I opened my eyes to a brand new day and a new set of nearly infinite possibilities. The cave had chilled a bit as the night pressed in and the heat from the furnace gave way, having cooked all the meat it had to cook, and having nothing left over to
prompt continuous burning of the remaining fuel. I gathered up my modest furnishings, little more than a bed, a workbench, and the furnace of course, and took one last look at my temporary home, bidding it a fond farewell, most likely forever. I climbed
up out of the cave and found a narrow path that led to the top of the hill that sat atop the cave entrance. The hill was tall enough that I could see a ways off in all directions. In the distance, I spotted a huge brown mushroom with a tall stalk and a
wide rimmed growth balanced on top, nestled in among the edge of a thick dark forest. It was quite a ways off, but something about it called to me, beckoning me to come and gather it up and carry it to far off lands. Carefully, I planned out a route to
the edge of the forest and then proceeded to climb back down the hill and headed in the direction of the giant mushroom. Soon, I was weaving a serpentine path through the woods that led up to the mushroom. The leaves of many trees hung low making progress
hard and obscuring the path ahead. As I rounded a tree I glimpsed, just a few trees away, a skeleton hiding under the shade of the forest’s canopy. Quickly, I threw myself against the backside of a tree trunk, praying the skeleton hadn’t seen me. As I
stood there gathering my courage, pressed back hard against the rough bark of the oak I had hidden behind, I could barely hear the skeleton walking under the trees over the pounding of my heart in my chest. Quietly, I took out my ax and got a firm grip on
its handle. Then, with all the speed I could muster I rolled out from behind the tree and charged straight at the skeleton. The skeleton, however, was ready for me and no sooner had I left my hiding spot than I found a freshly fired arrow buried deep in
my left shoulder. The pain, little more than a pinprick at first soon blossomed into a full bouquet of agony with every additional bound that I took, but I had to kill this skeleton before he could kill me. I continued to charge right into a second arrow
from the skeleton. This one planted itself firmly in my right thigh. My epic charge abruptly turned into more of an awkward stumble and I made a desperate and sloppy ax swing as I fell forward from the debilitating shot. My swing missed by a wide margin,
but I was determined to win this fight. Using the momentum of my missed swing I spun into another, this one also missing, but proving to be far more graceful and closer to the mark. The skeleton nocked and fired a third arrow, this one finding purchase
deep in my right side. “Why won’t you miss?” I screamed as blinding pain shot through my whole body, making every slight move utter torment. With one final desperate effort, I summoned all my energy and leaped toward the skeleton off my uninjured leg,
swinging my ax down from over my head and putting all my weight behind the blow. This one found its mark and smashed through the skull of the skeleton, shattering it nearly in two. The force of the blow caused the skeleton to stumble back out into a small
break in the forest canopy and into the full fury of the blazing noonday sun. The skeleton burst into flames, the solar radiation setting it ablaze. The skeleton ran to find shade, water, anything to stop the flames, but it was too little and too late.
Soon, all that was left of the skeleton was a couple of bones and two arrows, which I slowly limped over to and gathered into my pack. I stood there for a few moments, eating pork chops and trying to restore both my composure and my health. After a few
moments I looked around to regain my bearings and I started back on my path toward the giant mushroom. It turned out I was much closer than I thought. The mushroom stood just on the other side of a wide river that stretched from the Southwest to the
Northeast, as far as I could see in either direction. I would have to swim across. Cautious after my encounter with the skeleton, I eased down into the water, wary of any hidden dangers lurking in the murky depths of the river. As I slipped off the bank
and started treading water out in the deeper portion of the river I felt something slimy brush against my leg. I looked down, but I saw nothing. I swam out a bit further and then suddenly my vision was filled with tentacles and teeth. Without even
thinking I found my ax in my hand as it sliced through the water, removing the perceived threat from existence. “It was just a squid,” I thought to myself as the squid’s ink sacks fell into my hands. I carefully placed them in my pack hoping they would be
useful later and that I hadn’t just killed that squid for no reason. Confident now that the only dangers lurking in the river were the ones I had imagined, I continued across to the other side. I reached the far bank without incident and climbed out of
the unusually warm water. The giant mushroom now stood directly before me. I was struck by the sheer magnitude of the size of this mushroom looming over me. I looked around to make sure the coast was clear, took out my ax, and got to work cutting down the
mushroom. As I turned to gather the last few bits of the stalk, I saw another giant mushroom in the distance, this one a giant red mushroom with the top folded down over the stalk and dotted randomly with white spots. I made my way cautiously over to the
second mushroom, ax still in hand. With nothing lurking in the immediate area I got to the business of collecting this second giant mushroom as well. Soon the large spongy growth was made into manageable pieces and packed away in my pack. As I stowed away
the last little bits of the overgrown fungus, I heard a sound that I didn’t immediately recognize. I looked up and found myself face to face with a wall of fire consuming the forest in front of me. With the speed of a lightning strike I turned and jumped
back into the river before the flames had a chance to cut me off from the water. “That must be why the water from upstream is so much warmer than usual,” I said to myself. Looking back from the relative safety of the water, I could see a huge portion of
the forest burning. “What could have caused this?” I asked myself. My first thought was lightning, but there hadn’t been any storms, so the cause must be some sort of surface lava, somewhere in amongst the densely packed trees. As the forest continued to
burn, the heat from the inferno continued to warm the water of the river to uncomfortably hot levels. I began to swim upstream to get out of the scalding water, but the further I swam the more hot water I found myself in. Soon I could take it no more as
the water seemed to be near boiling point and I climbed up on the Northeast bank, next to a growth of sugarcane. The fresh air carried a light and welcome breeze on it cooling my steaming flesh. I gathered up the sugarcane, tucking it away in my pack, and
climbed up the modest hill that rose up above this side of the river. Trees obscured the view in every direction but were low enough that with some creative climbing I was able to get up on one and make my way to its uppermost reaches. From the top of the
tree on the hill, I could see the whole forest to the West burning. Thankfully it appeared the river was wide enough to stop the fire's spread to this side, but the whole Westside would likely be a total loss. Taking my attention away from the burning
woods for a moment I could see a large plain to the North stretching out all the way to the horizon. That would be where we would be heading next, but today’s adventure had come to its end. The sun hung low in the West adding drama to the raging forest
fire. I decided that the top of the tree I had climbed offered the best security for the evening and placed down a few support blocks and then my bed on top of them. As the sun dipped below the tree line and the stars began to peek out from their hiding
places in the night sky, I drifted off to sleep watching the persistent glow of the ever burning Ember Forest.
This book is not authorized or sponsored by Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.
