Chapter 20
Revenge Hurts Only You

I'm not sure if this world lets you have a spring in your step, but the next morning I sure felt like it did. Moseying down for another sure-to-be successful mining adventure, I couldn't have been in a better mood. Armed with repaired tools and weapons and a pack full of all kinds of food, I felt ready for anything. What I wasn't ready for was an age-old enemy waiting to sabotage my new, seemingly invincible winning streak.

Of all the foes waiting below, the one I really should have been ready for was me.

Heading back into the mine complex, I found my usual welcoming committee of zombies, skeletons, and even a couple of creepers. I took them out, pocketed their remains, and went off down a dark, unexplored tunnel.

This one was broken by a section of natural cave that was lit by a column of lava. After surrounding its impact point with cobblestone, I noticed a block of diamonds embedded in the smooth gray floor. This reminded me that I hadn't run across any natural diamonds except when nearby lava, and I made a mental note to prove that theory later on.

After collecting three glittering stones, I kept going until the natural cave returned to an oak-reinforced mineshaft. This time minecart tracks led me right to another chest, and another world-expanding jackpot.

I didn't find one book; I found three! And they were all about redstone, which turned out to be its actual official name. This entire time I'd seen the crimson mineral as next-to-useless, and now I was learning that it might just be the most useful material in this world. The dim redstone torch I'd thought inferior to a brighter coal version was actually a source of energy, and that energy could be transmitted by a trail of redstone dust.

And that was just the first book. Skipping to the other two, I saw that redstone was an essential building material in machines.

Yes, machines! Finally, after going from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, here was the Industrial Revolution! And if I'd just been a little more patient, taking the books home instead of skimming the pages right then and there, everything probably would've been fine.

But I didn't.

"Sssp!"

I knew that hiss. I'd heard it far too many times.

"Sssp!"

Head up, Flash ready, and books safely packed away, I pivoted to face the threat.

All clear. Behind me was the well-lit, empty passageway. Before me was only darkness. No cluster eyes, and yet…

"Sssp!"

I crept cautiously down the tunnel, placing torches as I went, still clinging to the thought that cave spiders were just smaller, bothersome pests.

At least I got the smaller part right.

It scuttled out of the darkness toward me, greenish-blue and about half the size of its surface cousin. I swung my sword, missed, and expected nothing more than the usual, if not milder, spider bite.

Wrong!

Pain flooded my system with the burning, choking, familiar sting of poison. I staggered back, head swimming, limbs aching, Flash flailing wildly at the turquoise snapper. Knocking it back with my shield, I lunged forward with a killing blow.

Still smarting from the venom, I reached for a milk bucket and the new, painful realization that size doesn't matter. Only then did I notice that the hissing hadn't stopped. Well now, I thought nervously, at least the others won't surprise me this time!

Wrong again.

I headed down the passageway, ready to repel any threats in front of me. Only they weren't in front of me; they were below. I passed a hole in the wooden floor, just one open block. In my anxious distraction, I figured that spiders couldn't squeeze through such a teeny opening. I didn't factor in this new, small variety. Panic drowns thought.

I'd already passed the hole when I was jumped from behind. Toxins coursing through my veins, I spun in time to catch the second of two arachnids. It reeled as its partner struck, injecting another murderous dose. Parry, slash, smoke! Another antidote of milk and more loaves of healing bread. I peered down the hole, saw nothing, and guessed—hoped, really—that there couldn't possibly be more of them down there.

Let me just say, for the record, that my thoughts hadn't been this frazzled in a long time. I'd been so used to winning, so used to things going my way, that when confronted by a genuine challenge, my mental recovery time was way out of whack.

That's why I didn't retreat the moment I jumped through the hole and saw that the entire shaft before me was filled, from top to bottom, with webs.

Of all the ironies…spider silk had once been so rare and precious that I'd risked my life to get it. Now I'd risk my life to get past it, to get to the spawner I saw at the end of the hallway.

At least I wasn't stupid enough to try walking through the webs, but trying to hack them away was just as idiotic. I'd barely sliced through four of the stretched, creepy cubes when I saw another spider gliding effortlessly forward, as if the sticky threads didn't exist.

I swung and struck silk. It leapt. I winced. The bite didn't poison me, but the impact knocked me right up into a web.

I was stuck!

Legs kicking, feet dangling. Slowly dipping toward the ground.

Another pounce, a second bite. This time the fangs sank deep. I screamed from the noxious fluid, cutting furiously at the entangling net. My feet hit the floor just as the first spider sprang, and landed right on Flash's diamond blade.

I retreated from the web wall just long enough to take my last drink of anti-venom milk. Before I could reach for healing food, another pair of spiders attacked. This time I was ready. I hit one, then the other, knocking them back like this was a crazy solo game of racquetball. Again they charged; again I struck. Shield and sword, bash and slash.

As the second one evaporated, I glimpsed another pair poofing up from the distant spawner. "I'll be back!" I shouted, fury roiling up within me. "I'll be back and you'll be dead! You'll all be dead!"

