Ned woke up to the loud beeping of his home-made digital alarm clock. usually alarm clocks like his would not exist in Minecraft, but Ned was an inventor. He had used redstone, glass, mini-redstone-lamps and tiny iron blocks to make it, along with several custom cheat-codes and small mods. he was the only one in the whole village who woke up this way. His friend, Michael, usually woke up this early without an alarm clock, while his other friends, Steve and Alex, just woke up whenever they woke up. Ned reached out of bed and tried to press the button on the top, but he just hit the part of the table next to it hard. The alarm clock fell off of the table and Ned jumped up at the loud noise when it hit the ground. He sighed, picked it up and looked at it. There was a lot of damage to the glass, and the redstone appeared to have been knocked a bit, since the mini redstone lamps were flashing in an arrangement that reminded him a bit of a rabbit. He got out of bed and went about his daily routine. He was in the middle of making pancakes when his custom-made phone said something in a robot voice: ‘STEVE SENT YOU A MESSAGE’ Ned walked up to his phone and looked at the message. It said, “Ned, come on, today is the day!” Ned remembered Steve’s plans for the day and instantly started to get ready.
Steve sent the message to Michael as well, and then began to get ready. He put on enchanted diamond armour from a chest in his house and got out an enchanted diamond sword. Then he got out the items he was going to need: an enchanted bow, a few stacks of enchanted arrows, three pieces of Blaze Powder, three Ender Pearls and a few other things. He met Alex outside of his house and set out to where they were all meeting at the top of the nearby hill.
Michael arrived five minutes later than he was suppost to. He arrived at the top of the hill, panting. ‘What took you so long?’ said Steve, annoyed. ‘…sorry…’ panted Michael. ‘I…I was playing Angry Birds…when…I got…the text’ he said. Steve knocked him over the head. ‘You’ve got your armour, you two?’ said Steve. Ned and Michael nodded and Michael put on his enchanted diamond armour and got out his sword. Ned instead got out an iron backpack looking thing and put it on. He put an iron helmet on which connected to the backpack with several wires. ‘What is that?’ asked Steve. ‘Eye of Ender Tracker’ said Ned. ‘Can you give me the crafting items?’ he asked. Steve shrugged and passed him the three piles of Blaze Powder and three Ender Pearls. Net put them all through a hole in his backpack, which closed instantly. An Eye of Ender popped out of the top of Ned’s backpack and floated off for a while, then stopped around ten or more blocks away from them. It floated for a while and then fell to the ground. Ned picked it up and threw it again. It went a longer distance, then stopped, and then fell to the ground. This continued for a long time. Every now and then the Eye of Ender would shatter, but Ned had two more crafted when the first one shattered. so then the second one popped out and the process started again. It was about lunchtime when Ned picked the second Eye of Ender up and threw it again. Thankfully, this one had not shattered yet. But this time, it just went a few blocks, and then shot downwards, hitting the ground with a soft thud. Ned walked over to it, picked it up and threw it again. It went less than one block before shooting back down to the ground. Ned smiled. ‘The stronghold should be directly below us, according to my EOET!’ said Ned. Steve ran over and patted Ned on the back. ‘Good job, buddy’ he said. Michael ran up, shouted, ‘WOOHOO!’ and started digging straight downwards with his enchanted shovel. Steve put his palm to his face. Sometimes Michael could be a bit stupid. ‘Hey, Michael?’ Ned called down the hole. ‘Yeah?’ Michael called back.
‘Don’t you remember the number one rule of Minecraft?’
‘Of course!’ Michael called back.
‘Never dig straight doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnn!’ Everyone expected to hear the distant sizzle of lava as Michael was burnt and regenerated back at his house five hours away, but instead they heard:
‘AAAAAHHHHH!’
CRASH!
‘OUCH!’
