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[b]"Ugh... what's going on? Where am I?''[/b][b]My vision was blurry. I couldn't see anything.[/b][b]"Man, my head hurts. What...?'' My voice trailed off as I realized what was going on. After a moment, my vision began to clear, and I could see distinctly. I was in a forest. There were animals of some sorts wandering about me, grazing on the blue-green grass. The Pine Trees stood tall around me. It was morning, and the sun was just starting to peek above the mountains.[/b][b]"He-hello?'' I called. The animals bayed and scattered into the forest, then, silence.[/b][b]"Hello?'' I called more loudly this time. "Is anyone there? Steve? Guys?''[/b][b]I was starting to remember what had happened, vaguely at first, and then more clearly after a few minutes. I had been mining with Steve, my best friend. I had also been mining with some of my other friends, Tankinator, Aboba, Pluto, and E.J, but we got separated in a very large Abandoned Mine Shaft, and hadn’t seen one another since, so it was just Steve and I. We were mining away, making a new Mine Shaft, when we came upon a cave. It didn't seem like a big one at first, but as we searched, we kept finding more and more passages that had been hidden in corners. There were plenty of encounters with monsters, but we kept our heads and used our bows to take care of them. In one of the branches of the cave, we found a vein of diamond, and a very large one at that. There were at least twenty three two gram diamonds. Near the end of the vein, there was a large cave with a small pool of lava on one side and a deep pool of water with a waterfall on the other. In the roof of the cave, there was a hole that lead up to the surface, and lit the cave up enough for us to see. The light from the surface allowed us to see something over by the water pool. A vein of some mineral we'd never seen before. It looked like some sort of diamond, but we weren't sure.[/b][b]Excited, we climbed down into the cave, and made our way over to the new mineral, being very careful not to fall into the lava. Even so, I almost fell in once, and nearly lost the diamonds we'd just found. Once I was close to the mineral, I told Steve to pass me the diamond pickaxe that we'd made on the move. Once I had the pick, I started to hack away at the mineral. Finally I broke the mineral away from the stone it was encased in, and I saw what it was. It was diamond, but it had a much darker hue. It was still blue, but only barely. I decided to call it Black Diamond even though it wasn't quite black. Right after that, I turned around and there it was. The Creeper that had been following us for last couple of nights was right there. It was a creature with four stubby feet, no arms or legs, spotted green in different shades, and the ability to explode. I knew it was that same one because it had the same red eyes. I quickly threw the black diamond, diamond pickaxe, and the other couple of things I had to Steve. Just a short moment later, the Creeper blew up, and I lost consciousness. I'm not sure how I ended up in the forest, but it might be that the Red Creeper, as I now call it, had such a powerful blast that it launched me up from the mine through the hole that was in the cave, and I wound up landing here.[/b][b]I stood up, my memory refreshed. Saddening though it was, it made me ready to get to work. I knew from previous experience that I needed to build a home before it was dark, so I began preparing materials to build a small hut.[/b][b]It was only just getting to be night when I finished, but it was strong enough to last me through the next day or so. The inside wasn't that nice, but it was only temporary, so it didn't matter for now. Once I got settled, I realized that I hadn't gathered wool, string, or any other material for a bed, so I couldn't make one. Even so, I was so exhausted that I decided to just lay down on the floor. As soon as I laid down, I fell asleep.[/b][b]That night, I had a dream. I dreamt that I was in a cave, alone. It seemed familiar, although I had never seen it before. "Hello?" I called. "Are you there Minxed?" That's odd, I'm Minxed. I looked around, scared. Looking down at the black diamond in my hand I thought. “I hope he’s okay. I hope I’ll be okay.” I looked up when I heard the sound of footsteps. No one was there. I quickly drew my sword and ran forward. The cave split and I took the path to the left, which was going upward. Not much farther, I saw a zombie up ahead. I held by sword tightly and tried to slip by it, but it noticed me. I quickly swung my sword at its head, but it put its arms up to block. I faked a swing at its legs and as it moved to block me I quickly swung upward and slammed my sword into its chest. There was a deep gash, but it kept coming at me, now more furious than ever. I was afraid. I took one last look at it, and bolted. I ran as hard as I could, until the cave floor leveled out and began to go down.[/b][b]I slumped against the cave wall, and lit one of my torches with flint and steel. It was too bright at first, and I had to cover my eyes, but I quickly got used to it, and was able to look around. I had lost the zombie, and was at a point in the cave where both directions would take me downward. I grabbed my pick and set the torch in the wall, then looked through my pack for some food. My supply of bread was starting run low, and I didn’t have anymore seeds, nor had I seen any dirt patches. Taking out a loaf of bread, I ripped a piece off and returned the bread to my pack. My stomach growled, making me jump. I quickly ate the bread, ravenously biting into it until it was gone. I sighed, and looked through my pack for water. There were only three bottles left, besides a half bottle which I quickly drank. Deciding it wasn’t worth it to stop and rest, I quickly got up and continued through the cave. As I made my way down further into the cave, I got the same feeling that this part of the cave was familiar. Then the dream ended, and another one began.[/b][b]“Come over here! Look at this!” A familiar voice called down a ravine. His friend looked up. I couldn’t quite recognize him, although I was sure I knew him. “I found some sort of diamond, except it’s darker. Maybe it’s obsidian in a different form than we’ve seen before.”[/b][b]The friend walked over and bent down, resting his arms on his knees. I moved in closer, as if I was a ghost, leaning in for a closer look. I immediately recognized it as what I called black diamond. “Good job.” The friend’s voice was deep. “This ought to work nicely for our...” his voice trailed off as he looked further down the ravine.[/b][b]“What is it?” asked the first. “What are you looking at? There’s nothing there.”[/b][b]“Yes there is. Look farther down the ravine. See that light?”[/b][b]“Yeah...”[/b][b]“Right next to it there’s some more of this mineral. A whole ton more. If there’s a light that illuminates like that light does in a ravine this deep underground, it has to be lava. This mineral might only be able to form next to lava. Well, it’s definitely not obsidian, so what should we call it?”[/b][b]The first person, who I now recognized as Tankinator, knelt there for a moment thinking. “Hmm, how about carboritite.”[/b][b]The friend nodded and said, “Okay, sounds good. Carboritite it is then.” I then recognized the friend as Aboba.[/b][b]There was a loud whizzing sound, and an arrow flew behind Tankinator’s head. Yelping, Tankinator grabbed his pick, handed it to Aboba, and said, “Quick! Get the carboritite! I’ll kill these skeletons.”[/b][b]There was a whole group of skeletons, about thirty at first glance, shambling their way across a rivet in the ravine wall opposite to where Tankinator and Aboba were. Tankinator whipped out his bow and knelt down while Aboba laid down and began to mine the carboritite. Tankinator notched an arrow and pulled back on the string. Looking down the shaft, Tankinator aimed, and fired. The arrow flew through the air, splitting an oncoming arrow in half, and slammed into one of the skeletons’ hands, knocking the bow out of its hand. He notched another one, but aimed for the skeleton this time. The arrow hit the skeleton in the neck, and pinned it to the wall. An arrow flew toward him, and he ducked just in time, the arrow whizzing over his head. “Aboba!” he shouted, panicking a little.[/b][b]“Do you want the carboritite or not?”[/b][b]Tankinator grumbled and notched another arrow. He aimed and released. The arrow deflected off of the wall near the skeletons and hit one in the head, knocking it over and shattering its bones on the ravine floor below. A volley of arrows whizzed past them, and one flew straight for Tankinator. Shouting, he ducked behind an indent in the ravine wall and notched another arrow, keeping a second at the ready. After a moment, he jumped out from behind the wall, pulled back the arrow, and released. The arrow flew through the air, deflected off the wall yet again, hit the side of one of the skeletons, bounced off again, and stuck in another one, knocking it off of the ridge. “Aboba there are too many of them! You should really learn how to use a bow!” Another volley of arrows barraged them. This time Tankinator was hit in the left shoulder.[/b][b]He dropped his bow and reeled over backwards, yelling out in pain. “Got the last of it!” Said Aboba triumphantly.[/b][b]“About time, slimeleg!” Tankinator growled through gritted teeth. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”[/b][b]As soon as this dream was over, another one wove its way into my mind. I was standing in a large room, with glass and metal cages line up against the wall. In each of the cages there was a group of monsters. I looked to my left. In one cage there were hundreds of cave spiders;
oversized spiders with green hourglasses on their backs. The cage next to that had giant spiders; even larger than cave spiders, but less dangerous because of the poison of the cave spiders. The next cage had zombies, and the one after that held skeletons. The fifth cage against that wall had slimes, globulins of green slime, which were being held in glass cages. I looked to my right. These cages contained creepers. Each successive cage had creepers with differing colors of eyes. The first cage had black eyed, which was the normal, the second blue, then red, orange, yellow, and then violet. The last cage had a single creeper, but it was the worst of all. Instead of being green, its skin was pure black, darker than the dead of night, and its eyes, soulless, hateful, dead, evil, white eyes stared at me. I stood there in the middle of the room, waiting for them to break out and attack me. Each and every one of the monsters stood there, meandering about, ignoring me. In fact, it seemed as if they feared me a little bit.[/b][b]Then an enderman appeared. “You!” it said in an aged and broken voice. “Come here!” Only assuming he meant me, I walked over to him. Once I was standing right next to him, he said, “Look down into the pool. Tell me what you see.”[/b][b]Only then did I realize that there was a ditch in the room that was filled with some kind of silver liquid. I looked into it and saw a man. He was mining with a tool that had a silver head, which was made out of some type of mineral I’d never seen before. The enderman was obviously mad.[/b][b]I didn’t get a chance to speak because the enderman interrupted me before I could respond. “Get rid of that,” it started to say, but I was awakened suddenly by the sound of footsteps outside my hut.[/b]

