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

It feels good, to finally do something helpful. They’re all too nice to say it, but the fact that I freeze up in every fight and am utterly useless for anything but taming horses is super embarrassing. If the tables were turned, I would probably be making fun of anyone who behaved that way. But now that I look back, the stakes back home were just really, really low. It was easy, making fun of people or chasing them down an alley. No one was ever in real danger. There was nothing to really fear.

But here? Everything is scary.

I hold out the sweet berry, thinking about how weird it is that just a few days ago, both this berry and I were in my backyard in the Hub, living our normal lives, and now we’re down here in the scariest place I’ve ever seen.

It’s funny how I think of the Nether as “down here,” like we’re just underground and things got weird, when really we’re in an entire other dimension. Or something. Not that I’ve ever been allowed to go underground. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but the more I see of the world—and other worlds—the angrier I am at my mom. She never let me try anything new, go anywhere interesting, do anything other than what she thought best. I’m in no way prepared for this adventure, and I feel like a little baby sometimes. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have walked through that portal if Mal hadn’t been behind me, which is probably why Mal waited to go last. All I know is that I feel useless and I hate this place and I want to leave and never come back. Chug nearly died, Mal is freaking out, and Lenna…well, it looks like Loony Lenna has found a place that makes her happy, which isn’t even the most bizarre thing about her.

I shouldn’t think of her as Loony Lenna, though—she’s weird, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I feel guilty every time I call her that in my head now.

I just have to make sure I don’t accidentally say it out loud, or I’m pretty sure Chug will punch me in the teeth, even if we’ve been getting along okay. He’s actually—ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this—a good guy. He’s brave and loyal and funny, and if I didn’t hate him, I would like him. Maybe I’m starting to like him anyway. It’s hard to change the way you’ve been thinking your whole entire life. It’s a lot of work. But it makes things easier, and it makes me feel a little lighter, too.

And I can’t help noticing that even Chug froze up in that last fight. It makes me feel a little less alone, to know that I’m not the only one.

Mal takes the berry from my outstretched palm, probably to keep Chug from eating it.

“Okay, so this means they must’ve gone this way, because there are definitely no sweet berry bushes down here,” she says.

“But there’s something over that way—kind of bluish?” Lenna is pointing, and I squint to follow. Maybe something over there is the tiniest bit blue or green? Lenna has the best eyesight among us, and the area she’s pointing at is in the same direction as the patch of red ground where I found the berry, so it would make sense to keep exploring in that direction.

“Bluish sounds funner than reddish, at this point,” Chug says.

“Bluish it is.” Mal puts the berry in her pocket and starts walking.

I’m just standing there, but Chug gives my shoulder a little shove. “You next, bud.”

I nod and follow Mal, with Chug behind me, which would’ve made me super nervous just a few days ago. But now, it makes me feel safer. Nothing can sneak up behind me with Chug and his sword there.

The going is tough, as the bluish area is on the other side of a big valley with a river of lava and several fiery waterfalls in between. Mal hacks stairs into the ground, but it’s still pretty steep, and I’m very aware that I could fall at any moment and break every bone in my body. They were quick to use that golden apple on Chug after the hoglins mauled him, but it was our only one, and I don’t know how much of our quickly disappearing food they’d be willing to use to heal a useless guy like me.

It takes everything I have just to keep up, hopping down, down, down as Mal grunts and mines and collects the soft red rocks hewn away from her steps down to the valley floor.

“What is this stuff?” I ask, a hand clamped down on the wall beside me as Mal works.

“Netherrack,” Lenna answers.

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what I decided to call it.”

“You can’t just name things whatever you want, Lenna.”

She shrugs. “Why not? Nobody else is, and we have to call it something.”

And I hate to say it, but I can’t argue with her logic. “Netherrack it is,” I murmur. One point to Lenna.

When I finally step down onto the floor of the valley, it’s a huge relief. I’ve been holding my breath this whole time—I’m not really a big fan of heights. I thought I was okay with them, back home, but the tallest building in the hub is only four stories, and we’ve just climbed down what must be twenty stories. The bluish place is within view now, and I can see that it’s another, different sort of forest. Still dominated by fungus, because I guess everything is fungus here, but it’s actually kind of beautiful, the vibrant teal against the deep burgundy. The crimson forest we’ve just passed through towers over the valley, and I can’t believe how far we’ve come.

And how very far I am from home.

I feel tiny and helpless and hopeless, and then Chug slugs me on the back. “Ready to cross the lava river, bud?”

He’s grinning, but I have no idea why. There is indeed a lava river flowing between us and the blue-green forest. But—and I guess this is another sign that we’re going the right way—there’s a cobblestone bridge stretched over it. Nothing fancy, but wide enough that I won’t freak out and clearly built by human hands. Nothing else in the Nether is that normal, boring shade of gray that I see every day back home.

Mal approaches the bridge first and tests it with her weight. “Seems pretty solid,” she says. The orange lava reflects back on her face, almost making it match her hair, and I guess I really am changing because back home I would have had something to say about that. “Everyone ready?”

Lenna and Chug nod, but I don’t, because I’m pretty sure nobody here cares about my thoughts on crossing the lava bridge.

“Jarro?” Mal asks, surprising me.

I nod, too. I kind of have to. I begin to see how things work, outside of Cornucopia: Even when it’s not fun, even when it’s scary, you press on because that’s the only option. You can move forward toward your goal or you can go home like a coward. I guess that’s how they learned everything they did on their last trip. They knew that if they gave up, everyone in our town would leave. So instead, they got tougher. They got better.

