Minecraft: Mob Squad: Never Say Nether: An Official Minecraft

Brigands charge out of the forest, bristling with weapons. We’ve been running as fast as we could this whole time, terrified that they would catch up. I was always expecting it, and yet I still find it surprising. Mal doesn’t have to tell us to run for the portal—we just do. Tok pulls up beside me and holds out another one of those striped things, and I take it and load it as I stumble over the rocky wastes.

I hear Mal saying, “Go! Just go!” to someone, but I can’t look back and see who she’s talking to. Tok and I are last, and as soon as I’m standing right in front of the portal, I turn and aim my crossbow just ahead of the charging brigands.

Twang!

Boom!

There’s another beautiful, satisfying, louder-than-anything explosion, and Tok and I run for the portal together. Jarro is already gone, and Mal and Chug are waiting for us. Mal shoves me through the portal, and the world goes purply and swirly and wavery, and then I have to blink against the bright light of the Overworld.

I don’t even have time to enjoy it, because Mal tumbles through right after me, followed by Tok and Chug.

“How do we stop them?” Mal asks, breathless—not to me, but to everyone.

“Destroy the portal,” Jarro says softly. “No portal, no coming through the portal.”

We all stare at him in utter surprise.

He’s right, but I think we’re all shocked that he figured it out before Tok could.

“When did Jarro get smart?” Tok mutters.

But Mal already has her original diamond pickaxe out, and she throws her other diamond pickaxe to Jarro. I pull out my pickaxe, too, and we all pick a block and start mining.

Except…

This black stone is insanely hard. It doesn’t just crumble like it should. It feels even harder than diamond, somehow. My arms are getting sore, and my teeth hurt from slamming together with each strike. From this angle, I can kind of see through the portal, and I think a shape is coming through the purple. A hand reaches for me, a sword materializing—

And then the purple just disappears.

One of the black stones is gone, and now it’s just a weird, broken frame, sitting alone in an empty room.

“Hey!” someone shouts, and the guard pokes his head up through the trapdoor.

Bonk!

Chug clunks him on the helmet with his sword, and the guard tumbles back down to the ground below. “Hey to you, too,” Chug says weakly, peering down through the open trapdoor.

Mal finishes mining her block, then mine, and shoves the odd black stone in her pocket. The portal is coming undone.

“So are they stuck there?” I ask.

“Seems like it.” Tok runs a hand over one of the remaining stones. “I remember hearing snippets of conversation on the journey. They were talking about ‘finishing the portal,’ and when we got here, I heard the stone being fit. I guess they stole some blocks from town to complete it.” He rubs his chin in that way he does that means he’s thinking of something diabolical. “And if we take the stone, I bet we could build our own portal and come over here whenever we want to. I could get more potion ingredients, and Lenna could take samples and notes.”

“That’s pretty dangerous,” Jarro says.

Tok whirls to glare at him. “Are you going to snitch on us?”

Jarro shakes his head. “No way. But if you need help, I could come with you. I don’t like it here, but…if you need me…”

“I thought your mom never let you leave the Hub?”

Jarro grins. “Oh, I have plans. If you guys can move out, so can I.”

Tok gives him a measuring look. “I didn’t even know you could string more than five words together at one time.”

“I told you, bro—he’s changed,” Chug says.

Jarro’s grin gets bigger. “I really have. Either that, or you guys got less annoying.”

Chug reaches up to give Jarro a noogie, and Tok is comically shocked, and we all laugh in the maniacal way that only happens when you haven’t gotten sleep and you’ve been pushed beyond your limits and are starting to go loony. Not in the Loony Lenna way, but just…

I really need a nap.

Mal, Jarro, Tok, and I mine all the black blocks. Tok tells me he heard it called “obsidian,” and I can’t wait to write about it in my journal. We each take a few blocks until there’s nothing left. While we work, Chug keeps watch over the trapdoor. Every time the brigand guard tries to come up, he gets clunked on the helmet with a sword.

“Stop bonking yourself,” Chug says with each strike. “Bonk!”

Instead of using the trapdoor, we fit it with another block of stone and go out the window. I think we’re going to head right back into the woodland mansion and back down to the cavern underneath, where the mine cart is, but Mal stops on the stairs and considers the animal pens the brigands have installed.

“We need rest, but first we need to get as far away from here as possible. If we take the horses, they can’t follow us on horseback, even if they found new saddles,” she says.

