Blind and Rise still sat on a fallen tree on the edge of a jungle biome. It was midday, and although they had arrived there at sunrise, neither of them had done or said anything in light of the recent events.


Blind broke the silence. “Got any supplies?”


Rise shook his head. “Not much.”


“How much?”


"Just some food, really; and a stone axe.”


“That’s it?”


"Yes. It’s difficult to get any supplies I can take. It’s a nice place to live and all, but they don’t want anyone leaving. Equipment is expensive, and if you are caught taking it outside of the walls without written permission, you get a week in the dungeon.”


“How does that make it hard to take what you already have with you?”


“I can’t just take everything I own and leave my house, people would notice that.”


“You could have still brought more.”


“I did! But a guard asked me what I was doing out so late! I said I was heading to the tree farm because I just realized I was nearly out of wood. He asked to see my inventory! I had to show him, and he made me go put the rest back!”


Blind stared at Rise. “Really? Sounds more like a large prison.”


“It does seem like that, sometimes. But we are on the brink of war, at least, so that can explain what all the security is about.”


“…and why the king thought I was a spy.”


“…And that too.”


Silence followed again, until Rise got up and walked into the jungle. Blind looked around the edge of the trunk to see where Rise was going. He was climbing the vines on another tall tree nearby, apparently trying to get to the top.


“What are you doing?” Blind asked, perplexed.


“What does it look like? I’m climbing to the top of the tree so I can chop it down.”



Blind nodded, suddenly realizing that he had never eaten. He took out all of the good bread he had looted, and leaving the old, disgusting prison bread alone, and began eating.








By the time Rise had gotten to the top of the tree and had chopped down a portion of it, Blind had finished eating, and his wounds had nearly healed, except for his missing arm, which was growing back, and was already past the elbow. Blind gazed in amazement as his arm grew back before his very eyes.


I’ll never get used to that. He thought with a happy note.


Suddenly, Blind heard footsteps in the jungle. It wasn’t Rise, he was on top of a tree! He jumped up and drew his iron sword. Three zombies were walking towards him, with a dark cave behind them. They must have been in the cave all this time! Blind thought.


After a few moments of thought, Blind decided to fight. I bet I could take them. He stood his ground and waited until a zombie came near. As soon as the first one was within range, he took a swing, cutting clean through the zombies neck, and it’s head fell onto the ground below. Surprisingly to Blind, there was almost no blood.


The next zombie was faster. As Blind held his sword, preparing to attack, it swung its arms around wildly, knocking his sword out of his hand. It landed on the ground several blocks to the side.


“Darn…” Blind held his fists in front of him, and aimed a jab at the zombie. The hit was sucessful, but now the other zombie was on him as well. Blind, unable to fend off two zombies at once without a weapon, jumped to the side, attempting to find his sword. However, he couldn’t find it fast enough, and a zombie grabbed his still-regenerating left arm before he could find it. Blind fell to the ground, and before he could do to stop it, both of the zombies were on top of him, each attempting to have a meal of him. He felt teeth bite into his right thigh.


"Ouch!" Blind shouted, attempting to kick the zombie off of his leg. Just then, the other zombie bit down on his right shoulder.


"Gah! Get off of me you sorry excuse for a living being!"


He struggled ferociously to free himself, but he could not. I'm going to die! I'm going to die and respawn in that prison again! All of that work, for nothing!


Suddenly, the zombie on his shoulder went limp. Blind couldn't see much with his face forced into a bush, but out of the corner of his eye, the thought he saw a handle poking out from behind the fallen zombies head. Blind managed to roll over, but the zombie on his leg was still perfectly fine, and it tore off a chunk of meat from his leg.


“Augh! *Bleep*ing *bleep*!” Blind used his good leg and kicked it in the face as it tried to chew on the meat from his leg. It stumbled, and Blind painfully stood up, grabbed its head before it could regain its balance, and with a sharp twist, snapped it.


"What is with you!?" Rise said, climbing down the tree without the axe. "You always end up getting hurt somehow, don’t you?”


