The dirt under his heel turned to stone. Notch ducked his head through the vines and peered inside. It had taken him days to come to the jungle temple but now he was finally here. The jungle temple in front of him rose up three stories, covered in vines and well hidden by the thick coverage of trees. Notch was going to be the first person to ever explore this temple. It was the temple of legend and one Notch was excited to discover.
Notch had loved exploring as a child. He loved legends of scary monsters and relics of the past. He would devour books about The End and the Ender Dragon. He spent his childhood driving his parents crazy by pretending to be a knight and running away to explore.
He had managed to turn that into a job. Notch travelled the Over World. He would be hired to protect people travelling or hired to explore temples and other areas of danger for coin and other goods. Nothing made him feel more alive than the thrill of battle or finding something rare.
But the one thing he never was able to find was the Temple of Herobrine. It was something he read about as a kid and the legend had stuck with him. The Temple of Herobrine was a jungle temple, rumored to be the hub of trade back in the olden days. There was a swordsman who was so talented and so utterly fantastic with enchanting and potion creating that the people began to worship him. He ended up with his own temple – The Temple of Herobrine. Over the course of time, Herobrine filled his temple up with treasures. But the temple was lost in time and hidden deep in the jungle after an unexplained event and was never found.
Until now. Notch didn’t know how much of the legend was actually true but he was betting that the treasure part at least. As a child, he liked to pretend he was Herobrine, the man of legend, who ended up with his own temple. Now he hoped to get Herobrine’s treasure and explore the temple.
His heart beat with excitement as he brushed a cobweb off the door. It had taken years to find this temple. Notch had been all over the Over World to try to find it. He finally found it in a thicket of trees and vines at the base of a large mountain. A village was rumored to be near the temple too but Notch was only interested in the Temple of Herobrine.
What if he found more than just treasure? His hand gripped his sword. He could find enemies. Notch made sure to take a moment to assess his inventory – he had a long range of different weapons, including Splash Potions. He had torches and food to help him heal, in case of injury. He was ready.
Notch pushed against the close door of the jungle temple. It was stuck solidly but he managed to press against it enough that it began to rock slightly. Using all his strength, he grabbed the bottom of the door and tried to pull it up. His muscles tight, Notch pulled open the door enough that he could crawl through it. A musty air spilled out of the temple. The air was thousands of years old and smelled like dust and mold.
The door was raised wide enough that Notch could shimmy through. First he pulled out a torch and got on his hands and knees, trying to peer inside. He didn’t make out anything of interest – just old stone, littered with vines. He didn’t hear anything either, only wind running from the temple out through the open door.
Notch slid the torch into the temple, sliding it across the floor as he began to wiggle under the door and into the temple. His heart was still beating with excitement as he crawled into the temple. Once he cleared the doorway, Notch stood up, trying to brush some of the dirt off of his legs. He snatched up the torch and raised it high above him.
He was in a narrow hallway. There was nothing out of the ordinary here – it was just simply low and narrow. It would allow for two people to enter at once and walk side by side, no more. Notch began to walk down the hallway, his senses on high alert just in case he happened to find or see something.
The hallway finally opened up. Notch could tell it was going to from the sudden rush of musty air his way. He stopped at the edge of the hallway. It’d be so much easier if he had more lighting, Notch mused to himself. He had his other hand on his sword, in case he had to fend anything off.
Notch took a step forward into the main room of the first floor. As soon as his foot hit the stone inside the main room, he could feel something vibrating. It was as if a low hum was going through the temple room. The floor vibrated under his feet and suddenly torches lit up. All along the room, the torches that hadn’t been touched in ages lit themselves, as if by magic. Notch, taken by surprise, didn’t move. He only watched in awe as the torches lit up the entire room.
The room didn’t have a higher ceiling since it was on the first floor. Instead there was a small pool of water in the middle with torches surrounding it. Notch had read that people use to sit around the pool of water and discuss things. The stones surrounding it made it a great place to sit and talk.
But the rest of the room was empty. There were no old stalls where people used to sell things. No old objects either. Nothing. It was as if the entire area had been cleared out.
Notch found this strange. He was expecting remains of the people who had used this temple daily. Maybe some old iron ore or at the very least an old chair. But there wasn’t anything. The way the temple seemed to know he had entered – the torches burned brightly. How could that be possible? The books had never mentioned anything like that.
Notch kept quiet to see if the floor vibrating and lights turning on had awaken anything. But there was silence. He took a step forward and held his breath again. No, he was clearly alone. He decided he’d go over and look at the pool of water. He could see it glistening in the low lights.
Notch walked over to the pool of water. The cobblestone around it was clearly old and falling apart. The water inside it was still, moving only a little under Notch’s light. Nothing remarkable here.
Notch began to walk farther into the temple. He knew what he was looking for was on the top floor of the temple. He walked past the pool and down a hallway leading towards the temple quarters. The torches were illuminated here as well. The rooms were empty. It was strange how everyone seemingly had picked up their things and vanished. It was creepy, Notch decided. He had been expecting signs of life that used to be here and treasures lining the room. But maybe whatever had led the villagers to flee meant they took the treasures with them.
Notch got to the end of the hallway. There was a staircase there. Notch tested it with his foot to make sure it could hold his weight and then began to walk up it. There were no torches here so Notch made sure to go slowly, using his own torch to illuminate the stairs.
When he made it to the second floor, he was in a small room. It was empty as well but it had a window at least. The glass was long since broken but what little sunlight that made it through the thick of the jungle and the shadow of the mountain spilled into the room. It di
dn’t smell as musty here either due to the window. There was a door ahead of him.
The second floor of the temple was different than the first floor. The first floor was for the priests of the temple to live and the hub of trade and the marketplace. The second floor was cut up smaller – there was the clinic, a few rooms for travelers to stay in and a place of worship. The temple got narrower the higher up you went. On the top floor was the shrine to Herobrine.
Notch walked up to the door and went to lift it. But the rock crumbled in his hand and he realized he wouldn’t have to. Notch pulled out his pickaxe and started to strike down the door. It crumbled and Notch was hit with another blast of old air. This wasn’t as bad as the first one since luckily this floor had windows.
He walked past the old doctor quarters as well as where the inns were. There was nothing again. Notch made his way into the place of worship. There was a larger window here. It used to overlook the river but now the trees were growing through it and touching the floor. There was another staircase there now – the final staircase.