Minecraft - Fatherhood

[Mangrale]

Greetings and thanks to anyone curious enough to happen by this short and very true story. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me say that I'm fairly certain that neither Minecraft nor the mods involved count as the sort of heavily copyrighted materials that will get me banned or this story thread taken down. But if I'm wrong, then at least I tried to tell a story.

It is also important to note that as much as you and I would love this thread to be in the usual narrative format allowing for full immersion, I've decided to retell events normally as I would to someone familiar with Minecraft. The primary reason for this is to better express my own amazement at one particular event that happened during
my time playing in a modded Minecraft world. There is a very fair chance that this anecdote is a lot less interesting than I think it is or maybe I just can't do it justice. In any case, I'll try to give you (the reader) the details at a mostly frequent rate.

 

[Mangrale]

For a start, I believe it is important to explain the particular function of the game modification (or mod) that made the "incident" (as I will from now on refer to it as) possible. This rather well known mod, named Minecraft Comes Alive, actually replaces the usual big-nosed villagers found in normal Minecraft with human-like NPCs with their own professions, personality types, moods and so on. These additions are meant to allow for greater interactivity with villagers even to the point of marriage and family building.

Having gotten tired of my usual play style of wandering around the wilderness for a town only to eventually marry the one girl in town who doesn't hate my guts, I got to wondering, "Maybe there's another way to start a family." Ultimately, I decided upon the idea of adoption by the means given to me by the mod itself. You see, the professions that modded villagers can have are based on the "jobs" that the unmodded weirdos of regular Minecraft can have (miners, blacksmiths, librarians etc.) However, unlike their grunting, vanilla counterparts, MCA villagers have job specific abilities. They're all interesting, but the skills I required belonged to the priest / priestess NPC variant. They are capable of giving the player a free, randomly generated, human baby at any given time. It's simply the best option available to the aspiring single parent. All I would need to do after starting the world would be to go into creative, spawn a priest, and adopt away. Instant family. I gotta say, the whole idea sounded a lot less sad back in the day. In a way, it was cheating. But the results, in my opinion, more than made up for it.

Advertisements aside, it's high time I get on with the story, the odd series of events leading up to the "incident".

 

[Mangrale]

When I generated the world, I spawned on one of two small islands that looked like two halves of a single island now separated by water. The island I was on, was positioned closely between the other half island and the mainland which was a sight all its own (I surely hope I typed that correctly). Thanks to a particular mod that included a variety of additional biomes, my tiny island was dwarfed by towering alpine mountains covered by a thin layer of snow at it's peak. It would've been quite the awesome sight if it wasn't for the gigantic, disconnected mountaintop floating above a mostly leveled part of the mountain. Whenever I got near the shaded area under the stone mass I would just see gaggles of hostile monsters loitering around in its warm darkness, only raising their sinister fingers to chase me away from their shaded sanctuary.

Although I hadn't even started my previously mentioned plan, I was far from alone on that small dirt pile. And I'm not talking about farm animals.

 

[Mangrale]

So caught up was I with the alps, I completely failed to mention that just as I arrived into the world, a watchtower spawned alongside me on my island. This structure was made possible through another mod named Millenaire. A full breakdown of everything this mod has to offer can be found wherever quality mods are available. This wooden tower was made up of two sections. There was the tall, ground floor where a special NPC tradesman called Iassonas Monachos would sleep on the ground beside his few double wooden chests. He had greying brown hair and silver armor and seriously did nothing besides offer to buy bread and wine from me. The top of the watchtower was where I took up residence. Gathering what materials I could, I outfitted that small space with all the necessities I could manage: bed, workbench and a couple of furnaces.

I always enjoy times like these in Minecraft - living in the cramped, upper floor of a building with a clear view of the outside. It reminds me of the first time I ever played. The first thing I ever wanted to do was find a village and live there. Once I had found one I had to choose a place to sleep the nights away. Every room of every building had at least one villager living there, except one - the second floor of the church. I used to love waking up in that cobble-covered room every morning. Claustrophobic though it seemed, I needed only to gaze through one of its windows to see the sun and the endless world outside. The room soon became a symbol to me - the notion of humble beginnings with the promise of new experiences and adventures waiting for me. So much promise...

