The Friendly Creeper Diaries: The Moon City, Book 4: The Underground City
Copyright 2016 Mark Mulle
Author’s Note
This short story is for your reading pleasure. The characters in this "Minecraft Adventure Series" such as Steve, Endermen or Herobrine...etc are based on the Minecraft Game coming from Minecraft ®/TM & © 2009-2013 Mojang / Notch
Table of Contents
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
About the Author
Other books by this Author
Day 1
I had been happily minding my own business when David had to come over and ruin it.
Okay, maybe that sounds a bit harsh. But trust me – I have known David long enough now to know that when he runs over at full speed to my house, it is only going to lead to trouble for me.
Don’t believe me? Alright. After we saved the Over World from Lucas, the creeper king who wanted to drag everyone into the Nether so he could rule them, things settled down. Everyone was able to work with our village and David’s village. Slowly, people came to understand that even though we were creepers, we weren’t the typical creepers that they dealt with. We weren’t going to explode on sight or attack them.
But David didn’t want to sit around and remain in the village. Even though his aunt, Margery, wanted nothing more than for him to focus at things at home, David had spent hours combing through old stories and legends. He said if Lucas was true, who knew what else was out there?
He had run over here a few times, each time claiming he knew of where to find some sort of treasure. There was the time he dragged me to the beach to find some sort of cave where there would be wither skeletons made out of gold. There weren’t. There was another time where we went to Sun City nearby because he had read a story about how there was apparently a secret society there filled with gold and jewels. There wasn’t.
So when David burst into my house today, and would be talking about some new treasure that he had discovered, I wasn’t interested.
“Mike, you busy?” He said to me as he came into my house without knocking.
“Almost always, yeah.” I replied as I shoved another book in the bookshelf.
Since we had saved the Over World, I had tried to keep things pretty quiet. I helped out around our village and would sometimes take goods and other items to David’s village. Beth stepped down as mayor and offered me the position but I said no. I was determined to live quietly from now on. No more adventures for me. I had enough of that.
“Busy what, putting books away?” David joked.
“Hey, these are rare books. I’m trying to organize them because I’m going to try to open up a library here.”
David pulled one of the books off the shelf and looked at it, “This is really old. Where did you find these?”
“Mostly through trading.”
Collecting the books had been a nice way to pass the time. It was interesting and more importantly – it was safe. There weren’t going to be any wither skeletons jumping out at me over some dusty old books.
“A library, huh?” David asked me as he flipped the book open.
“That’s right. Then everyone can study these old books and read about the Over World,” I looked over at him, “What brought you over here in such a hurry?”
“Margery. She wanted to invite you over for dinner.”
“So you hurried over here for a dinner invite?”
“Nah, I was supposed to come by yesterday and tell you but I forgot.” David admitted as he looked through a pile of books I had on the floor.
I hadn’t seen Margery in a while. Going over to her place for dinner sounded like a nice time. I was also relieved that David had hurried over here for a dinner invite and not some sort of crazy adventure.
“Sure. Do we leave now? Let me get my things.”
“Yeah, take your time.” David replied, looking at one of the other books.
I went to the other room to grab my things. Even though there was a safe trail to get to David’s village now, I still liked to be prepared. It only took me a minute or so to get ready. When I came back into the main room, David had a strange look on his face. Something looked off but I couldn’t pinpoint it.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I’m great. Come on, let’s go.”
I followed David out the front door. My village sprawled out in front of me. We had grown recently, having been able to rebuild the damage that happened when the Nether creatures were attacking us. Between that and the fact we did trade with the rest of the Over World now, we were doing really well for ourselves.
My friend, Alex, lived next door to me. He had taken up gardening even though creepers gardening weren’t exactly common. The sight of him trying to garden was always amusing. Currently he was struggling with a shovel, trying to dig up a space in the back of his garden.
“Doing alright, Alex?” David called out to him.
Alex looked up and waved, “I’ll figure it out!”
“Gotta admire his determination.” David mumbled to me as we walked by.
“Sure, that’s one way of wording it.” I replied.
He laughed and we started to catch up on what had been going on as we cut across the village. Along the way, people stopped to wave at us or say hi.
“Forgot how popular we are here,” David said as we neared the pathway, “You used to it yet?”
“No. Still feels sort of weird.”
“I still think you should have agreed to be mayor.”
I shook my head, “I wasn’t ready for that. Too much to do. After what we went through, I just want to live quietly.”
