The sound of undead mobs pierced the sound of the night. Skeletons rattled as they fired their arrows towards the group.
"The Beauty is eternal!" Argenti shouted, his spear driving into the torso of a zombie, flinging the corpse to the side.
"Someone focus the skeletons!" Arcum yelled out into the night. "Others should focus on the zombies, skeletons, and creepers!"
"Alright," Hysilens said, her form already sliding through the army of undead mobs, reaching their backlines. "I'll take care of them."
She swung her two swords with deadly grace, beheading nearby skeletons as others dove out of the way, firing arrows in the process.
She weaved out of the way with ease, closing the distance and dismantling the skeletons with skill and dexterity.
HISS!
Arcum had no time to pay attention to how everyone else was doing. Behind him, a creeper hissed as it began to explode.
He dove forward into the cluster of zombies as the creeper exploded behind him, sending the blocks nearby flying.
Within the crowd of mobs on the floor, he rolled to the side, attempting to get out of danger.
In his attempts to get out, he received a kick to the stomach, sending him tumbling out of the mobs, crashing into one of the block walls he made to block arrows.
"Ow," Arcum groaned out, moving to stand back up. "That hurt."
But the fact that Arcum was not dead spoke plenty about something—hearts did not exist. He definitely took plenty of damage, enough to kill the average player in a playthrough of Minecraft.
He hadn't even eaten any food, something that was needed to regenerate hearts. Instead, he was still alive and kicking.
Arcum couldn't think for long, running away closer to the center of the camp where the campfire was placed. "If the usual rules don't exist here, then..!"
He took his sword and held it in the fire as the zombies rushed at him. The stone started to heat up, the blade turning redder. Arcum could feel the heat from the blade as he held it to the fire.
As the first zombie came close, he took the sword out of the fire, swinging it at the zombie's outstretched, blocky arms.
The sword cut through it like butter, the arms falling to the floor.
A quick kick to the side sent the zombie tumbling away as the rest of the zombies came in.
Repositioning, Arcum ran away from the campfire, closer to where the hole in the wall was, spotting a creeper there.
The creeper, noticing Arcum, started moving towards him.
Arcum dove towards the creeper, getting behind it as it started to hiss and explode. He hit the creeper towards the running zombies, placing a block in front of him as it exploded.
Zombies flew across the entire field, sending Arcum tumbling further back at the shockwave.
"... I'm really getting beat up here."
Arcum would take back what he said about surviving in Minecraft being easy. This was definitely hard.
Most of the zombies that were locked onto Arcum were gone, focused more on Stelle and Argenti. They fought off the hoard well, to Arcum's surprise.
Stelle, who seemed to be goofy and unserious, was fighting with skill, tripping zombies with her let and using her bat to hit them into other zombies, halting their progress on getting to her.
Argenti, who was flamboyant, was using the spear to his advantage, keeping his distance and piercing the heads of the zombies, vines exploding from the ground to ensnare some zombies every once in a while.
"Note to self, the goofy people can fight well."
A pair of footsteps are heard from behind, Arcum quickly turned to face them.
A zombie approached, wearing a chainmail chestplate and helmet. In its hands was an iron sword.
"Woah. Stacked zombie on the first night."
Arcum readied his sword, getting into a fighting position, making sure he had blocks in case of an emergency.
The zombie spun the iron sword in it's blocky hands, the blade gleaming slightly.
"Okay, first off, that's intimidating. Second off, I think that's enchanted."
The zombie rushed at Arcum, the blade gleaming as it entered the range of the torches and campfire's light.
It jumped, moving to hold its blade in both hands, swinging downward at Arcum.
"Ay! Holy!"
CLANG!
Arcum rose his sword, parrying the blade with a hanging guard causing the zombie's sword to slide down to the floor, the zombie vulnerable to an attack.
He quickly rose his sword swinging downward at the zombie's neck.
Arcum's eyes widen as the zombie dropped flat to the floor, rolling out of the way quickly to its feet, standing back up with a snarl.
"... someone needs to take this drugged zombie off me."
The zombie charged again, lunging towards Arcum's torso, the iron sword outstretched to pierce his chest.
Arcum placed blocks in front of him, causing the zombie's blade to bounce harmlessly off the cobblestone he placed.
He placed a block down beneath his feet, jumping on top of his cobblestone wall to attack the zombie from above.
The zombie, who looked up, quickly rose its sword to defend.
Arcum threw his blade at the zombie, in hopes of interrupting its guard.
The zombie deflected the stone sword with its own blade, the iron sword now off to the zombie's side.
Using the vulnerability, Arcum swapped to his stone axe. The blade of the axe cut through the zombie's chainmail helmet, falling the undead soldier in a clean strike.
Arcum let out a sigh of relief after killing the undead mob, quickly looting the corpse.
Since it wasn't despawning, that means that he could loot the corpse of the undead mob, free of charge.
"Free chainmail chestplate... chainmail helmet... and an enchanted iron sword. Nice."
Surprisingly, he was decently looted for the first night. He equipped the armor and picked his stone sword back up.
"I have to thank myself for not going into a cave alone. I would've definitely died if all mobs are like this."
Arcum ran back to where all his allies were fighting. More corpses littered the floor, and it was getting harder to move around.
"What if I..."
Arcum picked up a zombie and put it in his inventory.
"Yup. This will do. Cleanup will be easy."
In the downtime he had as the others were holding off the mobs, Arcum picked up zombie corpse after zombie corpse.
"They're also free shields. Maybe projectiles if I can throw them."
Stelle voice pierced through the air.
"Incoming!"