Running all the way home should have given me the chance to clear my head. It didn't. It should have calmed me just long enough to realize that I needed to repair my battered armor, fix my cracked sword, get a decent night's rest, and come up with a rational, reasonable plan.

It didn't. I just grabbed some more food, extra feathers for arrows, and rushed right back out to do battle. Stopping to milk Moo should have given me one last chance for sanity, but of course, it didn't.

I can only imagine what my four-legged lifeline might have said if she'd been human, what her sharp, multiple "moos" might have meant.

"Please don't do this. Don't go back there without thinking! Consider the mistakes you've made, the lessons you've learned, all the times you've almost died! Please just take a moment, take a deep breath, and don't throw away everything because you want—"

Revenge.

That's why I didn't listen to her, to my subconscious thoughts. Those creatures had reintroduced me to fear. They'd reminded me what it felt like to be helpless and weak and scared down to my DNA.

Fear made me hate, and hate made me blind. The lesson was clear, obvious, and ignored: Revenge hurts only me.

I would learn it the hard way soon enough.

I sprinted down into the depths, right back into the tunnel where I'd started. After sealing the hole in the floor that I'd originally jumped through, I tried picking out a new one just above the spawner itself. I planned, if you could call it that, to smash the cage from above before any new arachnids got to me.

The plan failed. As soon as the hole opened, a spider jumped up into my face. Recoiling from the venom, I gave the creature several rapid hacks. It's not failure that matters but how you recover, right?

I recovered miserably.

Sealing the hole, then gulping milk, I groped for a rash and reckless Plan B. Would you have tried to mine a staircase down the wall next to the spawner? Would you have believed, or wanted to believe, that somehow there weren't any webs on the other side of the hall? Of course not. That's what a brain is for.

But I did, and within seconds of knocking out the final blocks, a trio of poisonous hissers pounced. I honestly don't remember how I killed them all. All I can recollect is reaching for a second dose of milk and realizing I'd only brought one.

The next minute was an excruciating race between hyper-healing and the spider's digestive juice. I tried to stuff my face with as much food as my stomach would allow, praying that I could self-repair before the acid devoured me from within.

Veins cooling, muscles repairing, I heard another, high-pitched rasp. Two more arthropods were scampering at me through their protective webs, cutting me off from the staircase.

Withdraw. Retire. Run!

I beat it down the dark, unexplored tunnel. No time for torches. No thought of direction. I just ran until the hissing finally faded.

Time to rest and regroup.

I could see now that the mineshaft had given way to a rough, natural cave. Just as I placed a torch, two arrows struck me in the back.

I turned to see another cobblestone spawning chamber right behind me, with a pair of skeletons emerging from its exit. I swung, connected, and heard the SNAP of the glimmering blade shatter.

Flash had been a magnificent weapon, but I hadn't repaired its wounds. I'd seen how all the combat, and especially web chopping, had taken such a horrid toll on its fractured, chipping form. I'd seen it but I didn't do anything about it. And because I didn't take care of Flash, it couldn't take care of me.

Curses echoing in the darkness, I searched my pack and belt. No axe. No backup sword. Nothing but two arrows for my bow. I had gaggles of spare feathers, but I'd forgotten to bring any flint.

Two more skeletons emerged. Four arrows clunked off my shield. Back into the tunnel and the pitch-black unknown. I fled blindly, whistling arrows in pursuit.

Running, panting, murky stone racing past me on all sides.

Finally, silence.

My thoughts were a jumble. Eat. Heal. Food gone. Alone in the dark.

Lost!

Running from tunnel to tunnel, I stuck torches everywhere. How do I get back? Where am I going?

Panic drowns thought.

"Help," I whimpered softly, tracing and retracing the same nondescript steps. "Please, somebody! Anybody! Please, help me!"

I was right back where I had started, right back in that ocean, scared and alone and wishing for someone else to find me.

And someone did, but not in the way I wanted.

"Gruuuh!"

I heard the moan the moment I turned the corner. A low-ceiling cave, another spawning chamber. Zombies! So many approaching zombies!

I dashed away down another new tunnel and once again ended up blundering through the dark.

"Gruuuh!"

Zombies never give up. Slow, steady. They never let you go.

Groans bounced off the walls. They were just a few steps behind me.

Something blinked off to my right: a creeper! I twisted for a quick bow shot.

THUNK! Square in the mottled face.

Not enough. The crackling of a fuse. One more shot and—

"Squeak!" A bat, flying right between us, took the hit.

BOOM!

I was blasted back, my thrashed chest plate disintegrating from my burned body.

I landed hard, splashing into shallow water that carried me farther into the gloom. "Grrr…" They were still behind me, dim growling shapes against the faint glow of distant torches.

I ran through the water and crashed into solid rock. I looked right and left but couldn't see anything. Nowhere to run, no way to fight.

The smell of rotting flesh was overpowering. Rotting flesh and…earth!

Cubes of dirt in the wall, reminding me of the first night. Buried and safe!

Grabbing the loose cobblestones from my pack, I threw up a wall across the rough opening of the tunnel. I worked furiously, automatically, and as a zombie came into view, I slammed the last block into place.