# 📖 Steve's Journal > *"There must be a better way than doing this myself every single day."* > > — Steve, from the pages of his research journal --- ## ✦ Chapter 1 — The Butcher Steve had never minded hard work. Building farms, tending crops, mining for materials, and gathering food were simply part of life. There was always something that needed to be done. But there was one task he had grown to hate. **Butchering animals.** Every morning, he would walk through his fields, checking on his animals. Cows needed tending. Pigs needed feeding. Chickens needed gathering. And eventually, the animals became too numerous. There was no avoiding it. He would have to pick up his sword and begin the unpleasant task of reducing the herd. It was not the killing itself that bothered him. It was the repetition. Day after day. Week after week. The same animals. The same sword. The same work. And when he wasn't tending his animals, there were hostile creatures to deal with. Creepers in the fields. Zombies wandering near the house. Skeletons appearing at night. He began to wonder if there was a way to make the work happen without him. --- ## ✦ The Experiment Steve had spent years studying the strange relationship between magic and the objects of the world. He had seen ordinary objects perform extraordinary things when touched by the right kind of magic. So he began experimenting. His first attempts were disappointing. A sword enchanted with one spell would simply glow. A tool placed beneath another spell would do nothing at all. He tried commanding tools to move on their own. Nothing. He tried giving simple instructions to objects. Still nothing. Then, one evening, Steve noticed something unusual. An armor stand. It stood quietly in the corner of his workshop, holding an old set of armor that he no longer used. He stared at it for a long time. An armor stand was already shaped like a person and it could wear armor. Perhaps, he thought, it didn't need to become alive. Perhaps it only needed to be **given purpose**. --- ## ✦ The Awakening Steve returned to his experiments. This time, he changed his approach. Instead of trying to make the armor stand move, he tried something much stranger. He tried to give it a task. The first attempt did nothing. The second caused the armor stand to fall over. The third made it turn slightly before becoming completely still again. A fourth attempt gave it arms. Now it could hold weapons and tools as well but still there was no success making it kill. He was beginning to think he had wasted another evening. But, in the back of his mind there was at least some solace and light in the darkness of failure. He had discovered the way to give it the ability to hold weapons and tools and that gave him some small sense of success, despite the stand still not killing anything. Then he heard something behind him. **Clank.** Steve turned. The armor stand was standing. He stared at it. The armor stand stared back. At least, it appeared to. Then he noticed it was holding his sword. --- ## ✦ The First Butcher Steve wasn't sure what would happen next. He opened the door to the animal pen and waited. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the work was done. Steve stood completely still. He had not even seen the armor stand move! The armor stand simply waited. Steve couldn't believe what he had witnessed. He gave it another task. The result was the same. The strange creation didn't complain. It didn't get tired. It didn't ask for food. It simply waited for Steve to give it something to do. For the first time in a very long while, Steve could walk away from the animal pens without worrying about what needed to be done next. --- ## ✦ Something Else Was Waiting But Steve soon discovered that his creation had a broader understanding of its purpose than he expected. One night, a group of hostile creatures wandered too close to his home. Steve reached for his sword. Before he could draw it, he heard the familiar sound of metal cutting through flesh and bone. The armor stand hadn't even moved. But the hostile creatures were destroyed. The Armor stand was still in its place. Waiting. Steve had created something he never intended to create. It wasn't simply a helper for the animal pens. It could protect the place he called home. It could handle the work Steve had grown tired of doing himself. And perhaps most importantly... **It could do it while Steve was somewhere else. Or Asleep** --- ## ✦ The Butcher Steve never discovered exactly where the magic came from. Perhaps that was the most interesting part. He had not created life. He had not created a creature. He had simply found a way to give purpose to something that had never possessed one. And so, the first **MobStand** came to be. An armor stand brought to life by magic, given a task, and trusted to carry it out. Steve recorded the discovery carefully in his journal. But at the bottom of the page, he added one final thought: > **"If I can teach an armor stand to do one job..."** > > **"...what else might it be capable of?"** --- *Steve's experiments had only just begun.* *He had no idea how many other problems could be solved by the strange magic he had discovered.* --- ## ✦ Acquire Steve's Process Steve's discovery eventually became more than an experiment in his workshop. The process was refined, preserved, and made available to those who wished to put these strange helpers to work. If you wish to put Steve's discovery to use on your own server, you can acquire the **MobStand** and give your own magical helper a purpose. ### **[Acquire Steve's MobStand](https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/rs-mobstand.136006/)** *Give it a task.* *Then let Steve's discovery do the work.*