Friday

     Hi! Sorry that I haven’t been updating much, just been too busy. A lot of stuff has happened over the last few days. The ice cream stand made a new flavor! They say it’s called a netherite chunk. I tried it, and it was ok… but not as good as the diamond and gold twist.

     Right now; Steve, Sunny, and I are working on transporting the redstone base to the SH (Study Hall, if you don’t remember) yard.

     “Steve, you work on dispatching the armor dispenser. Sunny, you get working on dispatching the house and chest system. I will work on the maze.”

     “Ok!”

     “You got it, Zuri!”

     So, we got to work. (Just to let you know, it will take us a while, so I’ll update later.)

* * *

     Finally! We’re done. We put everything in a Locater’s Chest, (New thing crafted over the days!) and put in the code to send it to our chest at school. Pretty cool, right? Even better, we got three new students going to the school! Their names are: Lena, Aaron, and Neptune. Lena and Aaron are twins, and Neptune is this one cool kid who loves to build and craft. Lena and Aaron like to create music.

     Anyways, once we sent the stuff over; Steve, Sunny, and I went over to the ice cream stand.

     When we got there, we found Makena, Kai, and Alex there. I

waved at them, “Hi guys! How’s it going?” Makena answered, “Nothing much, we are just talking about the mining test.” Kai and Alex nodded. “Anyways, we were about to leave…” I stopped her, “No, it’s alright. I think the others would like company too.” I looked at my friends, “Right?” They both nodded. So we split up: Makena was with me, Kai was with Sunny, and obviously, Alex was with Steve. “So, how is the redstone obstacle course?” I asked Makena. “Nothing much, one of the circuits for the piston hole machine, but nothing that I can’t fix!” Makena replied.

    “Yeah, Sunny, Steve, and I finished making a redstone house! We sent the materials here to build it for the test.” I explained. Makena nodded, she reached her hand in her pocket and pulled out five potions. “Here’s some potions for you to research. It might help you with the quiz on Tuesday.” I was surprised. “Thanks!”

     There was a bell ringing, the speakers crackling to life. “Farming, brewing, and combat class is starting in thirty minutes.” Then it was gone. 

     I got really excited, combat has been delayed for a few days now, and now we can!

    I looked at my assignment sheet. This is what it looked like    

     So, I got brewing first, then combat next. The nice thing is, Makena is in the same classes. The reason why that’s nice, uhh… I'll tell you later.

     Anyways, I talked to her for a little bit longer until the second warning came, “Classes starting in 10 minutes! If you haven’t gone there yet, you should go now!” Makena and I looked at each other, then we ran to brewing.

     Tigress35 was there, tinkering with a cauldron. I saw Kai there already, pulling out her ingredients. I’ve realized that she probably comes on the first warning.

     I now also realize that Tigress35 moved all of our desks to different locations.

     Stevebrine, Lena, Efe, and Steve came through the door, Steve

and Stevebrine are heading towards me now. “H3y zUr1,” said Stevebrine. “Hi Stevebrine, hi Steve. Where y’all sitting?” I ask. I myself don’t know where mine is. Stevebrine closed his eyes, “My seat is over there.” He pointed to a desk. “Cool! Let’s see if we two are there too!” Steve said, and he ran to Stevebrine’s desk. Stevebrine and I looked at each other, and ran towards Steve.

     “Yup! Zuri, you're on the left side of Stevebrine, and I’m on the right side.” Steve said. I gave him a thumbs up, and walked over to my desk.

     As I sit down, I see that on the left of me, the desk is labeled Makena. Speaking of Makena, she just walked into the room with 40 bottles of water!! I mean, I know she comes from a family of potion brewers, but to bring a whole week's worth of bottles, that is just crazy man!

     I pulled out my ingredients and brewing stand, as Makena gave me 2 bottles of water. I looked up to see her moving around the room giving everyone 2 bottles of water. Every once and a while, I see her give me a glance.

     Anyways! The rest of the students came through the door. They are…

     That’s a lotta people I should say. Tigress35 is just about to start class, so I looked through my notes to see if I got the basics written down.

