Chapter 1
Chapter One: Another Beacon, Another Beast.
“Wow. That’s a lot of zombies. We’ll probably have to fight them at some point.” Said Dylan, lazing in his poorly made hammock.
The treehouse they sat in was full of memories, with pictures of them as kids on the walls and floor, and pre-2000s consoles scattered around. The gang was relaxed with the scent of ketchup-banana pizza wafting through the air and the light fizzing of Mountain Don’t. The horde of zombies, however, was anything but. The angry, groaning crowd was brought upon because of the rash actions of the group, as well as the unreasonable idiocy of Joetta_Goof.
“Well, we should go down there, and deal with that.” Continued Dylan, finishing his concoction that he dared call pizza. As he said this, the group arose, gathered their gear, prepared to descend the ladder, and face the current problem. The creaking of the ladder alerted the surprisingly inept zombies, and they changed their direction toward the group.
“Everyone ready?” questioned Alex, “If you guys have your weapons and armor ready, let’s do this thing.”
The pursuing battle was one for the history books. With Delta’s excellent bowmanship, alongside Dylan and Alex’s ability to take on several enemies at once, combined with Samir’s tankability, they were unable to defeat an entire horde of zombies. However, they managed to escape the horde by using invisibility potions, because their lack of a brain makes it difficult for a zombie to handle critical thinking.
“Now that, was a close one.” Pointed out Sam, stating the obvious, “Anyone up for tacos after this?”
“No. We just ate, and the amount of soda you drank back there has enough caffeine to power the entire state of California.” Replied Alex.
And with the short interaction about a possible second dinner, the gang headed for the next point on their convenient map, with all of the beacons on it. With one beacon already cleansed, the crew ventured to the savannah biome, home of the second beacon.
“You know, shouldn’t we check on the treehouse? I know we had a few important things in there, and I’d rather not lose my progress in Minecraft,” asked Delta.
“It’s too dangerous. We’ll have to wait until the daytime to return to our base. The zombies should clear fairly quickly in the sun, and they won’t be able to break the security we had set up,” Said Alex.
“Not to mention, I think the amount of Axe I used would probably keep them away anyway,” Added Dylan.
“Correct, the 7 bottles of body spray you “dropped” should block their ability to breathe, and poison them. At least you sprayed it in your room, so we didn’t have to deal with all that,” Said Alex, criticizing Dylan’s questionable habits.
On the journey, the group faced multiple obstacles, such as Dylan after two days without a shower, Samir’s voracious appetite, several sand-covered ravines, and an Iron golem, abandoned by Minecraft_Player31. The golem, who had become accustomed to the name “Rosie”, could not speak but followed them around, and knocked a few of the monsters off of their tail. For this, they were thankful.
After days of seemingly endless travel, they began to see chunks, loading in the distance, a sure sign a beacon was near, as the power a beacon holds can cause the world around them to change in unpredictable ways.
“At long last, we have arrived. A beautiful sight indeed.” Remarked Alex.
“You know, you can cut the extensive vocabulary use, it’s beginning to get annoying.”, said Delta, frustratedly.
The beacon, which had finally loaded, was a welcome sight. The glowing light in the sky shone with hope, and they could almost feel the heat it emitted. They could see the hills of the terrain around it, glowing in the dreadful night. But something felt out of place, like a lurking danger that
nobody had encountered in the past.
“Something feels odd in comparison to the last beacon. The cold, dead feeling in the air, but with the wonderful warmth of the beacon. And there seems to be some sort of twilight-colored grass surrounding it.” observed Alex, once again being overly verbose.
As the gang approached the beacon, the dark grass, outcast from the bright green often seen in the savannah, seemed to expand the area it covered, growing closer to the crew as they moved closer to it.
“Is the grass, alive?” thought Samir, before realizing that the game chat showed thoughts and spoken words.
“It seems so, Sam. As well as it looks as if something is almost growing out of it,” said Alex.
The creature was not just an illusion. The beast slowly rose from the ground with a loud shrieking from unsightly mouths that stuck out from the darkest pieces of grass. And its towering silhouette was an unwelcome sight after the journey there. The long horns, lack of eyes, glowing heart, and cracked exposed rib cage, dripping what seemed to be teal blood glowing faintly in the night. And that mouth. That grotesquely large mouth, with unsettlingly rugged, sharp teeth, drooling onto the ground.
The gang slowly backed away, as if it were a bear at a campground, and unsheathed their weapons. This beast could rival the likes of the dragon.
As they unsheathed their weapons and prepared their shields, the creature roared. The shriek that it let loose withered the plants near it, sucking the life out of the world around it. Delta silently drew the strings of his crossbow back, but he did not have an arrow loaded into the mechanism. It was a firework, and it brought a red glow to Delta’s bow as he lit the fuse.
“Brace yourselves!”, Delta yelled to the party, as he launched the firecracker at the beast.
As the crew put their shields up to themselves, they heard the whistle of the rocket as it passed them.
CRACK!
The firework exploded into a spectacular flash of lime green light and smoke, and it lit the grass around them ablaze. In the fire, the gang stood steady, as the beast in front of them fell to the ground with a pained groan, similar to that of a dying giant. The team used this to their advantage, as they pounced on the opportunity to attack the beast viciously. With Alex and Dylan stabbing their swords into the monster’s exposed heart in unison, and Sam casting some sort of spell to send it back to whence it came, the beast’s body began to emit a faint glow, as it began to release a final shriek.
As the creature threw its arms to its sides, it knocked Alex and Dylan about 15 feet away from it. It quickly fired a beam of teal light at Delta, stunning him and sending him to the ground, and then it fell to the ground itself. All it dropped was a piece of the dark grass, and 5 small green orbs. It seemed that the beast had restricted the beacon’s power, and the beacon’s light shone even brighter than before. This was only the second trial they had faced in this adventure, but it most definitely would not be their last. And the only thing Rosie had done was stand there behind them, menacingly.
