Normally I’d never worry about Dad on his own because he’s such a skilled mob slayer. But if he was caught off-guard and overwhelmed … if the Ender Dragon went after him first …

  At the end of the note, I wrote, Please be safe. Something I never thought I’d have to say to Dad. Then I grabbed my diamond sword and ran out the door with the others.

  Together, we sprinted in the direction of Herobrine’s temple.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was a long trek to the temple. i kept my eyes on the sky, keeping track of the time of day based on the position of the sun. Jagged, boxy clouds moved lazily over the blue sky as the sun shone down, the world alive with green grass and flowers. It was such a beautiful world. Why would the Ender Dragon want to destroy it?

  Of course, the Overworld wasn’t all she wanted to destroy. She wanted to destroy my family—and me, specifically. Because of what someone else had done. That was how deep her hatred was.

  What kind of a being was she? Steve Alexander had talked about his childhood, but he hadn’t said where the Ender Dragon came from. He said he’d get to that later. I wondered why, because it seemed like that could be pretty useful information. If I knew the Ender Dragon’s origin, it might also give me details on her weaknesses and how she thought. It was clear she was not a mindless monster like most of the mobs I’d dealt with.

  The sun began to sneak down toward the horizon. That meant the day was more than halfway over. The shadows started to slant and grow longer, like evil hands reaching out.

  When we got to the forests surrounding the mountain, we could see the temple. From where we were the temple looked small and unimportant. The trees were close together.

  We spotted them before they saw us—armed skeletons, walking in the shade, looking around.

  “I’ll get it!” Alex said, pulling out her bow and arrows. She tied a lead onto one of the arrows and shot the arrow on top of the nearest tree. Then we all climbed up the lead and onto the treetops.

  “Hey, I’ve been wondering,” Yancy said as we began walking from tree to tree. “What happened to Steve Alexander after he put the Ender Dragon in the End?”

  “He had a world-shattering battle with the Ender Dragon. We’ve been talking for centuries about how he saved all of us from her!” Alex said triumphantly.

  “Yeah, but what happened to him afterward?” Yancy said. “Did he get hurt? Did he find a way home? What?”

  Alex frowned, not so excited. “Hmm, I don’t know.”

  “There are a lot of Steve Alexander stories,” I said, “but I don’t know either. It’s kind of like all the stories stop after he defeated the Ender Dragon.”

  I paused. He hadn’t really defeated her. But he had saved us from her for a long period of time. In the book, Steve Alexander didn’t sound too sure of himself sometimes, which I found funny. How could the greatest hero of the Overworld have doubted himself? Did he not think much of himself because he hadn’t been able to defeat the Ender Dragon entirely?

  “He said he’d never see Maya again,” Yancy went on. “What about his wife and son? Did he make it out of the battle? Did he have to go into the End to make sure the dragon got there? In the Minecraft game, you can’t get out of the End until you win in a battle against the Ender Dragon. So then—”

  Alex and I still didn’t have any real answers, but that didn’t stop her from speaking up. “Of course he made it out of the battle,” Alex said. “We don’t know exactly what happened, but if he didn’t make it out of the battle, we would definitely have heard about it.”

  “I never heard of anything bad happening to his wife or kid, either,” I said. “So I guess it must have all worked out. Except that now …”

  We all walked quietly for a moment, lost in our thoughts.

  Finally, Alex broke the silence. “The map didn’t say where in the temple you can find the crystal shard. So we might have to do a lot of searching.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. We all looked at one another and sped up, wanting to get to the temple as fast as possible. I kept watching the sun in the sky.

  When we got to the top of the mountain, the temple looked exactly the same as it had the last time I’d been there. “Spread out,” Alex said. “We have a better chance of finding the crystal that way.”

  We started by searching the ground and under blocks and columns. Nothing. It wouldn’t have been safe to leave it in so obvious a place, so where had Steve Alexander stuck it? Was it in a mineshaft under the mountain, like where I’d found the first crystal shard?

  I looked down the mountain. It was a long way down, which meant there was a lot of area where there might have been a mineshaft. This reminded me of an Earth saying Maison had taught me: “Like finding a needle in a haystack.” We could stay here for days and still not find anything.

  I pulled out my pickaxe and hit it repeatedly into the rocky mountainside. The pickaxe made a comforting thwack-thwack sound as it broke up blocks of mountain. The others also got busy with their weapons, clearing away space.

  “This is hopeless,” Destiny said, wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

  “Are you sure the book didn’t say anything else about where it was hidden?” Alex asked.

  “You read it, too,” Destiny reminded her.

  “Hey, I think I found something!” Maison called out excitedly.

  We ran over to see. Maison was kneeling before a block of mountain, and she pointed at it. The letters S and A could be seen etched into the block, but just barely. The carving was so small we all squinted and wondered if we were imagining it.

  “The S and A seems to be his mark,” Maison said, digging down farther. Her pickaxe made quick work of the block. She struck the block below the carved one, while we all went after the blocks nearby. Hopefully that crystal was around here somewhere!

