Attack of the Shadow-Crafters Read online

  Books by Mark Cheverton

  The Gameknight999 Series

  Invasion of the Overworld

  Battle for the Nether

  Confronting the Dragon

  The Mystery of Herobrine Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Trouble in Zombie-town

  The Jungle Temple Oracle

  Last Stand on the Ocean Shore

  Herobrine Reborn Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Saving Crafter

  The Destruction of the Overworld

  Gameknight999 vs. Herobrine

  Herobrine’s Revenge Series: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  The Phantom Virus

  Overworld in Flames

  System Overload

  The Birth of Herobrine: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  The Great Zombie Invasion

  Attack of the Shadow-Crafters

  Herobrine’s War (Coming Soon!)

  The Mystery of Entity303: A Gameknight999 Adventure

  Terrors of the Forest (Coming soon!)

  Monsters in the Mist (Coming soon!)

  Mission to the Moon (Coming soon!)

  The Gameknight999 Box Set

  The Gameknight999 vs. Herobrine Box Set

  The Algae Voices of Azule Series

  Algae Voices of Azule

  Finding Home

  Finding the Lost

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  Copyright © 2016 by Mark Cheverton

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Owen Corrigan

  Cover artwork by Thomas Frick

  Technical consultant: Gameknight999

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0995-9

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1000-9

  Printed in Canada

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank my family for all their support through the writing of this book. As always, they are very understanding of my irrational terror when I’m facing the blank page at the beginning of the writing process. They listen to my rantings when I say I can’t possibly get the next book written before deadline, then laugh at me when I finish ahead of schedule. My wife, son, and mother-in-law are the greatest support network I could ever ask for.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  For some reason, Attack of the Shadow-Crafters seemed the most difficult book to write so far. I’m betting I say this every time, but this time I mean it. I thought for sure that I couldn’t come up with anything decent for all of you to read and figured this was the end of my creative streak. But then something clicked, and this book flowed from my fingers and into my computer almost faster than I could type. I am really excited about this story and hope you feel the same as I do about it. It could possibly be the best of the Gameknight999 adventures.

  This time around, I did something different, and I think it made a big difference. Before writing, I built some of the scenes that were important to the story, specifically Dragon’s Teeth, on the Gameknight999 Minecraft server. It really helped me not only to get the story right but also to write better descriptions of the environment. I hope you can perfectly visualize the rocky spires of Dragon’s Teeth while you read, and I hope that when you’re done, you go check them out on the server to see if they match up to what you’d imagined. Directions on how to find the book warps are listed at the end of this book, along with the Minecraft seeds.

  We are adding lots of new games to the Gameknight999 Minecraft server, some of them with references to the books. See if you can find all of them! Hopefully, with quadbamber’s help (you can find him as LBEGaming on Youtube) we’ll be adding some custom-developed games that will involve some of the battles in the books. Fingers crossed, you’ll soon be able to find the king of the Endermen, Erebus, or the spider queen, or Oxus, the creeper king, lurking around on the server. Maybe they will give you a present if you can destroy them. Keep your eyes peeled for their arrival. You can find information about the server, including the IP address, at www.gameknight999.com. And as always, look for Gameknight999 and me, Monkeypants_271 out there; maybe we can do a little PVP, if you are brave enough (sorry, I’m not very good at PVP, ).

  Keep reading, and watch out for creepers.

  Mark

  When you believe in yourself, accept your weaknesses as things you can improve on, and acknowledge your strengths as things to be proud of, you can become a truer version of yourself. People might accept this truer self, or they might not, but if you truly believe in yourself, then it won’t matter.

  CHAPTER 1

  CRAFTING OF AN OLD FRIEND

  Herobrine was furious at the destruction of his army. That fool of a zombie king, Vo-Lok, had had the advantage in that battle in the mountain pass, and yet he had still lost … to a simple blacksmith. Now, the evil virus’s two remaining monster kings stood at his side.

  Shaikulud, the spider queen, was enraged. Her purple eyes blazed with fury as she stalked back and forth, barely able to contain her anger. She’d seen many of her spiders destroyed in the battle, all for nothing. None of them had expected the NPCs to fight as hard as they did. And when the villagers had been surrounded, the monsters had all thought the villagers would just surrender and beg for mercy. But instead, the NPCs fought harder; it made no sense.

  Oxus, the creeper king, was angry as well, but for different reasons. He knew Herobrine had wasted thirty of his creepers in an experiment: throwing his green monsters at the villagers, while the creatures of smoke and flame, the blazes, ignited them with their fireballs. It hadn’t been necessary. Creepers were peace-loving creatures that only detonated to save the lives of their kin, but now … Oxus was sure word would spread of the attack, and villagers would attack the creepers on sight.