That seals the deal. We saddle up and ride, opening the pen so the other two horses can follow us or wander away, as they wish. A little farther away, we stumble upon a pen of llamas—our old llamas, which the brigands stole at the river crossing during our first adventure. Mal barely has time to greet Sugar before releasing them to follow us. We remember the route we took to get here last time, so we backtrack through the dark forest. At Chug’s insistence, we stop to gather some wood for beds, but we definitely don’t hang out long enough to attract any mobs.

The log we once toppled into the river is still gone, but they’ve built a nice, sturdy stone bridge in its place. We zig and zag up the mountain pass and follow the beacon to end up in the village at dusk. I have no idea how long we’ve been traveling and sleepless, but it’s clear we can’t go on. Our horses walk by the patrolling iron golem without incident, and a passing villager greets us with a curious, “Hm.” Chug is too tired to move, but he asks Mal to trade for three bits of wool, which she’s happy to do. The empty house we’ve stayed in twice now is still empty, thankfully. Mal, exhausted and lagging, hacks a paddock into the ground outside while Chug pulls out his crafting table.

“Bro, you brought my crafting table!” Tok walks over and runs a hand over it, confused. “But it’s a little wonky.”

“Oh. Um. Yeah, this one isn’t yours. Yours is much nicer. We needed a few things on the journey, and I’ve been watching you make stuff, so I…kinda…”

“You made this?”

Poor, exhausted, weakened Chug looks so nervous about it, but Tok’s face lights up. “That’s so cool! Bro, I knew you had it in you!”

Chug glows with the praise but nearly faints. Jarro helps him to the ground. Although Tok looks like a puff of wind could blow him over, he fishes through his pockets for iron ingots and makes a bucket.

“Can you fill this with milk?” he asks Mal, and she takes the bucket and hurries off to find a cow.

I keep watch with my crossbow while Tok makes three more beds out of the wood we collected in the dark forest and the tufts of wool Mal traded from the shepherd. We set the beds up inside the empty building, which is a little more cramped than usual thanks to having Jarro around. Chug wants to help, but Tok and Jarro drag him to a bed and tuck him in tightly so he can’t move. Tok makes him drink another Potion of Regeneration, and it does help…but not enough. Something is still killing him, slowly, from the inside. I long to write about the effect of the Wither in my book, but people seem to get mad when I pull out my book during tense moments. We poke around in our pockets for food, but honestly, it’s getting pretty sad.

“I’m going to try to trade for some food,” Jarro says. He heads outside, and I have my doubts about what he has in his pockets that might pique the villagers’ interest, but I guess we’ll soon learn if this is another skill he just can’t pull off—or another instance where he’ll totally surprise us.

“Do you think Mal’s okay?” Chug asks, a breathy whisper. “She shouldn’t be out alone. She needs me—”

“We all need you alive more than Mal needs you to babysit her while she milks a cow. None of us are really okay right now,” I say. “You can’t go that long without proper sleep and be okay.”

“I don’t even know how long we’ve been gone.” Tok sits on the bed next to Chug’s but doesn’t lie down. He probably knows that the second his head hits the pillow, he’ll be out whether he’s ready or not. “Did anyone else from home come looking for me?”

Chug and I exchange uncomfortable glances. “They thought you and Jarro were just playing some kind of prank. That you stole the berries and potions and, I don’t know, ran off to trade them,” I finally say. “It makes no sense.”

“They’re idiots,” Chug whispers.

Tok shakes his head sadly. “Why are grown-ups so unwilling to see the truth? Why can’t they just believe us when we tell them stuff?”

“Because sometimes we lie about it,” I say. “We’ve covered up a lot of our rule-breaking in the past.”

“But none of us would steal things and disappear! Being eight and saying, while sweating a lot, No, Inka, we definitely didn’t borrow a couple of melons from your corner field and eat them with our bare hands is one thing. A kid being stolen out of his bed is another.”

“Nan believed us,” I say. “Nan always believes us.”

“Maybe you just have to get really old to remember how to be a kid,” Tok says.

At that, we just laugh. There are plenty of old people in our town, and none of them are quite like Nan.

Much to my surprise, Jarro returns with pies, cakes, cookies, carrots, and a much juicier chicken than we’ve had in quite some time. Before we can feast, Mal arrives with a bucket of milk. She’s got bits of grass in her hair and dirt stains everywhere.

“Wild cows,” she says darkly. “Don’t ask.”

