Minecraft: Mob Squad: Never Say Nether: An Official Minecraft

Usually, I’m the last one in our group. I trail a bit behind, my bow and arrow ready for dangers coming from any direction. But this time, since we’re going to a new place and we don’t know what it will be like on the other side of the portal, I go first. That way, I can defend my friends as they come through. I should probably be more scared, but I’m also really excited. Since I started working with Nan, I’ve grown to love my role as her assistant, especially regarding any jobs that contribute to the lore she’s collecting for our town. I love discovering new things and writing them down in my journal. I love reporting back with new findings and seeing Nan cock her head and try to hide her surprise. I never really felt important before—my family made sure of that—but now I have a job, and I’m buzzing with excitement as I think about bringing Nan a book full of my notes and drawings of the Nether.

That’s not our main goal, of course. We’re here to rescue Tok.

But along the way, I plan to document whatever I can. I’ll press flowers and leaves and grasses in the pages of my journal, name new things I find, and sketch pictures of any unknown animals and mobs. I’ll be contributing something valuable to my town’s understanding of the world. People will go to the town library and pick up this book with my name on it and gaze in wonder at things they never even knew existed.

“Lenna?”

My head jerks up. Mal has a very familiar look on her face, the one that suggests that I’ve been daydreaming when I was supposed to be doing something important. It’s not quite as harsh as the looks my family used to give me when they assigned me jobs around the mine that I promptly abandoned, and at least my friends never call me by the cruel nicknames batted about by my nine siblings—and parents. Loony Lenna was the main one, and no one has called me that in quite some time, probably because after our last adventure, I moved out to Nan’s cabin and stopped trying to fit in with my family. We’re all happier that way.

“Are you ready?” Mal prompts.

I shake my head like it’s full of wool and ready my bow and arrow. I step up to the portal, noting that it smells a little like sweet berries and fresh rain with a touch of…is that fire? Odd. I step up and poke the purple swirlies with my foot, and then it’s like I’m walking into a wall of wiggling violet water, except it doesn’t feel cold and wet, it feels warm and dry, almost like smoke, and then…

I’m somewhere else.

I’m in the Nether.

It takes a moment for my eyes to focus and make sense of what’s around me. This place is…

Whoa.

It’s like a giant cavern, the biggest cavern I’ve ever seen, but everything is in shades of burgundy and red and purple. There are stone blocks I’ve never seen before, fires and fungi and glowing things, all completely unfamiliar. I immediately want to start sketching, but the portal wavers and Chug steps out beside me, sword at the ready.

“Bad guys?” he growls.

“I haven’t seen anything move yet.”

His sword arm drops. “I thought we’d be walking into a villain party, but this place is just—a blood cave?”

The portal swirls again, and Jarro stumbles out.

“What the huh?” he murmurs, axe dangling from his fingertips like he’s forgotten it exists.

“Blood cave,” Chug says with authority. “You get used to it.”

The portal shimmers one more time as Mal comes through. We’ve all moved away to make room, and I have my bow and arrow ready, even if I haven’t needed it so far. This place is so hard to understand, the colors so similar and everything encased as if underground. There’s plenty of room between me and the ceiling, but there is most definitely a ceiling, no sign of sun or moon or sky. I don’t feel the usual comfort I feel in cool, cozy caves. I feel like this place…

It wants to hurt me.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

Maybe it’s the lava waterfall dripping on the edge of my vision, maybe it’s the randomly burning fires, maybe it’s the way everything seems more vertical than horizontal, but the Nether just feels malevolent, like being in the belly of a giant, angry beast.

“So this is the Nether,” Mal says wonderingly. “It’s…not what I expected.”

“Nice place for a vacation.” Chug jabs his sword at the ground. “If you wanted to vacation inside a place that looks like meat rock. Anybody see Tok? Or brigands? Or anything that isn’t red?”

I spin in place, looking in every direction. There’s no sign of anything even remotely human—no buildings, no drops, no sign that anyone other than us has ever set foot here.

“Maybe Tok’s back in the woodland mansion?” Chug asks with what we all know is false hope.

“He has to be here,” Mal says. “Otherwise, why hide the portal in a secret room, and why have some tough guy guarding it? Tok is definitely here. But the group he’s with must either have a base somewhere or be looking for something specific.” She mines a block of the red…stuff…and looks at it before shoving it in her pocket. “Huh. It’s pretty soft.”

Something moves toward us, and I nock an arrow and gesture at it silently. Mal follows my gaze and holds her pickaxe in a more threatening manner.

“What is that?” Jarro asks.

“We don’t know,” Chug whispers back. “We’ve never been here before, either.”

The figure approaching us reminds me a little of the villagers—it’s vertical and bipedal and seems to be going about its business, not really reacting to our presence. As it gets closer, it doesn’t charge us or yell at us, but it does make a curious sound.

“Did that guy just…snort?” Chug asks.

“Like a pig,” I reply.

“I’m going to go talk to it.” Chug has his sword in hand, but not up in a threatening position.

