Note from the author:

Several years ago- during my first "wave" of fanfiction writing, as it was- I wanted to write a Minecraft story. In fact, I'd even planned to make it an animated series that never came to fruition. But for a long time, I stored the ideas I had for it away, somewhere in my head. Eventually I moved on to other things, and for a while I forgot about those first plans.

That is, until last year when Minecraft had a sudden resurgence online. As I took in the nostalgia, my ideas came back to me, and I found myself wanting to tell a story within the game again. I'm a bit late to Minecraft's second wind, unfortunately, but I don't see that as any reason not to finally get around to this.

To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm including this introduction. Maybe it's a disclaimer to the readers- and to myself, in some way- as to what exactly I think I'm doing in shifting my focus like this. What I do know is this: the story may not be regularly updated, and for all I know I may eventually hit a dead end with it. I hope that isn't the case, but life and other story plans might get in the way at some point. I'm starting this without a concrete structure in mind, just some leftover ideas from its initial concept that I'll incorporate into this little adventure. I consider it a sort of passion project, something to work on when I have the time and motivation.

My apologies for rambling. I'm sure you didn't come here to listen to me drone on about fulfilling a past dream of mine. However this story turns out, I hope to make it as well written and enjoyable as I can- I've never been one to skimp on effort. With that said, I'll cut this monologue short and get into it.

Thank you for bearing with me, and thank you for reading. Shall we begin?

The Usurpation War- A Minecraft Story

PART ONE: LEAVING THE NEST

Chapter 1: Better Late Than Never

The village was silent.

One could have called it a ghost town- given its decrepit state, one was likely to. The battle against encroaching cobwebs had long since been abandoned, the weeds had grown to nearly waist-height in some places, and many of the buildings had begun to succumb to the elements. Restoring them would be impractical, given that the town had only one inhabitant remaining.

Blake had always imagined exploring a place like this. He'd spent countless hours in his childhood envisioning a great expedition with his friends to an abandoned little hamlet, and finding what secrets of generations past it hid. Perhaps there would even be one wise old man left to share stories of when the community once thrived.

A small, bitter laugh escaped him. He never imagined he'd be the old man in question- and he'd never considered how that hypothetical person might feel to be the last one.

"Damn it all, I'm barely even nineteen."

The other humans, who he'd grown up with, who he'd mined and crafted and explored and fought mobs with, were gone. As the years passed, they had all found their "callings" and left, one by one. Blake hadn't objected at the time- why would he have? It was an exciting prospect, to go off into the unknown and pursue one's real purpose in life. His friends had all done just that, bidding him and the villagers a cheerful farewell, never to return.

He doubted they had met anything but success in their travels. After all, they had been teammates for as long as he could remember. He knew those old friends of his even better than the local villagers who'd taken them all in as infants. Their talents were limitless, he knew that.

So… why was he having trouble recalling their names?

Blake got up, kicking a pebble aside. The stone block on which he was sitting sported numerous sizeable chips in its edges. He remembered that clear as day: one of his neighbors had accidentally placed it there as a child, at the corner of her home, and the group opted to try breaking it with little more than wooden axes. For reasons that escaped him, nobody had bothered to remove it for years to come. There was no reason to its placement or its permanence; the stone block had merely been the subject of some kids playing around with stray materials. The memory almost annoyed him; he could recall that but not any of their names?

He made his way along the empty dirt road, passing by run-down buildings and crude construction projects he and his old gang had worked on in the past.

"Take care, guys. I'll always remember our adventures here."

"I'm gonna miss you. Best of luck in the future."

"Well, that's it. It's just the two of you left after I leave. You'll both find your paths, I know it."

"…bye, Blake."

For as hard as it was becoming to remember his childhood friends, he never forgot their parting words. He could never forget them. And now here he was, alone in a village that even the villagers themselves had abandoned some time ago. He'd done the best he could to preserve it in their absence, to never let time wear away those precious memories. But entropy proved stronger in the end, as evidenced by the increasingly dilapidated town.

If only he had realized how much he would come to cherish the past.

