Minecraft: Journey to the Ancient City

Opal

I’ve finally done it.

Everyone in the village thinks I’ve already done “it all.” It all is an adventuring term, where everyone and their moms think that adventuring is the height of everything. So of course, Opal the Adventurer accomplished it all a long time ago.

I journeyed across our world and back again, battling witches in swamps and pillagers in plains and creepers in caverns. I’ve brought home obsidian and strange ancient debris and all sorts of wild treasures. Most updated maps available are based on my journeys, and those that aren’t I’ve probably got a strong opinion on (never ever use Purely Paladin’s Perfect Paths if you want to find your way home!).

I’ve been deeper underground, higher in the clouds, and farther into the Nether than nearly anyone I’ve ever met. I fought a Dragon that most didn’t believe existed until I brought back proof.

And yes, by that definition it all is pretty cool. It has to be, because everyone who wanders into the nearby village or shows up at my door wants to hear about my stories, or recites them back at me, or tells me how they want to walk that same path. I’m not going to tell them that they’re wrong.

But they’re kind of wrong about that being it all. Because today, when I pull this lever, I will have done it all, as far as I’m concerned.

I will have created the world’s most epic, most beautifully designed door and gate entrance in the history of doors.

Okay, okay, so to the doubters: Most of you have doors, and especially in a world of creepers, zombies, and really nosy neighbors, you know how important a door is. And yeah, I could have a normal door or a simple redstone contraption. Step on pressure plate, pull lever, slab of iron opens or closes. But we’ve all done that . . . right?

So imagine, if you will, the Best and Coolest door. Even if my sister Lisa stood on my head, we’d be too short to reach the top of it. It’s powered by sticky pistons and so much redstone that it took me weeks to mine it all up. Composed of various deepslate, gilded blackstone, and gold and copper block, which all pull back in perfectly timed chunks to reveal the entirety of the farm that Lisa and I have built for ourselves.

When closed, the gilded blackstone and gold form the shape of the Ender Dragon I defeated. I had only my own sketches to base it off of, since no one else had ever seen it, but I think I did it justice. In the center of the door, I put a single diamond block as its eye. The eye? If I set this up properly? Should be the last block to pull away, and the first to be pushed back into place.

I have spent months planning and mining. Weeks putting every block in, piece by piece. Using wool and wood and dirt to map out the best thing I’ve ever built and then replace those blocks with quality materials.

And now it’s time to have truly done it all.

Or, at least, it should be.

“Well, at least enough blocks move that we can get into the house,” Lisa offered. “You know, if we climb a couple.”

I stared up, slack-jawed at the utter failure of engineering I’d apparently created. While the top left side of the door had moved properly, after that only a few pistons had activated, leaving scattered holes through my carefully conceived Dragon door. Through the holes I could see our wheat field, the grain waving in the wind. “No, no way, I mapped it perfectly, it should work . . .”

My Dragon door was part of the wall that protected our farm, done in the same dark wood as the wall we’d built around the village. But the entire wall was worthless if the door couldn’t door properly, wasn’t it?

I still had scaffolding and ladders set up from all the construction. Grabbing hold of a ladder on the right side of the door, I started to climb up. I had to see where, exactly, the construction had failed. Were the pistons not set up properly? Was the redstone—

The redstone. As soon as I’d climbed up my scaffolding and looked at it from above, it was clear that was the root of the problem. There was redstone dust scattered on top of some of the blocks. Had the pistons ruined some blocks I couldn’t see? Farther down, I could see my still-connected redstone layout was glowing way less than it should have been . . . so I’d probably also attached too many pistons, even though I’d done the math a bunch of times and thought I had it right . . .

Lisa was looking up at me, and she wasn’t anywhere near as impressed as I’d hoped she’d be today. Which sucked for two reasons: one, because we looked so much alike I could have been staring at a reflection of my own disappointment. Or a ganglier, slightly taller version of my own disappointment, anyway. I’d once made a joke that she looked like who you’d get if a sapling could cross its arms, and she pointed out, rightfully so, that meant she was going to just keep getting taller than me.

The other reason it sucked was because Lisa was always so impressed with the retellings of adventures and weird creatures in the world. For all she cared about my old life, I wanted her to understand how equally cool my projects here were, too.

“You’re gonna be at this all night, aren’t you.” Lisa wasn’t asking a question.

“The door should work!” I shouted down. “Maybe I need more redstone?”

That got Lisa’s attention, and she perked up slightly. “Do we need to go mining tonight?”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously not.” Her shoulders drooped as I came back down the ladder. “I’ll go mining in a day or two. I just have to figure out how much more I need. And not at night.” I jumped down from the last couple of rungs of the ladder. “Tonight I’ll redo all the redstone math, though.” I glanced up at the sky. “I’ve got to set up some more torches anyway.”

“I can help!”

“I’ve got it,” I promised. Lisa always wanted to help me out, and I appreciated it, but there were all sorts of mobs out in the shadows. I would take her mining with me when I cleaned up the road between my favorite mine and the house, but it would require a lot more light.

She pouted, crossing her arms. “You act like I’m asking to go super deep down or something.”

“No, if you were asking to go super deep, I’d probably think you were joking.”

“You always do this,” Lisa argued. “I want to go, like, to get iron and redstone with you, and you act like I’m saying I want you to take me to that ancient city y—”

“Don’t ever talk about the ancient city.” I didn’t mean to snap at her and felt bad about it immediately. Still, whenever she brought up the ancient city—or anyone asked about it—I felt the ancient city again.

It’s hard to explain to a lot of people. Even Lisa. To them, The Ancient City is another one of Opal the Adventurer’s many stories. Sure, it’s the last big adventure, and sure, Opal the Adventurer doesn’t have any souvenirs except a couple of blocks kept in a chest, but that’s a cool thing, right?

Well, it wasn’t. And still isn’t. Because people talk about the ancient city, and my heart starts beating fast and loud in my ears, and my hands get sweaty and shaky. When I think about the ancient city for too long, it’s like the world around me feels a little darker and scarier. And sometimes it’s like I can hear shriekers when there aren’t any around. When it’s really bad I put my hands over my ears until it passes.

And when it’s really, really bad I think I feel the ground shake with the giant footsteps I’ve only ever heard in the deep dark.

But even though Lisa doesn’t really understand it, she does her best to help. When it gets really bad, she will tell people to shut up and leave me alone. She doesn’t know why sometimes I get really angry if she even says “ancient city” or “Warden,” and other times I can take a deep breath and be okay.

I can’t even really explain to her because I don’t understand.

Lisa put up her hands. “Okay, okay, jeez, sorry.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” I told her. I took a breath. She didn’t mess up the door, I did, so I didn’t need to get mad at her. “How about I just put up a wood door for the night where there’s space on the Dragon door, and tomorrow we go into the village. We can trade for some dinner stuff, maybe see if the tailor has something new for you.”

That distracted Lisa from the way I’d snapped at her, and she brightened. “That sounds fun!” She immediately dove into a plan of “attack”—something about wanting flowers for her braids and grabbing extra fish to feed the local cats. Fun.

Way more fun, I thought, than thinking about a broken door or a terrible, terrible ancient city.