I can tell Mal wants to stop him, but…well, no one really knows what’s going on, so why not let the most dangerous one of us go talk to the first creature we see? When Mal gives me the look, I draw my arrow and aim, just in case things go badly.

“Hi,” Chug says, waving at the creature, which I can now see has a piglike face with tusks and a sword of their own. “My name is Chug. What’s your name?”

The pig man, who isn’t quite a pig or a man, snorts curiously. Their eyes seem drawn to Chug’s gold boots.

“You like the boots, huh? Yeah, my brother can make pretty much anything. Do you want some boots, too?” Chug reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of leather boots, but the pig man—well, let’s call them a piglin, since they don’t really seem to be male or female—the piglin seems uninterested.

“How about some food? I’ve got some nice apples.” Chug holds out a shiny red apple, but again, the piglin doesn’t really care. They just keep staring at Chug’s boots.

“Give them your boots,” Mal suggests.

But I feel like that’s a bad idea. If we give the piglin Chug’s boots, what if they expect us to give up all our armor? And what if the ground burns Chug’s exposed feet? “No, keep your boots on,” I say. “I think they just like gold. They keep looking at my helmet and Mal’s chest plate and Jarro’s leggings. Do you have any gold that you’re not currently wearing?”

“You just don’t want to smell my feet,” Chug murmurs as he digs in his pockets and produces a gold ingot, which we often use as money back home. “How about this? Do you want some yummy delicious gold?”

He tosses the ingot at the piglin, who catches it and just stares at it for a long moment, eyes shining. Then they toss something at Chug, and Chug turns to us, holding a shiny purple bottle of potion. He looks dumbfounded. “I’ve never seen this potion before. How’d this dude get a potion?”

“Who cares where they got it,” Jarro says. “Do more trading.”

Chug nods excitedly. “Yeah. Why not? I’ve got tons of gold ingots.” He throws another one to the piglin, and this time they gleefully toss me eight arrows. “This is like hitting a piñata. You never know what you’re going to get!”

By the time Chug is done trading, we have a pair of iron boots, two more mysterious potions, three weird green pearls, some string, a brick, five hunks of black rock that looks like cobblestone, and a black-and-purple block of the strangest stone I’ve ever seen.

The piglin wanders off once Chug stops throwing gold at them, and Chug stands before his pile of loot. “I can’t tell if this is great or useless.” He rolls one of the green pearls between his hands. “But I’m pretty sure this is going to look great in our garden. The bees are gonna love it.”

I pick up one of the other pearls and turn it over, noting how smooth and iridescent it is. I want to draw it, write about it in my book, and take it back to the library. “Can I have this?” I ask.

Chug shrugs. “Why not? My pockets are getting pretty full.”

We stash all the goodies and shuffle around in silence as we realize that we’re right where we started: in a strange place with no idea what to do next. Even if they didn’t try to hurt us, the piglin still wasn’t particularly helpful. I guess this place is like the village—we just have to figure it out ourselves.

“That looks pretty interesting.” Chug is pointing at a weird area where the red wasteland seems to transition into a red forest. There are plants, or maybe giant fungi, that look like someone described trees to a confused, nearsighted artist and they just did their best. We walk toward it, and as we get closer, we begin to see odd animals moving around, eating the fungus. They look like pigs, but big, wild, brutal pigs with mohawks and tusks.

“Pigs!” Chug shouts, hurrying forward like he’s just spotted someone he hasn’t seen in ages.

“Slow down!” Mal calls. “We don’t know if they’re friendly!”

“Thingy is a pig and he’s friendly, and the pig dude was—well, not friendly, but fun to trade with, so why would something just randomly attack me?” Chug is close to the hog-thing now, and he takes a potato out of his pocket and holds it out, crooning, “Here, hoggy hoggy!”

Because it’s Chug, and because this place is weird, we hurry to join him. I have an arrow ready, and Mal has her pickaxe out. The hog-thing—let’s call them a hoglin—looks up at Chug with beady little eyes and gives a deep, annoyed grunt.

And then they run right for him.

Chug backs up a few steps, hands up. “Sorry. I’ll back off. You seem like you’re, uh, busy—”

He cuts off mid-sentence as the hoglin rams him and tosses him in the air. We’re close enough now to see that there’s no way this thing is nice.

“Should I—” I start, right as Mal says, “Lenna, can you hit it?”

I loose my arrow, and it punches into the hoglin’s side. The creature gives a furious grunt before swinging over to focus on us.

“Don’t hurt them!” Chug calls.

But he’s wrong this time—this creature will straight up kill us. Just because they look a little bit like a pig doesn’t mean they are a pig.

Something grunts behind me, and I spin to find another hoglin preparing to charge. I hit the second with an arrow and have the next arrow ready before I spin to handle the hoglin that attacked Chug. Mal is running toward them with her sword out as Chug struggles up from the ground. Assuming they have that one under control, I focus on the angry hoglin that’s decided I’m the enemy. Two more arrows and they fall, leaving fresh meat and a chunk of leather.

“But maybe they’re just scared,” I hear Chug say.

“They’re trying to murder me!” Mal shoots back. She hits the hoglin with her sword again and again, and they fall.