Blind shrugged. “I don’t know, it just happens!”


"Well, you better learn to stop it from happening. At this rate, you won’t last longer than a few days." Rise stated.


Rise then looked at Blind, surveying his appearance. "You look like crap, too."


Blind looked town at himself. He was still wearing the tan prisoner's clothes that were half covered with blood. The left sleeve was cut off halfway to his wrist, and stained with blood at the end from when his arm was cut off. There was a hole in the back surrounded with blood from when he had been stabbed in the back while escaping the prison, there were two tears in his right shoulder, one was from a knife, the other from one of the zombies. Finally, there was the large hole in the back of his right thigh that he was still bleeding out of. It was already not healing.


"Please tell me you got an apple or two from that tree." Blind said.


"No." Rise said, annoyed.


Silence followed for a few moments.


"Thanks for saving me… again." Blind said.


"You would have respawned back in the jail if you had died. “Then I would have given up everything for nothing.” Rise walked up to the dead zombies and pulled the stone axe out of the zombie's head, then started walking back to the tree. Blind walked towards the tree as well, ignoring the pain in his leg.


“I guess I’ll have to eat this crappy prison bread…”

Blind sat at the base of the large jungle tree as Rise was cutting it down. He looked up at his friend who only had a few more layers of wood to break before he reaches the ground. "Is there going to be enough wood to build a house from this one tree?" Blind asked.


"Yes." Rise said, sounding slightly annoyed. "There is enough wood in this tree to build two, or even three houses. Haven’t you ever built a house before?"


"Nope." Blind shook his head as he spoke even though Rise probably couldn’t see him. "Have you forgotten that I've spent more than half of my life in prison?"


Blind stopped for a moment to think. Or was it more than that? Blind asked himself. Lets see... I spawned one week plus one day ago, and I was in the prison for around five days... So yeah.


“Actually, it was more than that. More like three-quarters of my life in that prison.”


Rise had just finished cutting down the tree. "Fair enough, but we can't build a house."


Blind was confused. "Why not?" Blind asked.


"We are fugitives! If we build a house, it's going to scream, 'Hey! Look in here!' to anyone who comes by. We don't want anyone on a scouting mission to be able to find us that easily!"


"Look how long we ran without stopping! I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue."


“I’ve been much farther than this, on several occasions, during a scouting mission. It’s not likely they will find us, but enough of a threat to be taken seriously.”


Blind grunted out of frustration. I just want to build a house and live like a normal person, is that really so hard?”


“We have to live underground.”


“Underground? Why!?”


“I just said why! It’s the only way to be safe.”


“Fine… if you want to live in a dreary hole for the rest of your life, I guess I have to oblige, don’t I?”


Rise gave Blind a disappointed look that hurt much more than Blind thought such a thing could.


I’m being completely out of line, he just gave up everything to help me.


“I’m sorry.”


“It’s fine.” Rise said, still obviously upset. “Your young, you don’t understand the world yet.”


“What’s the plan?”


“Find a decent pool of water to dig in, it will help conceal the entrance without having to place and remove a block each time, or make some fancy Redstone mechanism.”


“Fair enough.” Blind started walking deeper into the jungle. It didn’t take long to find a large lake, the biggest one you could expect to find in a jungle.


“You start digging…” Rise started, putting down a crafting table. “I’ll make some tools and be down in a second.”


Blind nodded and dove headfirst into the water. It was cool and clear. As he swam deeper, it got harder to see, and he only barely stopped before he bumped his face into the dirt at the bottom. Quickly, Blind started digging, but it wasn’t long before he ran low on breath, and had to resurface. When he did, Rise was by the edge, holding a wooden shovel and pickaxe.


“Take these!” Rise said, throwing them to Blind, who wasn’t able to catch them, but they were wooden, so they floated. “Dig up some cobble and bring it up to me.” Blind nodded and dove back under. With the shovel, he was able to take care of two blocks of dirt before having to go back up for air, then using the wooden pick, was forced to go up and back down three times just to get three cobblestone, which he handed to Rise. Rise took them, crafted a stone pick, and hefted it on his shoulder.