Steve looked up, confused. ‘Michael?’ he called down the hole. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘Don’t worry!’ called Michael. ‘These Diamond boots have pretty good Feather Falling enchantments. I landed on a…bookshelf?’ Steve looked up, confused. ‘A bookshelf?’ said Ned. Steve looked at Alex and shrugged. Alex looked down the hole. ‘We’re coming!’ she called. ‘Yay!’ said Michael. Alex placed a few ladders down the hole as far as she could reach. Then she climbed onto the ladder and walked down it. When she reached the end of the ladder, she placed another ladder beneath her, and so on. Ned and Steve climbed down after her. Alex was an expert at placing blocks while moving.
Eventually they reached the end of the whole. There was a three block drop down onto a block which appeared to be made out of wood. They jumped down, and they saw Michael next to them. Steve looked around. They were in a huge library. There were bookshelves several blocks high everywhere, and they were near a glowstone chandelier. Alex did what she did best and started again with her downwards-climb-and-place-ladder technique. They walked out of the room a few seconds later. They were in a long hallway made of stone bricks. They were in the stronghold. ‘That tracker was a little off course,’ said Steve. ‘But either way we still ended up in the stronghold. They walked down the hall until they reached a room with an iron door. Steve nodded at Michael, who jumped to the door and placed a block of TNT there. He ignited it with some flint and steel and ran off around a corner, where the others were hiding.
BANG!
They walked around the corner to see most of the stone bricks still standing, but the door was badly damaged. Steve kicked it hard and the door fell off of its hinges. Steve walked into the dark room and looked around. There were small iron bars on the walls and monster spawners in the corners. Suspended above a small pool of lava was the end portal, ten of its twelve frames already filled with Eyes of Ender (or whatever you call a group of Eye of Enders). There was a small stone brick staircase leading up to the portal. Ned’s Eye of Ender Tracker was going nuts because of all the Eye of Enders in front of them. ‘Ah’ said Michael quietly as Steve walked up to the stairs. ‘Ouch!’ said Michael. ‘Ah, guys, something’s biting me!’ he said. ‘Suck it up’ said Steve, annoyed. Ned got too close to the portal and a screeching sound came out of the headphones. He tore them off of his head and blocked his ears. His EOET was going nuts. He turned around-‘Oh, no!’ he said. Alex turned around and gasped. ‘WHAT?’ said Steve, turning around angrily. And then he gasped too. The entire ground was covered with silverfish! Michael jumped backwards as Ned and Alex slowly backed away. They sliced at the silverfish, but they were outnumbered. The silverfish quickly grew in numbers, pushing them up the staircase. Ned was the closest to the edge of the portal frame. He looked at the two empty parts of the portal frame and got an idea. Quickly, he put the second Eye of Ender into an empty portal frame block. He pressed a button on his backpack thing and the third Eye of Ender popped out. He stumbled and nearly toppled into the lava. He put the last Eye of Ender in and the portal appeared in the frame as if it was being filled up with black, sparkly water. Ned jumped in. Steve turned around and saw the portal. He jumped in a pin-drop position and fell into the dark portal. Alex was about to jump when Michael (who had two silverfish clinging to his armour) leapt into the portal in a bellyflop position. Alex jumped into the portal.
When they fell into the portal, it was weird. They didn’t float around or fall through a spiral portal, but they just fell straight into the Void. It was as if the End Portal was actually just a hole in the ground which lead straight to the Void underneath it. It’s hard to describe. Alex landed in a standing position on an obsidian platform. Ned was already there, looking at the light yellow island known as The End. He was adjusting a sort of volume or frequency dial on the side of the helmet. It was just making weird static noises. Steve floated down and nearly missed the obsidian platform, but he grabbed onto it just in time. Michael, on the other hand, landed sprawled out on the ground with a crack. ‘Not again!’ he said. Ned put his EOET into his inventory and started putting on his enchanted diamond armour. ‘So’ said Steve as he got to his feet. ‘How do we get across this gap?’ he asked. The gap was over 13 metres wide. ‘I’ve got an idea’ said Alex, holding up a stack of dirt. Michael rushed past them, sprinted up to the edge of the platform and leapt as far as he could. He flew through the air…and then began to descend. He crashed into the side of the island and made a small player-shaped dent in it. ‘Are you okay?’ called Ned. Michael didn’t respond. ‘Are you okay?’ he called louder. ‘Of course’ he said. ‘Sound doesn’t travel through the Void’ he said. Are you okay? He typed in chat. Michael gave them a thumbs-up and then got out a pickaxe. He started do dig through the side of the island. Alex stood at the edge of the platform, crouched so she didn’t fall, and placed a block of dirt. She walked onto the block of dirt and placed another dirt block on that too.
