Dungeon Crawl! Read online

  “Don’t be nervous, pal,” Po said to Morgan. “If you don’t want to be onstage, you can just sign up for the tech crew.”

  Morgan frowned. “Here’s the thing, though— I want an acting part. Even though I’m super nervous about it.” He shrugged. “Is that weird?”

  “Not at all.” Po patted his friend’s arm. “I love playing basketball, and I always have. But I still get nervous before every single game.”

  “Really?” Morgan asked.

  “Really,” Po answered.

  They’d arrived at the auditorium, where their whole grade was gathering. Classes had been canceled for the morning so that Ms. Minerva could get through all the tryouts before lunch. Students were supposed to study while they waited for their turn to audition.

  Po and Morgan got in the line at the side of the stage. They could see Harper and Jodi sitting together, going through a stack of flash cards.

  “There’s a simple trick I use whenever I start to feel nervous,” Po told Morgan. “I close my eyes for a few seconds, and I focus on breathing. In and out. In and out. And I tell myself that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.”

  “And that really works?” Morgan asked.

  “Most of the time,” said Po. “Sometimes I’m forced to rely on plan B, which is to imagine that everybody but me is dressed like a chicken.” He rubbed his chin. “But that is risky, because you don’t want to start laughing when you’re trying to line up a three-point shot.”

  Morgan chuckled. Some of the color had come back to his face. “Thanks, Po,” he said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He peered over the heads of the students in front of them. “I just hope this line moves before I completely lose my nerve!”

  * * *

  Po watched from the wings while Morgan took the stage. His friend shook with nervous energy in the spotlight. But Po saw the moment Morgan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, his trembling had stopped.

  “Hello, Morgan,” said Ms. Minerva. She was seated in the front row of the auditorium. Beside her was Ash, who had volunteered to be the stage manager. As far as Po could tell, the stage manager did a little bit of everything.

  “Are you trying out for an acting role?” Ash asked, glancing at her clipboard. “Or singing?”

  “Acting!” Morgan blushed a deep shade of pink. “Definitely acting.”

  Po chuckled. The last time Morgan had sung the national anthem, Baron Sweetcheeks, the class hamster, had buried himself in wood chips to escape the noise.

  But Po had to hand it to Morgan: he was a good actor. Morgan’s tryout went well, and by the time it was over, his nervousness was forgotten. He beamed a smile at Po and gave a thumbs-up when he walked off stage. “You’re up, buddy!” he said.

  Po wheeled himself to the center of the stage. The spotlight was brighter than he’d expected. He had to shield his eyes to see Ms. Minerva and Ash, even though they were directly in front of him.

  They looked surprised to see him.

  “Po?” said Ash. “Don’t you have basketball this season?”

  “Well, yeah.” Po grinned. “It wouldn’t be much of a season without the MVP.”

  “Is that going to be a problem?” Ash asked. Po squinted and saw that she was asking their teacher.

  Ms. Minerva cleared her throat. “An acting role is a big commitment, Po,” she said. “It takes time to memorize lines. And missing a single rehearsal can throw off the entire production.”

  Po hadn’t thought about that. He’d assumed he’d be able to do both things. Could he take some time away from basketball? And just thinking about what his coach would say about that made his stomach flip.

  “What about tech crew?” Ash suggested. “We could give you a pretty important job backstage. We could put you in charge of all the lights!” She looked from Ms. Minerva to Po and back again. “It’s a big job. But if you miss a few rehearsals, it won’t matter so much.”

  Ms. Minerva nodded. “I think that’s a great solution, Ash. What do you think, Po?”

  Po’s mouth went dry. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to run the spotlights. He wanted to be in one.

  At first, Po didn’t say anything. He didn’t want was to seem ungrateful, or to cause problems for his friends. And he hadn’t thought about his basketball schedule.

  “That sounds great,” he said. He put on a happy face. “Thanks, Ash.”

  Ms. Minerva smiled and turned her attention to the next student while Ash grinned at him and wrote something on her clipboard.

  Look at me, Po thought. I nailed my acting audition and nobody even knows it.

  When they first came to the field, Harper thought it was a graveyard.

  Play auditions were over, and school was out for the day, so Harper and her friends had returned to Minecraft. They’d left their temporary shelter for good, and they had continued their march toward coordinates 0,0—of the very center of this world.

  They were nearly there when they came across the field. It was a vast expanse of green. Every few yards, a piece of granite stood atop the grass. The blocks looked to Harper almost like simple tombstones. But they were something else entirely.

  “My sculptures!” said Jodi. “What happened to them?”

  Harper gasped. Jodi was right. She and her friends had been here before….

  This was the site of Jodi’s sculpture garden. She’d spent hours on it during their earliest visits, before they’d even heard the name Evoker King. They’d left the sculptures behind many weeks ago. But this world had no wind, no decay, no erosion. Harper had expected those sculptures to stand forever.

  “What happened?” Jodi said again. “These were my masterpieces! They’ve all been reduced to rubble.”