[b]I listened. The steps continued. They were slow steps, that of a human. Then I heard groaning, and the sound of fire. I quickly jumped up and ran outside. As soon as I got out of the hut, I was attacked by a zombie that was burning up in the sunlight. Shocked and in a daze, I staggered back only to be attacked by another one! I was doomed! I turned to run, and out of all things that could happen, I tripped. There was no chance I'd survive! Then, I had an idea. Acting quickly, I rolled at the second zombie and tripped it into the first. Then, I slowly got up. When I turned back toward the zombies, they were both burning on the ground. After a moment, they erupted in smoke, and their bodies disappeared.[/b][b]I stood up and and tore down my hut to use the wood for tools. I took some of the wood and set it on the ground to make a table. I used a stone to hammer the wood together, and stood the table up. It wasn’t too sturdy, but it would work for a carving table. I grabbed the stone again and set a piece of wood on the table, setting to work making a pickaxe first. I carved out the handle, then the head. Then I bored a hole in the head and wrapped threads of grass around it until it was sturdy enough to mine with. Then I carved out a shovel and a sword. Just then I noticed a creeper sneaking up behind me. I quickly spun around with my sword and slashed at its neck. Then I pulled my sword back over my shoulder, and swung again. Its head fell onto the ground, rolled, and went up in a puff of smoke. Its body erupted in flame then went up in smoke and disappeared, leaving nothing behind.[/b][b]I stumbled back and fell over, staying sitting there for a moment. Then I stood up and began to level the ground so I could begin building a house. My shovel broke from the strain before I got close to finishing, so I had to go make a new one. I took my pick and some of the stone I had gotten, and hammered out a shovel. Setting the new shovel I had made on the ground, I made two new pickaxes from stone, and like the wooden one, bored a hole in the head, then fit the wooden handle through it. This time I didn’t bind them with grass, but rather took smaller stones and shoved them down in the open space in the head. I hefted my new pickaxes to make sure they wouldn’t break too easily, and returned to leveling the ground. I finally finished leveling enough ground to set up a small stone house when the sun was starting to go down. I quickly grabbed the stone I had gotten, and shaped the larger stones into rectangular shapes so that my house wouldn’t collapse during the night. Once I finished shaping the stone, I began to build. When I was done, I looked around myself. It was dark out, and the moon gave off little light. I looked up and saw that it was nearly midnight. As quickly as I could, I grabbed my stuff and brought it all into my house, then laid down on the hard ground yet again.[/b][b]That night I had another dream. I was in a cave, with my bow at the ready. There was a group of blue-eyed creepers farther down in the cave. I notched an arrow, pulled back the string, and aimed. As soon as I let go, the arrow sprang into the air and lit fire. When it hit one of the creepers, the creeper lit fire and blew up, sending shards of ice everywhere. The explosion was so powerful that I had to lean against the wall of the cave to stay standing. It created a huge hole, and there was ice everywhere, with icicles hanging from the ceiling and sticking up from the ground. Then I saw a man climbing out of the hole. He stared at me, and I stared back. He quickly pulled out a pickaxe with a gleaming blue head, and hit the wall. When the pick hit the wall, vein-like lines appeared, spreading out like roots, thicker closer in, and thinner farther out. Then the head flashed, and blue light rushed down each vein, and the cave wall began to collapse.[/b][b]I turned and ran to safety, then looked back, and saw him putting his pick away, scowling. Then he looked down and pulled out a bow, loading an arrow in it that had a blue shaft. He looked up at me, and raised his bow. The dream began to fade as he peered down the shaft at me, pulling the string back.[/b][b]Opening my eyes, I looked around. I was laying down in a field with long, flowing grass. It was the middle of the day, the wind was blowing the grass around like waves in water, and the sky was clear. The field went on for as far as the eye could see. I stood up, wondering why I was there. I was alone, and there were no trees, or anything else. Just a field extending from horizon to horizon with me standing in the middle of it. I looked around again, and found myself in a shop, buying tools. I blinked and found myself next in a mine. The air was damp, and I could hear the dripping of water. My pick hit the wall, and it crumpled under the blow. Water rushed in through the break in the wall, splashing up and over me, then dragging me down into the river. I was thrown around, mercilessly, until I saw a pool of water coming at me, and I realized that I must have been falling down. Except it didn’t feel like down, it felt like up. Then I hit a wall, and couldn’t breathe. After a moment, I came up out of the water, sputtering and gasping for air.[/b][b]The cave I found myself in was dark, but I could still see. I swam to the ground and dragged myself up. I was exhausted. It took me a moment to comprehend my surroundings, but I realized that I was in an underground oasis. I stood up and realized that it wasn’t actually dark, but light, and I had just not been able to see clearly at first. There were strips of glowstone going from the cave ceiling far above my head, to the ground. It even went under the grass, and into the water, illuminating it as well. There were many trees, and there were even melons, pumpkins, and reeds, growing along the bank. There were multiple pools of water, and the cave no longer seemed like a cave anymore, but more like a cavern. Into each pool there fell a large waterfall. The one that I had fallen from was at the side of the cavern, there was another one that fell directly from the roof of the cavern, and then most of the rest of the pools were fed by waterfalls from the roof.[/b][b]The enormity of the room only struck me after a moment of standing there, staring at it. I blinked, and the dream ended, leaving me in darkness.[/b][b]The next dream was a continuation of one of my dreams from the previous night. There were two people standing in a cave, who I recognized immediately.[/b][b]“You skelehead! How could you?!” Tankinator shouted at Aboba. “That was our only pick, and worse it was a diamond one! Not only that, but you also lost all of our wood! I shouldn’t have ever trusted you with-” he was cut off by the sound of an explosion behind them. Tankinator turned around to see what it was, and Aboba peered past him. For a moment everything was obscured by the dust cloud, but then some figure appeared. Tankinator drew Aboba’s sword, holding it with his right hand, his left immobilized by a splint that held his shoulder in place, and Aboba hefted Tankinator’s bow, loading an arrow in it. The arrow had a black shaft, and a shimmering golden tip.[/b][b]There was a moment when nothing moved, then Aboba released the arrow and there was a flash of light. A short moment later, they were running down a different branch of the cave. They seemed terrified, and still had their weapons drawn, though not readied. As they ran, they passed by multiple side-branches, and through a ravine once. After a moment that seemed like an eternity, they saw a base up ahead. It had to have been what they were running towards. Once they got inside, Tankinator pulled a lever, and the metal door closed. Right after that, the walls narrowed into a tiny pathway, and more stone was pushed up out of the ground, blocking the pathway completely. [/b][b]My view switched to that of Tankinator’s as he looked around the inside of the base. To the right there was a wall with a glass middle that let him see through to the work and storage rooms. In the work room the walls were lined with furnaces, and there were a few work tables in the center. The storage room, which was by far the largest room in the entire base, was so big that the other end of it wasn’t visible. Lining the walls, and set up in pathways were hundreds of thousands of chests. To the left and front of him was the lounge, about three times as big as the work room.[/b][b]“I’ve never seen this place before, though I’ve heard of it. How long has it been here again?” Tankinator asked.[/b][b]“My guess is as good as yours,” Aboba said. “I thought you would know, and I never bothered asking Minxed. Where do you think we lost him anyway?”[/b][b]I realized then that this wasn’t an ordinary dream. Just then the dream ended, and I woke up. It was still dark out, and everything was quiet. A little too quiet. Worried, I got up and walked over to the pile of stone and wood, being as quiet as I could, and grabbed my sword. I stepped out into the night and looked around. There were a few zombies, but that was all. Slightly relieved, I closed the door again and sat down on the pile of wood, and thought. “What did that dream mean? Were Tankinator and Aboba really in trouble? If so, what were they running from? What kind of monster could make Tankinator so terrified?”[/b][b]I decided that asking myself these questions wasn’t going to help my mood, so I decided to attempt to answer them. I started with my last question. What kind of monster could make Tankinator so terrified?[/b]

