Welcome back everybody, to the Minecraft Short Stories podcast.
In this episode, which is episode 72, I'll be telling the
next installment of The Player is Not Alone.
This is the third part and if you have not listened to the
first two parts, you of course need to go listen to those.
I will have a summary right before the story begins.
I cannot guarantee the summary will be any good because I don't
write out the summaries, I just summarize them on the spot.
Anyway, if you want to learn more about the story, I just
finished recording the Micro Short Stories prologue episode
about part three. I've already made them for part
one and Part 2 of the story. So you can find that on the
Patreon and that's inside the link, inside the description.
Or if the link inside the description doesn't work, it is
patreon.com/minecraft short stories.
And also about the Patreon, there's not only paid content on
there, there is also free content.
For example, I release a state of the podcast every other
month. I believe I'm releasing one this
month. This month is June 2024.
So those are completely free. And then you'll also get some
other stuff, so go check that out while you're inside the
description. There's also the websites.
I know I tell you this every episode, but I am working on
revamping the websites from its original state.
So you can go check that out. It's probably going to be
different from the last time you saw it.
And then also there's a YouTube channel in case you just want to
listen to this on YouTube. So I hope you enjoy this episode
and let's get right into it. So here's a short little
summary. A player spawns into a new world
and quickly discovers that there's something else living
inside of it, and he has no clue what to do about it.
He eventually sees it after a few days of playing, and upon a
closer inspection, it is wearing his skin.
The player's not alone. Part three The discovery of my
doppelganger changed both everything and nothing.
On one hand, I had the sure knowledge that all I had seen
was indeed the work of a strange entity.
On the other hand, this creature was still inside my world and I
didn't know any way to stop it. Not only was this world
unstable, it was also haunted. This is crazy, I thought.
This wasn't some run-of-the-mill creature that had stumbled or
broken into my world. This is a creature that could
think, interact with the environment, and apparently
donned the skin of the player it chose to terrorize.
And all of my experiences in Minecraft and reading other
player's tales, I never heard of anything so strange, so smart,
so uncanny. Leaning close to my monitor, I
studied the motionless face, inspected it pixel by pixel.
There is no doubt about it. This figure wore the same skin
I'd created almost five years ago.
I'd created the skin when I was eight, and there's no way anyone
else could have a copy of it. I didn't know anything about
coding games, but I guess that maybe this entity had gone.
The skin fell from Minecraft's folder, which meant it could
access my folders, which meant it could access my computer.
Was that the reason for the lag? The entity was playing around
with me, or perhaps running malicious code?
I was almost paralysed with indecision.
Should I delete Minecraft from my computer?
Or even that not stop it? Doing nothing wasn't an option.
What if this creature decides to delete all my files?
This horrible thought stopped me in my tracks.
This is getting serious. My mind raced, trying to find a
way to keep both this chance for discovery and my safety out of
harm's way. Wait, never mind, I'm safe.
I realised. I was using Windows on my
computer, and this entity couldn't change anything without
the administrator's permission. I hadn't given Minecraft
administrative power, so it could only access files within
itself. That would explain how the
entity had got my skin. With that pressure off my mind,
I switched to the next train of thought, and that was that.
I didn't know what to call this thing.
I was attempting to categorize it now that I knew it existed to
try and bring some understanding to the situation.
This thing then appeared to be another player.
I had no definite proof, but it didn't seem very likely, and
just calling it thing or creature didn't sound right.
It was odd, but I felt a kind of respect towards this creature.
Perhaps there's only fear of the unknown.
The only explanation I couldn't rule out for this creature's
existence was that this was some kind of ghost haunting my
Minecraft game. On the assumption that this was
a ghost, I decided to call it ghost.
After that satisfactory answer, I opened up Minecraft and
rejoined my world. I'd want to be all studious and
prepared, which involved composing a plan before jumping
back into the world, but it all seemed too pressing to wait.
I was also quite excited. Just as Minecraft loaded in, my
mom tapped me on the shoulder. My time for video games was
over. It was hard to believe it had
only been two hours. After waking up in the morning,
going through a long school day, and returning home, Minecraft
was once more inside my grasp. My excitement about the world
had somewhat mellowed after sleeping on it.