  While the remaining monster king and queen were unhappy, that was nothing compared to the anger that Herobrine felt.

  “That foolish zombie king, Vo-Lok,” Herobrine growled. “He had the villagers bottled up in that narrow pass, and he let them escape.” His dark eyes began to glow bright with rage as he looked across the desert at the NPC army slowly heading south, away from the site of the zombie king’s destruction. “We will forever call the pit where the battle was lost the Pit of Despair.”

  “Why?” the spider queen asked.

  “Because despair was likely the last thing that idiotic zombie king experienced,” Herobrine grumbled.<
br />
  A robotic wheezing sound floated across the landscape; it sounded like some kind of mechanical demon gasping for breath. A handful of blazes floated over the desert sand, their internal flames flickering with instability. They were creatures Herobrine had brought to the Overworld from the Nether, in hopes they could help with the creepers … and they had. But now there were only a dozen or so remaining, and all were near death. Herobrine knew they needed lava to replenish their health points (HP) or they would perish. He glared at them with his harsh white eyes and they floated away, careful to stay out of reach.

  Herobrine growled in frustration. He paced back and forth, his booted feet pounding the ground with anger as if he were trying to punish the land itself. He hated being trapped in this server and wanted to escape; but he knew it was likely impossible. As a virus, Herobrine could remember life in the Internet, invading servers and destroying apps, but when he’d come into Minecraft, something had happened. Somehow, he awakened all the creatures of this world, bringing them to life with his artificial intelligence software. He, too, had come to life, and along with his sentience came the frustration of feeling caged within these tiny Minecraft servers. Herobrine vowed to destroy the innocent creatures of this land; the suffering of others made his captivity feel more tolerable.

  “What now, Maker?” Oxus hissed, his ignition process starting as he spoke. “You no longer have a monster army.”

  “Monsters are no problem,” Herobrine said as he turned away. The sight of the victorious NPCs had made him sick. “I can always get more monsters; that is of no concern. But now we lack a leader. Neither of you are strong enough to command my army.”

  He glanced down at the spider queen.

  “Shaikulud, you never fully commit,” Herobrine said. “You are cautious … too cautious. I gave you too much of my intelligence during your creation.”

  He turned and faced the creeper king.

  “And Oxus, you have too much compassion for your subjects,” Herobrine said. “You treat them as if they were your children. I see it in your eyes. You will never make the hard decision to sacrifice some so that the greater goal can be achieved.”

  Turning away from the two monster kings, the virus slowly walked down the sandy hill on which they stood.

  “You are both too weak and would never make good leaders. I must have another.” He turned and glared at the two monsters. “Follow!”

  Shaikulud and Oxus scurried down the large sand dune, following their Maker.

  “I will craft another leader for my monster army,” Herobrine explained. “While I am away, both of you will gather more troops. We’ll need a huge mob of spiders and creepers to help with the attack on the villagers. We cannot let their leader, that blacksmith Smithy, get away with destroying my zombie king and my army. When I return, I expect to find you with more of your kind, or one of you will be sacrificed. Do you understand?”

  The two monsters just stopped and stared at him, shocked.

  “I said, ‘Do you understand?’” Herobrine repeated, looking away from the monsters, his eyes still burning bright with anger.

  “Yes,” they both replied.

  “Very well,” Herobrine said. “Shaikulud, you will gather your spiders, then find the villagers and their leader, Smithy, the blacksmith. Your task is simple: make them suffer. Do you understand?”

  The queen of the spiders peered up at her Maker and nodded her dark, fuzzy head, her multiple eyes glowing bright purple with evil delight as her razor-sharp mandibles clicked together excitedly.

  “Oxus, you will bring me more creepers. I will not accept your excuses. Bring them to me or meet you doom. Understood?”

  The creeper king, with jagged bolts of red and blue lightning dancing across his green skin, nodded his head.

  “Do not disappoint me … either of you.”

  With that threat still hanging in the air, Herobrine closed his eyes and disappeared from the desert. At the speed of thought, he teleported deep underground, materializing at the edge of a massive lava lake. At the far side of the boiling lake, he saw what looked like a short wall that held back a large body of water; it was an underground sea. Teleporting to the wall, Herobrine balled his hand into a fist and smashed the stone barrier. Instantly, the water flowed out and covered the molten stone. When the cool water touched the boiling hot stone, the two combined to form a dark, sparkling sheet of obsidian, as was expected in Minecraft.

  Herobrine stepped out onto the purple sheet of stone. The heat from the dark cubes radiated upward into his boots; it made them feel magical and alive. Tiny purple crystals sparkled in the distant light from the lava on the far side of the cave, giving the black cubes just a splash of lavender.

