“This way,” said Summer, striding across the netherrack desert. We skirted the occasional pit and random fire, and every half-minute or so, Summer would just stop, put up her hand for silence, and listen to the still, stinking air.
The one time I asked what she was trying to hear, all I got back was, “Hopefully, nothing.” Eventually, we came to one of those giant, sloping columns that rose up and into the distant roof. As we turned the corner, I blinked hard at something that couldn’t exist.
Snow blocks? Two lines of them, spaced roughly a dozen or so blocks apart, and intersecting in the middle of another open plain.
“Is that—”
“No,” answered my clairvoyant partner. “It’s actually a local mineral called nether quartz, and its contrast makes for an excellent landmark.” I noticed that each smooth pale block was topped with a torch and that the intersection was also marked with four wooden signposts.
“It’s really easy to get lost here,” Summer continued. “Just check your compass.”
I did. The needle spun and jerked like it was trying to find its way home.
“Same goes for maps. Blank ones suddenly look like someone’s thrown drippy brown and gray paint down their faces. And those ‘you’ arrows in the middle twirl as madly as compass needles.”
“So,” I said, shaking my head, “in addition to falling into lava and maybe having a whole horde of zombie ghouls after you…”
“Getting lost is a serious threat,” Summer completed the thought. “Believe me.”
I believed her, and respected her even more. First the taiga, now the Nether. Ice, then fire. Is there a challenge Summer can’t conquer? I marveled as we approached the collection of signposts.
The left one read “Mined out,” the right “Low-hanging fruit.” And then there was the “Ice Cube” sign directly in front of us, which seemed like a joke.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to that third sign.
“You’ll see eventually,” said Summer, turning for “Mined out.”
“The sign’s not technically true,” she said, heading down the trail of nether quartz. “There’s this one pesky deposit I could never manage to reach safely.”
She pointed up, far up, to a bright spot in the roof above. There it was. Glowstone! A cluster of yellow, luminous blocks.
“They used to be all over this bit,” explained Summer. “When I first arrived, they dotted the roof like clouds.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, wondering what this place must have looked like then.
“It was easy enough to grab most of them,” continued Summer, “but this one stubborn little bit just kept taunting me for ages.”
“Do you really need it?” I asked, not challenging but genuinely curious. “I mean, couldn’t we finish our mission faster if we just moved on to easier pickings?”
“Well…” Another unusual, very un-Summerly pause. Then, “If all you care about is the easy way of doing things…”
“What? No!” Suddenly I felt very defensive. “No way. I’m totally up for anything.”
“Then you can help me finish my ‘ramp.’ ” Summer nodded, lowering her fist to what I originally had thought was a hill. Looking closer, I saw it was more of a ramp, a staircase to nowhere that ended abruptly halfway to the roof.
“I never managed to get this finished,” she said, “not before one of them showed up.”
“ ‘Them’? Who’s ‘them’? Is that what you keep looking for? One of ‘them’?”
“Brehhh.”
That wasn’t Summer. The sound came from far away.
“What…” I started to ask.
“Shhh!” Summer raised her bow, twisting in all directions like my crazy compass needle.
“Brehhh.” There it was again, a high, crackling wheeze, like air leaking out of a bag.
“Get your bow,” whispered Summer, “and watch for anything moving.”
My bow was already out, and my eyes already scanning the haze.
Another sound, a strange, eerie twitter. “Wehweh
I whispered just one word: “What?” And got just one word in reply.
“Ghast.”
“Wehweh
“You never know when you’ll spot one,” whispered Summer. “And you have to spot them first!”
The tension in her voice was the first I’d heard since we met. Summer, the tough, no-nonsense warrior, who seemed to have everything figured out, was worried now, which made me positively freaked.
“OooOoo” went a high wail, rising, then falling in the cotton-candy mist.
“Look everywhere,” whispered Summer. “Up, down—they can come from anywhere.”
“What do they look like?” I gulped, cowering behind my shaking bow.
“They float,” she answered, turning slowly in a full circle, “like giant balloons.”
The ethereal twittering began again, sending my teeth chattering.
“It’s under us”—Summer’s eyes fell—“the space between land and lava.” Her bow dipped slightly, coming to rest at the line where the plains ended at a cliff. “Watch for it rising.”
I tried, matching my aim to hers.
A few seconds, waiting. Holding my breath for what seemed like hours.
“OooOoo.” Fainter this time, farther away.
“It’s leaving.” Summer sighed, lowering her weapon. “We’ve got a bit of time.”
She took off running for the staircase. I followed with a mouthful of questions.
Where had it gone? What did it take to kill one? What could they do to us?