The situation seemed a little out of my control.
I was still excited to get back to playing, but not as much as I
had been. I'd reasoned out any danger
Ghost posed. The world loaded normally and
I'll soon sprinting through the Minecraft woods.
Since yesterday, nothing appeared to have changed, so I
left the rune forest. I looked down at my list on my
desk with the pressure of ghosts now being able to interact with
me now that I was in his domain, previously known as my world, I
realized I'd forgotten the most obvious addition to the second
point. Don't die.
This was pretty self-explanatory.
If I died, ghosts would probably delete my world.
I had heard of it happening many times before.
The time had come for me to gather resources.
I probably should have started a long time ago.
I didn't have a house, armour, my leather captain count, or any
weapons but stone. This went against all my
Minecraft instincts and I needed a house anyway for my plan.
I didn't have a plan when I came into this world, but I was
slowly composing one as I went along.
Before building the house, I would need at least iron to feel
safe, both from zombies and from whatever ghost was going to
throw at me. I pivoted my player's Sprint and
started the search for a cave opening.
Thankfully, Minecraft always seemed to have one nearby.
It was a small dark hole in the side of a hill.
Looking down into it, I could tell it would reach the deep
slate layer. An experienced Minecraft player
like myself could just sense these sort of things.
I crafted 1/2 stack of torches and jumped into the darkness.
I landed on the stone and immediately set a torch in front
of me. The yellow light lit up the
narrow cavern. It sloped harshly downwards and
I walked quickly down the incline.
Zombies and skeleton sound had time to spawn yet, so I was safe
momentarily. I need to make the most of my
window of opportunity. I still had some chicken and a
lot of wood, so hunger and darkness wouldn't find me for a
while. Giving was all about resource
management. I continued along the passage,
placing torches regularly until I came upon a cavern.
It was small, with the notable features of two medium sized
cave openings branching off into the depths.
Waiting for me in the cavern was a zombie.
I quickly placed a torch down and then went on the offensive.
I didn't have a shield, so defensive wasn't an option.
The zombie walked up to me slowly, arms spread wide, and I
greeted him with a whack, courtesy of my stone sword.
The zombie grunted and was knocked backwards, flashing red.
I decided to flex my Minecraft skills and exchanged the sword
for an axe. I waited for the zombie to
traipse into the right spots and then jumped.
The zombie looked up at me in the air and I could see fear in
its eyes. Pulling off a spin, I furnished
the zombie with a critical blow to its rotting head.
I still got it, I thought while triumphantly finishing the
undead with one more hit. I took the left most tunnel.
Offshoot LED me to two dead ends, one being the end of the
tunnel and the other being a skeleton.
Dealing with skeletons was remarkably similar to zombies,
though their mode of dealing damage was more aggravating but
less aggressive. All I had to do was move fast
and occasionally avoid the arrows.
The fight was soon over. Backtracking to the cavern, I
took the right most opening this time, and it led me to greater
depths. Tunnel went on for way and I had
to meet the challenge of a few more zombies, but eventually I
reached the lights at the end of the tunnel.
In my case, it was glow berries. I'd found a lush cave with its
high ceiling and signature Moss sprawled through our multiple
caverns. It's certainly differentiated
itself from the rest of the underground.
The Moss carpeted both the ceiling and the floor and from
it hung long vines with golden glowing berries growing on them.
Making up the floor of the lush caves were either pools of water
surrounded by clay or Moss. I maneuvered towards the clump
of these pools with one thought. I need an axolotl.
With their scaleless lizard like appearance and adorableness,
they were my preferred companion.
Dog may be man's best friend, but in Minecraft it was the
axolotl. Once I reached the pools, I
found to my delight that they were teeming with axolotls of
all colors. I picked out a nice blue one and
prepared to capture it. Then I remembered I didn't yet
have a bucket. Quickly scanning the cavern, I
located a patch of iron and hurried over to it.