“Take your wooden pick and see if you can find some coal anywhere. Doesn’t matter how much you find, just get some if you can.”


“I saw some down there, if that helps, in the pit I dug.”


Rise smiled.


“That will make things easier.” Then, without another word, Rise dove into the water with the stone pick. Blind waited for Rise to resurface.


But he didn’t.


Why didn’t he come back up yet? Blind tried to look down to see if he saw Rise, but it was to dark to see underwater with the glare of the sun reflecting off of the top.


“Rise!” Blind shouted, and dove in. Did he get stuck? Blind worriedly asked himself as he quickly swam to the hole. However, he was surprised to see a slight glow come from the hole as he approached. He swam in, and found Rise digging an open area that somehow the water wasn’t getting to. Blind looked at Rise as he was digging the area with a confused look on his face. Allthough Rise saw Blind right away, he didn’t notice his expression.


After several minutes, Rise had just begun to dig a staircase to go deeper down, when he finally decided to ask Blind what his problem was.


“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Why you staring at me?”


“How is the water not flooding in here?”


“I know how water flows, it’s easy to keep it out of places you don’t want it here.”


“How were you able to get the water out in the first place?”


Rise faceplamed, mouthing the word ‘Right…’


“Torches, I crafted torches. Placing one underwater creates a tiny pocket of air for a second. That’s how I was able to stay underwater for so long as well.”


“Oh, okay.” Blind said, still feeling confused.


“Now, go make yourself useful and bring the crafting table down here, I want to make this place self-sustaining, so that we won’t ever have to go back up to the surface if we don’t want to.”


Without even a thought, Blind turned and swam back up to the surface for the crafting table.


I hope they don’t find us. He thought. His mind wandered back to him being in prison as well as escaping.


I don’t want to go through that again! None of it!

Three weeks after their jailbreak, Blind and Rise were doing well. Their underground home, which for some reason neither of them can comprehend, was dubbed the ‘whale cave’. It was larger than some of the smaller cave systems. They made it self-sustaining, but they never did make a room with a high enough ceiling to make a tree farm.


Blind closed their main items chest that was in their main room, just below the top room which had the exit. He held in his hand two wood planks and three iron ingots.


"We are down to 32 wood planks, Rise.” Blind said, walking to the crafting table. “Including the two I have in my hand.”


Rise put some iron ore and coal into a furnace. “Augh, I don’t want to go up… but I guess it’s about time we do. Let me make some iron axes."


Blind reached into a different chest, then walked up to Rise, placing an iron axe on top of the furnace.


“We still have one good one from last time.”


“Well, you need one.”


“I made myself a new one. I always carry an iron axe with me.”


Rise picked up the axe. “I think the wheat farm needs to be harvested.”


“So does the melon farm, and the carrot farm, and the potato farm… but that can wait, we have plenty of extras.:


Blind tapped the furnace out of impatience.


“Stop stalling, this needs to be done, look how long we have put it off!”


“Can we at least repair our iron armor on the anvil?” Rise asked. “Mine doesn’t fit quite right anymore.”


“Rise! We aren’t going to run into an army the second we step onto the shore!”


“Fine! You win! Let’s go!”


Rise pushed past Blind and walked up the stairs towards the exit. Blind sighed an exasperated sigh and followed.


Soon enough, they had both swam up and found decently and equally sized jungle trees. They each climbed up one and began cutting it down from the top down.


As Blind was cutting down his tree, he noticed some sort of gleam on the ground, in the direction directly away from the whale cave. He stopped chopping the tree to get a better look, then he saw the gleam again, then a second one shortly after. Suddenly, three armored figures burst out of the bushes. Both wore iron armor and held diamond swords.


“Rise!” Blind called silently. “Rise, over here!”


Rise didn’t notice.


“Rise!” Blind called louder, then crouched down. The people below might have heard that one.


