Instead of all the monsters just rushing toward the village, they came in carefully orchestrated waves. First were the creepers, their four little feet moving in a blur of green and black. They scurried across the plain and approached the village, their dark eyes glaring hatefully at those who stood on the walls, bows in hand. Some fired arrows while the creepers were still far away.
“Hold your fire until they are close enough to hit,” Shawny commanded. “Wait until they are in the moat.”
The wave of creepers crashed forward, the monsters speeding across the open grassy plains, then slowing as they waded through the moat that encircled the village. When the first of the creepers hit the watery obstacle, the archers opened up, their bows casting a rain of iron-barbed drops that fell on the monsters with lethal fury. The green creatures flashed red as the projectiles pierced them. Some of them died in a liquid grave while others detonated in frustration. Explosions sounded around the village, the creatures blowing up their comrades in chain reactions that did more damage to the carefully constructed moat than to the defended walls. Firing as fast as they could, the villagers pumped more arrows into the green beasts as wave after wave of them attacked specific spots on the wall. More explosions tore at the moat, transforming it from a strategically constructed obstacle, to a gaping gash torn into the landscape; the defenders remaining untouched. A cheer rang out across the village as the creepers continued to detonate harmlessly out of reach. Finally, the creepers stopped their advance and stood out of bowshot, waiting. Now the zombies and spiders started their assault, followed by the skeletons.
“Get ready by the gates,” Shawny yelled. “Prepare the redstone.”
One of the villagers disappeared into a nearby structure, a stone building constructed on the last day, its thick walls and iron barred windows designed to survive creeper explosions and zombie attacks. Inside the room were various switches, each connected to a redstone circuit that controlled the village’s defenses.
The spiders and zombies approached the main gate, but also stopped just out of bow range. They’d have to cross the moat, like the creepers, and knew the archers would tear them to shreds. So they waited.
“What are they waiting for?” asked one of the villagers.
“Just wait for it,” commanded Shawny.
Suddenly four endermen teleported next to the moat with dirt blocks in their hands, a purple mist floating around each. They placed the brown spotted blocks into the moat, filling the watery passage with dirt. And then another wave of endermen appeared just as the first teleported away, filling in more of the moat until a solid bridge had been formed, cutting the moat into two. Now the zombies and spiders charged the iron doors, their forlorn moans and staccato clicking filling the air. Just as the surging wave of hatred reached the village’s wall, the skeletons stepped forward and started shooting from their side of the moat, firing on the archers that stood atop the barricade. Green clawed fists pounded on the metal doors that protected the village, their frames ringing with the blows, booming like distant thunder. But then suddenly more endermen appeared, their long arms grabbing the dirt blocks that had been strategically placed next to the iron doors. The black demons grabbed the dirt cubes onto which the doors were attached, then teleported away, carrying with them the critical blocks. Without the supporting blocks, the doors fell to the ground, falling at the feet of the waiting mob; the village was now open.
“Our defenses have been breached,” Gameknight yelled. “Everyone draw swords and attack.”
“NO,” Shawny commanded. “Hold your positions. Let them in.”
“What?” Gameknight said, confusion on his face.
“Watch and learn,” his friend said proudly as he signaled the villager in the control room.
The monsters flowed into the wall-ringed village, but just as they entered, the redstone switch was thrown. Sticky pistons buried underground all moved as one, opening a wide two-block deep channel before the attacking mob. As the monsters charged, they fell into the trough, the depth of the hole keeping them trapped. Underground, in a tunnel that ran next to the trough, villagers hacked at the monster’s feet, the passage letting the defenders rain blow after blow at the exposed legs from relative safety, only the spiders able to hit back, the zombies and skeletons staying helpless. The villagers made quick work of these monsters, slashing at them as fast as possible while the creatures struggled to escape the murder holes.
Gameknight sprinted across the murder holes and hacked at zombies and spiders, his iron sword flashing like a bolt of lightning, carving great, sweeping paths of destruction through the mobs. He could feel blows landing on him, but his armor was holding up. Like he’d learned in Wing Commander, Gameknight ran from target to target, not stopping to slug it out, but rather using hit-and-run tactics, just as he’d taught the villagers who were now joining the battle.
The defenders now stood amidst the attackers, their armored forms moving from zombie to zombie, slashing at furry spiders and pale white skeletons. Amidst the chaos, he saw armored zombies slashing at the defenders, their golden swords wreaking havoc. Sprinting to the beasts, he struck at them from behind, wearing down their golden armor until it fell away, then quickly destroying the monster within, their golden swords falling to the ground. Nearby villagers snatched up the shiny weapons and turned them on the mobs, carving great arcs of death through the masses. The battle was terrible, with three to four monsters falling for every villager’s death. The NPCs fought with a vengeance, trying to push the monsters out of their village, knowing full well that their children lay hidden in their homes behind them, terrified. Gameknight could hear the screams of the dying, the anguish of the NPCs hammering away at his soul, but he had to stay focused. More monsters continued to flow through the breached gate, their numbers beginning to spread out through the village.
“Second redstone, NOW,” Shawny yelled.
Another switch was thrown from inside the control structure. Suddenly, walls pushed up from underground, separating the attackers into three groups, stopping them from spreading out, keeping them clumped together.
“Archers, now!”