  “Our castle doesn’t look much better,” Morgan said. He stood atop a nearby hill. “Come see for yourselves.”

  Harper and the others climbed the hill to stand beside Morgan. From there, they had a view of the castle they’d built together, back when Ash had first joined them. Or rather, they had a view of what was left of the castle.

  It had been picked apart. All the doors and decorations were gone. Random blocks were missing from the walls and turrets.

  “Our castle,” Harper said sadly. “It looks like…old, haunted ruins.”

  “It looks more like Swiss cheese!” Jodi said. “This is the Evoker King’s doing, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Ash said. “Or maybe the Librarian really needed the materials? It would be hard to be mad, in that case. We haven’t seen her recently, but she’s left a lot of materials behind to help us.”

  “Anyway, stuff you make in Minecraft isn’t supposed to be permanent,” Morgan said. He patted his sister on her on the edge of one of her square shoulders. “It all gets recycled eventually.”

  “Speaking of recycling, I can’t believe we’re all the way back to where we started!” said Po. “We basically traveled in a huge circle.”

  “Zero, zero is the center of the world,” said Harper. “It’s also our original spawn point. And I believe…” She scanned their surroundings. From the hilltop, she could see a good distance. “Over there, by those trees. That’s where this all began.”

  “And where it ends,” Morgan said.

  Po gulped audibly.

  “For the Evoker King, I mean,” Morgan added quickly. “I’m sure we’ll be fine….”

  * * *

  Harper led the way down the hill and toward their spawn point.

  “We still don’t even know what we’re looking for,” complained Morgan. “The source of the Evoker King’s power? It could be just about anything.”

  “It could be a unicorn!” said Jodi.

  “Jodi…,” said Morgan.

  “It could be!” she insisted. “Or…or a magical wishing lamp. Wi
th an AI genie inside.”

  “Is it a tree?” asked Po. “Because I see a tree over there. And a tree over there. And not much else.”

  “It’s underground,” Harper said.

  “What is?” asked Ash.

  “The source of the Evoker King’s power. He said it was in a dungeon.” She hopped up and down. “It must be beneath our feet!”

  “The center of the world,” said Ash. “In more ways than one…”

  “Exactly,” said Harper. She held up a pickaxe. “It’s time to get digging.”

  Morgan put up a hand. “One minute. We’re sure we have everything we need? Everything from my list?”

  Ash nodded. “Between the treasure chests full of supplies that the Librarian left for us…and the stuff we made with resources from the Overworld and the Nether…yes.” She smiled. “We’ve got armor for everyone, enchanted weapons, tons of food, and more blaze powder and potions than I’ve ever seen in one place.”

  “The trick is staying organized,” said Po. “I don’t want to be waving a fish around when I mean to use a sword.”

  Harper agreed. “He’s got a point,” she said. “Let’s split everything up. I’m already carrying all the potions….”

  “And Ash has the best aim,” Morgan said. “Maybe she should handle the arrows.”

  “Morgan is the boldest,” said Jodi. “He should get the best armor and a shield.”

  “Oh wow,” said Po. “This is just like a fantasy adventure!”

  “How do you mean?” Jodi asked.

  “We’re all choosing traditional fantasy hero roles. Morgan sounds like a fighter, or even a knight. Ash is more like a ranger….”

  “I’m an alchemist,” said Harper. “I can use potions to hurt our enemies and to heal us.”

  “You’re like a rogue, Jodi,” said Po. “Sneaky and clever. And I can finally use my wizard skin again. Oh!” His eyes went wide. “Why don’t we all wear new skins to fit our roles?”

  “I don’t know,” said Morgan. “I’m not sure it’s the best use of our time.”

  “Come on!” said Po. “It’ll make all the danger seem less…dangerous.”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Jodi. Harper could tell she was already thinking of her new skin.

  Ash shrugged, clearly warming up to the idea.

  Harper smiled. Po’s enthusiasm was infectious. “It might even be fun,” she said.

  Po’s avatar blinked out of existence for the briefest of moments. Suddenly, where a human fly had just stood, there was a magical wizard in robes and a pointy hat.

  “Po the Wizard,” he said. “Ready to vanquish evil!”

  Harper watched as her friends took a moment to adjust their looks.

  “Sir Morgan,” said Morgan, hefting his shield. “The knight.”

  Ash gripped her bow. “Ash the Ranger.”

  “Jodi the…what was it?” She crouched, ready to pounce. “Oh, right. Jodi the Rogue!”

  Harper held up a flask. “And I’m Alchemist Harper—potions prodigy and mistress of mixology.” She grinned. “And I’m ready to conquer this dungeon.”

  Everyone cheered, eager for their adventure.

  Morgan and his friends dug only for a minute before they found the start of a cavern.

  There was a large underground hollow just beneath their feet. They descended carefully, carving out one block step at a time. It was dark. Even when they placed torches on the walls, they could see just a short distance. A tunnel stretched out before them, the ground sloping downward.

  “It seems like we’re on the right path,” said Ash.