[b]That was a good question. What kind of monsters were there that could scare Tankinator at all? I hadn’t even thought it was possible until I had that dream. I began thinking of all the monsters that I’d encountered on previous adventures. There were giant spiders, cave spiders, endermen, creepers, skeletons, zombies, and slimes. Ghasts, pig zombies, blazes, and magma cubes finished off the list.[/b][b]Tankinator was one of the best fighters that I’d ever known, and he wasn’t afraid of anything. He was able to take down any of the monsters without much of a problem. He was, as we called him, the ‘Iron Ninja.’ What could possibly scare him like that thing in the dream? He and Aboba had definitely discovered some new horror.[/b][b]I came up with a few ideas. Maybe he had seen a creeper that could blow up repeatedly, or it could have been a smart zombie that had placed TNT, then it might have been some superhuman gone bad. Whatever the case, superhuman gone bad and smart zombie weren’t likely. I was leaning toward it having been a creeper that could blow up repeatedly, when another idea came into my mind. It might have been a group of those red creepers. That might scare him.[/b][b]I asked myself the next question; what were they running from? It could have been one of those monsters that I’d thought of, but it might have just been that they were in a hurry to get to the base. The next question was if they were in trouble. I thought about it, then realized that I might have been taking these dreams a little too seriously. I sat there trying to remember what the last question was, but for all it was worth, I couldn’t remember. My head nodded, but I caught myself before I fell asleep sitting up, so I laid down and fell back asleep.[/b][b]The next morning, I woke up bright and early. The sun hadn't come up yet, but it was still somewhat bright out. I got up, still tired from waking up the night before. I was ready to get to work on building my house, even though I was tired, since I only had one room completed so far. I decided to make a list of things to do. “I’ll need some paper and ink, and I might want some food, too.” Opening the door, I stood there for a moment, wondering how to feel about my current situation. I decided that there was no use in feeling any particular way, so I set off into the forest. I readied my sword as I entered the forest, in case I ran into any monsters. Walking for hours on end, I encountered no monsters, and the sun was high in the sky.[/b][b]I could hear the wind rushing through the trees, and animals somewhere off in the distance, but I couldn’t see a single one of them. Then I saw that the trees ended up ahead, and there was a herd of cows roaming the small plain by the ocean. Invigorated, I ran out of the forest, and charged the cow. As I left the forest, my eyes beheld sugar cane and reeds growing everywhere, tall grass reaching up to my waist, and I could hear chickens walking through the grass. The cows saw me, and began to run around, frightened. I managed to catch one cow, and kill it after multiple blows. Ignoring the rest of the cows, I skinned the cow, then took the meat from it. When I sliced off the meat, my sword lit on fire, cooking the meat. Shocked, I dropped my sword, jumping back. Then I looked around, and ate the meat.[/b][b]After a moment, the cow disappeared in a puff of smoke, and I left the leather to dry in the sun. Turning towards the ocean, I removed my shirt, leaving my shorts on, and jumped in, taking my sword with me. As I descended, it got darker and darker until I could barely see. I was almost out of breath when I found a squid, and I immediately grabbed hold of it, and killed it, taking the ink sacs from it, and then rose to the surface. Panting, I slowly swam back to shore, and put the ink sacs in my pack. I sat there for a while, regaining my energy and drying off, before I put my shirt back on, and gathered some sugar canes and reeds.[/b][b]I gen to make my way back to my little hut just as it was getting dark. I had just eaten what meat I could get from the cows, and my sword had again cooked the meat. Once I got back in the forest, I began to run. After about three hours of running, I stopped to rest in a clearing. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, so I quickly set off again, and arrived at the edge of the forest when the sun had gone down. I was confused as to why I hadn’t encountered any monsters, and I looked down into the plains to see my hut still there. There wasn’t a single monster in sight, and that frightened me more that a horde of creepers would have. Running down into my hut, I opened the door and peeked in, expecting the see a few monsters, but other than the pile of wood a stone, it was empty.[/b][b]Somewhat relieved, I walked in and closed the door behind me. Then I put my pack on the pile, and laid down on the planks I was using for a bed. I had again forgotten to get some wool again, and I needed to get some decent sleep. Getting up, I went around back to start building a room where monsters could spawn during the day. As I was building, I kept looking around to make sure no monsters were sneaking up on me, but nothing stirred. “That’s odd,” I thought. Suddenly my vision blurred, and I fell over backward.[/b][b]There was a man standing in a field, much like the one I had built my hut in. Before him lay a large, expansive city, with many tall buildings, and even more smaller ones.[/b][b]“Here we are,” he said. “We’re finally here.”[/b][b]“I want my own tower!” The second man seemed much more excited to be there than the first.[/b][b]“What would you do with it, build a railroad? I doubt you’ll get one.”[/b][b]“So then which place do you think is ours?” the second man asked, a little low-spirited.[/b][b]“Well, it’s not our decision, and we got here, but I sure hope he’ll let us choose whichever one we want.”[/b][b]“Humph. What if I don’t want to live with you anymore?”[/b][b]“What?! But I’m Aboba! Who wouldn’t want to live with me?!” the first man said, incredulously.[/b][b]Then a creeper walked up from behind and said, “I would never want to live with you, Aboba.”[/b][b]Aboba turned around and took a swing at the creeper, but missed.[/b][b]“Aboba, don’t hurt Pluto! He’s our friend!”[/b][b]“Oh, I’m sorry great Tankinator, forgive my evil sin,” Aboba mocked, kneeling down on the ground and putting his hands together. Then he got up and said, “Since when were you in charge here?”[/b][b]I now knew who each of them were. The first was Aboba, the second Tankinator, and the creeper was Pluto. This was a weird dream. It seemed real, and they seemed like the friends that I had lost in the mine, except that Pluto wasn’t a creeper.[/b][b]The dream ended and I found myself sprawled out on the ground. There was someone kneeling by me, tending to my wounds. “Wait, what? How did I get hurt?!” I thought, shocked.[/b][b]The man noticed that I had woken up and said, “We have to get you to shelter.”[/b][b]“I can’t walk,” I said, my legs, side, and head hurting.[/b][b]“I hope you remember who I am. E.J. You remember me, right?” he continued, trying to spark conversation with me.[/b][b]I didn’t want to talk, so all I said was, “Yeah, I remember who you are.”[/b][b]He picked me up and carried me to my room, set me down on my hard bed, and put my pack in the chest. He then reached into his pack and grabbed a small glass bottle with a florescent orange liquid in it.[/b][b]Uncapping the bottle, he said, "Drink this. It will make you sleep better." Then he gave me the drink, and left the room.[/b][b]I took it cautiously at first, then, looking at it, decided it was safe. I drank a little bit of it, and set it down on the chest. It was flavorless, but powerful. I was already feeling tired, and before I knew it, I was asleep. The next morning, I woke up bright and early. I was still tired so I rolled onto my side. As soon as I moved, my side began burning with extreme pain, and my vision blurred. My fists clenched and turned white. The pain was so great that I forgot where I was, lost track of my surroundings, and forgot about life. I ceased to live.[/b][b]The next few moments seemed like an eternity of pain, although it was only a few seconds. Then the pain ended, and I fell off the bed, my knees slamming into the ground. My head slammed into the bed, and I went limp. My body slid onto the ground, face-down. I was dead.[/b][b]A short time later, my vision cleared, and I was sitting in a white room, looking into a mirror. In the mirror, there was an image of me in my room. The person who had saved me the night before ran into the room, and upon seeing me laying on the floor, ran over and rolled me onto my back.[/b][b]The image faded, and the last thing I saw was him grabbing his pack, and frantically looking through it for something.[/b][b]I sat there for a minute before I realized that there was someone watching me. She was dressed in a flowing white dress, and was holding a white staff with a light on the tip.[/b][b]After a moment of silence, I spoke. "Whe-where am I?"[/b][b]"Do you really want to know the answer to that question?" her voice was soft and gentle.[/b][b]"Wait, am I," the word stuck in my throat. "Am I dead?"[/b][b]"You are a smart man, Minxed. Yes, I know your name, and you may remember mine."[/b][b]I looked her over for a moment before saying, "I don't think I know you."[/b][b]"Well, you're smart, you'll figure it out eventually. For now, yes, you are dead."[/b][b]I loo
ked around me. The room was huge. It seemed to be made of Iron, but it was seemingly lit from within, so that couldn't have been the case. There were side halls leading to different rooms.[/b][b]"So what now?" I asked. "I mean, now that I'm dead, what do I do?"[/b][b]"Well, there are many things you can do," she sighed. "You are the one who decides what you want to do, but there's one thing you cannot do."[/b][b]"What's that?" I asked, suddenly curious.[/b][b]"Let me put it this way. The only way for you to come back to life is for him to summon you back with a potion. Then, you get to decide if you want to go back or not."[/b][b]"How do I know if I'm being, what was it? Summoned?"[/b][b]"You'll see," she said, and faded into nothing.[/b][b]"Wait! I have one more question! Just one more!" I waited.[/b][b]After a moment of complete silence, she re-appeared and said, "Just one, and no more."[/b][b]"Thank you," I said, relieved. "This may sound, I don't know, but am I able to bring things from here back to... there?" I asked, hoping she would understand.[/b][b]"Yes, but there are catches. First; you have to find a way to harvest the material here, second; you will have to create a room to store it in here, and last; find the room you built in the overworld." she looked at me a moment longer before saying, "Good bye, Minxed," and disappeared.[/b][b]I stood there, staring through the spot where she had been standing. I didn't know what to think of the answer to my question, so I decided to search the place for some useful materials. I searched for what seemed like hours before I found anything useful. I then realized that I had left the building. There was a small group of white trees. I set to work building as soon as I could.[/b][b]I didn't tire, working for days on end. It took five days in all, but I finally finished gathering and creating the room. I waited in that room for what seemed like an eternity before I felt a tug in my stomach. After a moment, I realized what it was, and relaxed my whole body, giving way to it.[/b][b]I breathed in suddenly. The wool floor was soft. I got up slowly, my muscles aching. I leaned against the bed, and[/b][b]looked around my room. It had been finished while I was out; it was now at least three times as big, and everything was much more fancy. The chest had a lock on it, there was a walk-in-closet to the left of the door upon entry, and the walls were one third obsidian on the bottom, and one third obsidian on the top, with a cobblestone middle. It was a perfect design, creeper-proof, and complete with a woolen floor. Shocked, I knew something had to be going on, so I got up, and left the room.[/b]