     I got the ingredients for an awkward potion, fire resistance potion, and healing potion. I think that is a good amount.

     I lean over to Stevebrine,

“You got anything written down?”

“Y3s, I g0T aN awKw4Rd PoT1on, L3aPinG p0tI0N, Sl0Wn35S P0t1oN, aND 5p3Ed Po710N.”

“Cool, I got the awkward potion, fire resistance potion, and healing potion”

     Stevebrine nodded, then he focused on his desk. I thought that was a good idea, so I got to work sorting out my ingredients in multiple groups.

     “Gooood Morning class! We are about to start class, so please

–If you haven’t– pull out your fermented spider eyes and blaze powder. The first thing you need to do is add the blaze powder to…”

                                     *  *  *    

     “...Now add that fermented spider eye, aaannndddddddd… there you go! A potion of weakness for your enemies. Don’t forget to add gunpowder to splash your enemies with weakness. That’s class, see you tomorrow!”

     Feet slamming into the ground was all you could hear in the classroom, and the screeching of chairs. Oh, and also the bell warning. I’m sorry if that is a lot for you, my point is, it was loud.

     I gave a copy of my notes to Tigress35, then ran towards the combat classroom.

     I heard someone running behind me. I look behind me, and I see Aaron. He soon caught up to me.

     “Hey, Zuri!”

     “Yeah?”

     “I was told that you, Steve, and Sunny are together in the redstone competition. I want to know if I can join you guys. I have this note block redstone idea for your build.”

     “Oh, uh, yeah that could work. I got to talk to the rest of my team to see if you’d be a good addition to the team.”

     “OK, cool! Cya later Zuri.”

     “Bye!”

     WOW! I thought it would be just Sunny and Steve who would be friends with me. I guess Aaron thought we could win, I thought. Yeah, I was surprised, (and shocked) that more people want to be friends with me and my team, let alone join it!

     Anyways, I continued running. The lockers blurred while I was running, my eyes fixed on the classroom door. 

     Combat. I have been really excited for this class. The teacher has been really busy lately, (still don’t know who it is yet) and now it is here.

     I barge through the door, and I see Lena, Ari, Steve (with an eager face), and Kai already there. The teacher wasn’t here yet, so we were just sitting there.

     I heard the door creak behind me, and I saw Emma, Jake, and the teacher come into the room. My jaw was gaping open when I saw who the teacher was. It. Was. General. Mustang.

     I look towards Steve, and see him on the ground, fainted.

                  Friday, 10:15 A.M.

     “Steve, wake up!” I said, shaking Steve to the max.

     “Huh? What happened?”

     “You fainted when General MasterMustang came into the room.”

     “Oh, oops.”

     I looked at General Mustang, “He’s alright, just surprised that’s all.” He nodded, turned to the crafting table and crafted a practice dummy. “If you want to be in the army, or even fight, you need to know how much health the mob your fighting has. This dummy, right now, has 100 HP. The reason why it’s 100 is when you practice on it, you can keep going tomorrow. Anyways, what you are going to be using to fight with this year is a wooden sword, because you may or may not have fought

before, so we don’t want you to get hurt. A wooden sword deals 2 hearts, also known as 4 HP. All students are having the opportunity to learn to fight this year if they want to be in the fighting guild next year.

     All of you, take partners and choose a practice dummy to whack the heck out.”

     Everyone started moving separately, probably to figure out who to pick. Then, people started grouping together two per group. Lena with Aaron, Ari with Efe, Steve with Stevebrine, Kai with Sunny, Jimmy with Timmy, Jake with John, Noor with Emma, and Hagrid with Karen. I saw Neptune and Makena left. Either there is going to be 1 group of three students, or the teacher is going to take one of us to practice.

     I see General Mustang coming towards us. He told us to ‘come here,’ so we did! 

     “Alright, I haven’t realized how many students there would be, so you all be in the same group. Alright?”

     “Yes sir!”

     “You got that, General.”

     “Understood.”

     MasterMustang smiled, “Alright then, you three will be in the same combat group for the rest of the school year. You should get to know each other more. That is all, please get to practicing.” And that was that. He walked away, leaving us in silence.