Poor Chug has his head in his hands as he stares at Mal. “You killed them! You just killed them!”

“Chug, these things are not nice! They attacked you! That other one attacked Lenna. We all love animals and want to let nature run its course, but you’ve got to accept that not every animal wants to be your friend!”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Chug hurls back. “I know I usually do what you say, but you’re not always right. You shouldn’t have killed them.”

But Chug is so busy shouting that he isn’t paying attention to his surroundings.

“Look out!” Jarro shouts, but not fast enough.

A hoglin barrels into Chug from behind, throwing him in the air. Chug lands in a broken heap. Before anyone can get there, they root under him with their tusks and toss him again. Chug slams into a red rock wall and slumps to the ground. I hit the hoglin with two arrows, but Mal finishes them off with her sword before kneeling at Chug’s side.

“Chug? You there, buddy? You okay?”

I hurry to join them with Jarro at my side. He had his axe in hand for the entire fight but didn’t do anything. He does look worried about Chug, though, so my anger at him lessens.

“I just wanted…to be friends,” Chug whispers.

He’s as beat up as I’ve ever seen him, pummeled black-and-blue, his nose smeared with blood. Mal helps him sit up as I keep watch for more of the hoglins. Jarro collects all the meat and leather, but he doesn’t put any of it in his pockets—he places it near Chug like an offering.

“Food’s not going to fix this fast enough, is it?” Mal asks me.

I nibble on my lip; questions like this always take me longer than most people. “It might take all our food, and I don’t know how easy it is to find more food here. But I do know there could be more hoglins, and we’re vulnerable right now. Might as well give him the golden apple. We don’t know what those potions are, and we don’t know what else is around here. Maybe worse stuff than that, and we need Chug to be able to fight.”

She nods and pulls our only golden apple out of her pocket. It’s a sad, serious moment, as we all know that sometime soon, the gleaming golden fruit could be the only thing standing between any of us and…well, death. Potions were rare enough back home, where Elder Gabe demanded outrageous trades, but down here, it’s just us and a hostile, red-tinged world without a single potion to be had. When Chug coughs wetly, Mal puts the apple to his lips. Luckily, even a half-dead Chug is still Chug, and he tentatively takes a bite and starts chewing.

It only takes a few moments before he’s sitting up, grinning as the bruises recede. “I’m still one hundred percent Team Potion, but I can be Team Golden Apple, too,” he says, voice a little raspy but on the mend.

“And hopefully you’re no longer one hundred percent Team Hoglin?” I say darkly.

Chug’s head droops. “If that thing—those things—are hoglins, then yeah, I’m no longer on their side. I, uh, I thought I might be permanently broken there for a minute. Like, all my bones felt like they were made out of mush.” He looks into Mal’s eyes. “Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.”

She nods and holds out her hand to pull him up. “Let’s make a deal. In the Overworld, we assume everything is a friend until it’s a foe. In the Nether, we assume everything is a foe until it’s a friend.”

“But the piglin was an okay dude,” Chug argues weakly.

“That one was. But if one looks like they’re going to attack, you’ve got to promise me you’ll hit first.”

“But they make such cute little oinky noises—”

“Chug, that was our only golden apple.”

At that thought, the color drains out of Chug’s face. He nods. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Now, let’s look for a trail. Clues. Something.” Mal flaps her hand at him. “No petting monsters.”

We fan out, and although I normally act as lookout, I’m too curious about this place to just stand in one place with my bow ready. I take out my own pickaxe and take samples of all the new things I find—fungi, stone, glowy things, vinelike whatchamacallits. I scribble a quick sketch of everything I find in my book and give them names, just the first words that pop into my head.

Nylium.

Netherrack.

Glowstone.

“Lenna! A little help?” Mal calls, and I drop my book and nock an arrow.

Thwack thwack thwack!

I take the hoglin down before it can do any damage and return to my explorations.

It doesn’t take long before we’re huddled up again without any clues to Tok’s whereabouts. Everyone looks glum, so I try not to seem so happy. Yes, I still need to find Tok, but this place—it’s amazing. My pockets are full of things I never knew existed, things that even Nan doesn’t know about. I could study this place for the rest of my life and never learn everything. It’s kind of hard to concentrate on anything else.

“Anybody find anything even vaguely human?” Mal asks.

We all shake our heads.

“I found a sea of lava over there,” Chug mutters, pointing. “Not particularly helpful.”

“I found red stuff,” Jarro says. “Like, lots of red stuff.”

That earns a chuckle from Chug, but Mal doesn’t laugh. I can tell by her rumpled eyebrows and frown that she’s frustrated.

“The brigands must be here somewhere. They must know things we don’t know. But where did they go? We have to keep looking for clues.” And it feels pointless, but I trust Mal, even if she doesn’t currently trust herself, so I go back to looking around.

Jarro has walked over to where Chug pointed at his sea of lava. The red fungus of the forest ceiling dangles down like tree branches, obscuring the view, but Jarro pushes past and disappears.

“Found something!” he shouts.

We hurry to his side, and he’s holding up something that really, really doesn’t belong here:

A sweet berry.