Survivor: Definitely Not Minecraft

As it turned out, I couldn’t mine the diamond. My iron pick was no more effective than the stone had been, unable to even scratch its surface, and it quickly became apparent that my tool was going to break if I kept tapping too long. That was a departure from how the game worked, obsidian was supposed to be the only thing you couldn’t mine without a diamond pick, but I didn’t make the rules here, and neither did Mojang. The patently legendary set of armor in the storage room remained out of my grasp for now. Still, even if the chests and the armor were out of bounds, I couldn’t be too disappointed considering what this place had given me.

“What now?” Gastard asked as I turned from the sarcophagus. “Will you forge Godwod his sword?”

“That,” I said, “and a few other things.” I was actually out of iron, but there was sure to be more to be unearthed now that we were below the portion of the mine that had been exhausted. My mind, however, was not on iron.

“All this crystal,” I said, gesturing to the purple wall. “There has to be a reason they collected it like this.”

“Maybe they liked the way it complemented the gold,” Esmelda suggested, her mouth quirking upward.

That would have been disappointing, and thankfully, it seemed unlikely. Simple quartz had been sufficient to craft a magic torch, so diamonds, and lapis lazuli, might not be necessary for enchantments. “I want to try using it,” I said. “Does anybody have any idea what time it is?”

Gastard grunted. “I’ll check the sky.”

Esmelda sat on the sarcophagus, her feet dangling from its edge, as I began mining out a section of the crystal wall. I had my status screen up so I could see what the System had to say about it.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Amethyst]

A low-grade crystal commonly found in geodes. Friend of the budding enchanter, looking to develop his craft without wasting more precious stones. Its lavender hues are a desirable addition to any build, even after you grow up and start using diamonds.

That was a very helpful notification, though I could have done without the snark. Amethyst was one of my favorite things about Minecraft, I just liked them. They only spawned in massive geodes underground, and they’d always seemed underutilized. They weren’t really good for anything aside from decoration and a couple of obscure recipes, and I was happy to see that in this version, they could be put to use.

“What will you try first?” Esmelda asked.

“Protection on my armor, maybe Unbreaking on my tools if I get more iron to start fresh with.”

She leaned forward. “What about Shadowbane?”

“On the sword, definitely. I’ll do Gastard’s for him too if he lets me.”

“I think you should enchant the torch,” she said, and I paused, looking back.

“With Shadowbane?”

She nodded, her eyes bright. “Light that would banish the darkness.”

“The description didn’t include that,” I said. In Minecraft, you didn’t enchant torches at all.

“It said that Shadowbane could discourage the creatures of Bedlam from attacking. What better way to do that than to let it shine in their faces?”

I could certainly respect the lateral thinking involved there. “Sure,” I said, “we can try.” There was little to be lost in the attempt, and this was assuming I could bypass the issue of not being able to craft an enchanting table, but I thought the solution to that was already close by.

When Gastard returned, it was with the news that we still had much of the afternoon ahead of us and that the horses were doing fine. We paused for a quick meal, the remains of the travel rations they had brought along, and I led us to the summoning room that I no longer thought was a summoning room.

“Maybe stay by the door,” I said, setting down a stack of books I’d selected from the library.

“What is the danger?” Gastard asked, peering into the darkness on the far side of the room.

“No danger,” I said, “as far as I know. But I’m about to mess with something I don’t understand, so we may as well be cautious about it.”

“Will…” Esmelda said, urging caution with her tone.

“Hey,” I said. “This place has been good to us so far. And if worse comes to worst, I can come back to life, remember?”

“That isn’t funny,” she said.

I shrugged. “Wasn’t a joke.”

A Shadowbane tome came to the center of the room with me. Crossing the circles felt weird, but I was pretty sure that the creeping sensation was just in my head. The runes on the floor did not signify another barrier, and at the center, I found a crafting grid beside a missing block. The center slot of the crafting grid was suspiciously book-shaped. Instead of a lever, there was a button below the grid.

I placed my knife in the open block, and the book in the grid along with four quartz coins. Then I placed an amethyst block in each of the recessed spaces in the corners of the chamber. As with the gold, one block was an entire token to itself, though if I broke them apart, the coins gave me crystal shards instead of ingots.

As soon as the fourth amethyst was in place, the crystals began to glow, if faintly. I returned to the center of the chamber to press the button. Once I had done so, the amethysts heated up until they were brighter than torches, a pretty lavender hue, then swiftly faded. As the blocks darkened, the runic circles lit in succession, working their way toward the center. The noise that followed wasn’t the gentle pop that normally accompanied crafting, it was an electric snap.

The hair on my arms stood on end, and the runes flashed all at once before the energy was exhausted. At the center of the room, the Enchanted Book and quartz coins had disappeared, but the knife remained. As Esmelda was holding the torch, I brought the knife over to her so we could examine it more closely.

