They had been putting off the gunpowder gathering for ages, but now they had to face the music. Or rather, explosions. But today was the day! They would SsssSsssssShow those creepers who was boss! Yeah! No problem! Let’s go! Finley pumped their fist and tried a few victorious poses. Which turned into a full victory lap, and finally a very heroic one-person conga line. 

Finley, Finley, Fin-ley!

Is the boss, the boss-ey!

On the last ey, Finley leapt into the air like a graceful ballet dancer. With a deep breath, they felt the fresh air fill their lugns with bravery and resolve. A tingle of excitement zipped through their arms and legs and their stomach started to plummet.

Wait, what?

Aaaaaaah! All of Finley was plummeting, not just their stomach! They had danced right off a cliff! With a THUD, they landed in the crown of a spruce tree. Ouch! Finley dusted themself off and surveyed the area. They may have fallen down, but they were still pretty far up with a bird’s eye view. The Overworld was still waking up, snow was softly falling as a wooly cow lumbered slowly across the taiga. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. Finley looked around to find it, but it was too far away. Instead, they spotted a tall green tree moving across the snow.

Odd. Trees don’t typically move. Even in the Overworld. Wait a minute… that was no tree. That was a creeper! It was now or never, and since never was not an option it was most definitely now. As Finley started to climb down, they spotted a fox scampering by. Cute! But on closer inspection, they saw that it had a piece of cooked salmon in its mouth. Crimes! That was Finley’s breakfast salmon!

They set off running after the fox, who weaved back and forth between the trees. Finley zigged after it and immediately zagged into a sweet berry bush. Cuts!

The fox paused to watch, which was rude but admittedly fair. Then it bolted again, snowy tail a white flag in the wind. Finley skidded to a stop and remembered something very important: foxes love food. They pulled a sweet berry from a nearby bush and tossed it ahead. The fox sniffed the air, perked up, and pounced on the berry, dropping the stolen cooked salmon in the snow.

“Ha! Trade accepted,” Finley shouted, scooping up their breakfast. The fox chomped happily and trotted off with a jingle of silent victory. Finley munched a bite of salmon, dusted off their gloves. Time to gather the gunpowder!

Except… a little puff of smoke rose from the trees. A chimney?

Snow crunched under boots as Finley followed the smoke to a small igloo. Inside was a bed, a redstone torch, and a trapdoor tucked under a carpet. Bingo.

They grabbed the torch and down the ladder they climbed, boots clanking gently. The basement was dark, but when Finley shone they revealed items floating in mid-air. A potion of Weakness. A golden apple. A copper sword. Valuable stuff. Why would someone just just leave it here? Hmmm.

“GRRRRMMMM!”

Finley spun around. Their question had been answered by a groaning zombie villager! They backed away, falling into the floating items. In a panic, they started throwing the items at their attacker. The copper sword only seemed to enrage it, but the potion and golden apple were much more effective. What an incredible coincidence!

The villager, now woozy and sparkly, made a very peculiar noise: “Grrrr-mrrr… mmm?” Red swirls, shaky feet, and a whole lot of waiting later, the swirls turned to hearts. A completely normal villager blinked, looked at Finley, and gave the biggest nod a blocky neck could manage.

“Hrmmm!” said the rescued villager, probably gratefully.

Finley saluted. “Happy New Year!” They climbed back up, filled with resolve and confidence!

Gunpowder. Creepers. Boom!

Finley set off in a direction that felt right. The sun was starting to set and Finely moved quickly, ready with their shield and bow. But there were no creepers in sight.

Dusk drifted into night. Stars pricked holes in the sky and snow fell like powdered sugar. Finley had started to craft a “Sorry the party is cancelled” message in their when they saw it. A creeper, green as a mossy melon, patrolling between the trunks.

Finley fired an arrow. Thwip! The creeper twitched. Thwip! Thwip! It hissed, lighting up from the inside like a minty lantern. Finley stepped back, holding space for the hiss, then loosed one more arrow. Poof! The creeper fell into a tidy pile of gunpowder.

“YesSssSSs,” Finley hissed back, collecting their rewards. No kabooms tonight. By moon’s peak, Finley had a neat stack of gunpowder, enough for rockets with a respectable flight duration and a decent show.

Back at their base’s worktable, Finley spread out the haul. Paper from earlier sugar cane: check. Flowers and ink sacs for dyes: check. They started putting together a colorful and sparkly selection, using red and yellow and blue dyes, even some black from squid ink sacs. Some rockets got extra gunpowder for longer flights, others stayed short for bursty pops. Finley loaded every dispenser pointing straight up, ran redstone dust in tidy lines, dropped in repeaters to stagger the timing, and placed a few note blocks tuned to a happy little scale. Not a masterpiece, but very bouncy.

They flicked a lever to test one lonely rocket. Swoosh POP! A small orange star bloomed above the spruce. The cat watched with polite skepticism. The two villagers from the igloo wandered over, now both very much alive and very curious.

From the trees, the fox reappeared, nose twitching. It sat at a distance like it had a ticket to the show. Finley’s friends had gathered around the campfire, keeping warm and sharing stories of the adventures they had been on that day.

Finley raised the lever.

Click.

The first line of dispensers set off the first round, red stars streaked up and bloomed. The next row followed, blue pops and white bursts. Repeaters ticked like tiny metronomes. Note blocks plinked back and forth, a stair-step melody that sounded just enough like a celebration to make everyone grin. Orange wheels, purple peonies, a tall stack of white twinkles like snowflakes learning to dance. The fox trotted a little closer, sat, and tilted its head at the biggest boom.

Finley saved one last rocket, the special one with a handful of dyes, and slid it into the final dispenser. “Three… two… one… Happy New Year!”

A huge star of mixed colors blossomed over the taiga, reflecting in every icicle and windowpane. Snow kept falling. Hearts felt warm. Even the wind held its breath for a second to watch.

Finley took a bow. “To new friends, new starts, and exactly the right amount of boom.”

The fox nosed a sweet berry Finley had set on the ground and chomped contentedly. The Overworld exhaled, sparkles fading into the kind of quiet that promises good things.