She continued this, with each block getting closer to The End, and then finally she reached it, making a dirt bridge between the two island things. Ned and Steve ran across it and looked around. The island was massive, with ten obsidian pillars around the area, and of course Endermen everywhere. Alex, Steve and Ned put pumpkins on their heads over their helmets as to not provoke the Endermen. Steve looked around. Suddenly there was a deafening roar. Steve, Alex and Ned span around. The Enderdragon was flying straight towards them! Alex, Steve and Ned opened fire on the dragon, arrows hitting it hard. Most of the arrows missed, but the ones that hit the Enderdragon did a small amount of damage, enough to make it change course away from them. Suddenly the ender crystals at the tops of the obsidian pillars began to spin around faster. As soon as the Enderdragon got close to one, a laser shot out of the crystal and started healing it! ‘The crystals are healing it!’ said Ned. ‘Quick, we need to take them out first!’ said Steve. ‘Split up!’ they ran off in their own directions and drew back their arrows. They fired. The crystals were hard to hit, but once they were hit they exploded. Steve shot at one for the third time and it exploded. Alex tried to shoot at one, but missed by one block. There was a roar behind her and she span around. The Enderdragon was flying straight towards her! She got out her enchanted diamond sword and waited. The dragon swooped down at her, but she jumped out of the way and struck the Enderdragon hard with her sword several times. It flew off and disappeared into the distance towards the other pillars. Ned drew back his arrow and aimed at a crystal…suddenly the ground below him disappeared and he fell into a hole! He yelled as he landed on top of Michael, whose pickaxe went flying. Ned’s arrow went flying, ricocheting off of the walls and flying out. Amazingly, the arrow shot out of the hole, flew up into the air and landed on the ender crystal, exploding it! Eventually there were only three ender crystals left, and the last two were really not that high up in the air. Michael shot an arrow and it landed right next to the crystal. Steve took the bow from him, shot it and exploded the crystal. Ned aimed an arrow at one of the last crystals…and let go. But it just bounced right off! ‘What?’ said Ned. ‘Let me try’ said Alex. She shot an arrow at the crystal, but it bounced back off again! Ned took a closer look. ‘Oh no’ he said. ‘Those crystals are protected by iron bars! We’re going to need to climb the pillars’ he said. Alex got out her ladders and started climbing up while placing them, like a reverse of before. Michael jumped and placed a block below him, then did it again, then again, each time getting higher into the air. Alex was the first to reach the crystal. It was glowing slightly. She shot an arrow straight into the air and climbed back down the ladders. The arrow landed right on top of the crystal.
BOOM!