“What?” Rise called back at full volume.


“Shhhh!” Blind shushed, and pointed down. Rise looked and saw the people below. They were walking towards the lake.


"What do we do?” Blind asked.


"Wait, just wait. Maybe they will leave.


Blind could hardly believe his eyes when the two people below jumped into the lake. Even worse, they didn’t come back up.


“We have to go down there!” Blind said, already climbing down the tree.


“Are you crazy!?”


“I’m not about to let all of our progress here go to waste!” Blind jumped off of the tree several blocks above the ground, hitting the ground hard, but he didn’t care. He drew his diamond sword and approached the lake.”


“Dang it!” Rise shouted, and didn’t even try to climb down his tree. He jumped right off from the top, plummeting straight down. Before he could smash into the ground; however, he grabbed a vine of a shorter three, swinging to a safe landing right next to Blind.


“I told you we should have repaired our armor!”


Blind ignored him. They dove into the water, then swam down to the entrance. They entered the whale cave with their swords at the ready, taking silent steps despite wearing iron boots on a stone floor.


There was nobody to be seen.


“Downstairs.” Rise mouthed to Blind, who nodded. Rise took the lead.


Down the stairs, the three invaders were standing around the furnace, which was still smelting iron. Blind and Rise took cover behind a few nearby chests and listened to their conversation.


“Someone’s been here, and recently. Possibly living here.” One said, standing up from checking the furnace.


“Should we wait here for them, or try to find them?” Another said.


“You sure we even want to find these guys? This place looks like it could be a military base.” Who knows how many soldiers could be here.” The first replied.


“We didn’t see anybody yet.” The second one said.


“That doesn’t mean they aren’t below.”


Blind snuck a peek at the invaders, and the one was pointing down the staircase to the third floor down, where their living space and farms were.


“If there is a small army here, the three of us sure as anything can’t take them all on. Let’s go back to the castle and report this place for investigation.”


Blind froze at the mention of the word ‘castle’.


“Yeah, let’s get out of here before anyone finds us.”


Blind looked at Rise. No words were necessary to express his intentions. Rise nodded.


Just as the three invaders began to walk past, Blind and Rise jumped out in front of them, holding their swords pointed at the necks of the nearest two. Blind was quickly surprised, the nearest one to him wasn’t a human, he was a blaze man!


“Who are you?” Rise said after several moments of silence. Confusion obvious in his voice.


At first, the Slime man, standing in the back grabbed his sword, but then he saw Blind.


"I'm Jay. I thought this place might have been a human base.”


“And you were wrong.” Rise said, putting his sword away.


“I’m Rise, and this here is Blind. Refugees from the human castle.”


The human, who stood in front of Rise, spoke next.


“I’m Lanzer. Patrolman and guard of the mob nation.”


The last two words that Lanzer spoke echoed in Blind’s head.


Mob nation… Blind quickly put his sword away, all of his suspicion and battle-readiness replaced with curiosity.


“Who are you, then?” He asked, addressing the blaze man standing before him.


"We really don't know his name... He never speaks.”  Jay said. “I’m not entirely sure if he can hear either.”


Lanzer grabbed the blaze man on the shoulder, and he stepped back. The two of them exchanged a few glances as well as a few motions, and the blaze man relaxed.


“Just letting him know you two aren’t a threat.” He explained.


“So, what are you two doing out in the middle of nowhere?”


"I spawned about a month ago, into a bad situation. Rise was on a scouting trip for the… human nation, and found me.  When he took me to the castle, the king had me thrown into prison. I was in there for about five days, but Rise help me break out, and ever since our escape, we lived here.”


“Well,” Jay began. “You are free to come with us if you want. The mob-man civilization is just a few days walk from here."


Blind smiled, then Jay continued. "There are also a lot of humans too, as you can see with Lanzer being with us.”


Blind looked at Rise with an expectant look on his face. Rise nodded.


“Can we get some of our stuff first?”


"Go right ahead."  Lanzer said.