  “Yeah,” said Jodi. “The creepy, treacherous, descending-into-the-darkness, who-knows-what-could-be-down-there path. That seems right.”

  “Fear not, bold rogue,” said Po. “For we have magic on our side.”

  Jodi rolled her eyes, but she smiled.

  “Our choice is clear,” said Harper. “We need to push forward and hope for the best.”

  Morgan didn’t know what to hope for. He was wearing a full set of diamond armor—the best armor possible! So he was less vulnerable than ever before.

  But his friends and sister were plenty vulnerable. Did he have what it took to protect them all? That was the role of the person with the best armor. In gaming terms, he was the tank. And it was a big responsibility. He shivered with uncertainty.

  Po leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I’ll bet all the mobs we encounter down here will be wearing chicken costumes,” he said. “So there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

  Morgan turned and gave his friend a grateful smile. Then he took a deep breath, gripped his shield tight, and stepped forward.

  The darkness gave way before them. Harper and Ash were right at Morgan’s back, placing torches every few feet. Not only did that help them see, it would also help them retrace the route to their starting point.

  After a few minutes, the dirt walls and floor became stone, and the tunnel opened up. Morgan had a sense that the space was large, but he could only see so far.

  “I need more light,” he said, so Harper held up a torch.

  Morgan had been correct. They were in a vast cavern. But it wasn’t made of rock and dirt, as he had expected. It was all stone and brick.

  And there were little specks of red light sprinkled through the darkness.

  “Spiders!” he hissed in warning.

  “Then our foe has made a grave error,” Po said in his wizard voice. “For we are smiters of spiders! We are annihilators of arachnids! We are—”

  An arrow flew from the darkness. It narrowly missed Po, hitting the wall beside his head.

  “We are in a lot of trouble!” he cried.

  The spiders emerged from the darkness. There were a dozen of them, and they weren’t alone. Sitting atop each spider was a skeleton. The bony creatures were armed with bows and arrows, and they were aiming them right at Morgan and his friends.

  Spider jockeys!

  Po screamed. Jodi ducked into the shadows. Harper and Ash hurried to replace their torches with weapons.

  “Come and get me, you ghouls!” Morgan shouted to get the attention of their foes.

  He sounded braver than he felt. But this was the tank’s job, wasn’t it? Every arrow that he blocked was an arrow that wasn’t going to hurt one of his friends.

  He held his shield up and ran toward the spider jockeys.

  If his hope was to get their attention, then it worked. The spiders all moved toward him. The skeletons all fired in his direction. As long as they were right in front of him, he could block the arrows with his shield.

  But soon he would be surrounded. There was no way he could fight them all.

  Not alone…

  A spider jockey just ahead of him was hit with a flask. The container exploded on impact, covering both spider and skeleton with a sickly green poison.

  “Yes!” cried Harper. “Direct hit!”

  Another skeleton was knocked off its spider by a well-placed arrow. The spider didn’t seem bothered—but soon it, too, was pelted with arrows.

  “Got ’em!” yelled Ash as she prepared to let another arrow fly.

  Two more spiders burst into flame as if they’d been hit with blazing fireballs. Their skeletal riders went flying.

  “Woo-hoo!” cried Po.

  Morgan heard a small voice say, “And while you all are making a racket…”

  Suddenly Jodi leapt from the shadows. “Sneak attack!” she hissed. She sped toward the skeletons who had lost their spiders in the fireball, slashing them from behind. By the time the skeletons turned to fight back, she was gone.

  Morgan took advantage of the distraction, finishing off both skeletons with his sword.

  He turned to face the next foe. To his surprise, every skeleton jo
ckey was already defeated.

  “All right!” he said. “Way to go, team.”

  “In all my many centuries of life, I never saw a finer fellowship,” said Po. He was standing on top of a dispenser block.

  “Is that how you shot the fireball?” Morgan asked.

  Po nodded. “Fire charges and a dispenser,” he said. “I know it’s not an actual fireball spell, but it’s close enough.”

  “It certainly took care of those things,” Jodi said, stepping from the shadows. “It was even more effective than my sneak attack.”

  “I’m glad everyone’s feeling good about this,” said Harper.

  “Me too,” said Ash. “But that was only the first challenge. And who knows how deep this place goes?” She held up a torch, and the kids took in the size of the room. It was huge, and it was constructed—built of stonework and columns, not simply carved out in the dirt.

  Morgan and Ash shared a look. He could tell she had the same worry he did.

  There were dungeons in Minecraft. Morgan had seen plenty of them. But they were small underground caves. Nothing like this.

  Someone had built this. And they’d put those spider jockeys here to guard it.

  There would surely be greater threats ahead.

  “If this place goes much deeper, we’re bound to run out of torches,” said Harper. “We should use them more sparingly.”

  Jodi pulled something from her inventory. “We can use my seed trick!” she said. “If we leave a trail of seeds behind us, we won’t get lost. Then we can avoid wasting torches.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Morgan. “We’ll take it slow. We’ll check every nook and cranny of this place. And after we’ve got what we’re looking for, we’ll follow the seed trail back out again.”