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

I can’t believe they’re just leaving me behind like this. I’ve had no choice but to watch them for years, to see them laugh and smile together and have fun together. It always made me mad, I guess because I secretly wanted to be in their group, but there was never any way in. Even in our first year of school, when we were all tiny, they sat at a table for four and never really let anyone else play with them. It was actually really nice, feeling like a part of their group on this grand adventure. But here they are again, leaving me behind like I’m nothing. I can’t believe I fell for it, that I let myself believe I might have real, actual friends.

Part of me wants to start hacking away at their stupid stairs with my axe, but…even I’m not that cruel. And if something were to attack me, I guess I could use the stairs to escape—but just to get out of reach, not to climb all the way up to the stupid ceiling.

I sit down and stare at the hoglin chop Lenna gave me. I wish it was one of her cookies. The last one she gave me was so good that I’ve been thinking about it all this time. She’s halfway up to reach Chug and Mal now, and Chug is staring down at me like he doesn’t understand what’s going on. He waves his arm like a question, and I shake my head and point at the ground. I’m sure Lenna will fill him in, once she reaches them.

I look around, taking note of my surroundings. I’m in the middle of nowhere, on a spongy red shore by a boiling orange lava sea. There are no plants, no trees, no living things. Every now and then, I hear the haunting cry of a—I think Lenna called them ghasts?—and I decide that if one sees me, I’ll have to hide. I don’t have arrows, and I’m not a very good fighter, and something like that would straight up kill me. I don’t have a pickaxe, but I do have my axe, so I hack into a block and…it’s exhausting. I definitely have the wrong tool for the job, and I know absolutely nothing about building. It’ll take me hours to make even the most pathetic little shelter.

I look into my pockets, and it’s pretty bleak. I have a shield, some interesting bits of fungus, a few hoglin chops, the horses’ saddles, some iridescent spheres, a bunch of little odds and ends that nobody else wanted. They’ve left me here with practically nothing. How am I supposed to survive until they get back? And what will happen to me if they fail and never return?

Even surrounded by lava, I shiver. That’s a dark line of thinking.

I might never see my mom again, which I have mixed feelings about. I love my mom, but I’m starting to see that…well, I don’t think I agree with all her choices. She tried to keep me close to her, to keep me safe, but now I’m scared of everything and get mad all the time. Traveling with the Bad Apples, or the Mob Squad, as they call themselves, has been the most fun, calm, happy time of my life, even if I was constantly having near-death experiences. They’re nice, and I don’t have to pretend to be tough around them. I can just be…me.

Of course, I can’t be me if I die down here. I’ve got to find a better plan.

As I stare out into the sea of lava, contemplating my own doom, I see one of those weird strider creatures plodding along. It walks on the lava like it can’t even feel the burn, its goofy eyes straight ahead and its hair?—tentacles?—whatever blowing in the wind. Its head is so weirdly flat. It kind of reminds me of a table.

Or a two-legged horse.

I have an idea.

If I’m wrong, I’ll probably get really hurt, because I will never forget what that hoglin did to Chug. But if I’m right, it might solve all our problems.

I reach into my pocket and pull out some of the wheat left over from taming the horses.

“Here, strider!” I call. “Want some yummy wheat?”

It veers toward me a little bit as if smelling the wheat, then veers away. I rummage in my pockets and hold out everything that might be considered food for an animal.

“Want something else? Some nice fungus?”

The strider gives a cheerful chirp and ambles over to me, and I’m scared but also excited, and it looks kind of sweet as it chirps to itself. It reaches over with surprising gentleness and nibbles on a bit of fungus from the warped forest.

“You like warped fungus. Got it.”

I shove everything else in my pockets and pull out this weird stick I found downtown once, which has string attached to it. I used to use it to dangle sweet berries down allies and then pull them up before little kids could eat them and then laugh when they cried. When I think about it now, that’s just embarrassing, as is the fact that I never looked around for the stick’s owner; but it might just be what saves us.

See, Chug told me about how he was able to ride his pig, and I’m going to ride this strider. And then me and my strider are going to go find three more striders, and we’re all going to walk across the lava sea instead of climbing miles overhead and balancing on narrow little blocks, and then maybe I’ll get to be the hero again. It felt pretty good, with the horses.

