Withering Heights

'Do it.'

'No! Why?'

'Do it, Kara!'

'What the hell, Art? I'm not risking it.'

'Kara…'

'You're crazy.'

'YOU'RE crazy if you don't try it.'

'Art! Seriously?'

'Yes. Seriously.'

Kara had picked up a Wither Skull on her journey to get some Blaze rods, which made it our third. So naturally I started harassing her to summon the Wither and defeat it with me.

'Okay, but if we die, you're getting me a new set of diamond armor.' Kara says in a sly voice.

'Oi, we'll need our diamonds for making a base for the beacon. Plus, if we actually die – which is pretty unlikely – we can just get our stuff back. This isn't hardcore.'

'Fine.' Her Minecraft self turns away from me, Wither Skull in hand. 'Get the soulsand.'

'Wait, really?' I say, even though I'm already walking away to find some soulsand we abandoned in the chest I named 'Useless shit'. In-game, of course. 'Oh boy, I can't wait.'

I press F5 to get the third-person view to make it look better for the viewers. 'Wait, hold on. We'll have to do this away from base.'

'Duh, what'd you think?' Kara says. My in-game character takes a bit of damage, and I sigh, knowing what it is without even turning around.

'Kara, stop attacking me.'

'Ugh. Fine, fine.'

We choose a space quite a distance away from our base and clear out some tall grass. Kara sighs deeply as if preparing herself for something big, which, of course, it is.

'Okay. Here we go.'

I walk forward and put down four soulsand blocks in a T shape. Kara moves forward to place the Wither heads, but then she stops.

'What?'

'Shouldn't we make potions first?'

'OH MY GOD KARA.'

'Fine!'

She grudgingly places the first two heads, then hesitates a little.

'This is it.' Her Minecraft character turns around to nod at me. My stomach does a little jump, though I don't know if it was from nerves or from something else entirely. Wow, am I getting attracted to Minecraft characters now? Nice.

Kara's character walks forward and places the last head. There's a short pause in which I wonder whether somehow we did it the wrong way, and then the Wither appears in all its exploding three-headed glory, with the Withering Heights advancement popping up in the top right corner. Kara wastes no time in dodging its initial explosion – that's what I like most about her. She's alert, and can react as fast as lightning if she wants to. I, on the other hand, experience the full blast of the explosion and nearly die.

'Oh my god Art you're so dumb!' I spot an arrow flying in to hit the Wither. Its health goes down a little.

'Yeah, yeah,' I heal as quickly as I can and get my bow out to fire at it. The Wither rises up into the sky menacingly. I would've been scared if I wasn't so busy trying to dodge its exploding heads. One manages to hit me by the breadth of a pixel and I get the Wither effect. I curse out loud.

'Language!' Kara yells, breathless as if she's fighting something in real life.

'We should've added Blast Protection!' I say, bombarding the Wither with arrows.

Somehow my health goes down and the next second I'm staring at a 'You Died!' screen.

'Dammit!' I yell, slamming my desk.

'Art! What the hell! Come back!'

I hit the respawn button and spawn back in our house, a hundred blocks away from the main battle site. 'DAMMIT I FORGOT TO PUT A BED DOWN!'

'ART! I'M GONNA KILL YOU! COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!'

'Oh my god.' I get some backup iron armor and a sword and sprint-jump all the way back to the battle site. I keep glancing at the Wither health bar and the bottom left corner of the screen for updates, even though Kara's constantly in my ear, ratting me out and exclaiming angrily at stuff the Wither is probably doing.

'I don't even know how you're still alive,' I say, scouting the area for my stuff. I spot some of my armor and food on the ground, but the rest is nowhere to be scene.

'ART MOVE!'

I instinctively jerk my mouse to the left and press down on the W key, barely escaping a Wither head. My hand shakes, and my body seems electrified.

'Where's the rest of my stuff?' I yell over the sound of the Wither exploding in my ears. Kara doesn't reply, and I quickly put on the armor and fill up the hunger lost from running all the way from spawn. Disregarding the loss of my other items, I turn around to fire a volley at the Wither…and instantly die. I slam my desk in frustration again and lean back in my chair, hands over my eyes, ignoring Kara's curses. My hands are still shaking.

'You know what,' I say, straightening up in my chair, 'I'm just gonna go grab a drink and watch you defeat the Wither.'

'Art.' She says warningly. Then she screams so loud it hurts my ears.

'What? What?' I say, not able to see any new notifications on the screen due to the fact I was still staring at 'You Died!'.

There's no reply from her for a few seconds, then she sighs. 'Oh my god I was on half a heart!'

I shake my head even though she can't see me. 'You actually made me worried.'

'Oh? You care about me – AAAAAAARGH!'

'What? What?' I say again, sitting up in my seat.

There's another pause, then she says, 'Nothing, I got your stuff though GET YOUR BUTT BACK HERE!'

'Ugh, fine.' I grudgingly move my cursor to the respawn button and watch the house load around me a second time. I don't have any more spare armor, so I just grab an iron sword and move out. The Wither's health bar is three-fourths down, and I run as fast as I can back to the main battle site.

This time, I don't act like an idiot. I yell at Kara to give me back my stuff and attack the Wither as fast as I can. Adrenaline keeps me on the edge of my seat, and I watch the Wither's health bar go down slowly as we attack it.

Kara lands the final hit, and the deafening sound of the Wither dying plays in our ears. I give a whoop of joy and slam the desk yet again, but this time in happiness.

'We did it!' Kara screams, laughing hysterically. I wish we were in real life so that I could grab her and swing her around or something.

'Finally!' I laugh, shaking my mouse madly so that my character's view swivels around. I turn to Kara's character. 'Give me a kiss, right now!'

'What the hell? No!' She says, although she's still laughing. She throws the Nether Star at me, and my character picks it up immediately.

'What? Why?' I say. Kara laughs in reply.

'You make the beacon. Because you're my beacon of light,' she says, and my heart thumps loudly.

'Awh, thanks,' I say through the sound of my heart fluttering wildly in my ears. 'You didn't mean that though, did you?'

'Of course I didn't.' Kara laughs yet again. 'Just kidding. Make the beacon, you dunce.'

I grin foolishly, extremely glad that Kara can't see me right now.