That strange look crossed David’s face and then he smiled, “Yeah, of course. Come on. We better walk quickly so we aren’t late.”
As I watched David leave, I didn’t know why but I just knew that there was something else going on in that head of his.
Day 2
Margery was happy to see me. She was in charge of this village and had been extremely helpful when I had been in trouble before. She hurried me to my seat and went to get the food.
“I told David to tell you yesterday but he had his head in the clouds as usual.” She was saying to me.
David was outside, having stopped to talk to someone who wanted to haggle with him for some new equipment. I could see him outside the window.
“How is he doing, anyway?” I asked her, “He seems…different.”
“Ever since you two stopped Lucas down there in the Nether, he’s convinced that there is more to the world out there than what we can see. He’s always reading old books or studying old stories to find more legends. Well – you know that. He’s dragged you on a couple.”
She put down a plate of food in front of me as I replied, “Yeah, and nothing had come out of those trips. I figured he would have known that by now.”
Margery sighed, “No, not yet. He’s still sure that there is something else out there. That all the legends are true. Something like that.”
David came just then and the conversation stopped. As we all began to eat and catch up, I couldn’t help but wonder what my friend was up to. Did he really think there was more to the world than what we could see?
I know that Lucas had been a legend but he had been real. He really had been trying to get creepers down there to reclaim his throne. Was that enough to convince David there were all sorts of strange things going on?
> Dinner went well. Nothing strange was brought up. We caught up on what was going on with our villages. When we finished, I helped clean up. We had spoken a little too long and now the moon was high up in the sky.
“You should stay here tonight, Mike,” Margery said to me, “It’s already dark outside and I wouldn’t want you to run into anything dangerous.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take the guest room.” I said through a yawn.
So here I am, curled up in bed in the guest room. I don’t mind staying here sometimes. It is nice to get out of my home village. Even though I don’t have any sort of taste for adventure, everything we went through allowed for me to see there is an entire world out there. I wouldn’t want to spend every day back home.
I still can’t help but feel as if something is going on with David. It is past midnight by now and I should be asleep. But I keep seeing that expression on his face when I had come back into the room. It was as if he had discovered something. But what?
I should go to sleep. No use in trying to stay up and figure David out.
Day 3
I woke up to someone shaking me.
I blinked and realized it was David hovering over me. I propped myself up.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused and looking out the window, “It’s still night. What time is it?”
“Like three in the morning.”
“And you’re waking me up because?”
David sat down at the edge of the bed. He was holding something in his lap. My eyes were still blurry from sleep.
“I found something,” David said to me as I did so, “In this book.”
I lowered my hands and blinked, “That’s my book!”
It was the book that he had been looking at yesterday. He must have taken it when I had stepped into the other room to get my things. That was why he had had that funny look on his face when I had come back.
“Well, technically, yes, but you said it yourself that you were making a library. I just borrowed it early.”
“David, this still doesn’t explain why you are waking me up this late.”
“Early. I mean, once again…it’s technically morning.”
“If you say the word ‘technically’ one more time…”
David held up his hands and went, “Alright, alright. Listen, I’ve been looking for this book. I’ve been looking for it everywhere, actually.”
“Why?”
He flipped it open. It was an incredibly old book and smelled musty. Since it had been in a pile of books I hadn’t gotten to yet, I hadn’t looked in it at all. The insides were full of drawings. None of them made sense to me. But they apparently made sense to David because he went to a certain page and pointed.
“See?” He said triumphantly.
I looked over his shoulder. The drawing showed a city. Underneath the city there was a drawing of another city. It didn’t mean anything to me and I shrugged.
“Come on,” David said impatiently, “You don’t recognize that city?”
“No. It is three in the morning. I’m tired. You woke me up because you like a drawing in one of my books.”
He was shaking his head, “No, come on! That’s Sun City!”
I looked at the drawing closer but it didn’t look like Sun City to me. Sun City was home of the king. It was also where we had gone when David had been convinced there had been that secret society living there.
I groaned, “Is this about that society and the jewels or whatever?”
“No, look. The Sun City is up here. And this is the Moon City. Look, they’re even marked.”
He pointed to a small sun drawn on the top half of the drawing. Then he flipped the book over and pointed to a moon symbol on the bottom. I was too tired to make any sense of this and merely shrugged.
David kept going, “There is a legend that the Moon City is underneath the Sun City. Originally, I had dismissed it as false. That’s why I was chasing after that secret society rumor.”
