The side road turned out to be narrower than it had looked from the highway, but the vehicles managed to make their way through the trees without the horde following them.
Rick kept the convoy moving for almost twenty minutes before slowing down in front of a wooden fence that crossed the road.
Beyond the fence were vast green fields, several sheds and a two-story white house sitting on a small rise.
"Looks like a farm." Lori said as she rolled down the window.
Carl observed the place from the back seat and opened the minimap, checking the area around the house first and then the nearby buildings.
There were several yellow dots inside the property, as well as a concentration of red dots in the large building beside the house.
Carl kept his eyes on that barn for a few seconds, as the dots remained trapped inside and moved slowly from side to side.
After getting around the fence, the group drove up to the house, stopping a few meters away from it, leaving enough distance between themselves and the porch to react if something went wrong.
Rick raised a hand to signal for the others to wait and got out of the vehicle alongside Shane, Daryl stopped his motorcycle near them, with the crossbow resting against the handlebars.
"It's too quiet..." Daryl said as he scanned the surroundings.
"All right, we'll make this quick, we'll go in, make sure it's safe and wait until tomorrow for the horde to pass before moving on." Rick said as he approached the house.
Creak!
Before they could get close, the front door of the house opened and an older man stepped onto the porch with a shotgun in his hands.
Two more men appeared behind him, while a dark-haired young woman remained near the door.
"This is private property." the older man warned without aiming directly at them. "So you'd better explain what you're doing here."
Rick slowly moved his hand away from his revolver and stepped forward.
"My name is Rick Grimes, we're traveling with our families and had to leave the highway because of a herd of walkers."
The man looked over the vehicles and stopped when he saw the children inside them.
"Hershel Greene, I own this farm." Hershel introduced himself.
Shane glanced at Rick from the corner of his eye, but Rick responded with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
"We don't want any trouble, Mr. Greene, we're only asking for permission to fill our containers and stay away from the road until tomorrow."
Hershel rested the butt of the shotgun against the porch boards as he studied the group.
"You can set up in the field by the well, but no one enters the house without permission and the weapons stay put away while you're on my property."
"We're not giving up our weapons." Shane interjected, clearly dissatisfied with that last part.
One of the men on the porch raised his rifle, prompting Daryl to move a hand toward the crossbow.
"Shane..." Rick said without taking his eyes off Hershel. "We can keep them inside the vehicles."
The silence stretched until Hershel motioned for the man with the rifle to lower it.
"Then get those vehicles into the field quickly, before the noise draws something worse here." Hershel said, temporarily accepting the group.
The group obeyed and drove to a flat area near the well, where they began spreading out without straying too far from the vehicles.
Rick handed out the tasks in order, leaving Shane and Daryl watching the edges of the field while the others unloaded blankets, containers and other necessary supplies.
Carl filled a container by the well while the others unloaded blankets and bags from the vehicles.
The young woman who had appeared at the door crossed the porch with a bucket in each hand and stopped when she saw him working.
"Need help with that?" she asked, pointing at the nearly full container.
"I can do it." Carl replied before lifting it easily and carrying it toward the truck.
She watched him for a moment, slightly impressed, then returned to the house without insisting.
The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, while the adults finished organizing the camp and Daryl walked along the fence looking for gaps.
Rick and Shane established watch shifts, leaving the vehicles around the group as an improvised barrier and keeping the weapons in places where they could retrieve them quickly.
"What do you think of this place?" Rick asked as he approached the group around the campfire.
'Oh, so he's already thinking about staying with the Greenes...' Carl thought to himself, however, he said nothing and simply observed.
"Mm, it's far from the road, we have water and space to grow crops, seems like a good place to live." Dale said, glancing at the vast fields.
"As long as Hershel lets us stay." Glenn added. Rick nodded, that was still the main problem.
"I'll talk to him tomorrow, for now let's just be good neighbors." Rick said.
No one had much to add. After several days of moving from one place to another, the possibility of staying somewhere safe was appealing.
After dinner, they decided to call it a day and go to sleep, Carl entered his sleeping tent, covered himself with the blanket and closed his eyes, waiting until the voices finally disappeared.
When he was sure no one would notice his absence, he returned to Minecraft. After passing through the portal, he found himself inside the shelter, with several new chests placed against one of the walls.
The clones had separated the wood, stone, iron, food and other resources obtained during his absence.
Three days had passed since his last visit, and the clones had not wasted any time.
Carl opened the chest meant for iron and found it completely filled with stacks of ingots, far more than they could have obtained by mining alone.
That could only mean that the most important construction on his list was already working.
He left the shelter and followed the stone path that ran through the crops, finding new fields of wheat and carrots on both sides, while torches placed on posts illuminated the entire path.
The pens had also been expanded, and the number of cows, sheep and chickens had nearly tripled since the last time he checked them.
Farther ahead, the path ended in front of an elevated structure of stone, glass and wood, built far enough from the base to prevent it from interfering with the other villagers.
Carl climbed the side ladder and observed the villagers confined inside their compartments, all protected to prevent any monster from reaching them.
An iron golem appeared on the platform while he was inspecting the structure, it was immediately dragged away by the water current and fell toward the killing chamber.
Carl descended to the lower section just in time to hear the damage caused by the lava, followed shortly afterward by the sound of several items entering the hoppers.
Inside the collection chest were more iron ingots and a few poppies, confirming that the farm was not only complete, but was already operating without direct intervention.
"Much better than I expected." Carl murmured as he removed a stack of ingots to check the accumulated production.
With unlimited iron he could craft tools, buckets, rails, hoppers and armor without relying on mining.
He would also have enough material to use in the other world when necessary, for example, to build walls.
If he built a wall around the camp made entirely of iron, it would be practically impenetrable.
"Mm, now that I think about it, if I built a wall around the farm, we could block any horde."
"However, dealing with Hershel right now would be a hassle, not to mention I'd have to reveal my cards too soon..."
"Sigh, forget it, I'll think about it later, what matters now is figuring out whether I can cure the walkers the same way a zombie can be cured in Minecraft." Carl murmured with a frown.
|[ Mission: Plague Doctor
Description: For the sake of your companions' sanity, you must find a cure for the epidemic
• Objective: Craft a Potion of Weakness and a Golden Apple and experiment with their effects on the Wildfire virus
• Mission Reward: Gold-Tier Card
• Penalty: None ]|
Carl kept his eyes on the message, for some reason, the word "experiment" made him uncomfortable, almost as if it suggested that the procedure might not work.
The golden apple wouldn't be a problem thanks to the clones, but obtaining the potion would be much more troublesome, he would need at least a Nether wart and some blaze rods, which meant entering the Nether.
"I suppose I'd have to do it sooner or later." he murmured before closing the message.
Author's Note: Don't forget to leave your thoughts, it's what motivates me to keep writing.