And yet it was not long after I had settled in my first home that I was forced to learn, the hard way, why nobody lives in a village in hard mode...

But that was in the past and in another world. Things were going to be different this time around. But by how much? I had no idea even then.

 

[Mangrale]

( Non-Story Related Element )
I'm violently sorry over the few and far between nature of my updates to this story as well as how it's taking me forever to get to the whole parenthood bit. I'll try and get on with it in the next update or two I swear! (Dang it! )

 

[Mangrale]

I had foraged, explored, and settled the first day away. The rising sun of the next day brought with it the chance to put my plan into action.

I set my gamemode to creative, got a male villager spawn egg and a creative-only villager editing tool. The end result was a youthful, light-blue eyed, brown haired priest wearing blue and white robes who I named Fausto for no particular reason.

The appearance of a given MCA villager is not completely customizable but rather a randomly determined preset, one out of a few possibilities, dependent on their gender and occupation. So if you have the mod and want to see exactly what he looks like, you are very much able to, provided that my basic description is good enough.

Without letting another minute pass, I went to Fausto. By choosing his adoption option, I was handed a small baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket. I don't remember exactly what he said when he gave her to me, but the one thing that stood out to me was the child's name - Amnesty. Keep in mind that in MCA, babies obtained outside of the irrevocable shackles of holy matrimony cannot be named by the player. Sure I could have renamed her later with the villager editing tool. But for whatever reason, I never got around to it.

It would be a few in-game days until she could walk and explore on her own, so I carried little Amnesty in my inventory as I went about my business around the island. I started a small wheat farm directly outside the tower. Whatever we didn't eat, I would sell to Iassonas for a limited sum. After that, I prepared a stone chicken pen and a stone bridge connecting my island to a cave located at the base of the alpine mountains on the mainland. The cave descended lower than sea level and looked a bit like a short, thin ravine. After finding a dungeon near the same level I entered the cave, I made ladders to lead me to the bottom where I would mine for ores from time to time.

 

[Mangrale]

Toiling away at my chores gave me time to daydream about the world I spawned and the situation I found myself in.

I dreamt that Fausto and I had escaped a village doomed to destruction by the undead denizens of darkness. Even though we were strangers, we worked together and miraculously managed to save a single infant from a grizzly brain-munching. We traveled far in search of a safe place to live and raise Amnesty - this watchtower was meant as just the latest in a series of rest stops. But because of my Minecraft instincts kicking in, our stay was prolonged for the foreseeable future. Where would we even find a safe place to live anyway? The answer was allusive and threatened to stay that way for the rest of our lives.

On the other hand, there were two villages floating stationary high above the island (sorry I didn't mention them earlier). They spawned courtesy of a mod dealing in new structures generated randomly throughout the world - it was called the Ruins mod or something like that. Anyway, when I first came to the world, the shadows caused by these sky residences were hard to ignore, yet their originators seemed equally hard to reach. That was the impression I had of them until I noticed that one of the villages appeared to intersect with one of the taller alpine mountains near its peak. I climbed that mountain, tip-toeing passed the shaded sanctuary and pickaxing whenever necessary, until I reached the village.

Interestingly enough, although the sky village was made with vanilla NPCs in mind, it functioned almost just as well with MCA entities. Their sky village (and the other sky village for that matter) was basically a series of one-block thick platforms constructed out of end stone bridged together by yet more end stone. Each platform either carried a rudimentary, single-floored, end stone house or another structure like an animal pen or farm.

To be continued...

 

[Mangrale]

...Right now.

My new impression of these sky villages was better than it was before, but still mixed. They had no shortage of happy, smiling people, nor resources (food and treasure chests) to exploit. However, I really couldn't envision the three of us living this high above the clouds mostly because of the villages' insane lack of proper safety regulation. There were seriously no fences, nor railings, nor anything remotely discouraging a potential free fall and ground sanctioned face lift (chances were equally good that one would land in water, but you get my point). I mean at one point I even saw an iron golem stranded on a small patch of land under the very sky village I visited for Notch sakes! Sure I could have enhanced the the whole thing, improving it in every aspect including safety. But I had doubts in my ability to continually make it there unscathed not to mention I only had so many materials. But there was another reason why I decided not to settle there.