I didn’t get a chance to ask. Summer was already tossing me a stack of netherrack. “Quickly! It’ll be back soon!”
I watched her rush over to the edge of the unfinished staircase, just beneath the wall that ended in the highest step. “Do as I do,” she commanded, then jumped straight up and placed a netherrack block beneath her.
Genius, I thought, repeating the same action next to her. So simple. Jump and place. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? We hopped atop our rising columns just past the last step.
“Brill!” commented Summer, looking at the nearly reachable glowstone. “Only three to go!”
We rushed down the staircase, around to the edge, and repeated the process. “I’m almost out of netherrack,” I said, looking at my dwindling stock.
“Just take some from the bottom,” she said, racing to stack a third column.
Duh!
Grabbing my pickaxe, I started chopping at the center base. The crunchy, purplish material gave little resistance. Less than stone or even dirt. Within seconds, netherrack cubes were flying into my belt.
“Hurry up then!” called Summer from the top of her newly finished step. “We’re almost finished!”
“Be right there,” I hollered, and hop-placed the new blocks up to meet her.
“There we go!” she chirped, standing next to the glowing cubes. “You harvest, I’ll keep watch.”
As Summer, bow in hand, turned to scour our surroundings, I turned my pickaxe on the dozen or so blocks of glowstone. The first one shattered with the sound of breaking glass as three yellow pinches jumped into my pack.
“Don’t worry if some fall,” said Summer to my back. “We’ll get them on the way down.”
“Got it,” I said as another tri-stack of powder fell beyond my grasp.
“And you might want to place some netherrack around the bottom of the deposit,” she continued. “That way you can mine from different ang—”
That eerie chittering again, drawing closer.
“Don’t stop!” snapped Summer, who must have instinctively known I was going to turn.
“It’ll be here any second!”
“Wehweh
Closer now. Louder.
Summer’s “Faster!” scared me back to furious picking.
Another block shattered into powder, then another. How many more to go?
“Brrrehh!” A birdlike chirp, the rolling Rs seeming almost gleeful in anticipation, rose to a piercing screech!
I couldn’t help but turn. Just in time to see Summer, bow swapped for sword, swinging at something approaching.
A fireball! An actual burning missile, which she batted away like she was hitting a home run!
“Just hit a six,” she huffed cryptically, and then, switching back to a bow, caught me looking at her and roared, “PICK!”
I did, spinning to assault the few remaining blocks.
Wheezing wails rang in my ears, punctuated by the whip of Summer’s arrow. She must have missed, because I thought I heard her grunt something angry like “Muddy bell!”
Another wheezing “Brehhh,” rising to a shrieking “Breeeaaaa!” And the sound-popping flames grew in my ears.
It must have been that distraction, coupled with my already frayed nerves, that caused my next, nearly fatal mistake. Hearing the thonk of Summer sword-batting, I picked out the last of the glowstone blocks, then kept going for just the barest of moments, before my brain commanded my hand to stop.
Too far! The crunchy, delicate netherrack behind it fell away, revealing an orange, incandescent wall.
“Lava!”
I could have just blocked it up, and would have if my brain had been working.
Panic drowns thought.
“RUN!”
I spun, bashing into Summer, shoving her frantically down the stairs.
“What the blo…” she started to say, then looked past me and took flight.
That uncanny cry sounded again, just to my right.
The ghast! A giant, pale head atop stubby, dangling tentacles. Black slitted eyes opening to round red holes.
“Breeeaaaa!”
The red, open mouth, a missile launcher ready to rain down fire.
“Jump!” Summer leapt off the staircase. I should have. But mind reeling, feet fixed, I just stood there stupidly and raised my quivering shield.
Boom!
Blown off the staircase. Coughing and flying through the air. Landing on cracked ankles beside Summer.
I took a moment to breathe, get my bearings, figure out my next move.
“What are you doing?!” Another blow, this time from her, punching me on the back, driving me into action. “The lava!”
I’d totally forgotten. Another second and I would have been doused in death.
“Across the pit!” Summer cried, jumping in and out of a slight depression ahead of us.
“Breeeaaaa!” The blast hit me square in the back, burning through armor, hammering bones, throwing me into the depression of now burning netherrack.
Fire.
Choking, gasping, blinking through flames.
“Guy!” called Summer as an arrow whistled over my head. “This way!”
Running to catch up, meeting her behind the pillar’s bend.
“Drink!” A shimmering bottle in my face. The salty sting of insta-health.
“Better?”
“Better,” I breathed, still amazed by how quickly these potions worked. “Thank you!”
“Here,” she said, handing me another night-vision potion. “The first dram’s almost out, and we’ll need to top off again before we attack.”
“Attack?” Suddenly, I didn’t feel so good anymore. “You want to kill the ghast?”