I obtained 4 pieces of raw iron and set up my furnaces and
crafting table to begin the smelting. 4 iron ingots will get
me a shield and a bucket. After a quick wait, the furnace
finished its refining. I took the ingots out into the
crafting table. I crafted a bucket lag spike.
Then I crafted a shield lag spike.
Then I equipped the shield with a larger lag spike.
I guess they're not gone. I sighed.
It had been a vain hope. Now sufficiently equipped with a
bucket in one hand and a shield in the other, I began my daring
mission. Step one, fill the bucket with
water. Step 2.
Find a suitable axolotl without falling into the ponds.
I found a blue axolotl like I wanted, but it was impossible to
tell whether it was the same one as before.
As it swam, I quickly captured it inside my bucket.
Step 4 Success With my mission now fulfilled, I went back to
finding iron. The lush cave provided me with
all the resources I could ever need.
It was almost too easy. The glow Barry's illumination
was sufficient to stop mobs from spawning, so I was practically
in peaceful mode. Iron, Redstone and gold were
visible buried in the stone of the cave's floors and walls, and
I soon had a full set of iron armor and tools, along with the
lag spikes that occurred after every piece.
Whenever I upgraded from stone tools to iron ones in Minecraft,
it always surprised me how easy everything became.
Trees, logs no longer took 30 seconds to mine, and mops seemed
to no longer be able to threaten me.
A couple of spiders had been hiding in a dark corner, and I
was able to test my new iron sword on them.
With the spider string and some sticks, I crafted a bow.
I weighed out the resulting frame drop and know that it took
slightly longer than usual to subside.
I was still attempting to find an explanation for Minecraft's
sudden yet pointed lagging. Now that I was progressing
quickly in Minecraft, the slowdowns were getting so
frequent I almost didn't notice them.
Almost. I crafted errors from some Flint
I'd scavenged and started to hone my archery skills.
In most video games I was a melee heavy player, so using a
ranged mode of damage took some getting used to.
I had enough Flint for three forces, stack of arrows around
45, so I had some room to practice.
I pinpointed a gold ore block on the caverns opposite wall and
began trying to sink one of my arrows into it.
Oh no, I probably should have realized that something as
important as shooting wooden projectiles at high speed would
provoke Ghost. In a handful of seconds the
light disappeared like it never occurred, and I returned to
firing out the gold ore. I practiced for a few minutes
till my supply of arrows dwindled.
I'd seen another section of The Cave I hadn't explored yet, so I
picked up my crafting stations and went to rectify that.
At first glance, the section only held some more mobs in
iron, but I soon found a crevice with a lava at the bottom.
The lush cave was already near the bottom of the world, so this
lava pool would be close to scratching the bedrock layer.
That man could have diamonds. I dropped down and had a look
around. Sure enough, on the other side
of the lava and bordering it was a diamond.
A quick dirt bridge of the liquid flames later and I was on
the other side. Soon I was the proud owner of
three light blue and exquisite diamonds.
Crafting the three diamonds into a pickaxe, I was now the sub
proclaimed and undisputed mining champion.
I returned to the lush cave to put my new title to the test.
With the enhanced mining speed of my new pickaxe, ores
practically flowed into my inventory.
I was working on a huge ore vein when an arrow's twang and
subsequent funk broke through the monotony of breaking blocks.
That's strange, I thought. I lit all of this cavern up with
torches, and it should be impossible for Mouse to spawn.
I finished the OR vein and strode out of my mind.
At least the skeleton would show me where to place torches.
Fortunately, it wasn't skeleton. Ghost had come to say hello.
Ghost stood on a ledge in the cavern, holding a bow in his
hands. I already knew there weren't any
skeletons nearby. Ghost was the one who shot the
arrow. The entity named Ghost wore a
pair of iron boots, and it has shield in his left hand.
Ghost had granted the confrontation I'd been wanting.
Fortunately, it was coming at a time when I had vastly superior
armor and at least equal weapons.
Ghost shouldn't stand a chance. I moved closer to the skin
stealing Spectre, but he didn't even turn his head towards me.