These villages in the sky, floating comfortably high above the danger and despair of the surface world, felt much heavier than their airborne nature suggested. How many sky villagers were out there, enjoying precarious luxury, while the less fortunate like us crouch in fear at the approach of night? Would I want Amnesty to grow up in a place where people would rather hide away, disconnect themselves from their fellow man, than lend aid to the forsaken earthbound? High above it all, the view would be magnificent. But it would only be of a world lost to us. A world in which all civilizations cower and eventually fall against the grip of darkness. It would kill the mood to be sure. I wanted my daughter to be safe, and up here she would be. But at what cost? Maybe safety wasn't the only thing I wanted her to have. Besides, I didn't want our salvation to come to us this easily. Whether because of boredom or pride, I wanted to earn that sanctuary for her.

Was I over thinking this? Of course I was. But at the time, it sounded a lot better and more romantic than "I just don't feel like putting forth effort to settle in a village so close to my spawn."

I just hoped my stubborn resolution didn't cost us everything.

 

[Mangrale]

And so the time eventually came for our little girl to stand on her own two feet for a change.

After a certain amount of time, the game notifies the player as to when their baby is ready to grow into a kid and even when that kid matures into an adult. There may have been other age-related notifications. I'm not too sure.

But the message telling me Amnesty was ready for childhood was not lost on me. I ran to the tower, daughter in hand, and once I arrived, spawned her on the first floor under the watchful eyes of Iassonas. That's one more mouth to feed, one less bread he'd be getting from me daily. Now, more than ever before, we truly looked like a family. And Fausto was probably there too or whatever, marveling at the miracle of life (and how it ages or something - typical priestly Fausto). The important thing was that our baby girl had just taken her first steps upon the unforgiving and horrific, yet all around terrific deathtrap I call the world.

Our former bundle of joy, who was now about half my size, greeted the three of us with a pair of big, sparkling blue eyes. She had a light skin tone and scarlet red hair with a black and orange striped ribbon on her head. Her clothing was more on the rustic side and comprised of an orange pair of pants along with a white top and green vest. Just as with Fausto's appearance, if in any way you're not completely satisfied with my description, only the mod itself can help you now. I got nothing. I'm a father, not a writer. Wait, scratch that. Reverse it.

By far the most fascinating thing about Amnesty that struck me was her personality trait (remember the whole "each MCA entity has their own personality type" thing). Well hers was the irritable trait. That generally meant that she would become frustrated, angry and so on more easily and frequently. Initially, that didn't sound all that ideal, but in a way it kinda made sense. I soon attributed her short temper to a number of clear factors:
-she lost and never knew her real parents
-she currently has no mother
-I am her father (Ha Ha)
-she lives in freakish poverty on the edge of a vast land that harbors a great darkness hellbent on extinguishing the hope and innocence she represents (She might be bothered by that. I mean I know I would be. Children are aware of this kind of thing, right?)
-her wooden stump of a home is technically located in the "sewers" of the highly advanced and privileged societies living high above her
-she hates the vegetables I sometimes give her

Funnily enough, even though she was adopted, the things Amnesty would say were derived from the same batch of possible quotes a normal MCA child would say. A normal, unadopted MCA child with both parents still alive. So from time to time, she would make mention of her "mother", like how my scavenging trips would make "mommy sad" or something like that. At first I played with the idea of my precious little angel being nuts. But later it occurred to me, "If I'm her dad, and she knows it, then the only other person who's even remotely like a parent would be ... Fausto." I mean she's never really seen another girl before, let alone an older woman. She might have also confused Fausto's flowing vestments with a dress. And I had to admit, he did spend more time with her, what with me working most of the day and still sleeping atop the watchtower while both of them slept downstairs with Iassonas. I should have moved my bed downstairs. Perhaps then, Amnesty wouldn't have seen her "father" as so elusive.