     “I guess we should start hacking away?” I laughed, Neptune has a sense of humor. “I think we shall!”

                          *  *  *

     WHACK!! WHACK!! WHACK!! Sorry, that was our swords beating the heck out of our practice dummy. Whack, Whack, and

Whack some more! 

     SNAP!! No, that is not the dummy, that was my sword. *Facepalm*. I know, I know, that was an idiotic move. I should have paid attention and gone to the anvil to merge a wooden plank with it to increase the durability.

     Aaanyways, I crafted a new sword and started hacking away again.

     TTTWWEEEEEEETTT!!!  A whistle called out. We turned where the sound came from, it came from MasterMustang. “Alright! Now you have taken one minute worth of whacking, we are going to talk about calling. A zombie may be pretty weak, but it can call reinforcements if it is injured, and sees defeat. Our scientists are still figuring out how this works, but you still have to be careful.

     Anyways, if the zombie is injured, it can call more. So fight with caution. That is all the time I have for you today, see you tomorrow.”

     Some students ran as fast as they could to the door, some walked. I walked, and so did Makena, Kai, Steve, Stevebrine, Aaron, and Hagrid.

     Once I got to the hallway, I ran through everyone else, (with Stevebrine ZOOMING past me, geez.), turning corners. Left! Left! Right! Dead straight! Left! Right! Right, and straight through the double doors.

     I got blasted by the smells of chicken, potatoes, and CAKE!!!

     I ran towards the lunch line. There were three people left before I could get some food… two people… one person. I took a chicken leg and wing, one baked potato, and a slice of the

vanilla sponge cake with white frosting, with an apple decorated as a creeper on top. 

     I walked over to the table where my friends were, the right middle table, and sat down in between Sunny and Alex.

     When I sat down, I started stuffing my face with chicken and potatoes. Right when the chicken hit my tongue, I was bombarded with tastes of slight spiciness, and roasted chicken covered with grease.

     While I was stuffing my face with chicken, I saw Sunny looking at me, immediately I swallowed.

     “What's up Sunny?”

     “I was wanting to know what we are going to do with the mining competition. Do you have a plan?”

     “I was thinking about the diagonal strip mine strategy.”

     “So, like, we split up, and just mine diagonally?”

     “Sorta, but in an orderly fashion.”

     “Alright, cool.”

     Then I saw Aaron looking at me. Why? Oh, right. To ask the team if he is fine joining. I nodded 12 times to show I’ll tell them at 12:00. He nodded back.

     Ding! Ding! 

     Oh! There’s the bell! I guess it’s time to do SH. See ya there!

                        12:00 (SH)

     “Just gotta place that dust there…”

     “Almost done, Zuri?”

     “Oh, yes! Just finished up.”

     “Alright then, now we just gotta cover it up with wool.”

     As you can see, Sunny and I were talking about the redstone contraption. After 15 minutes later, we completed covering up the redstone building, and Steve came up right after we placed the last block. I remembered Aaron's request.

     “So, you guys remember Aaron, right?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Why not?”

     “So yeah, he was wondering if we could allow him to join us for a bit to, I don’t know, help him with his grades.”

     “Yeah, sure!”

     “The more, the merrier.”

     “Alright, cool.”

     Wow, that was easier than I thought. I guess Aaron is with us now. Hmm, I guess we now have a musician on our team now. Heh, sounds fun!

     “So, do you agree Zuri?”

     “Hm?”

     “Do you think that Hagrid is going to make a redstone contraption by himself?”

     “WHAAT?! Why would he do that?”

     “Who knows, I just heard it from a couple of people during lunch. Anyhoo, what do we do now?”

     “Probably practice on my mining idea,” then something hit me, “OH! Steve, you remember saying that you are missing one more person on our team?”

     “Yeah?”

     “I was thinking, why don’t we have Aaron be that person?”

     “Oh. OH! Yeah, that is a great idea! Why don’t we ask him now?”

     “There’s no need,” said a voice behind us. We turn around, and we see Aaron looking at us, smiling. “I love that you guys invite me to your team, and that I get to join you on the mining test. I hear that you have a plan, Zuri?”