  “Perfect,” the evil shadow-crafter said.

  Closing his eyes, he concentrated on his inner being, on that core portion of his mind that could connect to the software that surrounded him. Because he was an artificially intelligent virus, programmed to hack into the Minecraft server, Herobrine had certain abilities; these powers formed his shadow-crafting powers.

  As he concentrated on his code-altering skills, his hands glowed a pale, sickly yellow, which started at his fingertips but slowly seeped across his hands until the insipid light moved up his arms. He opened his eyes and stared down at his hands. An evil smile spread across his square face as he felt his shadow-crafting powers fill his being.

  In a flash of motion, Herobrine knelt and plunged his hands into the warm obsidian, merging with the stone. Instantly, the diseased-looking pale glow oozed across the sparkling purple sheet. Reaching out, he drove his crafting powers outward until they encompassed not only the obsidian sheet on which he knelt, but also the shadowy corners of the caverns. Drawing the darkness to him, he merged the shadows with the obsidian, forming a new material never before seen in Minecraft. As he pulled more of the shadows into the creation, Herobrine crafted, using every drop of hatred for the NPCs surging through his veins.

  “My creation will be as fast as a shadow following a nightmare,” he mumbled to himself. “It will be a glorious creature, violent and strong and evil—perfect in every way.”

  Herobrine’s speed and aggressive temper began to seep into his creation, but also, unknowingly, his own vanity oozed into it as well. Soon, something began to form before him.

  “You will be so magnificent that nothing will dare attack you,” Herobrine said, his voice echoing off the cavern walls and coming back to him on all sides. “You will stand among your enemies and none will be brave enough to even look at you.” Herobrine’s overwhelming confidence began to drip into the creation, giving it a self-assurance and bravery unmatched by anything else on the Minecraft servers.

  With his hands glowing brighter and brighter, he shaped the material into a long, lanky shape with thin legs and narrow arms. The thing before him slowly morphed into the body of a creature, dark and sinister. Herobrine had imbued it with the sparkling teleportation powers of the obsidian, but at the same time he filled it with his own vile contempt for all of the good things in life, like happiness, or family, or … peace.

  Once the monster was complete, Herobrine plunged his hands into the creature, driving all his viral powers into it, causing it to replicate all across the obsidian plane.

  “You will replicate in the shadowy places of Minecraft, drinking in the darkness to form your lean bodies.”

  In the blink of an eye, there were a hundred of the dark creatures strewn all across the chamber. It was difficult to see them, for their bodies were completely black, merging with the shadows. Slowly, many of the dark monsters struggled to stand.

  The one lying before Herobrine began to rise as well, but the evil shadow-crafter held it down.

  “Not yet, my child,” Herobrine said with a vile laugh.

  Reaching into his inventory, the virus drew an iron sword and gave himself the smallest cut on his arm. But instead of flashing with damage, Herobrine allowed the lines of code that pulsed through his veins to le
ak out slowly. The 1’s and 0’s that formed Herobrine’s evil, hateful personality oozed from the wound like thick red honey. In a single gloppy drop, the viral lines of code fell and landed on the dark creature before him, slowly spreading out across its skin, infecting every bit of the monster with Herobrine’s hateful code and staining the shadowy monster with a dark red hue.

  Satisfied, Herobrine stood and stepped back.

  “Arise, my child,” Herobrine said in a low voice. “I have brought you into existence solely to serve me. Now stand.”

  The creature before him stood on shaky legs, unsure of its new body. The other, newly-created monsters approached and looked down upon their maker, a touch of anger and vile contempt on their dark faces.

  “Behold, I have crafted a new creature to serve me,” Herobrine said. “You will all be called Endermen, and the one that carries the smallest sliver of my viral code will be your king.”

  Herobrine’s eyes began to glow white, allowing him to clearly see the creatures. All but one of the Endermen were pitch black, and they had eyes that were the same purple hue as the tiny flakes of color in the obsidian. But the king of the Endermen was different. Instead of deep purple, this creature had bright crimson eyes that seemed to be filled with a hatred for all living things. His skin lacked the shadowy black color. Instead, there was a dark red tint to his skin, like the color of dried blood … it was wonderful.

  “Your king will command you in battle. Do as he says or suffer a punishment that will make you wish you had never been created.”

  The Endermen moved closer. Some of them teleported back and forth across the chamber, testing their new capabilities.

  “Maker,” one of the Endermen said in a high-pitched screech. “What do we do, and what do we call our king?”

  “Hmmm,” Herobrine mused, then a smile spread across his face. “You will go forth and find my enemy, the blacksmith Smithy. You will make him suffer and remind him of my wrath. Tell him that I’m coming for him and there is no place he can hide.”