Oh hindsight...

 

[Mangrale]

But later on, whenever I did manage to spend some quality time with her, I found out that Amnesty's eyes were, and perhaps always had been, full of promise.

Not even the the harshness of the wilderness could crush her young spirit. I would often try and giver her chores to do, whether it was farming our modest wheat fields or chopping the nearby trees. Even I saw she had no future in such things. No, what Amnesty wanted to be most of all was an adventurer. As long as she had new, fresh ground under her feet, a trusty sword in one hand, a sturdy pickaxe in the other, and an endless horizon stretching before her, nothing could stand in her way. What I saw as a terrifying land, doomed humanity, atrocity-spawning netherworld, and the uncertain conclusion that taunts all life, she saw as adventures waiting to happen. All of her dreams - all the treasures, all the monsters, all humanity, the entire world - were out there waiting for her as they once waited for me.

This I came to realize as little Amnesty kept on bugging me to take her along with me on my scavenging trips either to go hunting or to just explore. I tried to indulge her when I could, but it was not always possible. One time she even wanted to find a jungle just so she could see an ocelot for the first time (I never told her about either of them. I wagered one of the other two told her.) In all honesty, it looked as though Amnesty was born to discover all the wonders of the world. It was only a matter of time.

So, all things considered, I'd say she turned out all right for someone raised by three fathers living in the wilds (or maybe I should say two fathers and a mildly greedy uncle). The frontier is no place to raise a child is what I'm trying to say. But it looked as though, even with her brash nature, my young daughter still wanted to spend time with me, even after that one accident when she went mining with me and she got overly excited and ran in front of me, causing me to accidentally pickaxe her in the face. Yes, she could have turned out a lot worse.

"Just a little while longer", I thought, "and soon we could leave this place behind and the three of us can finally find a new home. A sanctuary where Amnesty can truly find peace on the world she so loves." That hope seemed like such a certainty at the time. I mean, if she survived living with me for this long, how bad could the rest of the world be? ...

As it turned out, the answer arrived when I least expected it. And it meant that my (Minecraft) life, as it was then, had come to an end...

 

[Mangrale]

One day, Amnesty and I were spelunking through a few of the long and vast caverns we had found days earlier under my ravine cave. Back then, I made sure she never left the tower without an iron sword and a full set of iron armor even when I had nothing but a sword and bow. By this time, of course, I was almost as well equipped (whenever her armor's durability was running low, I switched them with mine). When I saw a deposit of ores, on the walls or ceiling, I'd take out my pickaxe (stone or iron depending on the ore) and get to work, confident that she would furiously watch my back until I finished. Zombies or skeletons. It didn't matter. None of them could withstand a sword barrage from Amnesty. These may have been the times she was the the happiest. She must have always wanted to fight beside her old man. But since the undead reassigned him to permanent daisy-pushing duty, I'm glad she settled for me. We were quite the team. But then it showed up.

A creeper broke away from the shadows mere blocks away. Then suddenly, before Amnesty had a chance to react,... I shot and stabbed the foul, four-legged freak into a princely pile of gunpowder, thus handling the problem once and for all (What did you expect?). It actually wasn't the first creeper we encountered that day. But it was still a close call that I was in no mood to repeat. The two of us were already carrying a ton of resources as it was. So I decided it was time to head home for some sleep. I noticed, as we emerged from the tunnels into the ravine cave, that we had mined throughout the night and the sun was just starting to rise. I thought nothing of it and we crossed the cobblestone bridge on our way to the island.

The watchtower was a welcome sight despite its back being the first thing we see each time we return. I planned out how we'd tackle this new day as I went around the tower for the front door.

The door to the tower was on the wooden flooring. I picked it up. "That's peculiar. I simply must bring this up with Fausto."

Except Fausto was nowhere to be seen. And I knew he was not coming back.

All that was left in that room were the wooden chests and Iassonas, still offering to buy my bread and wine off me. "Good old Iassonas!" I joked, "Not even the zombies want him."