     “Oh, uh, yeah! I was thinking we should do an orderly fashion diagonal strip mine.”

     “Sounds good! Why don’t we do that now?”

     “Yeah, that is what we were thinking earlier too!”

     “Let's go then!”

                       1 Hour Later

     Chink! Chink! Whew! Just got finished making a long tunnel with Sunny to the left and Makena to the right. Chink! Chink! Pop! 

     …WHOA!! This is a huge cavern that I just uncovered! Oh, sorry, I just get very excited when I find a huge cavern, miner’s dream and everything.

     “Yikers! That’s a big space!” exclaimed Sunny, two blocks to my left. Makena takes a look. “You're right! That is a big cave,” she isn’t much of a miner person, as you can see. “What is going on?” called Steve, “OH WOW!! Should we cover this up for the test?” Now THAT got me thinking, “If we cover it up, others might find it later, but the city needs materials because of the war,” I thought aloud. “I think we should mine it all.”

     “Oh, ok!”

     “You got it, Zuri!”

     “Pretty smart, I need to acknowledge that.”

     “Alright.”

     While we were mining down in the mines, other stuff was happening above.

     KRA-KRA BOOM!!! As one of the watchtowers blew to smithereens, a giant zombie bent to the ground, scooped up a few creepers, and threw them at random. Boom! Boom! BOOM!! More creepers rained from the sky.

     “CHARGEEE!!!!” screamed General Mustang, “You three! Go and quench the fires! The rest of you, get out your bows and fire at my command!”

     “FIREE!!!” Twang! Twang! Twang! A volley of arrows rained

down on the Giant, but it showed no response, it just angered it more. BUURRR!! More creepers flying, more yelling, and of course, more explosions.

     “Retreat!!” bellowed MasterMustang, “Retreat!!!”

     “No! We can’t!”

     “I’m sorry, Jason is it? We’ve lost three troops already, we have to.”

     “Sir! We’re surrounded!”

     Captain Mustang looked up, and was met with the sight of a circle of zombies, slowly closing in. You might be thinking “Well they’re just zombies,” but they were decked with leather armor, and iron swords.

     It seemed as if all hopes were lost. Thud!  A zombie tripped and left an opening in the circle. MasterMustang noticed this,

“Head to the opening! Make it wider if you can!” Thud! Thud!  Two more zombies fell. The zombies started to close in even faster. “Go Go GO! Tanks, get behind us! Archers, fire from the middle! Everyone else, GET OUTTA HERE!!” The army started to get in formation. Once they were, they sped to the hole in the zombies.

     Shreee… Mustang looked up to see a creeper flying straight towards him. Thunk! Mustang had looked away, ready for the worst, but it never happened. He looked up, and saw an iron golem, an iron golem holding a creeper! SSSSS!!  The creeper puffed out, the iron golem threw the creeper back up at the Giant. BOOOM!! ROOAAR!!! The creeper exploded right onto the Giant, and it seemed like it burned, a lot.

     Doom! Doom! The Giant walked over towards the iron golem, it leaned down to pick it up, but the iron golem biffed it right in

the face! That just angered it even more, it picked the golem up, and squeezed. POP!  The iron golem’s head flew off its shoulders, and into the Giant’s mouth.

     The Giant leaned down to pick up a group of soldiers, but a greenish-blue laser hit the Giant right in the shoulder. RAGHH! It looked around trying to find where the laser came from. Zzt!  Another laser came from behind the giant zombie, it turned. Zzt!  Laser from above, and finally, the user came into view.

     “Look!”

     “No way!”

     The owner of the lasers was PixelLaxer! Not just that, but he was glowing yellow! His core was gone, and his eye was purple and yellow. “This is over!” His arm started vibrating, crackling

with electricity. The Giant flew a punch at him, but then, it retracted. RAGGHHH!!! It’s arm was gone, dissolved into ash. It tried to run away, but a large laser of electricity smothered it all to ash.

     PixelLaxer landed softly on the ground, all the other mobs, cowering in fear, fell to the ground. “Go.” PixelLaxer’s voice was soft, but the mobs ran away, slowly, but they tried as hard as they could.

