Free Quest for Justice by Sean Fay Wolfe

she said, and she went off to bed.
    The following day, after bowls of mushroom stew for breakfast, they headed into the dojo above the crafting building to train in sword fighting and crafting.
    Stan was nervous. Before the archery and mining lessons he had felt excited, yes, but not nervous. He remembered the exchange with Sally last night. She had high expectations for him. He couldn’t let himself mess this up.
    Stan, Kat, and Charlie sat down across from Sally. The other boy had been moved to the class with his other friends after a not-so-subtle request by G and Archie. Stan listened intently as Sally explained that the most important aspect of sword fighting in Minecraft was to not think too much and to basically just do what felt natural.
    After she explained and demonstrated some different techniques, she pulled three training suits out of her inventory. “Stan, Charlie, Kat, please come up here.”
    They did as she said, not knowing what would happen next. G and Archie had called them up two at a time to fight, not three.
    â€œPut these on,” she commanded, holding out three sets of diamond body armor. They obliged. As Stan was pulling on the diamond pants, he saw Sally pull two stone swords and one iron sword out of her inventory.
    â€œKat, Charlie, come stand over here,” she said. They walked to where she was standing. She threw Charlie and Katthe stone swords. “Stan, just stand there.” She threw him the iron sword.
    â€œKat, Charlie, when I say go, you are going to attack Stan with everything you’ve got. Stan, you have to defend against both of them. As usual, you are out after three hits.”
    Stan was dismayed. He had never really fought another player with a sword in his life. He knew that Charlie wasn’t any better than he was, but Kat had supposedly done all that stuff on the other servers. She had killed a player and taken his sword and pickaxes! How was he going to beat her?
    â€œSally, can’t I get some advantage or something? Like I have four hits and they have two? Wouldn’t that be fair?”
    Sally snickered. “Stan, imagine if a group of about twenty players armed with loaded bows and diamond swords jumped out of the woods and ambushed you. Would that be fair? No, but you’d still have to fight, right? You would, ’cause you know what? Sometimes life isn’t fair. And I was nice. You have an advantage. You have an iron sword and they both have stone, so don’t be a wimp, noob! Now take your positions!”
    Up until this point, Kat had been smirking and Charlie had been looking confused, but now they both dropped into fighting stances, swords raised. Kat wore an expression of aggression, while Charlie wore one of apprehension about attacking his friend. Stan was petrified, but he could seeSally’s mind wasn’t changing, so he readied himself to fight.
    Sally sat down in a wooden chair with her legs crossed. “Okay then . . . FIGHT!”
    Stan was caught totally off guard, but both Charlie and Kat rushed him at the same time. Charlie gave an uppercut to Stan’s right arm, and Stan dodged him by sidestepping left. However, he forgot about Kat, who brought her stone sword down onto his helmet with an almighty clang that reverberated in his skull.
    Sally yelled out, “Point to Kat and Charlie! Stan, you’ve got two hits left . . . Charlie, three . . . Kat, three. Back to positions.” They walked back to their original positions and dropped into fighting stances once again. “Ready? And . . . FIGHT!”
    This time Stan was ready. Charlie rushed first and tried the same uppercut attack, and again Stan dodged, but when Kat swung her sword to his left side he spun his iron sword and blocked Kat’s attack. The two players pressed into each other’s weapons. Kat was stronger than Stan, but Stan had better leverage. Stan was about to overpower her when he felt a dull pain at his right rib cage.