Chapter 1

It's now or never. Minecraft IronSword Academy number two by Caleb Zane Hewitt. Read for you by Keeler Lee.

Prologue Eek loved the Nether! He decided this exactly 0.25091 seconds after stepping through the portal. He knew because everything he saw seemed to be red: a river of lava shined bright light onto red dirt, red wood, even red leaves.

Neat! he thought. Red was great. He thought of all the things he'd seen in his entire life that were red: poppies, roses, mushrooms, the eight hungry eyes of a spider in the night…nothing scary at all. He took his second step into the Nether with confidence. "Snort." He noticed something standing nearby at the same time it noticed him. It had a body like his human friends but a head with tusks and

floppy ears. "Urr-SNORT!" it grunted and stepped toward Eek. "A pleasure to meet you!" Eek waved his hoe in greeting. "You must be a piglin." "SNORT-uh-huh?" the piglin said. "Arrr-SNORT," another piglin responded, on Eek's left. Then three more snorted behind him. He was surrounded! "I completely agree," Eek said, to be polite. The first one was moving closer, sword at the ready. Eek moved quickly to his right so he could face all five piglins. They swiveled together, clearly unhappy with him. "I am sorry if I interrupted something. I did not mean to— Whoops!" There was no ground beneath his feet—he'd backed up to a cliff! Luckily, a block jutting out from the cliffside caught him, and he climbed back up. Two piglins in front were lifting their swords while the three behind were raising crossbows.

"Oh no!" Eek shouted. "Spiders are scary! Red can be bad!" He was in danger, and there was nobody to help him. He should have listened to his friends. Everyone was going to be so disappointed in him for dying! If he hadn't come to the Nether by himself, this never would have happened. Rattle, rattle. Eek's skeleton friend wandered up from behind him just as the piglins launched a volley of

arrows. Rattle, rattle. The skeleton was wearing the full set of golden armor Eek had given it and was already waving its sword. "No, skeleton! Don't do it! Get out of here!" The skeleton didn't listen. In a flash, it moved in front of Eek just as the piglins fired. The attack caused the skeleton to charge at the piglins, and the piglins turned their weapons on it instead. Again, they fired! Wump! Wump! Wump! The arrows hit the skeleton. Eek was unharmed, but the skeleton was gone in a poof of smoke. "No!" Its golden armor fell in a pile on the ground. And the piglins all turned to look at Eek. He would be next.