Chapter 8

Chapter 8 When Riding a Lazy Lava River, Make Sure to Bring Your Floaties. "Is Harper all right?" Eek asked. "She sounded upset." Morgan watched Eek getting smaller on Jodi's screen as she left the lava flow and climbed onto solid ground with Ash and Po. "I think she might be having a bad day. One second, Eek—I'm going to move to another voice channel so they can focus." Morgan clicked a few buttons on his computer to swap voice channels. Eek was already there, too. "Okay. Can you still hear me?"

"Yes! I am sitting on Horsefish in the middle of the lava. It says, 'Boowa-a-e-e!'" Eek replicated the sound perfectly. "Wow, you're really good at that! You sounded exactly like a strider!" "Thank you. I can make a lot of sounds, but talking is the most useful." Eek made a sound like a spider and a sound like the rattling of a skeleton. "I am excited to see a fortress! If they are as big as

you say, there must be many new things I can learn to build." "You're going to love it!" Morgan watched as the team climbed a hill and looked around. Nothing yet. They headed back toward the river. "They're big and complex. Lots of crisscrossing hallways. Some scary mobs, too, which means you'll probably love them. What's your favorite kind of thing to build?" "My…favorite?" Eek asked. "Like, do you have more fun making houses or decorations?" Eek thought about this for a moment as the others headed back down the hill toward the lava. "I do not believe I have a favorite. I want to build everything!" "Just a few days ago, you wouldn't build at all!" Morgan said. "Now you want to build everything?" "Yes. But I do not build what I want, exactly. I build it exactly how I remember it, so it looks

correct," Eek replied as the group's striders plunged back into the lava and leapt their way downstream. Everyone swapped back to the group voice chat. "I get that," Morgan replied. "I also want to do things the right way. Whenever I want to build something big, I look up designs online for the best way to do it. Blueprints for workshops and stuff that other players have shared online. There's a whole community of people who teach others how to build big projects! But Jodi always makes everything from scratch." "I build from the heart!" Jodi said proudly. "I want everything I build to be beautiful and unique. It's a kind of art!" "I follow themes," Po said. "I like to build stuff that makes me feel like part of a story. A big spaceship, a creepy haunted house. That kind of thing." "I like builds that fit into nature and show off what's already beautiful about the world," Ash

added. "A workshop hanging from a tree or a house built into a cave. Or an underwater hangout! I haven't had much time lately for fun builds, but those are my favorite." "How do you know how to build something if you have never seen it before?" Eek asked. "You make it up!" Jodi said. "It's the best part of Minecraft!" Eek went quiet. He didn't say anything for a long while. They rounded another bend in the lava river, so Jodi, Po, and Ash went back onto land. Morgan swapped over to the other voice chat with Eek. "It's okay that you copy builds you've seen before. If you're worried about that, I mean. If people are okay with it, and you don't pretend you made it up, copying is totally fine." "I am glad to hear it!" Eek said. He spotted a few warped fungi just outside the lava river and led his strider over to collect them. A few other striders saw him holding the fungi and wobbled over. "But I do wonder if I am missing something

important. Is that really the 'best part' of Minecraft?" "It is for Jodi," Morgan said. "It's not for me. Building something new can be hard! I want it to be perfect, but…I don't think I'm perfect. So I start to think I can't do it." "I am thinking that right now!" Eek said. "I do not know if I can make something new. I have never done it before."