  I took a moment to look up at the sky. What were we going to do once it became dark? If we found the crystal now, we might be able to make it to the edge of the forest before sunset. Maybe. It’d be cutting it close, and we definitely wouldn’t be anywhere near home. Where was Dad? I kept wishing he’d catch up with us. He could help us, and …

  … And if he arrived, I’d know the Ender Dragon hadn’t gotten to him. Flushed, I worked harder with my pickaxe. The thwack-thwack sound got less comforting and started to sound more desperate.

  After a while, Maison’s face fell. “Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “I could have sworn I saw those letters in the block.”

  “It’s okay, Maison,” Yancy said. “We’ll just all spread out again.”

  Maison continued to dig by the S-A block while the rest of us stepped away. Her face was flushed, as if she needed to prove that the crystal was where she’d thought it would be.

  I returned to where I’d been digging before. My head was lowered, but I felt it when a long shadow fell over me, darkening my space. I looked up in shock. Someone—something—else had joined us on the mountaintop.

  “An Enderman!” I cried.

  CHAPTER 11

  As soon as i said it, the enderman vanished. Teleportation was one of the special skills Endermen had, making it very easy for them to sneak up on people, and very hard for people to pin them to one area and defeat them.

  I spun around, looking for the mob, my diamond sword at the ready. Everyone else had jumped at the sound of my voice and they were searching for it too.

  There it was! It had reappeared next to Maison, looming over her. Maison swung at it with her pickaxe and the Enderman disappeared and reappeared several feet away.

  Alex pulled back her bow and sent an arrow flying. But by the time the arrow hit its mark, the Enderman was long gone. It showed up again right behind Maison, knocking her out of the way. We all went running toward it, and the Enderman reached down and moved blocks, hurriedly pushing them out of the way. Maison got back up on her feet and swung for the Enderman just as the rest of us were reaching the area.

  For a split second I thought I saw something shining in the Enderman’s long hands. Then the Enderman was gone, vanishing just in time to miss Maison’s pickaxe. It appeared a moment later on another part of the mountaintop, and I could definitely see something purple in its hands.

  The new crystal shard!

  “Don’t let it get away!” I shouted, running at it with my sword held high. Maison had been right about the S and A in the block, and this Enderman had swooped in when she’d almost had it!

  Everyone was going for the Enderman at once, but that only helped the mob. Because when we all reached it, the Enderman vanished and appeared on another part of the mountaintop far away. This wasn’t going to work!

  The Enderman turned away from us, and that gave Alex an opportunity. Her arrow flew through the air and struck the Enderman’s back, making its body turn red and freeze for an instant. Then another arrow went flying and we had enough time to all run and jump on the Enderman. The crystal shard fell on the ground, so I knew we’d defeated the Enderman for good. The crystal was so beautiful, and so small. You’d never guess what power it held just by looking at it.

  I was the first to reach the crystal shard and I snatched it up. “Got it!” I said triumphantly, holding it up so everyone could see.

  “I knew it said S and A!” Maison said, her face lit up.

  Yancy looked warily at the spot where the Enderman had last stood. “We better hurry up and get out of here,” he said. “If there was one, there might be others coming. And now that we’ve got the crystal, we’re sitting ducks.”

  I quickly ducked, thinking that was a direction.

  Yancy shook his head at me and said, “We have to get you out more often.”

  Maison stopped smiling, realizing he was right. “At least we have the crystal,” she said.

  “And there’s an old, abandoned house not far from here,” Alex said. “We can hide there for the night.”

  We hurried across the mountaintop, eager to get back up in the trees for safety. I looked back behind me and saw the sun slipping closer to the horizon. It would be dark before we even reached the abandoned house. And even if we found shelter, if enough Endermen knew where we were, they could tear the house to pieces to get to us. And the crystal.

  CHAPTER 12

  We were almost at the edge of the trees when the sun dipped below the horizon, turning everything dark. I could hear the sounds of mobs nearby. Zombies moaning. The hissing of skeletons.

  Alex pulled a torch out of her toolkit to help us see, and Destiny carried it so that Alex could hold onto her bow and arrows. With monsters nearby, we all wanted Alex to have her arrows ready.

  “Here,” Alex said. She’d found the lead she’d tied to the tree earlier, and we used it to get back down to the ground. Maison, Destiny, and Yancy had a lot of trouble with the rope, because this wasn’t something they normally did in their world. It was even harder for them in the dark.

  Come on, come on, I thought as I watched them climb down. We have to move!

  The darkness made the crystal’s glow really obvious in my hand—the whole area around us was washed in violet light. Even from far away, someone would be able to see it.

  Finally, everyone made it back down to the ground. Looking back into the forest, I could see mobs milling around. Skeletons snuck behind trees, their arrows ready. Zombies lurched. Giant spiders crawled around the tree trunks, their red eyes shining eerily in the crystal’s light. I wondered what Steve Alexander’s world had originally been like, if the world we lived in now was a big improvement compared to what he’d been used to.

  With one last look at the mobs, we tore off again.

  Because it was night now, I knew there was probably no way we’d reach the house before some sort of mob attacked us. Thankfully the ones in the forest were far enough away to leave us alone, but there was a chance that we’d run into hostile mobs at any moment. The night was alive with their hisses and moans.