The sunrise was still casting the sky in orange as I stepped outside, unsure of what to do next. If only I had spent more time with him. Then his death would've had more meaning beyond a simple warning. I'm unsure what my exact reasons (if any) were at the time, but I was overwhelmed with the rather sudden determination to take Amnesty far away from this place and never return. Never look back. My plans had been forgotten. The rest of that day was spent cooking and gathering everything available for the final exodus from the island. At the dawning of a new day, Amnesty and I were set to cross the cobblestone bridge, climb and trek past the alpine mountains and journey further inland. What did I expect we'd find deep in the mainland? I didn't know. Anything would be better than this place.

Of how Amnesty, who I believe at this point was about as tall as I was, reacted to Fausto's untimely death, I'm uncertain. I was far too busy making preparations for our departure to give her the attention she no doubt needed. Did she hate Fausto for leaving her? Or did she hate me for letting him leave? At any rate, it was safe to assume that whatever bond I did have with her was likely damaged by this happening. I'd have been haunted by own ineptitude causing history to repeat itself and the possibility of my daughter resenting me for the rest of my life had I not been so worried about her future. It would've been preferable if Amnesty was still the naive little child she used to be. Then, I could've told her that Fausto "took a trip somewhere" and she wouldn't realize what that meant until far into the future. I'd hopefully be long dead by then - safely under six feet of dirt where she can't strangle me. Can't hurt a dead man.

"I'm scared of Amnesty" is the point I'm trying to get across here.

It was the night before we abandoned Iassonas' tower and I couldn't sleep. That was primarily because my bed, as well as the rest of our stuff (food, tools, blocks, etc.), were distributed between mine and Amnesty's inventories. Also, it would be her last night there and all. Might as well have her spend it with someone she loved. And I thought it best to have been there myself too. If zombies did attack that night, I've since forgotten. I just remember waiting until morning came. When it finally did, we said goodbye to Iassonas. Well at least Amnesty did. I really couldn't be bothered to.

One last wheat harvest. One last chicken pen raid. The sun rising above the ocean, my daughter and I made our way to the mountains, determined to leave our home but perhaps for different reasons. This was her first, real chance to see the world. I was on the lookout for a new home where she would be safe from the world. (Perhaps some kind of tall tower!) Anyway, the strain in our relationship really showed itself whenever I tried to talk with her on those mountains and in the modded, tall-tree forest at its lowlands. I knew she'd be frustrated per her personality. But it just felt like above all else, she was angry with me. That suited me just fine however. Because at that moment in time, I didn't want her love. I wanted her safe. If the world was waiting for Amnesty all this time, then it could've stood to wait a little longer. At least until the day in which I wouldn't have a say in the matter anymore. Maybe, on that day, she would see that everything I had done, I had done for her.

Only then would I know peace.

 

[Mangrale]

Now we all knew the day would come when this story would reach its end. Well when I say "we" I mean me from the very beginning. Oh and that time is near, by the way. And just when it was getting interesting too.

Let me see if I can adequately explicate what I'm getting at over here. You see, the story up until now, all of it, was meant as the background for a single event - the "incident". This event is the primary reason for the telling of this story. In a way, everything else is just filler so this thread wouldn't be just one post long. I purposely didn't mention the "incident" again after the second post in a feeble attempt to throw you (the reader) off the trail. But even I know I can't stall forever.

But first, how about a little more story?

It had been a few days since Amnesty and I continued what Fausto and I started a long time ago. The circumstances of our departure from the half island plagued my memory and taunted me with various uncertainties. Was there something I could have done differently so as to save Fausto? Will my precious daughter ever stop hating my guts? Should I have killed more chickens, making sure that Iassonas was left with nothing, like that selfish so and so deserved. And we could have used the food out in the wilderness, yada yada. Otherwise, I'd say that the two of us were doing quite well for a couple of homeless wanderers. By day I'd take Amnesty further through the modded forest. As night would come, we'd camp at any nearby shelter or potential shelter. I was quite partial to shallow caves because at least in caves you know exactly where monsters could come from. Upon reaching the other side of a short, near-surface cave system, I noticed what would later turn out to be a small MCA village located on the edge of a distant landmass. Salvation was just a long swim away.