Michael reached his ender crystal a few seconds later. ‘Ha’ he said. ‘I can’t believe how stupid the Enderman who designed this is’ he said. ‘You can just swipe your sword like this and-’
BOOM! (again)
Michael went flying through the air, landed, skidded for a bit and then fell face first, knocking himself out. His sword landed next to him with a klang. There was a roar behind them and they span around, Ned pulling back and shooting an arrow at the same time. The arrow flew through the air and hit nothing. The Enderdragon swooped down on them, but they were ready. They pulled out their swords and struck out at it, doing lots of damage. It started to fly away, but they hit it for as long as they could with their weapons. When it got out of reach, they showered it with as many arrows as they could fire in that amount of time. Then it turned around and swooped down at them again. Ned climbed up Alex’s ladders and on top of the pillar. When the Enderdragon swooped back down again, Alex and Steve stabbed at it with their swords and Ned leapt out with his sword. He landed on top of the dragon and it with his sword. It flew away with Ned clinging onto it and striking out at it. Steve and Alex shot arrows out at the dragon, doing as much damage as the arrows would let them. The dragon flew around, trying to shake Ned off of its back. It flew straight upwards, and Ned fell off! His sword went flying through the air while he went flying in the other direction. The dragon did a loop-the-loop and went spinning around. Ned was flying through the air at high speed, when suddenly the dragon’s claws slashed right past him! He dodged a flap of its wing, then crashed into the dragon’s long neck, then began to fall. He went past the dragon’s wings, arms and legs, when suddenly the dragon’s tail came out of nowhere.
WHACK!
Ned fell through the air, knocked out. Michael slowly came back to his senses and got up. ‘Well, at least I’m still oka-AAAHH!’ Ned’s sword fell from nowhere and got stuck in the ground right next to him. Alex and Steve were shooting their enchanted arrows at the Enderdragon hard, when Steve spotted Ned falling through the air. ‘Ned!’ he shouted. ‘What? Where?’ said Alex, but Steve was already gone. He ran right underneath where Ned was going to land and got out a shovel. ‘Get out of the way!’ shouted Michael, shoving a lit block of TNT where Steve had just been and running. Steve ran too. There was an explosion, but not much of the endstone was broken. Steve got out his pickaxe and he and Michael both started digging. After a few seconds there was a small crater in the ground, and Michael and Steve started to fill it up with water.
Alex was shooting the dragon with arrows, but it was dodging most of them. Then it turned around and flew towards her. She swiped at it with her sword, but Steve and Michael came out of nowhere and started hitting it as well. Michael placed down a block of TNT and lit it. ‘TAKE COVER!’ shouted Steve, running away. Alex and Michael did the same.
BOOM! (again again)
The Enderdragon only had a quarter of its hit points left, and Ned had just landed in the small pool of water. Steve dived in to get him, while Alex and Michael continued shooting the Enderdragon. Michael’s arrows continued to miss most of the time, and then once again the dragon swooped down at them. Michael began placing down lots of TNT blocks and put all of them in a large pile. He ran while Alex stood on top of the pile, shooting the Enderdragon as it came closer. It swooped down and Alex hit it twice with her sword and then jumped off of the TNT pile. The dragon tried to crash through her but instead hit the TNT pile.
BOOM! (again again again)
The dragon flew up into the air, only a few of its hit points left, and flew away. Alex landed hard on the ground, but she got back up. Steve ran back with Ned (who was conscious again) and got out his sword. ‘Where is it?’ he said aggressively, pulling out his sword. ‘You missed it’ said Michael. ‘Oh’ said Steve, lowering his sword sadly. Ned’s armour was very badly damaged. ‘Maybe you should go back to the platform for a bit’ said Steve. ‘I think you’re right’ said Ned, walking towards the dirt bridge, shivering. ‘I have an idea’ said Michael. He put down a bunch of TNT blocks in a huge pile, bigger than the last one. ‘The good thing about mobs is that most of them never learn from their mistakes’ said Michael. He finished placing the pile of TNT on the