Mal steps up onto the bridge for real now, just a few blocks from a huge river of lava. I’ve never seen lava before, not until we got here, and I never imagined there could be so much of it. She holds out her hand, but I can do this on my own. The bridge is two blocks wide, and there are no handrails, but I should be okay. I step up and feel the heat rising through my boots. The lava makes a gentle, glugging sound underneath me. It would almost sound cheerful if it weren’t molten death. I focus on Mal’s back as I inch forward, sure to give her plenty of room. Behind me, Chug’s boots shuffle onto the bridge. It doesn’t shift under his weight, at least—it’s sturdy.

“Don’t look down,” he murmurs to me. “It’s always worse when you look down. Once, I had to run across a log over a raging river carrying my pig, and I don’t think I looked down a single time.”

“You got lucky,” Mal calls over her shoulder.

“I’m always lucky,” Chug assures her.

Pop!

A bubble of lava startles me, and I jump—

But Chug’s hand is on my shoulder, steadying me.

“Just keep walking. Don’t look down. That’s the only way to make it through.”

I’m pretty sure this bridge is longer than our entire town, because it’s taking me forever to get across it. I want to look down, but I don’t, because I know Chug’s right. I want to look to my left and right, but I don’t do that either. I focus on Mal’s braid, as orange as the lava, and shuffle across, inch by inch, bit by bit, step by step.

Finally I hop off onto the spongy red blocks. I notice that I’m shaking and shove my hands into my pockets as I watch Chug and Lenna finish crossing the bridge.

“Everyone good?” Mal asks, and this time I go ahead and nod along with them.

She leads us toward the blue-green forest, and looking at it makes my chest swell and my eyes tear up. It’s so pretty, with the dark burgundy against the blue-green and bright pops of flowerlike fungi and dripping spirals of emerald vines. A soft blue mist floats here and there, making everything seem magical.

“What do you call this one?” I ask Lenna.

She considers it for a moment. “A warped forest. Because it’s like a regular forest, but…warped.”

It’s a pretty satisfactory answer. “Warped forest,” I say to myself. “Nice.”

As we approach, Lenna collects all the flobby flowers she passes, shoving the warped fungi into her pockets. I see her try to press one between the pages of her book, but it just goes wet and squishy, and she dumps that one back onto the ground with a sick splatter, muttering, “Bleh.” Mal takes out her pickaxe and collects samples of the stone and treelike fungi we pass. Chug is on the lookout for animals, but I haven’t seen any yet. At least there aren’t more hoglins—I definitely don’t want to get tossed in the air and trampled like that.

I keep hearing this weird noise, almost like someone crying, but far off and wavering. It echoes off the stone, haunting and sad. Mal catches me listening. “I hear it, too. We need to be on the lookout.” She shakes her head and goes back to investigating the area and hunting for clues.

My first thought was that maybe that sound is Tok, but…I’ve made Tok cry before, and it doesn’t sound like that at all.

“Hey, buddy! What’s up? How’s things in the Nether today?”

I turn to look at Chug, and he’s waving at…something. Like a person, but much taller and thinner, all black with big purple eyes and long, graceful arms. Beautiful violet sparkles drift around it like leaves falling. It has a peculiar gait and doesn’t seem to be responding to Chug’s overtures of friendship. It’s just ignoring him entirely, which is a tough thing to do.

“Be careful,” Mal warns him. “Remember the hoglins…”

“I saw one of those things before,” Lenna says, her voice low. “It was carrying a flower, and then it disappeared. I’ve been thinking of him as Mr. S. L. Enderman. Because he’s a slender man.” She shrugs. “It made more sense in my head, now that I say it out loud.”

Chug takes a few steps toward it. “Don’t run away, Mr. Enderman. We wanna be friends.” He pulls a gold ingot out of his pocket. “Do you like gold as much as the piglins?”

But the tall thing—the Enderman, I guess—locks eyes with Chug. Its mouth opens and it begins to shake violently while making a terrible grinding growl that builds until I have to put my hands over my ears.

Chug glances back at us and sticks out his thumb. “What’s up with this guy, huh?”

There’s a weird popping sound, and the Enderman disappears…and reappears right by Chug. “Hey, pal!” he starts.

But the Enderman screeches and hits him with those long arms. Chug, again, goes flying. Lenna has already released an arrow, but the Enderman disappears and reappears a few feet to the side, and the arrow zings off into the forest. Mal hurries to stand protectively over Chug, and when the Enderman runs to attack him again, she hits it with her sword, making it squawk with anger and pop out of existence. Lenna puts away her bow and pulls out her pickaxe, running to help Mal. I pull out my axe and join them, standing directly over Chug so they’re free to swing at the furious creature.

“I just wanted to be friends,” he groans.

The creature reappears on Chug’s other side—right in front of me. I’m between Mal and Lenna and the Enderman now, and it’s about to hit Chug, and that makes me really angry because Chug just wanted to be friends, and there’s nowhere for me to hide, no way to avoid it except fighting back, and it’s like my arm swings of its own accord and my axe lands a hit that makes my arm shudder. With a cry of pain, the Enderman pops out of existence again.

“Good shot,” Chug says.

“Thanks.”

Pop!

It reappears on Mal’s side, and she hits it, hard, with her sword, and then it falls over like a tree, screeching, leaving behind a shiny green pearl that almost looks like an animal’s eyeball.

I reach down and help Chug stand. “You hurt?”

Chug shakes his left arm. “Naw. My left arm is pretty useless, anyway. A few of those hoglin chops will fix me right up. We just need to build a fire.”

I honk a laugh, and he gives me a look. “What?”

I gesture to, well, everything. “There’s fire everywhere here.”

Chug nods, chuckling. “Good call, bud.”

He pulls some hoglin chops out of his pocket and hands me one, and I realize that no one has ever called me “bud” in a genuinely friendly way before. And I kind of like it.