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JOURNAL ENTRY: ALMOST HOME

Day 8: The Overworld

Charles called out, “It’s time to give up, William.”

“Never,” I shouted.

“I’ll give you credit, you did a good job getting out of the Nether. I didn’t think you’d make it to the Overworld. But now it’s over. You’ve lost.” Charles let out another sinister laugh.

I took out my sword and leapt toward Charles. Before his army could stage an attack, Esther sprinted over to me and whispered, “Meet me in the jungle.” Then she splashed a potion of invisibility on me and on the others.

We sprinted toward the jungle. When we reached the trees and began to reappear, I asked, “What should we do now? Since Charles is in the desert, I’m sure that is where Oliver is being held prisoner.”

“We just need to come up with a good plan. It looks like he has a lot of soldiers in the desert.” Sean paced back and forth. “How many bottles of the potion of invisibility do we have left?” he asked.

We didn’t have any potion left in our inventories. We had just used the last of our stores, and we were out of spider eye. We were going to have to fight this battle without the benefit of invisibility.

“Quiet,” said Esther. “I hear something.”

We all stood still and listened. We could hear Charles ordering his men to find us. “Soldiers, they can’t be very far from here. We have to keep looking. I won’t be happy until they are destroyed. I’ll put them on Hardcore mode and then we’ll be rid of them all for good. Oliver, too, when we get back.”

My heart beat fast. I couldn’t let them destroy Oliver. I had to battle Charles. I hid behind a tree and, when Charles was in sight, I took out my diamond sword and sprinted toward him. I struck him twice and with that he was destroyed. His soldiers began to shoot arrows at me, and I sprinted as fast as I could out of the jungle.

Once I stopped sprinting, I found myself at a beach. I looked for my friends, but they weren’t behind me. I had fought Charles and abandoned my friends to battle the soldiers on their own. I felt awful. I walked along the water and tried to come up with a plan. I knew I had to make my way back to the jungle and the desert. I had to find my friends.

As I walked toward the jungle, I heard a voice call out in the distance, “William.”

It was Sean. I ran toward him. “I’m so happy to see you. Where are the others?”

“They’re building a small house in the jungle. We defeated the soldiers and found an isolated part of the jungle where they won’t find us,” explained Sean.

“I feel awful for taking off after I battled Charles. I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

“It’s okay. We all make mistakes,” Sean said and he walked me toward the small jungle house.

When I entered the house, I apologized to the group. Night was setting in and everyone was crawling into bed. “It’s okay,” Molly said. “We just need to get some sleep. In the morning, we are going back to the desert. We will free Oliver. This battle is almost over.”

I was lucky to have such great friends. I was the one who needed to find Oliver, but they were in this with me. I wouldn’t abandon them again, no matter what.

I couldn’t believe we were just a short distance from Oliver and that we might be able to rescue him in the morning. I could hardly sleep, I was so excited. Then I began to worry. Charles had mentioned that he was going to put Oliver on Hardcore mode. I hoped we would get there in time.

In the morning, we ate some apples and came up with a plan to defeat Charles.

I suggested summoning the Ender Dragon like Oliver and I had done in the past. Everyone agreed that was a great idea. We used command blocks and summoned several Ender Dragons to fly in the direction of the desert. This was how I defeated Charles before, and I would do it again. We stood outside the desert and watched as the dragons flew toward them.

We could hear cries for help as the soldiers battled the Ender Dragons with arrows and snowballs. The soldiers fought very hard, but soon it went quiet. We entered the desert to survey the wreckage. Two Ender Dragons flew through the sky, and we hit them with snowballs to scare them off before moving on to explore the desert temple. We had to make sure that Charles was defeated, and we had to save Oliver.

As soon as we entered the temple, Molly asked, “Do you hear something?”

We all stopped. There was a muffled cry for help.

“I think that’s Oliver!” I shouted.

We ran toward the sound of Oliver’s voice, but as we turned a corner, we were ambushed by Charles, who lunged at us with his diamond sword.

“You thought you defeated me, didn’t you? Well, you didn’t!” Charles laughed and struck me with his sword.

My energy level was growing low. I couldn’t withstand a serious battle. I didn’t want to waste my energy fighting Charles—I wanted to free Oliver.

Thao struck Charles with his diamond sword.

“Hah! You think you’re going to get away with this, Thao? You can never beat me.” Charles let out another laugh and then called out, “Soldiers!”

A group of soldiers emerged from another room in the temple and started to attack with their diamond swords. Knowing it was a losing battle, we sprinted from the temple. This time at least we were leaving together.

“Watch out, Thao!” Molly called out.

An Ender Dragon flew down and struck Thao. He was weakened but not destroyed. I threw a snowball at the Ender Dragon and it exploded. Meanwhile a band of soldiers rushed toward us, Charles shouting, “There is no escape!”

I looked at the End portal that spawned in front of us. I called to my friends, “Hop on! We’re going to the End!”