ground and then put a bed on the top of the pile. ‘Someone’s going to need to detonate that’ said Michael. ‘Not me’ said Alex. ‘Nuh-huh’ said Steve. ‘Well I’m not doing it’ said Michael. There was a noise behind them that sounded like a grunt crossed with a purr crossed with a kind of bird. They looked around. An Enderman was standing behind them. Uh oh. They had taken the pumpkins off of their heads when they started attacking the ender crystals. It made direct eye contact with Michael. It opened its mouth (which went right through its head) wide, showing tonnes of sharp teeth, and froze. It began to shake. Michael continued staring at it. ‘Don’t blink’ said Steve. ‘Seriously, don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead’ Steve said seriously. Michael laughed. ‘That sounded like you quoted-’ he blinked when he laughed. The Enderman snapped out of its shaking and teleported behind him. Michael turned around and slashed at the Enderman with his sword. It was hit, but it just teleported behind him. Michael turned around. The Enderman crouched to his height and snarled, flexing its clawed hands. It jumped at Michael, landing right in front of him. Michael yelped. It made a barking noise. Michael ran away, screaming, the Enderman not far behind. ‘Looks like it’s just up to you and me now’ said Steve. Alex nodded. ‘Let’s do this’ she said. She ran over to the second shortest pillar which she had placed ladders on and climbed up it, while Steve climbed on top of the TNT pile. They both drew their arrows back and looked around. They could not see the dragon anywhere. There was no sound except for Michael’s screams as he ran around and the grunting of Endermen as they walked around. Then Alex and Steve heard it: a distant flapping noise coming from behind them, in the direction of the obsidian platform. They turned around to see the Enderdragon swoop down at the platform, just missing Ned. They both started shooting arrows at it as fast as they could. Most of them missed, and one actually hit Ned instead, but then one of Steve’s arrows hit the Enderdragon in the neck. It roared and looked at Steve, its purple eyes burning with rage, though Steve was too far away to notice. It flew back towards them with tremendous speed. Alex and Steve fired a sea of arrows through the air at it, hitting it more and more often as it got closer and closer. Suddenly it changed direction from Steve to Alex. It flew towards her and crashed into her, sending Alex flying through the air. She landed a few metres away, knocked out. Steve looked around. It was just up to him now. He pulled back an arrow. ‘Hey, you!’ he shouted at the dragon. The dragon turned and stared at him. Its purple eyes glowing menacingly. Steve shot an arrow at the dragon, and the arrow hit it right in its left eye! it let out a deafening roar and flew down towards Steve. Steve began to climb down the pile of TNT, taking big jumps down it as the dragon got closer to the pile. He ran away from the giant mound of TNT. Even that much TNT would probably not kill the dragon, but it would definitely weaken it to just a few hearts of health. The addition of the bed would probably reduce it to just one heart. Steve stood behind the mound of TNT, so that the Enderdragon was still flying towards him, but also straight toward the TNT pile. If the TNT only was activated, the bed would not explode. Suddenly there was a yell. No, a scream. Steve looked to the right of the pile. Michael was running away from the Enderman, who was still chasing him, its strong legs helping it keep up its fast speed, also helped by its teleportation powers. Michael jumped on to the bottom of the TNT pile and began to climb up it. Steve looked. They were in trouble. A dragon, a hostile Enderman and a giant mound of TNT, not to mention the fact that beds exploded when you lay down on them here. Michael reached the top of the tower and jumped over the bed as the Enderman teleported behind him. The Enderdragon was just a few blocks away from the TNT pile. Michael ran down the other side of the TNT pile while the Enderman ran-suddenly, the Enderman tripped over and landed flat on the bed. The bed detonated in the Enderdragon’s face, setting off a chain reaction of explosions from the TNT below it. Then there was a huge explosion that sent Steve flying. He crashed into an obsidian pillar hard. The last thing he saw was the dragon flying away as darkness closed in around him.