“Did it work?” She asked. The blade looked unchanged, but there was a subtle difference. There was an extra sheen to its edge now, a way of catching the light that gave it an almost living quality. The entire room was one big enchanting table. The presence of the obsidian blocks had made me suspect that was the case. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to have to set up, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to build one like it if I wanted to do this anywhere else, but I wasn’t going to question my good fortune. A notification confirmed my success.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Achievement: Crafty (2)

All equipment is not made the same. Some come with extra steps. You have successfully imbued your first enchantment, opening the door to weapons and armor of truly exceptional quality. Quest log updated.

That was new. I switched tabs and saw that for the first time, something had been added to my official to-do list apart from the nebulous Kevin assignment.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Kevin

Objective: Kevin.

Reward: Your geas will be lifted.

Journeyman

Objective: Successfully enchant one-hundred items.

Reward: Advanced recipe.

That was very little information, but a world of improvement over the previous entry. There was a clear goal in place, and a promise of something valuable waiting for me at the end of the rainbow, maybe even ice cream. My System was coming around.

I glanced at Gastard, who was standing under the arch leading into the chamber. He had not come forward to inspect the knife.

“I can try your sword next,” I said. “Shadowbane seems like the sort of thing a templar would want on their weapon.”

His hand drifted to the hilt in question, but he shook his head. “Even if it is a blessing of the goddess, I would not taint the blade of my father with sorcery.”

“Fair enough,” I said, more for me. We didn’t have enough books, let alone amethyst, for me to do one hundred enchantments. That goal would come about on its own in the long run. For now, I settled for adding Protection and Unbreaking to my breastplate, which brought my armor rating up to a ten. It was only a one point difference, but that was still something. Also, I’d noticed that all the enchantments I was working with had a Roman numeral one beside their name. That fit with the game, which had four power levels for all enchantments. I was still working with the basic stuff. I didn’t add anything to my leathers, because I expected to replace those soon, but I added Shadowbane to my sword and decided to give Esmelda’s idea a try.

The crystal blocks were not used up in the enchanting process, though they started to show cracks after being used a second time, and steadily worsened. I didn’t have enough quartz to keep going, but amethyst shards worked just as well. My level had barely gone down. I was still at twenty-one, which suggested I’d run out of amethysts or Enchanted Books before I ran out of experience.

Esmelda handed over the torch, and I placed it and another Shadowbane book in their designated areas. The amethysts charged up as before, and the violet light worked its way through the room. When it was gone, the quartz at the top of the Eternal Torch had taken on a purple hue, though the light it emitted was still pure white. It was obviously brighter.

“A new kind of weapon,” Esmelda said. She looked pretty smug about it.

There were only a few more things I wanted to do before we left the underground base. Piercing the force field and mining the diamond would have to wait until I had higher-grade equipment, and as the books didn’t seem to convert to coins, leaving them here with the enchanting room was probably safer than trying to carry them all with us. I skinned the troll on general principles, but it didn’t yield a higher quality leather, which was both disappointing and a little nonsensical, but I supposed the System’s cheating couldn’t always be in my favor.

That brought us to the issue of Godwod’s sword. I’d promised him something worthy of his station, so a replica of what I’d given Otto wouldn’t cut it. I could potentially apply some actual workmanship to the hilt and the pommel with my artisan skill, but I had something else in mind.

“Gold?” Gastard questioned me as I placed the coins on my worktable. “For a weapon? It would be useless.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s too soft,” he said, seeming as if he was fighting the urge to snatch the coins off of the table if I went any further to save me from my folly. “It could never last against steel.”

Even in Minecraft, gold equipment had low durability. I doubted, however, that Godwod would be using the blade in combat, and I thought he would appreciate the gesture. Gastard’s hand twitched as I placed the stick and moved to pull the crafting lever, but he held himself in check.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Gold Sword]

Pride comes before practicality in this case. While impressive to look at, weapons crafted from gold are exceedingly fragile. They are also exceptionally sharp, and easy to swing. You could always use it to shave.

Damage Rating: 4

Speed: Fast

It was beautiful. The blade gleamed in the torchlight, the material unmistakable. It came with markings similar to the pattern on my iron blades, but they were light instead of dark, giving the blade an aspect almost like a rolling flame. My other weapons had been simple, if flawless, but this hilt was intricately designed with a delicate filigree that wove along the crossguard. The pommel was spiked with a slight curve that made it look like an eagle’s beak. Dongle would have lost his mind over it.

As promised, the edge was razor sharp, it nicked my thumb at the barest touch. Seemingly against his own will, Gastard held out his hand for the weapon, and I let him take it. He walked a few paces and took it through a quick drill. He handed it back with a sour look on his face.

“How’s it feel?” I asked.

He grunted and reluctantly replied. “The balance is superb.”

We returned to the mine, and I sealed the entrance to the base with basalt. I left most of the gold behind, it was safer here than in my pack, but a few ingots would be enough to buy just about anything I could want. With the sword wrapped in cloth, and our packs on our backs, Esmelda, Gastard, and I walked out into the evening light, where we were met by a group of armed men.