“Which was, in fact, nothing.”
“Right. Dead end, anyway. But this – this book is filled with clues and proof that the Moon City is directly underneath the Sun City.”
“And so?” I said, trying to lose my patience, “David, I know going to the Nether and seeing Lucas and saving people – I know you miss that sort of action and adventure but…it’s done with. Chasing after these old legends is a waste of time.”
“How can you say that? We saw one of the legends were true with our own eyes! I know I’ve had dead ends since then but this Moon City…this might be the real deal.”
“So, what else does this book say? Does it tell us how to get into it? Does it explain why there would even be a city underneath the Sun City? Would the king know? Does it even matter?”
“I have a theory that the king is part of the secret society that is protecting –”
I groaned, “David, come on. Come on! Do you hear yourself? You’re chasing after nothing. Seriously. You’re being silly. These are just stories. So, we got lucky with Lucas being real. But something like this – I mean, do you hear yourself?”
David talked over me, “That the king is part of a secret society bound to protect the Moon City! That it is underneath the Sun City and is brimming with treasure. Real treasure. Items we haven’t even seen in the Over World before. Armor made not only of diamonds but of other jewels, blended and welded together to make something new. Books about what the world was like before we were here. All sorts of things in the Moon City!”
“And what? You want to go to the Sun City and talk to the king? Be like ‘hey, are you part of a secret society hiding another city underneath this one?’ and he’ll be like ‘ah, I am. Here is the key’. Is that what you think will happen?”
“I’m going, Mike. You can come with me or you can stay behind, collecting books, refusing to be mayor, refusing to go to the Sun City, refusing to do anything because even though we saw all that crazy stuff, you don’t want to go seek out anything new. Where was that guy who signed up for the chance to leave the village?”
I wanted to tell him ‘that guy’ had only signed up because everyone else around him had and he didn’t want to look foolish. I wanted to tell him that I wanted a quiet life now even if it was boring.
But I was too angry at the time to say that and instead I said, “You’re being foolish. Margery wants you to be mayor one day. But you won’t be if you keep running off for things that don’t exist.”
David stood up after I said this and stared down at me. His lips were in a thin line. He was angry, I realized, as he stared hard at me.
“I thought, deep down, Mike, you were bored too. I really thought you’d want to check this out with me. But I guess I was wrong. So I’ll do it myself. I’m leaving in three days.”
He stormed out, leaving me alone in the room. I didn’t see him the next morning and I walked back to the village alone. Even though I tried to put our fight out of my mind, it was impossible to.
Was David right? Was I just content to stay back home because I didn’t want to deal with anything else? Maybe I really did want to stick my head in the sand and pretend there weren’t things out there. We had seen with our own eyes Lucas as the Creeper King down in the Nether. People would even say a village full of friendly creepers was a legend but here we were.
Maybe it doesn’t matter if I truly believe if it is real or not. David is going to the Sun City again to try to find this silly, underground city. If he goes alone, he won’t have anyone helping him or giving him back up. Since I can’t talk him out of it, then maybe to be a good friend, I have to go anyway.
A lot to think about and I only have three days to decide.
Day 4
I met up with David as he was leaving his aunt’s house. He turned around and stopped when he saw me.
“Hey.” I said, unsure if he would even want me to come along with him now.
He walked over to me. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and his sword hitched
to his waist. He looked me up and down.
“You brought your bow?” He said, pointing to the bow on my back.
“Ah, yeah. Been practicing with it. I’m pretty good now.” I replied.
It was true. The bow had been specially made for me by Alex. It allowed me to work it with my multiple hands.
“Didn’t know you still trained with weapons. Figured you put them away.” David said, still clearly bothered by our fight.
“Figured it’d be good just in case something happened like the Nether portals opening.”
“So, why are you here?”
“If you still want me to come with you, I want to come.” I told him.
It was true. I had spent the last three days debating if I was going to go or not. But ultimately, I knew that I had to. David needed someone with him to keep him from running headfirst into danger. I didn’t think there were any truths to the legends but did that matter? Let David believe it. I would just go because he was my friend.
He stared at me for a few seconds before nodding, “Yeah, sure. Come on. We’re cutting through the jungle.”
“Great. Love that place.” I joked as we headed towards it.
David finally smiled at this, “Yeah, me too.”
We were both remembering how we had run into each other there when regular creepers had exploded at us. We headed into the jungle once again.