[b]Leaving my room, I entered the hallway. My room was at one end, a door in the center on the wall opposite of the one my door was in lead to the lounge, there was a door opposite of it, and then another door at the other end of the hall, on the same side of the hall as my room. I walked down the hall and entered the middle room across from the lounge. Staring in awe, I looked in at a giant dinner room. There was an extremely long table with what looked like one hundred chairs, each of which had plates and utensils at the place. There were six glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling five meters above my head, each of which featured five, evenly spaced, glowstone candles. The walls were made up of what seemed like entwined gold and iron thread, and there was obsidian lettering on the wall that spelled out my name in very ornate and fine lettering. On the far end of the room from me, there were two sets of stairs, one up against each wall, that led up to a platform, no more that a meter high. On the platform there was a glass table with diamond utensils, and a golden chandelier directly above it.[/b][b]Unable to accept what I was seeing, I dragged my sore muscles out of the room, down the hall, and to the last room. Opening to door, I looked in and saw that it wasn’t finished. “That’s funny, the builder must not have had time to finish this.” I didn’t think about it again because I was much more interested in what the lounge looked like. I closed the door, made my way to the lounge, and stepped in. It was cozy with a sofa on each side of the room, and a short, glass table with a chest on it in the middle. In each of the four corners there was a flower pot with red and yellow flowers in them. Directly to my left, on the wall opposite the door to exit the building, there was a ladder that lead down to what looked like a small basement at a glance. To my right, a ladder leading up to what looked like a second floor. Walking around the table, I left the building and looked around. There were a bunch of buildings, all varying in size, from tiny, seemingly one-room cottages, to huge buildings that seemed to reach to the sky. A wall surrounded the whole of the city that I could see, and at the two corners of the wall I could see, there were also towers.[/b][b]As I walked down the road, I noticed that all of the houses looked similar to each other on the outside, though the one I had woken up in, and assumed was mine, was by far the biggest. By the time I was tired of walking, it was getting dark. When I turned around, I saw a man step out of a house, and notice me.[/b][b]“Hey! Look who’s awake. I thought you died in there. Guess that potion worked after all, eh?” We stood there for a moment before he continued. “Ah, where are my manners. I forgot to ask your name!”[/b][b]I blinked, and said, “Uh, I don’t remember right now.” That was not what I meant to say, but I didn’t feel like correcting myself at the moment.[/b][b]“Ah well, as you know, I’m E.J. I guess I’d better tell you about what happened. So you were out for over six months. It takes a long time for those potions to work, so I told everyone to stay away until a year had passed. Since that’s not the case, we won’t have to worry about that anymore. So while you were out, people began to make their way here, and they started to help me build a village, then a city, and it ended up like this,” he reached his arms out and looked around admiringly. “Pretty crazy, don’t you think? Anyway, so you’re house, the place you woke up in, has three levels, as you have most likely seen. The bottom level, if you didn’t go down there, is your storage room, and the upper level gives you access to the city battlements.”[/b][b]I stared at him for a moment, shocked. “How did this happen?! I was dead, and now I’m living in some crazy city! Maybe they found the room I built,” my thoughts trailed off as he spoke again.[/b][b]“Quiet a bit?” he teased. “Oh, and I found a pack that I think belonged to you.” He reached out his hand, which held a pack.[/b][b]“Uh,” I said, examining it. “Yeah, I think it is,” I paused, then quickly added. “Thanks.”[/b][b]“Yeah, well, you’d better get home. I’m going to go finish the final touches to the city lights, and then I’ll be heading home.”[/b][b]Suddenly everything flickered, and for a second I was standing in a soulsand graveyard, with a white-eyed man standing in front of me, but then it returned to how it was before. I yelped in surprise, and a thought ran through my mind, “Something’s going on, and I need to figure out what.” I heard the man who called himself E.J. turn around, and say, “What’s the matter?” With that, I walked off, leaving him standing there in the middle of the night, completely unarmed.[/b][b]As I made my way back to my house, I began to think. “What was it that I saw back there? Who was that person that I saw? Am I cursed?” Opening the door to my house, I walked in, and closed the door behind me. Climbing up to the second level, I went over to the edge of the house, and sat down. I looked around trying to make out how big the city actually was through the darkness of the night, but I couldn’t see very far at all. “I wonder how many people live here,” I thought, still looking around. I couldn’t see very well, so I had no idea of how many houses there were.[/b][b]As I lay down to sleep later that night, I began to think, “What if E.J. isn’t really E.J.? What if he’s someone else? That sure didn’t sound like the E.J. I remember, but I guess it has been a while since I’ve seen him. Maybe I should keep my identity secret until I know if that was really E.J. or not. I’ll have to give myself a new name though. I know, tomorrow night I’ll grab a bunch of supplies from the city, and I’ll sneak out. Oh, and I’ll also leave a note behind telling them a fake name.” As I drifted off to sleep, my mind wandered, and my dreams drifted to many strange things.[/b]

