Mounts of Mayhem: Finale Arena

We are at the cusp of crowning a final champion in the Mayhem Tournament! We spent ages trying to come up with a final boss fight that would blow the entire competition out of the water but we simply could not do it. Each challenge has been so intense, adrenaline-fueled, and action-packed that nothing could compare.

So we’re bringing all of them into the arena where everything started. Who doesn’t love a comeback? The Vanilla Arena has been upgraded since the first challenge. It’s an open air stadium with more seats for our growing audience and a few little secrets here and there.

Please locate your seats, your sense of drama, and your nearest rabbit’s foot because we are about to mash as many arenas as we can into one spectacular, sculk-spattered, lava-kissed, feather-fluffed, moonlit splash zone!

*DING*

There goes the iron golem’s bell and a hero enters the arena.

CHALLENGER: ROUND 8 (FINAL ROUND!)

• NAME: Sir Jay Wells
• OCCUPATION: COMMUNITY HERO
• Strengths: Will rally a crowd like nobody’s business
• Weaknesses: Too heroic?
• Survivability rating: ???/5

Coming alone signals unparalleled confidence, as does the rest of their gear. Netherite armor: check. Lunge enchanted spear: check, check. Inventory filled to the brim with potions, weapons, and a variety of snacks: check, check, CHECK!

But which antagonist is coming out first? Maybe it’ll just be the one, we did leave an entire menagerie of hostile mobs alone for a couple of hours.

*DING*

The second bell signals the antagonist. The audience holds its breath before bursting into raucous applause for the zombie chicken jockey!

Wipe that relief off your face, hero. You know better than that. You may have come alone, but this little zombie didn’t. Hoofbeats fill the arena, but they’re quickly drowned out by the audience’s cheers as a hoard of zombie horses and camel husks stampede into the arena, ridden respectively by zombies and husks.

Our hero is outnumbered and now also surrounded. They do the only thing a hero would do: jump up and down. Sure, calisthenics are important. But so is timing. The hoard is drawing close!

At their fifth jump, another sound rings out. Footsteps. Then hoofsteps! Another hero swoops in on an elytra as a shadow falls over the arena in the tell-tale shape of a happy ghast. Challengers fill the arena, riding in on horses and camels, running in wearing armored boots, and swooping from the sky. Most of them carry spears, but there are swords and crossbows a plenty. I think there’s even a few snowballs flying around!

The heroes on the ground and on mounts have unseated most of the zombies and husks. They’re taming the zombie horses and camel husks while the aerial fighters pick off the remaining hostile mobs. They’re just about to conquer them all when –

*DING*

The third bell! Is that the ring of victory? HA! Dear reader, you know me better than that. A series of trapdoors open from the high walls.

Water flows into the arena, filling it to the brim. I tried to warn you about the splash zone! A school of nautiluses and zombie nautiluses swim in, along with your regular angry aquatics like guardians and drowned.

The heroes atop the happy ghast are on their feet, throwing Potions of Water Breathing down to their floating friends and using their spears to attack the mobs closest to the surface. The heroes in the water are holding their own, but it’s clear that they’re running out of potions. A few of them have managed to tame the nautiluses with pufferfish, but as we’re not in an actual ocean they’re going to be running low on those supplies as well. Even with the Breath of the Nautilus, the hostile mobs are winning.

A hero with an elytra swoops back and forth, but they can’t reach anything without diving into the depths.They fly in circles until they crash into the side of the arena. Frustred, they swing their sword into the side of the arena, breaking a block. They keep hitting at it, until more blocks break off. Suddenly, a cavalcade of sand rushes out of the wall like a glorious, beige fountain. It starts filling the basin, giving the swimming heroes a small beach to catch their breath on. They take turns fighting off the mobs as the sand keeps flooding in until the heroes are the only ones left standing on a victorious, sandy hill. Hooray!

Congratulations to our champion of champions, the ultimate hero, the one and only SAND BLOCK!!! We’re going to be celebrating all night long, but come back soon for a look back at this glory that is the Mounts of Mayhem!