The Great War

The Scribe walks through a thicket of trees, rubbing his hands to keep warm by an unnatural pink flame. He sits down on a fallen log, glancing upwards, at you. "Oh. Hello there. It's that time of year again, I see. The Witching Hour once again approaches." The setting sun casts elongated shadows across the ground, and tinges everything pink. "I suppose another story is in order. Another story stricken with the black of fear, that punches through the vulnerable heart to deliver raw emotion. Another story of ghosts. Of the past." The Scribe polishes his goggles. They gleam in the refiner's fire. "I will tell this story, yes. It is one I am very familiar with. And you, hopefully, will listen."

The Scribe sits back, telling a tale. "This is the story of the Great War."

Now, last Witching Hour, as you may remember, I told a similar story. One of the prelude to the Great War. Those days were dark for Minecraftia. For all worlds, across the infinite universe. For you see, every world was experiencing a microcosm of these events. Though players are given control over their own worlds by the Gods of Mojang, select events influence those worlds' history, and are repeated across every possible timeline. The Great War, as documented by metachronistic scholars in decades since, is one of them.

In my world - the prime world, I have reason to believe - the Great War was, quite simply, hell. And there are many good reasons for that. To tell you, you need to understand from the perspective of someone who was there. I shall give you that needed perspective. As you may remember, the Great War was the direct result of a schism between Minecraftia's dominant races. The Testificates and the Humans. The Testificates' shining port city of Kyoto had been terrorized by Human influence for too long, and when a Fool under the influence destroyed the entire city, doing so through some of the most occult means imaginable, it proved a necessary spark to incite complete bloodshed.

Governments flung accusations. Politicans raised hands and shouted. Troops were marched across borders, weapons, mobilized. The Great War was, quite simply and plainly, the most important event in Minecraftian history that was wrought nearly entirely by cubic hands, and not the divine will of the gods, above or below. Granted, He had a stake in the war. He provided the spark. But the seething rage was already there. The fire burned through human contact. Anyway, enough purple prose. Let us get into the details.

The weapons used were not the sticks and stones you might think, trust me. Minecraftia was in a golden age. Cities, metropolises, were built from the ground up over the course of centuries. Testificates had forged palaces and temples from ancient designs, creating massive trading outposts - of which Kyoto was one. Humans had made the tallest of cities, urban jungles powered solely through redstone, that devilish force manipulating source code bit by byte. And when these two immovable objects trudged ahead at unstoppable forces, the result was mayhem.

I know, because I was stuck right in the middle of it.

I was at Kyoto, once. While anti-human resentments were boiling. Everyone gave me evil looks when they thought I couldn't see. Shadows jumped from alleyways. Lights flickered in wind that wasn't there. A cursed wind howled out towards the sea, then came rushing back, spraying some unholy brine in your face. I left as quickly as I'd came, and I left in chains. I was arrested for conspiring against the government of the city. My intentions in Kyoto were merely to gain information. I suppose I touched the wrong nerves that day. I was thrown in prison, where I sat and stewed for weeks. Escape came in the form of the Fool's Massacre. The Officials of the Humans rushed to get all prisoners of their kind out from the region as quickly as possible, for fear that more blood would be shed.

The Great War started in the city of Haggstrom. It was a peaceful city. It had done nothing to deserve its fate. But that was exactly why the Testificates chose it as its target. War hadn't even been officially declared when the troops hit. There was no way any Human army could get there in time. The Testificates had battalions of curses, of magic and thaumaturgy. They laid waste to the city, toppling buildings, executing the innocent. Smoke clouds trailed into the atmosphere. Embers washed through the streets. The Testificates stacked the dead in the center of the city, for the zombies to enjoy. Perhaps the Fool's Massacre still addled their minds.