[b]I awoke from a dream where my dead body was flung to the bottom of a cavern, and lay in bed for a moment, thinking. “What should I say on my note? I don’t know if I should tell them my name, since I still don’t know whether to trust them or not. How about this. Dear people of the city, I know that my stay has not gone unnoticed. I have left the city, and do not intend to return on the intent of inhabiting my home. Instead, I will leave it bare, to be used for whatever means the people here see fit, or to be left alone, to crumble and fall beneath its own weight. Happenings here are distasteful to me. I have never felt myself at home in big cities like this one, and I never will. If I find that I am followed from the city, those who follow me will be killed, and their heads strung up on sticks for a testament to you. Now, I take my leave, and remain unnamed.” I grinned. That would send shivers up more than a few spines.[/b][b]Getting up, I grabbed my pack, and found the ink that I had gotten before. Then I took a feather that I found in a chest in my room, sat down with a piece of paper, and began to write.[/b][b]Dear people of the city,[/b][b]I know that my stay has not gone unnoticed. I have left the city, and do not intend to return for the reason if inhabiting my home. Instead, I will leave it bare, to be used for whatever means the people here see fit, or to be left alone, to crumble and fall beneath its own weight. Happenings here are distasteful to me. I have never felt myself at home in big cities like this one, and I never will. Now, I take my leave, and remain unnamed. If I find that I am followed from the city, those who follow me will be killed, and have their heads strung up on sticks for a testament to you.[/b][b]I nodded my head, then grabbed my pack, and left my house. “Okay, so I’ll need to create a disguise, find food, building materials, and tools.” I readied my sword when I noticed a giant spider climbing down a wall towards me. I narrowed my eyes, and charged it. The spider jumped up, and I swung as hard as I could, hitting the spider dead in the face. It fell backwards, and landed on its back. I jumped forward, and stabbed the spider in the belly, then gathered as much string from it as I could before it disappeared in a puff of white smoke.[/b][b]I looked around, and saw that I was still the only one there. Relieved, I moved on, looking through the city for stores, blacksmiths, and bakeries. I found a general wares store first, and I quickly gathered a substantial amount of cobblestone and wood from it. Then I found an iron axe, and I hefted it, smiling wryly. I was an actual robber. quickly putting the axe in my bag, I then left the store. When I had finished scouring the city of what goods I needed, I returned to the main pathway, having gotten bread to last for about a month, an iron pickaxe, sword, and shovel, and made a cloak.[/b][b]Finished there, I made my way down the path, and toward the city exit. There were no guards, and it didn’t seem they had any form of trap, so I proceeded through the entrance. Too late did I realize that there were pressure plates. A musical alarm blared throughout the city, ringing in my ears, and making me jump in surprise. I immediately, took off running as fast as I could, moving into the wide open plains. Not a moment later I heard shouts coming from somewhere behind me, and I looked back to see who it was. Hundreds of archers lined up on the wall, loading arrows in their bows. I saw no way I would be able to escape, and I couldn’t see any shelter in the plains.[/b][b]I turned away from the city, and kept running. As I was running, I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before, and shouldn’t have been able to miss. A small cliff jutted up out of the ground, and around behind it, a small bundle of trees, perfect for hiding behind. “That’s strange,” I thought. “Those weren’t there a moment ago, were they?” Putting that thought aside, I quickly ran behind the trees, and hid their shadows, covering myself with my dark brown-yellow cloak. I looked up when I heard the sound of arrows whizzing through the air. I saw nothing. One arrow shot past. Another, then another flew past. Then silence.[/b][b]After a moment, I heard swords being drawn, and voices calling out. “Spread out! Don’t let them escape!” Another voice. “Capture them all alive, and throw them into the pit! The man goes too!”[/b][b]“Them?” I thought. “I didn’t,” my thoughts trailed off as I looked into the shadows. There were three of them; tall, thin, white-faced creatures. They were so thin that they were like skeletons. I had heard of something like this before, though I didn’t remember the name. These creatures, whatever they were, fit very well the description of the creature whose name I did not remember. Each one of them was carrying a small sack in their hand, and they all wore ragged clothing. They looked at me for a moment, then one of them suddenly looked past me toward the city, and without further ado, turned and ran with all its might. A barrage of arrows whizzed by, and the creature was hit in the back multiple times over. The other two evaded the arrows, and ran as hard as they could. I looked on as a group of about fifteen soldiers ran by, swords and bows drawn. Anger rose in me as I watched them slaughter the creatures, though I didn’t know why I was angry.[/b][b]Drawing my sword with haste, I swiftly fell upon the soldiers from behind. They screamed as they fell beneath my sword, and the other soldiers looked back, confused. Taking advantage of the situation, the two creatures attacked them, clawing them to death. It didn’t take long to beat them down thanks to the two creatures, and I was done with them quickly. The last soldier fell, and I stood there facing the creatures, my sword dripping.[/b][b]We looked at each other for a moment, before one of them spoke in a smooth voice. “You helped the slenders, so the slenders help you.” It ducked, in what seemed like a bow, then they turned and ran off into the distance.[/b][b]I looked around, confused, trying to figure what I had made of myself. “Am I a murderer? A monster? No, I was protecting those slender creatures. That doesn’t make me a monster or a murderer.” I continued looking around at the dead bodies. “A hunter? Assassin? No, then I would be trying to kill the slenders. No, I’m a guardian. I am a watcher for good. I am the Guardian Watcher. My title? Guardian W, no, that takes too long to say. Guardian V. I am Guardian V.” I turned to face the plains, triumph swelling up in me. “The people at that city aren’t humane at all. In fact, they are the ones who are the murderers. They killed the slender, and probably have killed many more.” I scoffed, “And they call themselves good.” Off in the distance I saw a river. “I’ll be back, E.J.” I said as I began to run towards it, “I’ll be back.”[/b]