He finally reached his destination: a small shack near the outskirts, lined with mossy cobblestone. This was where he'd lived with a small villager family as a child before building his own house. It was still there, on the other side of town, and it was in considerably better shape than this old place, but he wasn't in the mood to go back there right then.

Stepping inside, he swatted a thin spider web out of the doorway. The interior was just as dismal as the exterior: a dusty wooden floor and some rickety chairs were all that greeted him. No mementos of the residents to be found, not even of his adoptive father. Thinking of the old villager made Blake's eyes sting. How long had it been since he passed on? Five, maybe six years? That was also around the time the others had started to leave.

That was the time his old life began to drift away.

Now, not even the hostile mobs drew near the town anymore. He would have loved the chance to defend his home from a zombie pack or an overeager creeper, showing off his sword prowess one more time, but the monsters seemed entirely uninterested. Was it just to spite him? Him, the sole inhabitant, who clung so hard to the past? Were even they daring Blake to step away for just a bit, and brave the perils of the outside world?

He sighed. The sun was beginning to set in the cloudy sky, and he was tired. Managing the crops and undergoing halfhearted maintenance on the village gate hadn't been terribly exhausting, but he found he barely had the energy to do anything these days.

A few drops were audible against the shack's roof, snapping him out of his nostalgic trance. He muttered something foul to himself for moping, then exited the shack in a hurry. The incoming rain urged him to get home quickly.

Blake's house was nothing special, but he'd always been proud of its features. Two floors, a specific room for chests containing the many ores he and his friends had mined in the past, and how could he forget the wall-mounted map of the region they'd made together as kids? He always smiled when he saw that, and the various notes scribbled onto it. Places they'd been, places too dangerous to revisit, places as yet undiscovered- everything was marked in meticulous detail. It hadn't been updated in a long time, not since the villagers had started to leave.

As the rain began to come down harder outside, he wandered upstairs to his room and flopped onto his bed back-first. Staring at the ceiling from behind a few strands of unkempt brown hair, he could only wonder one thing to himself.

"What am I doing with my life?"

Was this really what he wanted? To forever linger in his hometown, alone and yearning for a simpler time that, deep down, he knew would never return? The final member of his circle of friends had left three years ago, and the last of the villagers moved away a year and a half after that. Blake had been by himself ever since, hoping futilely that one day, his friends would come back to him, and they could relive their old adventures. Reality had stared him in the face the whole time, but he'd always refused to accept the facts: nobody was coming. And with no idea where anyone had gone, it wasn't as if he could just track them down.

"I'm… hopeless, aren't I?"

He forced himself to sit up and reached into the chest beside his bed for a snack. Fresh carrots were never in short supply; he'd grown too many of them to keep up with over the last few months, mainly out of a lack of anything else to do.

"There's too many in here to just eat as they are… maybe I could make a stew out of them."

Blake began to dig through the chest, picking out carrots most suitable for such a task without having a clue what his actual criteria were. Like most other aspects of his life as of late, he went about it on autopilot.

It was then that his hand brushed against something at the very bottom which felt different: a loose wooden panel, inserted like a puzzle piece into the chest. He hadn't emptied it in such a long time that he'd never realized there was a potential secret compartment. With his attention finally diverted, he pushed aside all the carrots and pried up the panel to reveal a thin envelope.

"What's this…?"

He could feel his heart accelerate just a bit as he stared at his discovery. This was more excitement than he'd felt in a long time, minimal as it was. Blake picked up the envelope and set it on his bed for inspection.

The paper bore a few signs of minor weathering, but seemed otherwise normal. One side had been sealed in a thin layer of slime, while the other bore his name in vaguely familiar handwriting. Further intrigued, he tore it open and withdrew a letter.

"Blake,

I don't know if you'll ever find this, but I had to get my thoughts out one way or another. I'll be leaving the village in just a few days, and after that you'll be the only one of my old friends still living here. To be honest, I'm a little worried for you.

When Adam first left, things began to change for us. We started to hang out a bit less frequently as a group, and our mining trips never lasted as long. Then Mark went away, then Lauren. And every time someone left, it affected you the hardest.

