The Complete Elementia Chronicles: Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message. Sean Wolfe Fay
you,” interjected Bill, “we’ve had a lot more experience fighting Ghasts since then, and we could probably figure out a winning strategy for killing Blazes, but we should still be careful.”
“The Nether Fortress is very close to this location,” said Ben. “We actually chose to build our house here in case we ever wanted to explore it some more. We have a few times. It’s awesome to explore that giant labyrinth. Anyway, it’s right up this hill outside.” He exited the house and started up the hill, followed by the other five.
It was quite a sheer hill – more like a cliff face, really. At one point, another Ghast tried to blast them off the cliff side, but Ben managed to kill it with deflected fireballs, and they kept climbing.
“Oh man, why is it so hot in the Nether?” said Kat, gritting her teeth as she wiped the sweat from her brow. She was closely followed by Charlie and then Stan.
“Well … I’m guessing … the fireballs and … the lava sea may … have something to do … with it,” panted Stan as he dragged his shovel behind him. “And who are you … to complain? You’re … wearing shorts … and a T-shirt!”
“And also you’re … not wearing … one of these wicked heavy … iron chestplates!” gasped Charlie. Kat glanced down quickly at her neon-pink shorts and then again at the light tunic over her orange T-shirt. She blushed in embarrassment and did not speak again for the rest of the climb.
At the top of the Netherrack cliff, there was a monster standing by that tried to attack them. It was a large cube of magma of various shades of dark red, and had glowing yellow eyes that opened up like a spring as it leaped forwards to attack Ben. He calmly identified it as a Magma Cube and sliced it in two with his sword. Stan was totally caught off guard when the two halves of the monster morphed into two smaller Magma Cubes. One of them caught him unaware as it tackled him, and he would have been knocked back down the cliff had Bill not caught the strap of Stan’s chestplate with his fishing rod. Ben kept killing the Magma Cubes, and the pieces of the dead ones kept reanimating. They were easy kills, though, and soon all of them were dead, leaving a pasty orange substance on the ground that Bob pocketed for later use.
“Magma cream,” he pointed out. “You use it to make Potions of Fire Resistance.”
Now that the Magma Cube was good and dead, the players turned their attention to the structure in front of them. It was composed entirely of dark crimson bricks, and there were stairs that led up to a tunnel made out of the bricks, which had torches lining the walls. The tunnel went straight into the side of another Netherrack cliff. There were no distinct architectural features of the building. In fact, Stan was surprised to see that the exterior looked very plain.
“Those torches weren’t put there naturally,” said Ben. “We put those up the last time we visited this place. If we follow them, it should lead us straight to the Blaze spawner room.”
They walked into the corridor. Stan was pleased to realize that it was slightly cooler within these brick halls. He followed the Nether Boys as they took turn after turn, following the torches. Slowly, Stan began to realize just how big the complex was. There were windows in the sides of the corridors, and more often than not there was nothing to see out of them except for Netherrack. However, now and then he could see that they were suspended over the lava sea, and a few times he saw magnificent lava falls flowing from the ceiling of the Nether and into the lava sea. Stan realized that he might well die during the fight with these monsters, so he took the time walking down the corridors to appreciate just how beautiful the landscape of Minecraft was.
After going down endless corridors and through a few rooms with staircases and small farms of some type of seed that Stan guessed was the Nether wart the Apothecary had told him about, they finally arrived at a corridor that was not lit with torches. At the end of this corridor, Stan could see a block with a yellow figure revolving within a black cage, very similar to the block that spawned Cave Spiders in the abandoned mine shaft. He knew that they had reached the Blaze spawner.
“So, what’s our strategy?” asked Charlie eagerly.
“Personally, I say we should just go in there and beat the things to death before they get a chance to attack us,” said Kat, pulling her sword from her waist.
“Not so fast, sister,” said Bill. “Those spawners can set up to three of those things on you at a time. As much fun as it would be to just charge in there and beat the Blaze Rods right out of them, I think we have to think this one through a little more. Anyone have any ideas?”
There was silence for a moment. Then much to Stan’s surprise, Charlie spoke up and said, “How about I drink my Potion of Fire Resistance and draw their fire, while Bob, Kat, and Stan shoot them down?”
“Nice thinking, bro,” said Bob. “Be careful, though. Even if you don’t catch on fire, the Blazes can still do melee attacks and the fireballs still damage you.”
Charlie agreed to be careful, and they got ready to execute their plan. Charlie gave all of his things to Kat to hold, and Ben and Bill hid behind Bob, Kat and Stan, all of whom had their arrows notched, ready to fire.
“Wait, I’m almost out of arrows,” Stan said. “Do you have any extras, Bob?”
“Sure,” he said, and he handed half his arrows to Stan.
With everything ready, Charlie swigged his fire resistance potion, and he charged into the Blaze spawner room.
Charlie could see that the room was jutting out of the side of a Netherrack mountain, and that the walls were completely composed of fences. In the centre of the room, the black cage gave off some fire particles, and the yellow figure within started spinning rapidly. Before Charlie could study the little figure any closer, a full-sized Blaze appeared right above the spawner. Charlie couldn’t help but stare. It was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen.
The head of the Blaze was a yellow cube flecked with orange, and it had beady eyes that were locked on to him. The head was on top of a column of smoke, which had a lot of yellow rods orbiting around it. The entire thing was engulfed in flames. Charlie was just getting over how zany the entire composition looked when the Blaze opened its mouth and three fireballs shot out.
Charlie rolled to the side. The three fireballs hit the walls in three great puffs of flame. The Blaze’s head rotated and fixated on Charlie again, and it rose into the air and shot out three more fireballs. Charlie dodged again, and before the Blaze could take another shot, three arrows flew out of the corridor and impaled the Blaze’s head. The blaze fell to the ground, extinguished, with only an orange stick remaining, which Charlie snatched up. He barely had time to examine the Blaze Rod when two more Blazes appeared, and six more fireballs flew towards him. One of the Blazes fell from three more arrows, but it didn’t drop a rod. The other one fell seconds later, and the rod fell to the ground. Charlie was too preoccupied with the four more Blazes in the room to pick up the rod at that moment.
Back in the corridor, the archers were shooting arrows as fast as they could, but the spawners were creating new enemies faster than they could shoot them down. Bill sat solemnly against the wall. He knew there was nothing that a fishing rod could do in such a closed-off space. Ben, on the other hand, stood rigid behind the archers, sword gripped in his hand. Like the other Nether Boys, he was a pretty easy-going guy, but if there was one thing he hated, it was to be left out of a fight.
“He must’ve collected enough rods by now! Let’s go in there and destroy the spawner!” He made to go down the corridor, but Bill pulled him back.
“No, Ben, not yet,” Bill said calmly. “You can go in there when it’s time, but right now nobody has a chance of surviving in there besides Charlie.”
“Do you see a better time on the horizon?” Ben asked in exasperation.
Indeed, back in the spawner room, Charlie did not see the fight ending well at all. There were now eight Blazes circling around the room, with the spawner creating them at a rate of two spawned for every one shot down. He had more than enough Blaze Rods to craft the twelve Blaze Powder units required. He sincerely wished