Blind and Rise immediately turned to all of their cests. Deciding to travel relatively light, they gathered 25 unused diamonds, three stacks of iron ingots, three and a half stacks of coal, a stack of bread, fourteen apples, and a few other things.


“Ready?” Lanzer asked. Blind and Rise both nodded.


“Let’s go.”


And so, the group of five began their trek to the mob-man civilization. For the first time that he could remember, Blind felt genuinely happy. Finally, he could live somewhere in peace, in a house, and have a normal life.


Only, this was merely just another battle won in the war of Blind’s life.

The five day trek that Blind, Rise, Lanzer, Jay, and the blaze man had undertaken seemed incredibly long to Blind. Each day was nonstop walking, and there was no indication of progress, no roads, no watchtowers, nothing. The only thing Blind could do to keep track of progress was to pay attention to how long they have been traveling, and hope that they knew where they were going. During the first day of travels, Blind and Rise had told Lanzer and Jay the story of how they ended up where they were.


Just as predicted, five days after leaving the whale cave, they arrived at the castle. It was not as big as the previous one, at least, from the outside it appeared to be that way. Still, its size remained impressive.


As they approached the gate, Jay, the slime man, turned to Blind and Rise. “Would you be willing to meet the king? He would be interested to hear your full story.”


Before Blind could respond, he noticed that Rise was smiling. “What?” Blind asked him.


Rise waved him off. “Nothing… it’s just that I now know what it’s like to be on both sides of this situation.”


Blind smiled as well.


“Yeah, that would be fine.” Rise told Jay. Jay nodded as the gates were opened, and they all stepped inside.


The first thing that Blind noticed was the opposite of what he had noticed in the first castle. Instead of everyone noticing them, not a single person gave them a second glance. Already, things were looking good here.


Curious, Blind scanned the crowd he was passing by. Two people in particular, a human and an ender-creep, caught his attention as they walked past, as they were carrying on a somewhat loud conversation. Blind managed to catch a few words before they were out of earshot.


The ender-creep said, "...so I told him that I was robbing the shop, and you should have seen him run! It was so funny! Although, just when I was about to leave, the police…”


Blind could no longer understand anything else that was said, but it wasn’t hard to guess that whatever joke he had played had backfired. Blind turned his attention back to the path ahead, and he saw a large building straight ahead. It wasn’t the tallest, but it definitely took up the most ground space in the entire castle.


That one must be the King’s hall. Blind thought.


Several minutes later, Blind’s guess was proven correct, as were walking inside of the building.


Lanzer stopped walking in a hallway that appeared to be leading to a much larger room, and Blind nearly walked into his back. “Time to take our armor off.” He said.


Jay, who was in front, quickly stopped. “You are right, I nearly forgot.”


Blind would have taken his helmet off, if he had been wearing one. “What’s this about taking armor off?”


“It’s not proper to wear armor while visiting the king, so we take it off.”


Blind shrugged. “Makes sense… I guess.” Blind took his armor off, revealing his still-bloodstained and torn-up prison clothes.


“Whoa.” Jay said, when he saw Blind’s left sleeve, which didn’t get to the elbow, and still showed obvious bloodstains, in comparison to his right sleeve, which went all the way to his wrist. “You weren’t kidding when you said your arm got cut off.”


“And you thought I was?”


“No, well, maybe. I wasn’t certain that you could have fought at all, let alone running so far, with your weight put off balance that much.”


“Wasn’t that difficult, I just did what I had to be done.”


Jay nodded. “That makes sense.”


By now, everyone had taken their armor off, so they continued their walk. As they entered the large room before them, Blind noted the red carpet rolling straight up to the king’s throne, which was made entirely of gold.


As they approached the king, Blind noticed one thing before anything else. He was also a creeper man.


“I sent three on a scouting mission, not five.” The king said with a curious tone.


Lanzer was the one to respond. “Yes, we found these two…” He gestured for Blind and Rise to step forward, and they did. “…out in the wilderness. We thought you would be interested in hearing their story.”