[b]As I moved closer to the river, the ground seemed to slope up. It seemed that my senses and mind had been dulled, and I quickly discovered that the slope was actually a steep hill, and the river had actually been an illusion cast upon the top of the hill. When I reached the top of the hill, I was surprised to find that there was a forest below me reaching on for farther than I could see. I looked to my left; it still went beyond my sight. When I looked to my right, I was confused to see a giant wall with pictures of trees on it. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't a wall, but rather an expanse of wooded mountains. I turned back towards the forest and made my way down the slope. It was steeper than I expected, but that wasn't a surprise to me seeing as I had already mistaken many things, large and small, for something they were not. When I got to the bottom of the slope, my thoughts returned to the Slenders, and the soldiers who had been chasing them. "Why were they trying to kill the Slenders? I mean, why can't they just get along?" I glanced back over my shoulder. I couldn't see the city, but I knew it was there. I turned back to the forest and slipped into the shadows cast by the morning sun.[/b][b]As I made my way deeper into the forest, it became thicker and thicker to the point where I would need a light other than that of the sun. I paused and quickly pulled out my lantern, then proceeded on my way. I got to a point where the brush was so thick that I could go no further without cutting the bushes out of my way, and I decided to stop and settle down there. I knelt and looked through my bag to remind myself of what I had; a stone axe, hoe, shovel, pickaxe, and sword, the food I had stolen from the bakeries, a bunch of cloth, the food the Slenders had given me, enough iron to make a sword and pickaxe, and an extremely generous portion of wood and cobblestone. So much cobblestone and wood that I could probably build a house with wood or cobblestone alone. There was also a small bottle of ink along side a quill, and a bit of parchment, none of which three I knew where I had gotten. I let myself fall backwards, sitting up against the trunk of the closest tree, and looked down at my cape. When I slumped back, my cape carefully slipped underneath me, and softened my landing. "Interesting," I thought. "It seems like it moved of it's own will." I looked down at my cape, rough and ugly, but thick and warm.[/b][b]I set my lantern down, and my pack next to it. Then I laid down and stared up at the trees, the branches too close together for even the slightest amount of light to penetrate. I lay there wondering how I would know if it was day, "Well, it's day right now, so I won't be able to tell by the amount of light. There might be some type of creature that lives in here that can tell, but then, how would I find it? So I guess it'll just have to not matter to me anymore. Hmm, this will take a little bit to get used to. For now, I might as well work on getting stronger and smarter." I decided to do exactly that, and set to work. I grabbed the ink and quill, and a piece of parchment to write on, and began to make a list of things to do. I paused after writing for a moment, "Hmm, what should I call these periods of time? I can't call it a day, so what then?" I look around a little bit before coming up with an answer and continuing. "A Forest Day, or a period of time starting from when I wake up, to when I fall asleep."[/b][b]The first section I called ‘Get Physically Stronger,’ and the second section ‘Get Mentally Stronger.’ In the first section I had six bullets: one through four were to do twenty push-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups, and sit-ups every forest day other than every seventh. Five was to run until I started to sweat, and to do it every other forest day. The sixth bullet was to walk until I got tired, and to do it every forest day that I didn’t run. In the second section I had three main topics, each with sub bullet points. First was to become better at planning by putting myself in different scenarios before I went to sleep, second was to learn to perform different tasks better and faster, as well as learn new ones, and third was to study and learn about different things about the world. The first topic included ideas for differing scenarios I could put myself in. Under the second topic I included cooking, coordinating, dying clothing, and performing various physical activities. For the third and final topic I wrote down to learn about different materials, their uses, and how they work with other materials.[/b][b]I looked my list over, and deciding it was a pretty good list, set to work doing what was on it. I knew that in order to work on getting smarter most easily, I would have to be able to steal books and stuff from the city, and that it would be easiest to do that if I was stronger. I put everything back in my pack, then put it on and began to work out. One, two, three. I counted under my breath, and when I got to twenty, I collapsed on the ground; my arms were aching. I lay there for a moment before getting up and looking up at the tree branches above me. "I need to grab one of the thicker branches, or they might break. Let's see," I thought, before jumping up and grabbing hold of one of the branches. I started out with chin-ups, expecting them to be easier. The reality was the opposite of what I had expected. As I got closer to fifteen chin-ups, my mind began to wander back to my friends. "I wonder where they are right now. What could they be doing? What would they do if they saw what I am becoming?" I switched my hands around to do pull-ups. "Maybe they're in a similar situation as I am. I wonder if they've been captured by the people of the city." This thought pumped me so much that I did thirty pull-ups instead of just twenty. When I was done, I dropped down and took off running. I ran and ran through the forest, until I got back to an area where I could put my lantern away. I put it out and stuffed it into my pack, then continued running up the hill and across the fields until I reached the hill next to the city.[/b][b]I ducked down and slowed to a walk, then dropped down on my stomach when I neared the top of the hill. Once I got to the top, I looked down the short, steep cliff, and then up at the wall. There were a lot of guards, which didn't surprise me too much. The guards wore dark gray-blue leather armor with a dark red 'MH' in capital letters across the chest. About half of them were girls, and the other half were guys. Some of the guards carried only a bow, others carried a bow and sword, but most of them had a bow, sword, as well as a shield with the same 'MH' on it. Besides this, some of the guards carried torches as well, and there were lanterns placed regularly along the top of the wall. As I looked, one of the female guards looked straight at me and paused for a moment. She wasn't the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, but she was pretty; her hair was long, brown, and flowing, her eyes were blue as the sky on a clear day, and her skin had a soft tan. I knew she saw me, but she said nothing and continued walking. I looked around to make sure nothing was sneaking up on me, and when I saw that I was safe, I peaked over the edge of the drop. "Hmm, it looks like it's a good three meters down. Ah, I can take it." I quickly turned around and dropped down. The impact was less than I was expecting, but I wasn't able to stay standing. I fell backwards, and then slowly got up. I looked back up at the guards to see if anyone else had noticed, but nobody seemed to even see me.[/b][b]I advanced toward the city entrance, ducking my head so as not to be seen. As I neared the gate, I remembered what happened when I was running away. This time I was careful not to step on the pressure plates, and I made it in without setting off the alarm. As I began to walk down the path, I heard voices coming from farther along. I quickly scrambled behind a house and covered myself with my cloak. I strained my ears, hoping to catch what they were saying.[/b][b]“...may become a big problem if we let them go,” said a voice that sounded identical to the voice of the enderman in Minxed’s dream.[/b][b]“However, Broken One, you must not forget about the new one. The one who called himself Raider P. “ This voice I recognized immediately. It was the man who called himself E.J, and somehow I knew that this was the man responsible for my current situation. His voice was smooth, calm, and emotionless; it chilled me to the bones.[/b][b]“Yes, he could provide a problem if we keep them.” There was silence for a moment, besides that of the sound of walking on gravel.[/b][b]“I need the raider. Bring him to me, Broken One, and your reward shall be great. Fail to do so within the period of sixteen days, and your punishment shall be worse than that which broke you.” They walked by as he said this, and I saw only one man who hel
d his hands behind his back, and wore a flowing red cape made of some material I had never before seen.[/b][b]The footsteps stopped, and I held my breath, waiting for him to discover me. It was silent for a moment before I heard the sound of footsteps. I closed my eyes it got harder and harder to hold my breath. Then the footsteps began to fade, and I breathed a sigh of relief and stood up, uncovering myself. I looked around, and when I saw that the path was empty, I ran down toward where I had seen a library before when I was looking around the city. I found the library without any trouble, and snuck my way in through a back window. The pace was huge; I was only able to traverse three of the underground floors, and two of the above ground floors, but I could tell that there were a lot more floors than that. I wasn’t able to get hold of very many books, but I did get a few; The Art of Dyeing; A Monster’s Guide to Hunting; Toolhunter: How to Forge Weapons.[/b][b]I took the three books I had found and quickly left the building, but this time by the front entrance. I stopped dead as I was surrounded by a group of about ten guards. I looked around at them, smiled feebly, then turned around and ran back into the library. I ran through aisle after aisle trying to lose them, but it was to no avail. I quickly made my way back to where I had entered, and jumped through the window. The window closed behind me, as if on its own. I quickly turned around and found myself face to face with the guard I had seen staring at me before entering the city.[/b][b]She looked me in the eyes and said, “You’d better get out of here. Quick, follow me,” then she began to run off towards a path between two houses.[/b][b]I looked after her, narrowing my eyes. “Why should I trust you? How do I know you won’t lead me to a trap?”[/b][b]She stopped and looked back tilting her head and smirking as the guards banged on the window. I looked back and quickly took off after her. She led me through a bunch of alleyways that seemed as if they weren’t supposed to be there, and then finally we came to the same place where I had entered the city. I kept running, and then realized she wasn’t following me. I slowed down and looked back to see where she was, but she was gone. This worried me, but I didn’t stop. I leapt over the pressure plates and ran back toward the forest. I ran behind the hill as I had first done, and I quickly laid down to rest.[/b][b]After I had recovered enough strength to get back to the forest, I stood up and began to run. Once I got back to the forest, I quickly ducked into the shadows like I had before, and made my way through the same path I had taken before. As I sat down, taking my lantern out in the darkest easily accessible place of the forest, I began to think about my past. “So what was my life like before the cave? Did I always live underground, or did I live on the surface once before?” I pulled out A Monsters Guide to Hunting, and began to read.[/b]
