mom said.

  “Are we there yet?” Alex asked as they hiked through the mountains, their group so large that it scared away any red-eyed goats.

  “Not yet,” Dad said.

  “Are we there yet?” Charlotte asked as they walked through the savannah towards their sandcastle on the beach.

  “NOT YET!” Dad shouted.

  “Are we there yet?” Layla asked, when they arrived at the ocean.

  “Does it look like we’re there yet?” Dad asked through gritted teeth.

  “Hmm.” Layla looked around. “I’m not sure. What does it look like?”

  “AHHHHHH!” Dad screamed. “I’m going to go crazy!”

  “Dear,” Mom said.

  “AHHHH!” Dad screamed again.

  “Looks like Waffles was a good pet for him,” Kate whispered not so quietly to Jack, who laughed.

  “Dear,” Mom said, “why don’t you try to have some fun with the trip?”

  Dad sighed and shook his head. “Let’s just build the boats.”

  They spent the day crafting boats for everyone, and Dad finally calmed down enough to enjoy the crafting. Once Jack finished his boat, he got a gleam in his eye. He looked down at Bruce. “Alright buddy, time to try out my power again. Wanna go on a treasure hunt?”

  Bruce licked his paws. “Meow meow.”

  Jack concentrated, thinking about treasure, and activated his power.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again, this time using two of his chicken legs. Again, nothing happened. He tried a third ti
me, using the rest of his hunger bar, and he felt a pull in a direction down the beach.

  “Hey, it worked,” he told the cat as he rubbed behind Bruce’s ears.

  They trotted off down the beach following the feeling Jack was getting.

  “Where are you going?” Mom called after them.

  “I’ll be right back!” was the only answer Jack gave her. Mom tried to give him ‘The Look,’ but it didn’t work if he wasn’t watching.