Unfortunately, that long swim was not an option for us. As I found out during my time touring the old island with Amnesty, she (like every other MCA entity for some reason) was unable to swim any body of water. She could've followed me anywhere as long as there wasn't any body of water involved. A child raised on a tiny island who never learned how to swim? Way to go Fausto! (I kid Fausto) Still, I really did not feel like making a bridge that extensive. I wasn't made of cobble. With Amnesty pouting away behind me, I sought a detour along the edge of the forest. I saw that just passed the forest, deeper inland, the mainland seemed to extend toward that landmass. It was our best shot at making it to the village. And then...

Hey! How about another stall for old time's sake?

 

[Mangrale]

And now, finally, the aforementioned "incident" as promised...

The route I chose out of the forest wasn't the smoothest. All the gaps, potholes, hills and trees made travel along the shoreline slow going, not because I was having difficulty crossing them, but because I continually had to look back to make sure Amnesty was keeping up with me. I imagined she was getting more and more frustrated the further we went. If this had been a few years ago(relatively speaking of course), she would have jumped at the chance to go on another adventure with me, no matter how treacherous. But my little girl was growing up and further apart from me. It felt a little like the natural (and kinda stereotypical) thing that could happen between a father and daughter over time. Only in our case, it sorta made sense because she was a free spirit, eager to see the world on her own because I, having repeatedly experienced the dark side of life, had become overprotective and a little overbearing. Plus all the hardships probably didn't help things neither (so you see - it's different).

In any case, I didn't want Amnesty to think I wasn't there for her. So, after a particularly challenging section of forest edge, I turned to her, intent on expressing my congratulations by way of the ancient art of high-fiving. Just to clarify: yes, there is indeed an option to high-five certain MCA NPCs who the player has a high friendship level with. After I chose to high-five Amnesty, she said (either exactly of something very similar to) "Jeez! Don't we ever just talk anymore!?" It sort of caught me off guard, but it was understandable enough. In response, and as a way of appeasing her, I then picked the "talk" option thinking "Oh, okay then. Sorry. What do you want to talk about?" To this she exclaimed,"Oh my God! Leave me alone!" And I just lost it! (in the good, hysterical way). I just couldn't stop laughing - and I mean in real life. "Oh man!" I remember thinking in my hysteria,"That's fatherhood to a 'T'!" It definitely helped that I imagined she said it the way an angsty, teenage girl would. In character, that should have made me angry and whatever, but it didn't. It couldn't. This "incident", this outburst of hers, alone, made this entire playthrough worth it.

No, really. This is what the story was leading up to. Seriously. It's over. Finished. Done and dusted. Stick a fork in it.

What? The village? Amnesty's future? Oh yeah, right. Fine.

But I warn you. Don't expect that ending to be any better or more fulfilling than this one.

 

[Mangrale]

In truth… we never made it to that village…

Once free of the forest, we were met with a kind of modded, semi-arid badlands. The sun had largely baked the ground into orangish dirt blocks. Trees, acacia I believe, were unsurprisingly scarce, more so than the patches of normal grass, but perhaps on par with instances of quicksand, annoyingly, which was a shade darker than regular sand, though it could take a second or two to make the distinction (a second too late in some instances).

It wasn’t long before it came into view, something that would very much change our fate…

… It was a second village, situated on and around an elevated hill. The primary gravel pathway, which the buildings were mostly built along, followed a simple rectangular layout. From the point of view in which where we entered was the lower left corner, a delightfully surprised Amnesty and I passed by a few underused farm plots on our way up to the lowest level of the settlement proper.

Geographically, the township lended itself to being traversed clockwise, as a jagged 7 to 10 high rock face at our immediate right separated us from the upper level. There was a crop plot at its foot, one that would not only see my rise up the social ranks through the gratuitous raising of ever popular watermelons, but also one over which I’d eventually fashion a rudimentary ramp that would conveniently bridge the two sections of the village together.