  The next thing I knew, there was an Enderman in front of me, blocking my path.

  I bellowed and screeched to a stop. The Enderman quickly advanced on me, its long black arms reaching out for the crystal. Little sizzles of purple light were hovering around the Enderman, almost matching the light of the crystal.

  The others all rushed to charge the Enderman and it disappeared. I spun around, looking for it.

  “Just run, Stevie!” Maison shouted.

  She was right! Looking for the Enderman would only take up more time, and there was no doubt the mob would show up again. We all started running, but then two Endermen appeared in our path, stopping us again.

  Alex shot arrows to take care of them. The Endermen vanished just in the nick of time and reappeared a second later. Two more appeared out of the darkness behind them, coming our way.

  Yes, yes, get the crystal! a familiar voice roared in my head. Bring it back to me!

  The evil in the Ender Dragon’s voice was so strong it felt like a physical blow. My knees almost buckled under me. I caught myself from falling and stared in front of me in shock, because dozens of Endermen had suddenly appeared, circling around us as though to cage us in.

  Without even thinking about it, Maison, Alex, Destiny, Yancy, and I all pulled closer together in the middle of the circle, holding our weapons.

  “What do we do?” Destiny whispered frantically.

  Alex eyed the Endermen angrily. “I can start shooting them with my arrows if you can finish them off.”

  She sent arrows flying, but the Endermen were expecting it. Every time she released an arrow, they’d disappear just long enough for the arrow to miss them, then they’d reappear a second later in the exact same spot. All Alex was doing was wasting her arrows. We were trapped.

  Then it was like someone had given the Endermen a signal, because they all disappeared at once and reappeared in a cluster just inches from us. There were rows and rows of Endermen penning us in. I was desperately slashing out at them with my diamond sword, but it didn’t do any good.

  Finally one Enderman lurched even closer to me and snatched the crystal right out of my hands. And then they all disappeared. I looked everywhere around us for it to show back up, because the crystal’s glow would be a perfect giveaway. But the glow was nowhere to be seen. Wherever the Enderman had gone, it had taken the crystal with it. And wherever it had gone, that crystal would soon be in the clutches of the Ender Dragon.

  We had failed.

  CHAPTER 13

  The other endermen started to back away, like they knew their mission was complete. A few completely disappeared. Some stayed, but they no longer paid any attention to us—they just milled around with their long arms swinging.

  “No!” I wailed. I looked at the others and I knew the devastation on their faces must have been reflected on mine. I could tell they didn’t know what to do, either.

  “Is there some way to track the crystal?” Destiny cried.

  “The book was supposed to help us track it,” Alex said. “But it could be anywhere now.”

  “Anywhere?” Yancy said. “No way. If it’s not in the End yet, it’s going to be.”

  Think, Stevie, think! I ordered myself. Fighting battles wasn’t just about might, it was also about strategy. That’s how we’d been victorious in the past. But what kind of strategy could help us find a missing Enderman?

  Then I thought of something.

  “If I could be an Enderman, maybe I could track the Enderman that has the crystal!” I exclaimed.

  Everyone looked at me. Even though it was dark out I could see they thought I wasn’t making any sense.

  “Remember?” I said. “When the Endermen were searching for the first crystal shard, they were turning villagers into Endermen to help them look. Maybe if I turn into an Enderman, I’ll be able to sense where the crystal is and get it back.”

  “But the people who turned into Endermen were brainwashed to think like Endermen,” Yancy said. “If you turn into one, you wouldn’t be Stevie anymore. You might even want to help the Ender Dragon.”

  My excitement deflated. Yancy was right!

  “Still, it might be the best chance we have,” Maison said. “We have the first crystal. And then maybe we can use it to turn Stevie back into a human.”

  “If we can get Stevie to go back home and make sure to touch him with the crystal, like with the villager Endermen before,” Yancy said. The dryness of his voice told me he didn’t think any of this would work. “Like Stevie as an Enderman would really just let us lead him home peacefully? He’ll just disappear on us.”

  “He might want to go back to his house because he’ll sense that first crystal, too,” Maison argued. “And the villagers who got turned into Endermen didn’t start to think entirely like Endermen—at least not right away. They said there was still some part of themselves in there.”

  “They also said that part kept fading, and they would have turned fully into Endermen if we hadn’t saved them in time,” Yancy said.

  I looked back and forth between my friends as they argued. They both had good points. My heart was pounding so hard I was surprised the others couldn’t hear it. Think, Stevie! I ordered myself, but I couldn’t think of anything else. There wasn’t time to wait for Dad to follow our note and find us. We didn’t even know where he was, or if he was okay. And I couldn’t come up with any other way to track the Enderman with the crystal.

  “I have to do this,” I said. “You guys just stick close to me and make sure I turn back before I lose myself.”

  Before they could talk me out of it, I ran into the arms of the nearest Enderman and let myself be caught.

  CHAPTER 14

  It was like being swallowed up by the night. Everything went so pitch black I couldn’t have seen my own hands in front of me. And it was so, so cold.