Villagers suddenly appeared at the top of small towers only five to six blocks high that were positioned throughout the village. They rained pointed streaking death down onto monsters, their stubby arms drawing the bows as fast as they could. The monsters were forced so close together that the archers didn’t really even need to aim; they could just shoot into the cluster of hateful beasts. But then a wave of skeletons entered the village, their arrows seeking out archers on towers. Having to duck behind stone blocks for protection, the archers slowed their attack. Gameknight saw the tide of battle starting to shift, the skeletons much better shots than his villagers. Moving quickly, he dove into the cluster of monsters, seeking out the pale, boney creatures.
“Infantry, concentrate on the skeletons,” Gameknight yelled as he stormed into the fray.
Again, Gameknight was a killing machine, his sword flowing through the air in great sweeping arcs, hitting more than one target with a single slice. He hacked at the skeletons, ignoring the arrows that now stuck out of his armor, his back looking almost like a porcupine’s. More villagers joined the attack, surging toward the skeletons. The screams of the wounded, both NPC and mob, filled Gameknight’s ears with horror, but he kept on hacking, his only purpose right now, to destroy. But then he could see a massive group of creepers approaching, followed by large green slimes, their bouncing bodies moving across the plain toward the fallen gate.
“Shawny, the creepers,” Gameknight yelled, pointing across the filled in moat.
“I see them,” he replied. “Get ready with red-stone switch three. Everybody fall back to the inner wall. FALL BACK.”
Gameknight hacked his way back to his own lines, attacking any targets of opportunity as he sped by. Looking out across the battlefield, he saw the villagers struggling hand-to-hand with the zombies, their swords slashing out to surprise the monsters. The mobs were not accustomed to the NPCs fighting back.
“Come on, fall back,” Gameknight yelled, helping one defender to his feet, then covering his retreat by killing a zombie, followed by a giant spider.
The NPCs withdrew deeper into the village, moving behind another stone wall, small two-block-high apertures left open until all had retreated, the openings then filled in with stone. Gameknight climbed up a set of steps and stood atop the inner wall, seeing the massive wave of creepers approaching. They didn’t notice that the ground was composed of grey-spotted gravel instead of the normal brown dirt, they just charged forward, their thirst to destroy overwhelming.
“Wait for it,” Shawny yelled.
The monsters now slowed and moved closer to the stone wall, but cautiously, silent commands somehow flowing to them from the endermen. Erebus suddenly appeared atop the outer wall, looking down at his troops, a look of satisfaction on his face. It looked as if his troops would soon overwhelm this last wall, his creepers taking it down with their explosive lives while the skeletons and zombies flowed in to finish off the survivors. The dark red enderman looked across the village directly at Gameknight and pointed with his long dark arm.
“You have interfered with something that does not concern you, User-that-is-not-a-user,” Erebus screeched in a high-pitched voice. “Now witness your failure . . . ready . . .”
Before Erebus could give the command to attack, Shawny yelled, “Redstone three, NOW!”
In an instant, sticky redstone pistons moved underground, removing blocks from under the gravel, and then gravity took over. The gravel fell straight down into a huge torch-lit cavern that had been carved out from under the village, the bottom filled with water four blocks deep. Unable to swim, the mobs sank quickly; their bodies flashing red as they struggled for oxygen. Some of them managed to bob to the surface for another gulp of air, but would sink again, flashing red again, the creepers dying first. Slowly, the monsters perished, swimming not within their programming. In a few minutes, only a few remained, most of them clumped close together, finding purchase near the walls. Village archers struck out at the remaining zombies and spiders as they tried to flee the village, only to find that pistons near the gates had been raised, ensnaring them within the village walls, the hunters becoming the hunted. Now trapped between opposing rows of archers, the monsters screamed in rage as the defenders fired volley after volley of deadly projectiles, the cross fire of iron-tipped arrows slicing them to bits in mere minutes.
The monsters were defeated.
A cheer bubbled up from the villagers, first in disbelief, but then as a thunderous chorus of victory and joy. They had survived probably the worst attack ever seen on this server, if not in Minecraft history. Gameknight pulled out his pick and quickly carved a hole in the wall and walked out to face Erebus.
The enderman quickly disappeared from the outer wall and reappeared right next to him. Gameknight looked down, holding up an arm to halt any archers from firing.
“You think you won, User-that-is-not-a-user?” Erebus shrieked, venomous hatred in his voice. “This is just the first battle of many. You have protected this village, but there are many villages on this server with much XP to be had. It is just a question of time until this village and all other villages are destroyed. And then I’ll come for you.”
“Big talk coming from the loser,” Gameknight mocked. “I think you’ll find that the villagers on this server, all of them, are not so helpless anymore. Now why don’t you go run back into the shadows and stay there where you belong . . . or maybe thirty archers will use you for target practice. You think you can teleport away faster than I can signal them to fire?”
The enderman chief suddenly disappeared and teleported outside the village wall, a look of unbridled hatred on its dark face.
“This isn’t over,” Erebus screeched. “A storm is coming to cleanse this server and all servers, clearing out the infestation that is NPCs and users. We will flow through these electronic servers and into the physical world until we rule everything.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Gameknight said as disrespectfully as he could muster. “Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.”
And at that, Gameknight999 turned his back on Erebus and sheathed his sword, then held his fist up high and cheered, the villagers joining in. Shawny moved to his side and patted his friend on the back.
“I’m not quite used to seeing you act like a real leader,” Shawny said sarcastically. “It’s almost like you really care about these NPCs.”
Gameknight shrugged as he cast his gaze across the survivors, pride swelling within him. He’d done it. He’d won, but he knew that this was just a battle. The war still waged on and the real battle, the deciding battle, was yet to come.