Granted, the lower and upper levels did meet near the other end of the settlement. However I was spurred in favor of my ramp solution both because I had built mine and Amnesty’s first house in front of it, eager to take full advantage and because, until then, it was immediately apparent that, shear drop off notwithstanding, it was the village spanning custom for pedestrians to jump off from the cliff to get down while, at the same time, others would crowd against the same cliff in their fruitless attempts at getting back up. Regrettably, my efforts were only somewhat successful at remedying the situation, with at best half of potential jumpers/loiterers taking my safer route.

Our new neighbors were pleasant enough, from what little time I spent actually interacting with them beyond positive conditioning and delicious bribery. This was in contrast with Amnesty who, at the first signs of morning, the start of the sun’s routine climb and the blunt forced slams and cracks of opened doors and daily commuter legs, would swiftly depart from our admittedly modest house after a just as brief greeting. I believed it for the best that she get acquainted with the local people of this village in the middle of nowhere, which I took the liberty of naming Napaca, if only because of its consonants. I, on the other hand, was much too busy improving the village’s overall infrastructure on top of the usual chores of farming, ranching and mining.

It was tiring work, the kind that ate away at my personal allowance of daylight. At the sun’s descent, I’d immediately rush to the house to sleep, lest otherworldly creatures, modded and unmodded, spawn in and destroy what I had fought so long to find. There was only ever one solution I could come up with to permanently protect any town: a stone wall. With at least 2 block high defenses at the perimeter and plenty of light sources, the village would be practically immune to attack, which I prefered considering how I put little to no faith in MCA guards ever since, during another lifetime, I found them pathing into a nearby well from which there was no escape since they refused to follow me out of it. It was terrible at the time, but in hindsight, I’m inclined to think it was for the better.

Before the wall could be completed, however, I believed I owed my daughter something that I’d been putting off for a while. She was just about fully grown and I could tell that she was looking forward to having a house of her own. Though all things considered, I may be putting the matter in overly civil terms.

I couldn’t blame Amnesty for acting the way she did towards me. How could I? In every way that mattered, she was my daughter. It didn’t even matter if she thought of me as her father or not. I had already come this far because of her. And I was more than willing to save the world for her. But in the end, simply assuring her safety wasn’t enough anymore. I needed her to be happy also.

I built her house on the hillside. Embedded into the rock mass, her abode featured stone brick stairs leading up to her own wood porch and twin doors opening to her personal, spacious, well furnished living quarters. I hadn’t intended to stray from the default houses’ one room motif. But I did provide Amnesty with a bed, a table set and a bit of room left over.

It was the beginning of the rest of her life. That is what it must have felt like for my girl anyway. Nevertheless, I couldn’t rest easy until my wall was complete, which became true in a literal sense near the end of its construction, as I tended to linger passed my self imposed curfew.

When a creeper eventually decided to take advantage of my lack of concentration… I only had myself to blame…

I survived the explosion, my iron armor just able to prevent the crater I found myself in from being an open grave. But I was pretty much dead already. With an inordinate number of zombies on approach and skeletons shooting me as I endeavored to climb out of the hole, escape was very much impossible. What could I do except fight until the inevitable happened? At the enthusiastic trampling on the part of a rotting dead horse, I was sentenced to the Minecraft death screen.

I could only imagine the battle that then ensued: the forces of darkness easily slipping past the unfinished wall to meet the guards of Napaca alongside my daughter, who was always arrayed in iron level gear.

I was playing in Hardcore mode.

I knew very well that I couldn’t watch over Amnesty forever. That was why I needed to find Napaca, to ensure the things I couldn’t give her.

Some days, I wonder what became of her and the village. Did she survive? Did Napaca survive? If she lived, what would she do now, in a world without me? Would she stay and rebuild? Or would she leave this place and find happiness elsewhere? Or perhaps, it would soon be time for her to save the world…

No matter the case, the world I left behind is one of the best I’ve experienced just by virtue of Amnesty being a part of it.

Not bad for someone who wasn’t her real dad…

My precious Amnesty. May we meet again…