“No.” She turned to look me in the eye. “You will.”
“WhahowIwhoa,” I stammered, as another creepy call echoed from around the corner.
“You can do it, Guy.” Summer’s voice was confident, although I thought I detected a hint of annoyance, too. “Just sneak up behind it for a kill shot while I draw its fire.”
“But why?” I yipped. “Why mess with it at all? We got what we came for! Let’s just get outta here!” I didn’t feel ashamed this time. I didn’t see any point in fighting.
“Guy”—Summer took a deep, calming breath—“you need to know how to handle a ghast, and everything else down here, if you’re going to be of any help.” Another deep breath. “I can’t always be taking care of you. We have to be able to take care of each other, understand?”
Why did she have to be right? Why did I need a new fresson right now?
This wouldn’t be our last ghast. And if I didn’t learn how to deal with them now, I’d be nothing but a constant burden. She was right.
Fresson nine: Friends take care of each other.
“Fine,” I huffed as another ghastly screech filled my ears. “Just tell me what I gotta do.”
“What I already told you,” Summer counter-huffed. “Just wait for me to get out there and take the heat. When you see its back turned, draw your bow and pop the little blighter like a balloon!”
“But what if it turns toward m—”
Summer was already gone, sword in hand, rushing into the open with a fearless shout of “Here I am!”
“Breeeaaaa!” I poked my head around just in time to see the creature launch another fireball.
Summer didn’t try to bat it back. Instead she just dodged, darting away as the bombshell detonated harmlessly at her side. “Poor little gasbag!” She laughed, then broke into a song about, of all things, a running rabbit.
“Breeeaaaa!”
More fireballs. More near-misses. Summer zigzagging in a semicircle to turn the ghast’s face away from me.
“Run, rabbit! Run, rabbit! Runrunrun!”
Her courage, her calm. I probably wasted half a minute just staring in awe before getting my head together.
I stepped out into the open, drew my bow, and tried to line up my shot. Despite the creature’s size and apparent slowness, it was a pretty slippery target. The way it rose and fell, drifted this way and that, made it difficult to track.
Whhp!
My first shot fell just beneath its tentacles.
“Aim higher!” shouted Summer, dodging another impact. “Shoot where it’s going to be!”
I loaded her advice into the second arrow, trying to anticipate my target’s course.
Whhp!
Another miss, to the right just as it floated left.
“You’ll get it! Keep shooting!” Summer’s voice, her conviction. She believed in me.
I drew my bow again, held my breath, then gasped as the hideous chalky blimp turned slowly in my direction. Black slitted eyes became red and the closed line mouth rounded for a launch.
“SHOOT!”
Whhp!
“Breeaaaa!”
We fired our shots, and dodged, at the same time. It missed. I didn’t.
A faint pop. A crackling hiss. The ghast disappeared as something small, light, and faintly oval fell to the ground at Summer’s feet.
“Ghast tear,” she said, running forward to show me the crystalline prize, “the prime ingredient for a regeneration potion. A little different from insta-health, but I’ll explain that later.”
“Cool,” I said, still trying to process what had just happened.
“You take it,” she said, handing me the trophy. “You deserve it.” Then, punching me lightly on the shoulder, she announced, “Guy! You killed your first ghast!”
“Yeah,” I answered, nodding my head with the realization, “I did, didn’t I?”
A hug might have been in order, but a fist bump would do for now.
“I knew you could!” Her words made me feel ten blocks tall.
“So where do we go now?” I asked, ready for anything this new broiling realm could throw at me.
“Back to the mountain,” said Summer, turning for the quartz path. “I think we’ve had quite enough victories for one day.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe how disappointed I felt. “We can’t keep going?”
“We need to rest,” warned Summer, “and celebrate! We just proved we can take care of each other! Which means we’re stronger together. We’re a team now, Guy.”
“I guess we are,” I nodded, feeling like I’d drunk a potion of levitation.
Summer had touched on another fresson: Friends are stronger together. And that one set off a whole mental chain reaction. Why do we need friends? Not just for company, but for actual needs as well! Right? I’m sure, when we were huddling in the prehistoric trees, we weren’t just saying, “Hey, dude, you’re really cool. We should totally hang out.” It was probably more like, “Dude, if we’re gonna eat tonight, you watch for lions while I pick us some berries.”
Maybe the actual language was different, probably a lot more like “oo-oo-ah-ah,” but you get where I’m going. Friendship is a survival skill, in that time or ours. We might not have to watch for killer lions anymore, but we still have challenges. Big ones. Sometimes even dangerous ones. And it’s a lot easier to face those challenges with someone else.
Fresson ten: Friends are stronger together.