The king looked at the obvious signs of Blind’s previous injuries. “You thought correctly.”


Lanzer gestured to Blind and Rise, wordlessly telling them that they should be the ones to relate their story. They both nodded, and began to tell their tale.


 


 


As they told the king their story, he didn’t interrupt. Most of the time, his only responses nods of acknowledgement. When they finished, the King looked at Lanzer, Jay, and the blaze man.


“Any other information I would want to know?”


"Nothing out of the ordinary.” Jay said.


The king nodded. “You may go now.”


All five of them turned to leave.


“Not you two.” The king said, and Blind and Rise stopped and faced the king again. Blind took a quick glance at Jay, Lanzer, and the blaze man as they walked away.


“Your story is a unique one, I’ll tell you that.”


Neither one of them knew how to respond.


“I have only one question for the two of you.”


Blind froze in anticipation. Time slowed, although it was only seconds until the king continued with his question, that short period of time stretched into what felt like an entire minute.


“Do the two of you wish to reside here?”


Blind released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He tried to respond, but for some reason he didn’t understand, no words came out.


“I certainly would.” Rise said.


The king looked at Blind, who finally snapped himself out of it.


“Yes… yes I would.”


“I thought so. Fortunately, we recently finished expanding the castle. If you would like, I can show you some of the new plots avalible for purchase.”


I didn’t really think about plots… Blind thought, worried that they might not have enough. “How much would they be?”


The king stood up, and walked down to stand next to Blind and Rise.


"Normally, for someone who doesn’t own any property in the castle, it costs about two stacks of gold ingots, or ten diamonds and a stack of iron ingots."


Blind turned to Rise, "We have enough for two!”


Rise nodded. “We can do that, who do we give the payment to?”


"Don’t worry about that quite yet, why don’t we have a look at the plots first?” The king said, passing Blind and Rise.


“Right…” Blind said, then began to follow the king.


 


 


It didn’t take long for the three of them to reach an area where there were three empty plots next to each other.


“So, feel free to take your time to decide.”


Blind didn’t see the point in taking a long time to decide, and pointed at the one in the middle. “I think I’ll go with that one.”


The king nodded.


"I like this one."  Rise said, putting his hand on the fence surrounding the empty plot just in front of them.


"Okay, I’ll get people on getting you the proper paperwork. You can start building now, if you are able, they should arrive relatively soon. You can give your payment to them.


Blind smiled, and turned to walk to his new plot as the king turned to leave. After only taking a few steps, however, he spun around again.


“Thank you!” He called out to the king.
“Happy to help a new citizen! And by the way, my name is Splode!”

Blind walked down the street of the castle. He had only been there for a week now, and already it was time for him to find some form of employment. He had spent some time previously thinking about it, and due to his experience living underground, he decided that he should get a job as a miner. He walked four more blocks (city blocks, not actual blocks) down the road, and then turned right. Across the street, there was an entrance to a shop that advertised that they sold iron, coal, and diamonds. That place looks relatively small, they must mine their own materials. So, Blind entered.


Upon entering the door, Blind heard a shout from behind the counter, "I'll be right there!  Don't run away yet!"  Blind walked up to the counter and waited.  Moments later, someone came up to the counter.  "Ah, you are that new guy in the castle I’ve heard about. What’s up?”


The shopkeeper was certainly different from normal mob men, in more ways than one.  For one, he was a combination of just about every mob in existence, not to mention having a reputation of being crazy, bordering on insane. Blind would later realize that the latter was actually a true statement.


"I'm looking for a job.  Seeing that I have mining experience, I thought I should look here first."


The shop keeper smiled.  "Good!  I've been looking for an employee!” He turned his head towards the back of the shop and spoke in an eleveated volume, “…one who isn’t LAZY!”


A voice came back in return  "I make sure the shop stays manned!"


“Since when have you done that? I can count four times in the last week that you sat back their doing who-knows-what when I came up out of the mine to find someone waiting!”


No reply came.