‘Steve? Steve! Wake up!’ Steve heard Alex’s voice as he slowly awoke. ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Ned said there was a big explosion’ said Alex. ‘Is the dragon dead?’ asked Steve. ‘Not quite’ said Alex. ‘It only has three hit points left. One and a half hearts of health’ she said. ‘But at least that Enderman is dead’ said Michael. Steve got up. Ned passed his enchanted bow to Steve. ‘I thought you could do the honours’ he said, smiling. Steve smiled back. He looked up. The dragon was flying around weakly, circling the obsidian pillars, not wanting to get too close and get killed. It was badly burned, and some of the skin on one of its wings was gone. Steve got out a plain arrow and shot it at the dragon. It only did one heart of damage. The dragon flew into the centre of the island, its eyes-well, one of its eyes at least, staring at Steve with uncontrollable fury combined with fear. Steve drew back his arrow and fired. It hit the dragon in the chest. There was a huge burst of light from where the arrow had hit. Purple explosions appeared around the dragon as pink beams of light burst out of its body from all angles. All of the Endermen on the island stared at the dragon as it began to dissolve in mid-air. The light got brighter and brighter and brighter until the group needed to shield their eyes and close them to stop themselves from going blind.
When the light cleared, there was a bedrock fountain in the middle of the island, with a black, sparkly portal in the bowl thing, nothing coming out of it and a black egg on the top of it. The Endermen stared at the portal, then at the players, then at Steve, then at the egg. They all stared in awe at the portal as they walked towards it. Michael leapt up to the pillar in the middle and hit the egg, but it just teleported away somehow. He fell into the dark portal below. Steve walked up to the egg, which had appeared a few metres away, and poked it. It teleported in front of Ned, one and a half blocks above the ground, and fell to the ground. Ned punched it. It teleported above an Enderman’s head. It fell and hit the Enderman hard, bouncing off with a crack. It landed on the ground hard and teleported over to Alex. The Enderman swayed where it stood for a moment, then fell flat on its face. Alex put a piston that she had brought with her next to the egg. Ned walked up with his EOET and put a block of cobblestone in it. A stone button popped out of the slot on the top. It fell to his feet and he picked it up. Placing it on the side of the piston, he pressed it. The piston pushed and the dragon egg popped into a small item. The piston retracted and Steve walked up to the item, picking it up. He looked at it in his hand. The item version was slightly less detailed in purple and black spots, not to mention its small size, but Steve knew that what he was holding was the egg of a once mighty creature that was taken out by two expert players, a nerd and a noob. He put it away in his inventory and walked up to the portal. He looked into the pool of black infinite nothingness, then jumped.
Steve fell through the black, sparkling abyss, falling at tremendous speed. He looked upwards. The square of light leading from the End to the Overworld was getting further and further away. Then it disappeared out of sight. Looking around, Steve noticed the Void had stopped sparkling. It was now pitch black. Steve looked down at the egg as it faded out of view. Slowly, darkness overtook his vision and Steve could barely tell whether his eyes were open or closed. Then he felt his falling speed increase. He fell faster. A tingling sensation overtook him as the egg disappeared from his hand. He could no longer feel his armour, then his entire body went numb and he passed out.
Steve woke up on his soft bed looking up at his familiar ceiling. He sat up and looked around. He was in his bedroom. He looked out the window. The sun had just risen over the horizon. He walked around. Was he dead? Well, even if he was he would still be in this exact situation, just less confused. What had happened? Was that all a dream? Were Ned, Michael and Alex all just going about their day? These thoughts puzzled him. Maybe it was just a dream, he thought. Yeah, that all must have just been a dream, but he could still remember it as if it was not a dream, and he usually forgot his dreams five seconds after he woke up from them. He shrugged and went into the kitchen. He sat down and began eating his breakfast, when he noticed something was in his inventory. He opened it up and saw arrows, armour, snowballs and an enchanted sword with Knockback II and Sharpness IV. He was confused at first, then he remembered that he had been getting ready for his trip the day before, and everything made sense. He was going to the end today and he had dreamt about doing it last night. Now it all made sense. But then he saw something that made his eyes widen. Sitting in the corner of his inventory, its purple and black patterns in little detail, was the legendary dragon egg. That was not a dream. It had all been real. And he had the egg to prove it.