I attach a piece of warped fungus to the string and brace myself. I’ve definitely got the strider’s attention, so I use the fungus to lure it up onto the beach. It turns a pathetic shade of purple and starts shivering.

“Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll be back on the lava in no time,” I say, offering him a little bit of fungus to keep him happy.

I pull out my saddle and gently place it on his head, and he doesn’t seem to mind at all. Then all I have to do is swing up, which is oddly easier than it looks. And now I’m sitting on top of my strider, holding out the fungus to lead him back onto the lava. I hold my breath as he takes his first steps off the shore, but he feels remarkably sturdy, and I’m high enough up that the heat isn’t too horrible. The strider makes sweet, hopeful little chirps as he follows wherever the fungus goes. I’ve never been so proud of myself in my entire life.

“Hey, Mob Squad!” I shout as loudly as possible, my voice echoing throughout the cavern.

“What?” Mal calls from far overhead. I think I can see them, just three smudges on a towering stairwell, almost to the bridge.

“Wanna go for a ride?” I swing my warped fungus on a stick around, and my strider takes off, zooming across the lava. It’s actually pretty fun despite the ongoing threat of being boiled alive.

It’s hard to watch them and control the strider, so I focus on keeping my seat. We stay near the shore, but I don’t make Smokey—that’s the strider’s name, because Lenna told me once to always be sure to name things before Chug can—I don’t make him go on land, because he probably hates being cold. It’s a long wait, and I wonder if maybe Mal, Chug, and Lenna just quietly kept going on their overhead bridge, glad to leave me behind.

“Whoa,” Chug says, hopping down off the stairs. “Can you ride anything?”

“Probably not a hoglin,” I admit, grinning. “Or a chicken.”

He gets very serious. “Remind me to tell you about chicken jockeys some other time.”

As it turns out, the string on a stick I’ve been carrying around all this time is a fishing rod, and Chug has enough materials in his pockets to make three more. Lenna has plenty of samples of warped fungus, so I take Smokey out on the lava to lure in more striders. It takes longer than I’d like, but at least they don’t buck like horses or fight like hoglins. Everyone mounts up, and Chug keeps telling his strider that she’s beautiful.

He named her Miss Twolegs. I begin to see Lenna’s point about names.

I show them how to steer with the fungus, and Chug says, “It’s just like riding a pig!”

“Except it smells a lot better,” Mal reminds him.

“I can’t smell anything at all.” Chug sniffs at his armpit. “Thank goodness. Everything here just smells like fire.”

Mal moves into her usual position, leading us across the vast sea of lava, following the route of the bridge overhead. I’m so relieved I could cry. I didn’t want to be left behind, but I didn’t want to attempt crossing that bridge. But I found a third choice, and it’s actually pretty cool. I was the first person from our town to ride horses—except Nan, probably—and I’m definitely the first person to ride a strider. It’s pleasant, with their steady, rocking gait. I could almost fall asleep, if I weren’t constantly assailed by the sound of bubbling lava and the occasional crying ghast. As if anyone could fall asleep in the Nether.

A ghast comes into view, and Mal swerves us over behind a tower of stone. As the ghast moves past, we edge around the stone, always staying as out of sight as possible. Once it’s turned its back to us, we head right back onto our path. The striders are the only creatures that can cross the lava, so we don’t run into any hoglins or piglin brutes or skeletons. The ghasts are pretty easy to avoid. I’m beginning to think we can actually do this, that we can take whatever the Nether throws at us.

But then I see something, a form looming in the darkness ahead. It’s a little like the bastion remnant, but so, so much bigger. The blocks are the deep, dark color of dried blood, a color that seems to absorb what little light there is, and the structure appears to be growing through the rock, half sunken and yet so big that it sprawls overhead and stretches in all directions, bigger than all of Cornucopia. It’s the most intimidating place I’ve ever seen in my life, and just as I know that I absolutely don’t want to go there, I also know that this is where we’ll find Tok.

“He’s in there,” Chug says, echoing my thoughts. “I just know it.”

“Then let’s go get him,” I reply.