[b]Hunting is the art of searching out creatures and killing them. Most use hunting to find food, while there are some who use hunting to search out other creatures just for entertainment, or sport. There are some yet who use hunting to seek out revenge. The most prominent use of hunting is to find food, and the second most prominent is for sport. There are very few who use hunting for revenge.[/b][b]I looked up, sighed, and put the book back in my bag. It looked like this would be harder than I had thought, especially with how these books were written. It seemed like it had been written for people who didn’t know how to hunt at all. I was feeling tired, so I leaned back my head, and looked up at the trees. “I wish I could remember more about my past. Maybe,” I thought. “Maybe if I relax I’ll remember something.” My mind wandered, and I quickly fell asleep.[/b][b]Images of what my past might have been overwhelmed me until I realized I was dreaming. I looked around; I was standing in space, while images portraying different parts of my recent past played as if they were happening all over again, and I was looking on at them through small windows. I walked past them, being careful not to bump into any for fear that I might get dragged into it. I looked for one that might be my past, but there were so many, and they were moving so fast, that it was almost impossible to tell what was going in them all. I wandered for what seemed like hours before I came upon one that seemed promising. I followed it until I saw myself and Steve mining alone. Hopeful, I grabbed onto it and held it over my head, looking up. I hesitated for a moment, wondering what would happen, before I let it go.[/b][b]Suddenly I was in another dream. There I was, mining and mining with a pickaxe made from iron. I watched, as if from the view of a ghost following behind myself. I came upon another tunnel. I looked around for a moment, then entered the new tunnel and turned left. I made my way down this tunnel before turning right and coming upon a small storage room. E.J. stood waiting patiently.[/b][b]Suddenly my viewpoint changed and I was looking through the eyes of dream me. “The last tunnel is finished E.J, bring the TNT.” I reached out my right arm and gestured for a bag. He stood up and handed me one, and I turned around and led him through a complex system of tunnels, laying down some sort of red string like thing as I went, and hooking it up to the TNT that the he laid down in the process. The dream skipped and I found myself laying down more of the red string, until I got to a lever, at which point I attached the string to the lever. “You might want to hold onto something,” I said, pulling the switch.[/b][b]Nothing happened, and I looked around. E.J. was looking around confused. I held on tight, and then there was a loud and sudden thundering sound, followed by a shaking like a giant earthquake. After a moment it all stopped, and I grabbed the iron pickaxe from my belt and ran down the corridor. At the end of the corridor, I found myself looking into a somewhat wide, very long room that was about four meters tall. I squinted, trying to see the end of the room, but it was to no avail. I quickly summoned E.J. to help me light the room, and we set to work. Next thing I knew I was starting to build some sort of base, and I was again looking from the viewpoint of a ghost. I watched in sped up segments as I built and built, resting now and again for food and water. It didn’t seem like too long, even though it looked like it took a while, but the base was finally done. Suddenly, I realized that it was the same base that Tankinator and Aboba had gone to in the dream I’d had a few nights earlier.[/b][b]Then the dream seemed to shake around me and it faded into blackness. Then I appeared in front of another frame. I grabbed hold quickly as I felt myself begin to fall. I almost slipped, but holding on tight with my left hand, I managed to hold on. After a moment, I realized that the frame was empty. There was no image in this one. Then, as I looked, there began to appear the picture of a woman in a white, flowing dress. She looked at me, and then I was suddenly dragged into the frame, and a new dream reality appeared.[/b][b]“Minxed,” she said in a soothing voice. “It has been but a short time since I last saw you.”[/b][b]I looked at her confused.[/b][b]“Minxed, do not be disbelieving. Minxed, think, remember.”[/b][b]I narrowed my eyes, deep in thought. Suddenly my mind was filled with a thousand memories, some of which began to take shape before me. Closing my eyes, I realized that these were some of my past that had been hidden from me.[/b][b]I was a young boy in my teens, sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the sea as the sun set over the mountains behind me. Then a girl, a little taller than me walked up beside me, her hair blowing in the wind. Her clothes were poorly made, and her hair unkempt, but her beauty was striking. I looked up at her as I heard her footsteps. She looked down at me, tears flowing from her eyes. The smile faded from off my face, and I turned to face her.[/b][b]I knelt behind a rock, my bow in hand, and an arrow drawn. I was in my late teens or early twenties. A herd of cows grazed in the field, and that same girl, though older, knelt beside me carrying a leather bag. I reached around the rock, and pulled the string back. Aiming carefully, I released the arrow. It whizzed through the air, nicked one of the cows in the leg, making it incapable of movement, and jabbed another in the stomach, causing it to reel over with pain.[/b][b]I was in my teens again. There was a group of kids; six girls, and two boys. I sat on a hill near a forest, watching sadly. I saw the same girl again. Now remembering her name to be Brailyn, I tried to remember the names of the other kids there. One of the girls, the tall and thin one, who had yellow-blonde hair, looked over at me. Her eyes were a deep green, and her face was forever set with a menacing frown. She looked like she could kill anyone, any second. Then she smirked, and I wanted to shrink into a spec of dust. Talking quietly for a moment, Thelenia, as I remembered her name to be, spoke to the others, and pointed over toward me. One of the boys looked over, and I saw a knife hanging from his belt. He straightened his back and marched over to me.[/b][b]“You!” His voice was startlingly low. It was smooth, and calm. “Never mess with my girl again!” His hand fell to the knife at his side. “You know what I can do to you.” He smirked, spat at the ground in front of me, and walked back to the group.[/b][b]A tear came to Brailyn’s eye, and she looked back at me sadly as he grabbed her arm and pulled her away. He stepped behind a tree with her, and then I heard a scream. My blood felt like liquid ice, and a name came to my mind. Herobrine. The other boy cringed, and two of the girls cried, while the other four simply closed their eyes and bowed their heads.[/b][b]The screaming continued, and it became too much to handle. A thought ran through my mind. “No one has ever stood up to this bully, through everything that he’s done. Somebody needs to do something.” I stood up, putting my fears aside, and walked boldly over toward the tree that he had pulled Brailyn behind. As I walked, I reached down to my shoe, and in one fluid motion, pulled out a knife that seemed to glow blue in the sunlight. The other kids’ eyes widened as I did so, and a few of them let their mouths drop open for a second before they became self-conscious and closed it again.[/b][b]I wielded the knife as I rounded the tree, and was horrified to see that Herobrine had stabbed Brailyn twice in both legs, once in the lower leg, and once in the upper, of each side. There was also a puncture hole in her stomach, and his iron knife protruded from the center of her chest. She was still screaming, and very little blood was seeping from the wounds, large as they were, though there was also a green gaseous substance rising from each hole.[/b][b]“Herobrine,” I said. My voice wasn’t high, but it wasn’t low either. “Get away from Brailyn. Now.” I looked him straight in the eye.[/b][b]His smooth voice coursed through me and my blood chilled again. “So, the silent one speaks. What hast thou to say unto me, oh great one?” he mocked. “Hast thou come to burden me with the complaints of the people?” I shivered. “Or is this a challenge?”[/b][b]I pointed my knife at him, my arm quivering. “Back, off,” I said in a threatening voice. “I’ll give you one last chance before I slice you open.”[/b][b]He laughed. It was a horrible sound. Like stones being dragged across gravel, and the screech of metal across stone. “One last chance? Oh no, I am so scared. What shall I do?” He fell to his knees in mockery. “Oh dear, ma’am, please don’t let your son hurt me! I’m innocent!” He laughed again.[/b][b]“I’ve had enough!” I shouted, and I lunged at his chest.[/b][b]There was a moment of silence, as Herobrine looked down at his chest. My knife had sliced right through his leather armor, and there was a large gash going straight across his chest. He winced, then started coughing. Slowly, painfully, he got up. Then he collapsed on the ground, and began to writhe in pain. He opened his mouth to cry out, but instead there was a low rumbling sound, and he began to laugh uncontrollably. Suddenly the wounds in Brailyn’s stomach, legs, and chest closed, and the knife fell out on the ground.[/b][b]Brailyn stumbled and began to fall. Reaching
out and moving quickly, I put my knife away and caught her. She was unconscious when I looked, and there was a single tear in her eye. Being careful not to hurt her, I set her down and wiped away the tear. Then I looked up, and opened my eyes.[/b][b]I was back with the girl in the dress. She looked at me, and I looked back.[/b][b]I faltered for a moment before saying, “Brailyn.” A tear came to my eye.[/b][b]She nodded sadly, beginning to cry, then she began to fall backwards. I reached out to catch her, but I was pulled back and lifted into the air. Then the ground evaporated below me in a million wisps of smoke, and she fell into the blackness.[/b]I received a content too long error so I put Chapters 7-9 in my first comment, 10-13 in my second, 14-16 in my third, 17-19 in my fourth, 20-21 in my fifth, and the Epilogue in my sixth. I apologize, I know this is inconvenient, and I'm sorry I didn't comment sooner, but that's all I can do. When and if I need to, I'll give links to the pages that each of the chapters are on, and put the links in this post.If you would like to support me, please put one or both of the following in your sig:Link to my story(if you'd be so kind as to add it): www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1544927-the-entrappers-dreams-of-the-past-currently-on-chapter-10/Link to my banner(just in case you like it): http://i.imgur.com/SKjaV.png