Arcum looked up. In the distance, where the forest was, a gleam of red-orange light grew brighter and brighter.
A voice boomed from the tree lines.
"Heroic souls of Strife, heed my call!"
Flying through the air, a lance made of red crystals pierced the center of mobs, before exploding. The shards of the red crystals pierce the mobs around it, dropping them to the floor.
"Oh," Hysilens commented, close enough for Arcum to hear her. "Its the lionfish."
"What adventures would they have to be on if a LIONFISH DOES THAT?!"
"He's not actually a lionfish," Stelle shouted out, seemingly understanding Arcum's confusion. "She gives nicknames based off sea creatures."
Stepping out of the forest was a extremely well-built man, with short strawberry blonde hair. His body was covered in crimson lines that looked like tattoos, wearing what seemed to be Greek clothing.
"Well," Arcum thought. "If they know him, then that's good. Looks like a fighter."
Some of the mobs turn. Skeletons draw back their bows and fire at the man.
He rushed towards the group of skeletons, taking arrows into his body, shrugging them off like it was nothing to him.
With his fish outstretched, he socked a skeleton straight in the dome, sending the blocky head off the rest of its body.
The rest of the skeletons in the back of the small mob army were promptly finished off by Hysilens and the newly arrived man, the arrows ceasing their fire through the night.
The plains were littered with creeper holes, the corpses of zombies and spiders laying on the floor, the rest of the mobs that were standing dropping as Stelle and Argenti finished off the rest.
Arcum's shoulders finally dropped as he fell down to sit on the floor.
"Tired?"
Stelle walked up to Arcum, looking down as he sat on the floor.
"Obviously. I don't fight, you know."
"You fought pretty well tonight though," she commented.
"Just because I don't fight doesn't mean I don't know how to."
Stelle shrugged at that, offering a hand to Arcum, which he takes, standing back up.
"You know that guy?" Arcum asked, gesturing his head towards the buff man, who was talking to Hysilens.
"Yeah," Stelle replied. "I'm honestly surprised only people I know have come this this camp so far."
"You must know a lot of people," Arcum deadpanned.
"I do."
Looking around, it seemed that there were no more mobs, save for the few wandering the plains a fair distance away, too far to notice the people at the base.
"Anyways," Arcum continued, looking back at Stelle. "Could you find the two who hid in the floor? I need to go talk to Hysilens for a ink sac."
Stelle nodded, and Arcum passed by Stelle to approach both Hysilens and the new guy.
"Hi," Arcum said as the two turned to look at him. "I'm Arcum. You're?"
"Mydeimos, warrior of Okhema. You can call me Mydei."
Arcum nodded. "Nice to meet you, Mydei. How'd you find us?"
Mydei motioned his hand to the campfire. "I was in the forest and saw the smoke of a fire, so I came over. It seems it was a good call by me."
Arcum nodded, turning to face Hysilens, Arcum put his hand out towards her. "I need the ink sac from you."
"Alright," she said, the squid suddenly appearing out of thin air into her arms as she took it out of her inventory.
She quickly ripped into the blocky organism, tearing out what looked to be the ink sac. "Here you are."
Arcum received the ink sac, a bit intimidated and intrigued at the same time. She knew where the ink sac was in a blocky Minecraft mob, but she also just ripped into it.
Walking away from the pair, Arcum sat himself down by the campfire.
Pulling the cow and chicken out of his inventory, he laid them out on the floor, using his sword to cut through the cow's skin, before it transformed into leather before his eyes.
"Neat," he murmured, doing the same with the chicken, grabbing the feathers from it. "Back to the crafting table."
Leaving the animals by the campfire, Arcum walked to the crafting table. Using the three sugar cane he collected, Arcum created paper. Using the leather, he made a book with the paper, and adding the ink sac and feather, he created a book and quill.
"This is for Fugue's recipe book," Arcum thought. "But I should make another book to write down everyone's usernames."
If Arcum got a book with everyone's usernames, he could keep track of how far they are, if they were closer or further than 1,000 blocks, and send them messages whenever if need.
Arcum would have to find more sugar cane when the sun rose. He looked up to the moon, seeing it nearly set.
Looking at the camp, it was a mess still. Creeper holes needed to be patched, the house wall needed to be rebuilt before the actual house could start.
He would also need to cook the food from the mobs he had killed the day prior, and would need to get another book and quill.
And he would also have to go mining, there were a lot of things to do, especially with people who don't know how to survive.
With a sigh, Arcum looked around the camp for Fugue. Spotting her looking around at the destruction that was caused by the night prior, he walked over.
"Here," Arcum said, holding out the book and quill. "Take this and write down whatever you want."
Fugue looked at the book, giving a nod and a look a gratitude. She gave a small thank you, before opening the book and writing in it.
He made sure to look around, checking to see if Asta was okay.
She looked fine, but seemed to be a bit shaken up at the damage that was done to the surroundings, no doubt messing up her blueprint ideas.
Arcum moved to the campfire, looking at the animal corpses. The sun started to rise, and with it, the mobs on the floor started to burn.
The zombies and skeletons burned away, leaving only the spiders and creepers that were killed before exploding littered about.
"Less cleanup, at least that's a plus."
Grabbing the animals, he started to cut the meat off the cow and chicken, the meat turning into items in his inventory.
"Does anyone know how to cook?" Arcum called out to the group.
"I do," Mydei said.
Arcum waived Mydei over and pointed to the animals on the floor, then gestured to the campfire.
"Want to help cook this, then?"
Arcum promised himself he'd sort everything out.
But, after he ate a nice meal, of course. He deserved it.