You did your best not to let it show, but I could tell you were bothered by it. You'd always been the one to round us up for adventures, after all. Remember the treehouse we built in the birch woods? Or the mushroom biome we romped around in? Those were great times, and I'll never forget the fun we all had together.

But time goes on, and things change. One by one, we've had to move on with our lives. We're not kids anymore, you know? I think all of us came to accept that in some way, except for you. I know you're still really bothered by the change."

His eyes stung again, but he forced himself to keep reading.

"When I leave, you'll be the last of our old gang. I'm worried about how you'll handle it, but I know I can't talk to you about this in person. You'd just brush it off, and tell me I have nothing to be concerned about. But we've been friends our whole lives, and I like to think I know you better than that.

If you ever find this letter, take this message away from it: it's not healthy of you to dwell on the past so much, not when your whole future is just over the horizon, waiting to be found. I hope you'll one day accept that times have changed, and that our days of adventuring together are over. Look back on them fondly, by all means (I know I will), but don't let the memories stop you from seeking out a new adventure of your own. Go out, meet new people, and find your place in the world like we have. Whatever you find for yourself, I'm sure you'll bring all the enthusiasm to it that you did with us. Get out there and live your own life- you're going to do great.

Always your friend,

Alice"

He stared at that letter for a very long time, the sound of the hammering rain his only companion.

Blake wasn't sure when- or even if- he'd gone to sleep that night, but he later found himself rummaging around downstairs, assembling various goods for the road.

Maybe, in some suppressed part of his heart, he'd wanted to leave all along. He had told himself for years that he had to stay, in case someone found their way back. He told himself it was up to him to maintain the place he and his friends had grown up in; without them around, who else would?

It was only after reading the letter that the truth had finally crashed over him like a tsunami: his emotional low wasn't a recent occurrence; he'd been miserable for the last three years.

"I've got so much life ahead of me!" he ranted to himself as he bustled about the kitchen, looking through chests of preserved meats and crops, "I can't believe I wasted three years moping around!"

Blake didn't have the slightest idea what emotion dominated at the moment. Excitement? Annoyance? Impatience? Longing? Whatever it was, it drove him toward one objective:

Leave the village once and for all. Set out, and start fresh.

"Fresh…"

He paused, only then noticing how fast his heart was beating. That word echoed in his head a few times as he looked at the bag of supplies he'd put together: assorted foods, iron tools he'd made long ago and never used, and even a spotless diamond sword. It was one of his proudest creations, so much so that it too had gone unused ever since he crafted it five years prior. Yet looking at it now, he couldn't help but feel an inexplicable detachment from his old sentiment.

After another moment of deliberation, Blake put the sword back in its chest. And the tools. And the other assorted goods he'd attempted to cram into his bag. By the time he was done, the only things he had left were a compass, a small map of the region, enough preserved meat and carrots to last about a week, and a lightweight stone sword- just in case.

"That'll do."

Maybe he was just trying to leave faster than he could risk changing his mind, but he'd decided that all of his treasures and ores found in the past would be better served staying behind, for some other adventurer to one day come across. They were mementos of his time there, and he didn't want them to hinder his progress- he was overdue to leave the nest as it was. The only other item he would bring along on his fresh start was the letter from Alice, as a constant reminder of both his fond memories and the need to look forward in his life, not just backward.

With his supplies ready, he spared one last look at the home he'd built and stepped out into the abandoned village. Blake cast his eyes around twice, then he did an about-face and looked to the east. There was a hill past the town's borders that he and his friends used to climb together, spending hours just enjoying the view.

"Yeah… that's where I'll start."

A quick jog brought him to the top. The village was behind, and a long stretch of grassy plains lay ahead. Beyond that, a thick oak forest. Beyond that, an ocean. And beyond that, he wasn't sure- he'd never traveled overseas. What he was sure of was his purpose: it was time for a new start. Mine again, craft again, and find a place for himself in the vast world. Blake didn't know what lay ahead, if anything, but the thought of finding out for himself filled him with a sense of thrill he hadn't felt in years. The sun was rising in the east, encouraging him as he took his first steps to descend the hill, away from home.

His new adventure had officially begun.

Once more, thank you for reading. Feedback is always appreciated, be it positive or negative.