     He looked around. “Quench the fires, and—ACK!” PixelLaxer fell to the ground, one knee down, clutching his head. “AAAHHHHH!!” PixelLaxer screamed, shaking his head hard. “LAXER!” yelled Mustang. “R-run…” whispered PixelLaxer, “RUN!! AAHHH!!”

Saturday

     “Yawn!  Good morning, Golden.” I went over to his bowl and poured him some Crunchy Puffies. Meow! He rubbed his head on my leg, then started smothering the food.

     I went downstairs over to the kitchen. Once I got there, I poured my favorite cereal, Creeper Mallows.

     Mmmm, it’s always good. Anyhoo, because it’s the weekend, so that means there is no school today! I get to spend time with my team for the mining test! Oh, if you’re wondering how much material we got yesterday, we got…

     So yeah, we got a lot of stuff. I thought all of this while I was eating, then I heard a knock on the door. “Who is it?” I call, another knock. I walked over, opened the door, and got blasted in the face with confetti.

     “Surprise!”

     “Wha-what?”

     Sunny walked over, “It’s your birthday!” I was shocked, how it came so fast. As my mom came over, I was literally vibrating so hard, you could hear it. You heard me, HEAR it!

     “So, what do you want to do first? Cake, games, or presents?”

     “Um, uhhh…”

     “Sorry we surprised you, it’s kinda the point of a surprise party.”

     “Can we, uh, do games first?”

     “Glad you said that! We got some pretty good games set up for you!”

     So we went downstairs, and what I saw struck me. Tons of games everywhere! “So, what do you want to play first? We got Basketcube, Hockey, Board games, etc.” I looked around. Sure enough, there was an entire rink of ice, a Basketcube court, and plenty of tables. “Are we going to have a lot of people or what?” My mom smiled, of course she smiled, all I know she probably invited all my frie— “We got all of your friends from school to come over! We have enough room for everyone, we even have a few teachers coming.” …Ok then, I guess she really is bringing

everyone I know from school. Here we go.

10 Minutes Later

     Ring! Ring! Looks like everyone is here, I guess it’s time to start the party. Wish me luck!

     I went upstairs, embraced for contact, and opened the door. Everyone was out there, from students to teachers there were…

     I opened the door fully and welcomed everyone in. I also told them to go ahead and go downstairs. The only ones that stayed upstairs were the teachers, PixelLaxer, Tigress, and MasterMustang.

     “Why don’t you go downstairs, Zuri.”

     “Oh, ok. Why?”

     “We got some things to talk about before we party, so go ahead. Be with your friends.”

     Well that’s strange. I wanted to stay and listen, but if your teacher tells you to do something, you better do it.

      So I walked downstairs and partied with my friends. Some were playing Basketcube, some playing Hockey, and the last few with the board games. I went over to play Hockey, because I

secretly have been practicing Hockey at school with MasterMustang.

     While I was playing Hockey downstairs, the teachers were talking.

     “How are we going to keep the crystal safe?”

     “I have a plan, don’t worry.”

     PixelLaxer rolled out a plans sheet. He pointed at one spot. “We’re going to give it to Zuri over there. I can put a note on how to use it on his new pet.” General Mustang nodded, “We should put it in our history class. We are desperate to win this war.”

     They went upstairs to put it in the hiding place. “I’ll put it under here so no one but Zuri can find it, trust me.”

     “Score!!” Boom! Slamming the puck into the goal just won the game! Whew, the game was pretty tense not gonna lie, but still got it in the end.

     “Hey, Mom? Can we do cake next?”

     “Sure! I’ll just wrap this up real quick.”

     My mom stacked up two blocks, “Hey everyone! We are going to eat cake now, so finish things up and come to that corner over there,” she pointed at the top left corner. “Thank you!”

     Once I got to the corner, everyone was there waiting for me at the table. I sat down at the last seat available, in between Makena and Noor. My mom came out and put a gigantic cake with a 13 candle on top right in front of me. It was literally so big that I had to stand up on my chair to blow it out.

     After I blew the candle, my mom cut the cake evenly for