It took me brazenly walking towards his ledge before I even
acknowledged my challenge. Ghost, without warning, shot an
air in my direction. He seemed to pull back the
string almost impossibly fast. Even more uncannily, he hadn't
turned towards me to shoot it. He appeared to have teleported
to face my direction while still staying on the same block.
The arrow sailed through the cavern and stuck into a wall.
It was amiss by dozens of blocks.
Definitely hostile. I said matter of factly.
Before Ghost could even begin pulling back his bowstring, I
burst into motion. Ghost kept a blank face point to
where I'd been, seemingly unaware of my desperate rush
towards him. This would be a tricky fight.
That is, if Ghost would even fight back.
I didn't know what he was capable of, so I had to avoid
getting hit at all costs. I pulled some cobblestone out of
my inventory and towered up beside Ghost's vantage point.
The ledge had a tunnel leading upwards at its back, and only
reached around five blocks at its widest.
It was a great vantage point, but whether Ghost came to out of
the tunnel or chose it specifically for firing at me
was a mystery. I walked up beside Ghost
cautiously, but he stood as if struck dumb, seemingly unwilling
to make eye contact. I thought grimly.
Let's see if my sword's edge can wake him.
I debated for a while beforehand.
The process of mining oars left much time for thoughts whether
to provoke Ghost. I saw two options.
I could find Ghost before he found me and observe him, or I
could face him head on and see what happens.
Ghost forced me to choose the latter option.
Right as I landed on Ghost with my signature spin move, he
teleported to face me. He got a face full of sword and
I got a screen full of lag. I was stuck in mid air with my
sword outstretched. Ghost was also experiencing a
slowdown and was stuck in the air.
He was still flashing bright red for my attack.
Suddenly detached from the game, I thought, this is quite
educational. Not only was Ghost able to take
damage, but he was also affected by the lag that mean it wasn't
his doing. Slowly, as the frames ticked by,
I was inching closer to the floor under gravity's
inescapable hold. Ghost was as well.
Just before the lag ceased, Ghost did the scariest and most
anxiety inducing action he could have done.
He switched from his bow to his iron sword.
Oh no, I thought, And then the game unfroze.
Before I could even think of moving, Ghost was there.
Almost instantaneously, without mercy.
He hacked away at my character with his iron blade.
I panicked. The fate of imminent death and
deletion was now before me. My health was down to two
hearts. The only action left to me was
to flee. Ghost struck me harshly with his
sword, and I was knocked away from him dangerously close to
the ledge. Seeing my opportunity, I
attempted my escape. Fortunately, I realized what was
about to do before I did it. I'd create a tower rather than a
staircase, so my fall to the floor below would have certainly
taken away my remaining hearts. Ghost punished my indecision
with another whack of his blade. I threw caution to the wind and
sprinted as fast as I could into the tunnel at the ledge's rear.
I'd never gone down this one before, so I didn't know if it
led to the outside or another cave.
Whichever it was, it was better than dying at the hands of a
strange entity. I sprinted up The Cave, but
didn't even get a dozen steps before Ghost was with me again.
I had 1 1/2 Hertz remaining. Desperately, I twirled around
mid stride. Ghost was only a block away from
me, sword ready to strike. I swung my sword instinctively
managed to connect. Ghost flashed red and was
knocked backwards. He stood still after my sword's
impact. I braced myself for his counter
attack and my subsequent death. I had only spent five end game
days in this world so far, and it was ending so soon.
Ghost was still standing in the tunnel, staring at a wall.
The question of whether to run or attack paralyzed me with
indecision for a second, and that second Ghost turned around
and ran away. Thank you all for listening.
This has been part three of the Players Not Alone.
This is maybe the longest story I've ever written and then read
on the podcast The Endless Journey, which is, I forget
which episode. You have to go find that.
It's just called The Endless Journey.
It was 3000 words. This may be more than 3000
words. So this has been a long one.
The current time, the recording says 25, but obviously I'm gonna
have to edit it out all the time.
So I made a mistake. So it's probably gonna be more
like, I don't know, 15-17 minutes.
Anyway, that's really long. I have to take a break in
between 'cause I was reading so much.
So anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope to see you at the prologue episode and I'll see
you guys inside the next episode.