The shopkeeper, who was apparently named ‘Ghost’, turned back to Blind. “As you can see, I could use some help around here. Mining is considered ‘dirty work’ by some, and requires you to be ready to fight your way through mob-infested caves. Most people with that much skill at fighting join the guards. They get a higher pay.”


There was a pause as Ghost realized that he had told Blind.


“…they never get bonuses though, for how much loot they haul!”


Blind smiled. The voice came again from someplace behind the counter.


“Maybe if you stop telling people who come in for a job things like that you wouldn’t have such a problem getting new employees!”


"And maybe you should shut up, Andy!"  Ghost shouted.  Silence ensued.  Ghost turned back to Blind.  "I'll tell you what.  Tomorrow, I've scheduled another mining trip.  Be here by noon tomorrow, and you can tag along.  If you do well, then I’ll consider giving you a job."


Blind was stunned on how easy it seemed.  "Just like that?"


Ghost nodded. "Just like that."


"I'll be here at noon tomorrow then."  Blind said, and turned to walk out of the shop.  As he walked out, he heard Ghost's voice shout, "Maybe if this new guy does good I'll finally be able to fire you, you lazy bum!", then another shout in return, "Hey, I do work around here! Sometimes I do manage the shop when you are down there and sell some stuff!" After that, Blind could still hear them, but was too far away to make out anything else they said.


When Blind arrived at his house, Rise, who lived next to him was sitting on his own porch eating.  "How did your job hunting go today?"  He called out.


"I think I found one already!"  Blind called back.  "As a miner!"


"Miner?  Blind, you need to know how to fight mobs to be a miner.  So far all I’ve seene you do is get lucky, and hurt.


"Well, you were a guard at that other castle!  Teach me to fight!"


Rise sighed.  "Okay, when do you need to know how to fight?"


"Noon, tomorrow."


Rise was startled by this.  "You wha-? NOON!?  TOMORROW!?!?  HOW THE *BLEEP* AM I SUPPOSED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO FIGHT BY NOON TOMORROW!?!?!?!?!?!"


Blind was completely taken aback by Rise's sudden explosiveness.  "Uh....... I did fine back in the whale cave.”


“That’s because I was there to take care of any major groups of mobs!”


Blind sighed. “Look, I only need to know the basics, it’s highly unlikely I’ll run into any major groups of mobs. Plus, I won’t be alone down there, and the guy who runs that place always goes down alone, so it will be fine!”


“He goes down alone? Is it at that small mining shop run by that guy named ‘Ghost’? Darn… I heard he is a nutcase. That’s really where you applied?”


Blind nodded. “A job is a job.”


Rise sighed.  "Okay, I guess I can show you the basics by noon tomorrow.  But we need to start now!"


Blind shrugged.  "Fair enough, let's get started."


Rise got up and started to enter his house. “Come on in, I’ve been bored so I dug out a large basement that we can train in.”


Blind nodded and followed Rise into his house.

Blind stepped out of Rise’s house. He didn’t have high hopes for getting a job at Ghost’s mining shop. He had been awake and training with Rise for the past twelve hours, he hadn’t even gotten any sleep. Even now, stepping outside into the bright sun, he wanted just to lay down on the street and fall asleep.


“I won’t be able to do anything like this…” Blind muttered. “I need to wake up… I still have a half hour before I’m due at the shop.”


Instead of taking a left down the street and towards the mining shop, Blind turned right and entered his house. On his roof, he had built a pool for no reason other than he had the time to do so. He walked onto the roof, knelt down next to the pool, and dipped his hand in.


“Nice and cold… this had better wake me up…”


Blind took off her red beret and red flannel shirt, then lazily flopped into the water. It was even colder than he expected, and he quickly burst back out of the water.


“HOLY CRAP! I’M AWAKE! YOU CAN STOP BEING SO *BLEEP* COLD NOW!”


Blind threw himself out of the pool and rolled onto the wooden planks next to it. He pushed himself off of the ground and onto his feet.


