Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Skeletons Are So Heartless. And Brainless. And Lungless. But They Definitely Have a Spine! Everybody put on a headset and logged in together. When the world finished loading, Morgan was surprised to find himself already inside a house! It was made of spruce and had six beds, a crafting table, a torch for light, and a chest. He couldn't help himself. He opened the chest. Inside were five copies of every stone tool! "Look!" Morgan called to his friends. "THERE'S ONE HERE FOR EACH OF US." They crowded around the chest. "Are you sure these are ours?" Harper asked.

"Gotta be!" In the real world, Po stroked his chin like a villain in a movie. "And if they aren't, we'll be pulling off the crime of the century!" "They're only stone tools," Theo pointed out. "We can replace them if they're not meant for us." "UH…I THINK YOU SHOULD ALL SEE THIS." Jodi had already opened the door. Morgan followed her outside and saw what she meant. They were high up. Way up. The server was different than it had been before: their spawn point was on top of a giant spruce tree!

"Oh yeah, I remember this!" Theo said. "THE RESET GAVE US A NEW SEED." Po shook his head. "I think a tree this big is probably a very old seed." "He means the world seed." Harper was walking around the house, looking out in every direction. The tall tree let her see far, even to the edge of the taiga biome. "Every time you make a new world, it creates a random string of numbers called a seed. If it's different, then everything really is reset. NOTHING AROUND HERE IS THE WAY IT USED TO BE." Morgan had something else on his mind. Someone had already built a house here. They

were on top of a tree, which meant it was a tree house. And if he was right, a cool tree house must mean— "ASH!" Jodi yelled, pointing down at the ground. "SHE'S ALREADY HERE!" Morgan found a set of stairs built around the trunk of the tree. He rushed down, and the others followed close behind. Ash Kapoor went to another school now, but she had been part of their Minecraft team from the beginning. She was a Wildling Scout and was almost always in her scout uniform. She had tons of merit badges to show how hard she worked at camping, hiking, swimming, building, leading…most importantly, though, she was a great friend. "Hi, everyone!" Ash's Minecraft skin looked like a Wildling Scout, too. It was a surprise to hear her voice in the headset. "DOC SENT ME EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KEEP PLAYING WITH YOU."

"I'm so glad," Morgan said. "After the Fault reset our server, and the storm reset our school, I don't know if I can handle any more changes." Ash handed him a brown mushroom sympathetically. "I know what that's like. Moving would have been even harder for me if I didn't have all of you to play with." "How did you already build all this?" Theo asked. "Aren't you in school, too?" Ash paused. "Oh, I guess I had some extra—" Rattle-rattle. Uh-oh. Everybody knew that sound: a skeleton. Thwip. Thunk. A skeleton shooting arrows! "Ow!" came a voice from the distance. Thwip. Thunk. "Ow! What an interesting experience!" Everybody looked at each other in surprise. Another voice? Rattle. Thwip. Thunk. "Ow! Nice aim, buddy!" Morgan pulled out his wooden sword and ran toward the sound and found what he was looking

for—the Evoker Kid! The boy looked like a cute, short evoker, with a big nose and even bigger eyebrows. He also had three arrows sticking out of his side. "It is the Morgan!" a voice exclaimed in their headsets—a different voice than the Evoker King's. It sounded like a boy their age, crystal clear, like he was standing right next to them. He said every syllable slowly and perfectly, though, which was the most robot-like thing about him. "The Morgan has returned at last! Did you bring a Jodi, or perhaps a Po?" "Yeah, they're all here." Rattle-rattle. "But I think you've got bigger problems!" The skeleton was right behind the kid— wearing a complete set of golden armor! "How did this skeleton get armor?!" Morgan asked. Thwip. He pushed the Evoker Kid out of the way. Thunk. The arrow landed in a tree behind them.