Jarro and Tok help Chug sit up, and Mal pretty much pours the milk down his gullet. He splutters at first but then starts sucking it down, and it’s like watching a bottle go from full to empty. Whatever the Wither did to him, this was the cure. I’m just glad Tok’s potions kept him alive long enough for the milk to take effect.

“I guess we need to add a cow to our travel caravan,” Chug says, licking his lips. “That’s the second time milk has saved me.”

“Or we could learn how to milk a pig,” I say, because I do wonder if it’s possible.

Chug looks at me like I’ve said something scandalous. “We will do no such thing!”

We all laugh, but Chug heaves himself out of bed and, with no warning, launches himself at Tok, enveloping his younger brother in a hug.

“You can’t stop me now,” he says, right by Tok’s ear. “I’m not half dead, and we’re not in the middle of a sea of boiling lava, and I’m a lot stronger than you and not letting you out of this hug.” Chug takes a deep breath and bursts into tears and shouts, “Bro!”

Tok buries his face in Chug’s shoulder and wails, “I know! I know!”

“But bro!”

“Bro, I know! Believe me! I know!”

“I thought you were gone!”

“I thought I’d never see you again!”

“But you knew we’d come after you!”

“I know, that’s why I left the trail!”

“I know, bro!”

“I know!”

They thump each other on the back for a while, and they must be speaking telepathically, because they’re not saying anything out loud and yet there’s so much emotion passing between them. As their sobs fall off, Mal joins the hug, and I know that I’m supposed to join, too. It’s not very comfortable—Mal is dirty and smells like cow and Chug’s armpits are a crime against noses and Tok mostly smells like gunpowder—but it’s good, to be all together again, as we should be. When Jarro doesn’t join the hug, Mal reaches back to grab his sleeve and drag him in. Finally, finally, it feels like we’re home—even if we’re not back in Cornucopia yet.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

With the reunion finally handled, we feast on all the food and burp and laugh as we tell our stories. Then we sleep, and I swear it’s the best night of sleep of my life and the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. We sleep late in the morning and rub our eyes and eat our breakfast and mount our horses and head for home with llamas trailing behind. It was a little odd between Tok and Jarro at first, but Jarro somehow became one of us on the way here. If Chug likes Jarro, Tok will like Jarro. I think maybe even Jarro is learning to like Jarro.

The journey takes several days, but we’re not in a hurry. On the way home, we stop to collect Poppy and Thingy and the horses we left behind in a paddock on our way to the Nether. My wolf wriggles and dances and yips with joy the moment she sees me, and I can’t stop patting her head and kissing her nose and telling her how much I missed her. I felt incomplete, and now it’s like I’m whole again. Chug goes through a similar dance with Thingy.

“Do you think he can smell strider on me?” he whispers nervously to me.

“Everything down there just smells like smoke,” I tell him. “He would’ve been barbecued in the Nether.”

When we’re all back in the saddle and I’ve got Poppy trotting by my side, I ride up to Jarro. Now that we have twelve horses, I’m curious about something.

“What are you going to do when we get home, Jarro?”

He thinks for a moment before saying, “Get the chewing out of a lifetime from my mom, I guess.”

“But you said you might set up your own place?”

He sighs heavily. “I’d like to. Maybe I could breed these horses. Or play around with trying to grow some of those weird fungi from the Nether. But I don’t see how that’s possible. My mom will never let me leave home.”

“Kinda seems like she can’t stop you. There’s plenty of room outside the wall. There’s the whole Overworld.”

“And there’s some space near us,” Chug says. “If you don’t mind occasional explosions.”

“Oh, no more explosions, bro.” Tok pats his pockets. “I’ve got the books I needed. I haven’t exploded anything by accident in—well, I guess days, but it feels like a week.”

Jarro looks up, hopeful and nervous. “You guys—I mean, are you going to keep your horses? Maybe I could keep them for you, or just horsesit them for a while to see if they’re interested in having really cute babies?”

“You can definitely keep my horse for me,” Chug says. “Thingy will lose his mind if I bring home Bee.”

“Nan might like a horse,” I suggest. “She always gets all wistful when she talks about them.”

Jarro looks back at the rest of our herd. “Do you think she might like the white one? She seems particularly sweet.”

I never thought Jarro could be generous, much less care about something being sweet, but that’s just how far he’s come along.

“I think she’d like that,” I say.

We top the next ridge, and when we look down, there it is.

Our town.

“Oh, boy,” Jarro says. “I hope my mom doesn’t kill me.”