“Well, that worked better than expected… that really sucked though… and now I need to change.”


Blind picked up his beret and flannel shirt, being careful not to get them too wet. He went downstairs again where he changed out of his wet clothes. He put on blue jeans, a solid black T-shirt, his red flannel shirt, and his red beret.


Well, at least I don’t have to worry about drying my hair, Blind thought to himself with a hint of humor. Not many humans can say that!


Blind looked at the clock he had mounted on the wall. He still had time until he absolutely had to go, but being late was simply not an option.


“Well… time to get going.”


Blind stepped outside and cracked his neck.


I hope this goes well…


In the interest of staying awake and showing up as early as possible, Blind started jogging towards Ghost’s shop rather than simply walking.


 


Blind stepped into the shop. He had ran at a pace so that he wouldn’t run out of breath and show up more tired than he already was. Nobody was in sight.


“Uh, hello? I was here yesterday about a job, and I was told to show up at noon today.


A voice called back from behind the counter.  "I'll be right there!"  It was Ghost, who, moments later, burst through a door to what is presumably the storage room, carrying several iron pickaxes, and one diamond pickaxe.  "What was your name again?"


“Blind. Nice to meet you… again.” Blind held out his hand to shake.


Ghost didn’t shake his hand. "My hands are full.  Besides, I have fiery hands."  Ghost chuckled from this.  Blind didn't understand that joke, but seeing that Ghost had a bit of every mob in him, he reasoned that it was an inside joke that probably had something to do with his physiology, as well as something else Blind probably wouldn’t understand.


"I hope you already have a weapon."  Ghost said. "Because I don't have any more materials to make you one, I used them to make these pickaxes."  Ghost paused for a moment.  "And even if I did have the materials, I would charge you for it."  He handed Blind an iron pickaxe.  "I won’t charge you for this though, because you will be making me a profit with it, and will be giving it back when we are done."


Without another word, Ghost turned around and walked back to the door he had entered through as he placed the rest of the picks in his inventory.


This guy is a strange one… Blind thought as Ghost walked through the open doorway. Just before Blind started to follow, Ghost’s head popped back into view.


"Hey!  You coming or what?" 


“Of course!” Blind entered the storeroom, and surveyed his surroundings. The wall opposite from him was hard to see due to all of the chests piled up against it. Right next to him to his left, there was the beginning of a rail system that led into the wall. Presumably, it would take them down into the mine. Ghost was already sitting in a minecart on the rail.


“Grab a minecart and follow me!”


Ghost pushed a button on the wall, and his cart accelerated, and he rode into the hole in the wall. Blind didn’t waste any time, he grabbed another minecart, placed it on the track, and followed suit.


As soon as he went through the hole in the wall, the rail turned sharply to the left and down. Seconds after, he burst into a torch lit cave. No ores were visible, which made sense. Up ahead, the rail curved to the left around a corner, out of his sight, and he was just able to see Ghost whip around the corner.


Blind wasn’t prepared for what was on the other side of the bend. Almost immediately after making the turn, the minecart rode off of the tracks, and he plunged into a pit.


“WHAT THE…” Blind began to shout, but he wasn’t able to finish before the sound of rushing wind drowned out his voice. Blind glanced at the walls of the pit. They were sheer, and obviously not natural.


After shaking off the initial shock, Blind swum to the surface and looked around. To his right, Ghost was standing next to the pit of water. As Blind swam over to climb out, he noticed that Ghost was smiling. He hauled himself out of the water and sat down next to it.


“Was that really necessary?” Blind asked, annoyed.


"I didn't want to waste a bunch of iron making a rail system that would take us down here."


“What about getting back up?”


Ghost pointed at another small hallway to their left.


“Ladders are cheaper than rails.”


Blind reached over the water and grabbed his beret, which was floating on top.


“Well… at least I know I’m awake now…” Blind said as he stood up.”


Ghost started walking down the main hallway, which was by far the widest, tallest, and probably the longest. “Let’s get going!”


Blind sighed. This is going to be one heck of a day…