The following story is based on the events of a game of SkyWars, one of the games on the Hypixel Minecraft server. Despite not being very good at it, I play SkyWars a fair bit, and the events of this game were so intense that I just had to write them down.
One quick note: since I had no idea beforehand that I’d be writing this down, I didn’t actually remember the names of any of the other players. For this story, I gave nicknames to each of the players I interacted with.
The Sky War
The number of players hits 12. The countdown hits zero. The cages disappear. The game begins.
As soon as I land upon my island, I immediately go for the surface chest. There’s an iron helmet in there, and I get it, then head down to the under-island. In the first chest, I find some more iron armor, and a bow. Actually, two bows! I only need one, of course, but since both of them come with 15 arrows, this gives me 30 arrows total. This is good; I’m not particularly good at melee, but with a bow, I might just stand a chance.
Suddenly, alarm bells go off in my head. This can mean one of two things: I’m paranoid, or someone’s bridging over to my island. As it turns out, it’s the latter – I surface to see someone nearly across to my island (I’ll call this guy Bridger). Even if I was any good at melee, I don’t have a melee weapon, and haven’t even put on any of my armor yet. If Bridger gets across, I’m doomed. I fire at him, but I miss. I move closer, but in my panic I move too close, and find myself facing the wall. I jump upward, firing instinctually, not even aiming. Then I back up to see, to my surprise, I hit Bridger, and knocked him into the void.
1 kill.
Well, now I know I’m definitely doomed, I joke. Every time I’ve gotten a kill on Skywars, I wind up losing somehow. Still, I am pretty happy about hitting Bridger without even aiming, even if it was so close that it was probably hard to miss.
Now that no one’s bridging over here, I can check the third chest. I find a diamond sword and an Iron helmet. Now I have a full set of Iron armor, which I don. Heading back to the surface, I see another player in some kind of structure a few islands over to the right. I seem to recall the structure looking kind of like a temple, so I shall call this guy Templar. Without thinking, I snipe at Templar, then berate myself for wasting an arrow. I’m good with a bow, but not that good; there’s no way I hit him.
As it turns out, though, luck was on my side that day. Not only did I hit him, I somehow knocked him into the void.
2 kills.
That’s more than I’ve ever gotten on a Skywars map. Even if I don’t win, at least I achieved something. Also, I notice I got Templar without really aiming, too. Maybe that’s the secret: I just need to quit aiming, I think jokingly to myself.
I notice, off to the left, another player is building a giant structure of wood for some reason. As such, he shall be called Woodstock. This time, I actually do aim, and I hit Woodstock with an arrow, but he doesn’t fall into the void, and he stays out of my sight after that.
Now, so far, I have been killing it. I stopped Bridger from getting to my island, long-sniped Templar, and hit Woodstock; I’m starting to feel kinda confident. So, naturally, this is where things start to go wrong.
I make the mistake of trying to snipe at one of the players on the main ring. I miss, but I get his attention, and he also has a bow. And he is a way better sniper than I am (so he shall henceforth be called Bowmaster). Each time I move into his sight (and even one time when I wasn’t in his line of sight) I find myself struck by an arrow. Noticing my health has dropped dangerously low, I hide in the under-island. I quickly check the two chests, hoping to find a regen potion, but no luck. There might be one in the surface chest, but I don’t dare surface when one hit from Bowmaster could kill me, instead waiting while my health slowly regenerates on its own.
While I wait, I catch a glimpse of the event timer. 2… 1… chests have been refilled.
I check the chests again. This time, I do find a regen potion, as well as a diamond helmet to replace my iron one. My health’s almost back up by this point, so I stock the potion for later. No new arrows, unfortunately.
I check the player list. There’s now four players left: Bowmaster, Woodstock, a third player that I shall call Jumper (you’ll see why in a bit), and me. Hoping that Bowmaster is distracted by one of the other two, I head to the surface. Down on the center ring, I see Bowmaster locked in combat with Jumper. I shoot at the two players, a stupid mistake in hindsight, and only wind up wasting arrows and hitting nothing. Jumper takes down Bowmaster – I suppose that, like me, he isn’t as good at melee as he is sniping. I wisely decide to hide so that Jumper doesn’t try to shoot at me with Bowmaster’s bow.
A notice goes up: Chests have been refilled. Wow, that seemed quick. I delve into the under-island again, this time finding diamond leggings and boots, but still no more arrows. I also take notice of two ender pearls, one in one chest and one in another, but I don’t grab them.
When I get up to the surface, I am greeted by the shocking sight of Jumper “jumping” (teleporting via ender pearl) over to my island. Before I can even react, though, the problem resolves itself: the ender pearl hit the side of my island, and Jumper falls into the void.
I breath a sigh of relief. Then I realize what this means. There’s now only two players left: me and Woodstock. It’s down to the final two. Now I can’t just sit by and watch the fight rage around me. Somehow, I have a feeling that Woodstock won’t just fall into the void on his own.
He’s still working on his wooden tower. To what end, I can’t fathom. I try shooting at him, but for once, my sniping abilities fail me. And then I run out of arrows.
There’s no more arrows in the chests. Of course, there is the convenient bridge left behind by Bridger, and the chests on his island might hold something… but I have forgotten about that at this point. I do have a few eggs, but I can’t hit Woodstock from here with eggs. There’s no more refill events coming. Like it or not, I have to go face him up close.
I reject the idea of bridging – Woodstock might have a bow of his own, or even eggs or snowballs – he has the high ground, he might be able to hit me with those. No, there’s only one way to do this: I grab one of the ender pearls and teleport over to the inner ring. No sooner do I get there then I realize that I forgot the other Ender pearl, and now have now way of getting it. I did not think that through.
I glance around for chests, but there aren’t any on this ring. There is one on the very center island, but there’s no complete bridge over there from the ring, and I am taking no chances. After letting the damage from the Ender Pearl teleportation heal (I forgot I had that regen potion too), I go to face Woodstock.
I find myself under his angled wooden tower. I look up at him, and he looks down at me. For a moment, we lock eyes. Then I throw my eggs, hitting him a few times, but the damage is negligible, and he doesn’t fall off into the void. Now what?
And then… a new announcement pops up on the screen: Sudden Death. A single dragon spawns above the center island and begins to fly. I don’t know it yet, but there are only seconds left in this game.
The dragon flies straight at Woodstock, hitting him and wrecking his tower, knocking him out over the void… and onto the island to his right. He’s still in this; I won’t be winning this one by luck. The dragon flies outward, then turns around for another pass.
Woodstock launches an ender pearl, teleporting to the inner ring. This is it. The few times I’ve lasted long enough to get to the final melee fight, I’ve always lost. But I’m at full health, while Woodstock has taken damage from the dragon, the fall, and the Ender pearl teleport; could it give me enough of an edge to win? Little do I realize, as we clash, that the dragon is flying straight for us. Straight toward me.
Within the next two seconds, several things happen at once. Woodstock and I clash. I advance toward Woodstock, he advances toward me. The dragon crashes through the ring where I was a moment ago, narrowly missing me. As I pass Woodstock, I hit him again, giving just enough of a nudge…
I whirl around, expecting to see Woodstock there. When he isn’t there, I panic, thinking he must have gotten behind me somehow, but he isn’t there. He’s gone. Only then do I notice the hole in the ring. And suddenly, the last notice goes up.
3 kills
the game is over
I won.
#####Author’s note (this one’s at the end so it doesn’t spoil the story): This is the first (and, to this day, only) game of Skywars I’ve won with any kills. Like I said, I’m not that good. But I still play it, because… I enjoy it anyway.
~W12~