(Illustrations don't belong to me)

While Steve was busy picking berries for breakfast, on the other side of the Minecraft Realms, another person was trying to collect dropped apples, green and sour, as most trees had been burned or chopped down for fire fuel. He bended his back to search, fruitlessly, for remains of edible vegetables that had yet to be trampled on by the feet of suicidal Minecrafters charging at each other. Under a thin branch of a nearby birch tree, laid this person's luggage: a llama, busying itself trying to satisfy its endless hunger with the few patches of green grass, and carrying on its sides its master's burden. Honey bottles and golden carrots were stuffed into a tiny compartment. The others held tools and weapons of diamond, enchanted with the common spells to delay breaking and repair themselves with experience orbs. On top of all that was a compass, useless for navigation as snowballs for ammunition.

The man slowly got up. His name was James, he was supposedly a wandering trader that had gone out of business due to villagers and the brutal war, and his pearly black eyes, sharp and precise, were focusing on a dead bush on the top of a hill in the distance. The hill was like no other – it was of an orange and brownish colour, deprived from the unhealthy dust of the Mesa Plateau. According to the old textbook resting between his two hands, the land patch before his eyes was of the F variant.

Slowly, guiding his trustworthy llama, he began to step into the Mesa biomes. James himself was able to climb on top of the hill quite swiftly, without breaking a sweat – but his llama jumped no more than one block at a time, and was moving really slowly, attempting to slouch on the way to the top for a little further. As such, getting near to the dead bushes was not as effortless as he had imagined. When he finally trespassed into the low valleys and small, dying forests, the sun was going down, and night had, just like the annoyance of a random flying arrow, fallen down upon his camping site. His pursuit would start the next morning.

That went on for days, a lonely Minecrafter wandering around the land where trees and flowers never flourished, and dust dominated the terrain with his only companion, carrying his physical burden. He was clearly looking for something unusual in this wasted land, and sometimes he actually laid flat on the ground, listening to the vibrations of the Earth. His pursuit went nowhere, one might make a naïve guess, as after two weeks the Mesa biome was once again left alone, a hindrance of terrain generation, scarce of thriving life (although admittedly rich in resources like copper and iron).

It was the turn of the desert sands, lying right next to the wasteland, to finally get a fresh decoration that was not dead bushes and cactus. The feet of a traveller, and that of a llama.

***

Again, James and his four-leg companion, for many days, experienced the burning sensation of the dry desert sand under their feet, the harmful wind that blew sand into their eyes (not that they were crucial in such times – nothing much to see out of cactus and dead bushes). Rarely, they came across a desert village, hopeless in trying to escape the brutality of the war – several houses had already been reduced to a debris of sandstones, all the villagers had either died, or, more luckily, evacuated. He wandered into the local library – the books were deemed inessential, and thus left behind – and read about the sand formations, the local legends and tales about the history of witchcraft, the interesting application of cactus spikes in healing zombified villagers (the obvious result was the loss of one villager in their small religious society). Most of the books he left behind, and most villages had no reading material to offer. Eventually, he pocketed one, carrying it in his own inventory.

That book was titled "From sand to magic dust: The mystery of the Desert Temple". The villagers, even the librarians never bothered to open that book, as its content was considered rubbish, saying nothing about how to defend against witches, nor about how to increase wheat farms' efficiency. To James however, it was the most valuable treasure, containing priceless information to his advantage. Why?

The books included a sketch-map of the Desert Temple.

Thus, despite the opposition of his only comrade, arguing in favour of a sheltered cave to rest, James insisted on continuing his journey, across hundreds more blocks, heading in the West direction at top speed (his llama might slouch; the fire charges still wouldn't miss him, and arrows always tempted to hit his worn armour).

Having run as fast as possible, it was several Minecraft days before the map in the book even kicked into effect. Heading West as always, James was relieved to see the map printed inside it started to be more useful: finally the terrain was loading in, and James could see himself as a small arrow, moving on the surface of it.

He was getting close to the red X mark, his utmost destination... close... just over the top of that sand dunes... several more blocks...

That was it. His arrow was now standing right above the mark – he had reached the Desert Temple. James carefully closed the old textbook, and tucked it safely inside his inventory. He took a look around.

The sun was shining right over his head, its heat was uncompromising. Annoying as that was, James was used to the intense heat of the sand. He wasn't accustomed to utter disappointment though.

Nothing out-of-the-ordinary. Absolutely nothing.

Sand accompanying even more sand, boringly decorated by green cacti and skeletal brushes. A quick glance was enough to reveal that no Desert Temple even existed here, in the middle of a nowhere-desert. No sandstones, no ruins, no debris, no epic entrances lying between two ancient sandstone towers. He thought the book had given him a clue to his pursuit. Now he regretted not taking "The interesting formations of the sand" instead – even that would be more practical.

***

Maybe his llama accidentally swallowed a lucky charm.

James was thoroughly annoyed when his llama continuously nudged him – he was searching for the tiniest clues of the temple's existence in desperation, when the llama suddenly insisted on nudging him towards a dead bush, something like that. Nevertheless, since his search yielded no potential results, he followed. The discovery led by a llama, that was why he was shocked to see the famous Desert Temple's entrance, a pit of one block only, waiting to be noticed, right next to a cactus.

This must be the hole at the top of one of the two towers. Carefully producing a fence post, the necessary tools and food, he tied his llama to the post, making sure the lead was long enough to move around freely (his llama was much smarter than any normal ones, many times it saved him from being hit by an arrow), checked the pit's depth, then jumped into it. He expected to come out at nightfall and lead his trusty companion out of the harmful dust of the desert sand.

Of course, few things in life match our expectations.