I think this story needs to leave these pages and placed in the game. Come work with me on my MMO server and we can make this into a playable experience. I'm looking for Quest/Story line writers for my large "MMO" server in minecraft. Take a look at the server overview and sign up if you are interested: Project X

Story Overflow

There were tears running down my cheeks when I woke up, and my eyesight was blurry. I rubbed my eyes and stared up at the trees above me. “Brailyn,” I thought. “Why did you have to leave?” I wiped the tears away from my eyes, and set to work. I decided that I would wait for three forest months, each of which was the equivalent of thirty five forest days, before I went back to the city. Taking out my ink and pen, as well as a piece of paper, I made a chart of one forest month with five rows and seven columns, then repeated it on two other sheets. Planning to mark it off each and every time before I went to sleep, I put the materials away and immediately set to work with my daily plan. After three days time, I had finished the first six chapters of A Monster’s Guide to Hunting. I hadn’t learned much, if anything from it, so I stopped reading it and started reading The Art of Dyeing. This one was less interesting than A Monster’s Guide to Hunting, but at least I learned something from it.

Twelve forest days in, as I was sitting there reading The Art of Dyeing, when a group of Slenders appeared, chasing after some sort of cow that had longer legs and a thinner body. I got up, quickly putting my stuff away, and chased after them. They span around the trees, gaining momentum as they did so, until one of them flung itself around a tree and rammed into the creature, knocking it into a hole in the ground that was surrounded by tree roots. The four of them quickly converged on the animal, devouring it until it was completely gone. Finished eating, they all straightened their backs and looked up at me as I came running to the edge. They greeted me with deep bows, and I returned it.

“The Guardian,” one of them said quietly.

“I prefer Guardian V,” I returned politely.

It bowed its head in a quick gesture of apology, then looked back up. I jumped down into the hole, and shook each of their hands.

“We have heard of your escape from The Gray City.” This one's voice was deep and gravelly. “We have also heard of your dealings in the forest.”

“My, dealings?” I questioned.

“Yes,” the third said. “You have been seen training yourself, and have not been aggravated by the creatures of the blackness.”

“You mean endermen?”

“Yes.”

“I have indeed, had no interactions with them.” I looked around. “Well, I had better be off now. I have to go train. I just saw you four chasing after something and ran after to see if you needed help, and it turns out that you don’t.” I nodded and returned to working out.

Once one forest month was over, I had gotten quite a bit stronger. Before, I had barely been able to lift a branch as thick as my leg. Now I was able to tear small trees out of the ground and throw them. After the thirty-fifth day, I woke up and marked off the last day on the first chart that I had made. As I was putting the materials away, I heard the sound of cracking branches, and saw a dim orange light ahead of where I was. I quickly pulled my sword out of my bag, and slung the bag around my shoulders. Crouching down, I made my way through the shrubbery to where I could see the source of the light. I peeked over a root, and saw an enderman with orange eyes, a hole in his chest, and a shorter left arm, leading a group of city guards dressed in full iron armor. I ducked back behind the root, and crawled around toward my right to attack them from the side.

Then one of the guards spoke, “Broken One, he’s not here. We have to go-” he was interrupted before he could finish what he was saying.

“Silence,” the Broken One ordered. “I am in charge here, and we will go back when I say. I sense him near us. We are close, and soon, I will take the raider back to master-”

It was my turn to interrupt, and I jumped from the side, yelling a war cry, and cutting down one of the guards with a fatal blow. The guards turned and looked at me.

Then one’s eyes widened and he said, “He has lived in the Black Forest!”

I stood up and flipped my hood up over my head as The Broken One turned, and the beams of orange light from his eyes fell upon me, casting shadows over my features, and making them seem more defined. In the one forest month that had passed, I had managed to dye my cloak a dark brown, and it absorbed the orange light, leaving it dark, as if there was no light on my cloak at all. Then all at once, the guards backed up, fear in their eyes. The Broken One made a screeching noise that sounded slightly like laughing, and charged me, reaching out with tentacle-like fingers. I swung my sword up and slashed at his wrist. The sword deflected off of it and knocked him off balance. I jumped on his back, and stabbed downwards with my sword. I missed, and the sword slipped down through the hole in his chest. He grabbed my sword with his left hand, and I released the sword in an attempt to free myself of him, but he dropped the sword and got hold of my wrist. I felt the air begin to crush me, and then there was a flash of orange light. I closed my eyes, and held them shut until the rushing of air stopped, and I could breathe again.

Opening my eyes, I looked around. I was in The Gray City. Then I felt a hand grab me and lift me up into the air. I looked down, and saw The Broken One’s arm extending, holding me up in the air. His eyes gleamed and he threw me down on the ground. I closed my eyes, breathing heavily, I had to escape. I couldn’t let The Broken One capture me. Acting quickly, I turned my back on him and began to run. Only then did I notice that I was surrounded by guards. I put my left foot out, and ground to a halt. Looking around, I noticed the guard that had helped me escape. She was chained to a pedestal, on top of which there was a statue of Herobrine reaching toward the sky with a blank look on his face. Her guard’s clothing had been replaced with tattered old rags that were sewn together as if they were meant to look bad. Twelve guards stood around her, watching her and the surroundings at all times.

I noticed the guards surrounding me, all of whom were wearing leather armor, draw their swords in unison, and I quickly counted about how many there were. As far as I could see, there were about thirty of them. My mind raced and I charged the nearest guard. His eyes widened and he began to bring his sword up to counter me, but I charged into him and knocked him to the ground. Without missing a beat, I rolled off of him, slashing him through with his sword while snapping it out of his hand, and jumped up, bringing the sword down on the shoulder of another guard. By now they were getting composed, and The Broken One was nowhere to be seen. Even so, I continued my attack. The next guard attempted to block me, so I dropped the sword I was holding, grabbed the hilt of his sword with my left hand Then I shoved my right forearm up against the flat near the tip of the blade, and spun around, pushing the sword upwards and over my head and twisting his arm until he let go.

Another guard charged me from the front, sword raised. I quickly grabbed hold of his arms right behind the elbows, and still holding on to the sword, lifted him up over my head, and down onto the oncoming guard, ducking down in the process. Just then, a sword appeared just above my right shoulder, and I twisted my head toward the blade, reaching up the blade toward the hilt, and then slashed outward with one quick, fluid motion. Then three guards charged at once, all swinging down simultaneously. Thinking while acting, I ducked down and dove for the feet of one of the guards. I heard their swords clashing together, and I popped up, slashing through the guard that was on the ground and stabbing one of the other two in the chest. Then I dropped and rolled toward the third guard, who lowered his sword to stab me. In one fluent motion, I threw myself at the guard’s chest by grabbing onto the guard’s sword and pulling at the same time as pushing off of the ground with my legs and other hand.

What happened next shocked me, but I recovered quickly. I had pushed the guard toward another guard at such a speed that the guard behind him found it necessary to put up his sword to block it, and wound up impaling the guard I had pushed. Then the two guards fell over backward, and the weight of the impaled guard forced the hilt of the sword into the other guard’s stomach. Trying not to fall forward, I took a step back and tripped, ending up laying face up on the ground. I stood up, looking around. The rest of the guards were shying off, watching every movement I made in terror.

Looking down at the guards who now lay on the ground, dead or dying, I thought, “Yeah, I would be scared if I saw someone take down nine trained guards in armor without a problem too.” Then there was a slight humming sound and a pop, followed by a flurry of orange sparks, and The Broken One appeared, wearing a red cape. “Wait a second,” I thought. “Isn’t that the same cape that I saw being worn when I overheard E.J. talking to The Broken One before?” I looked him up and down. The cape almost completely shielded him from direct sunlight. The only place where it didn’t shield him was his head, and that was covered by a cloud of sparks, which continued to hum. He looked around, noting the cowering and dead guards, as well as the fact that I wasn’t carrying a sword.

Then he spoke. “Hmm.” He made a low rumbling sound, which quickly transformed into a scratchy, low, cackling laugh. “It seems as if you have managed to make these guards fear you, Raider P, but I could do the like that you have done here,” he said casually, gesturing at the guards laying on the ground. “I have yet to find a reason to fear you.” As he said this, his gaze was suddenly fixed upon me, and his orange eyes gleamed. “Die filthy mortal!” he spat the last word out, like someone would a nasty piece of food, and charged me. I quickly dropped to a low crouch, picking up a sword and swinging it upward as he came closer. He grabbed the sword, towering above me, and I rolled into his legs. Before I was able to run into him, he teleported away, and appeared on the other side of me.

This time he wasn’t ready, but I was. Moving as fast as I could, I grabbed a sword out from under me and slashed as hard and fast as I could at his legs. The sword shattered from the force, and The Broken One stumbled backward, waving his arms, which caught on his cloak. As soon as the sunlight hit him, his eyes widened and he screamed his horrible, high, screech. I looked up at him, slightly awed, then got myself together and picked up a sword. Standing up, my eyes gleamed, and I slashed his cape into shreds, and shattered the sword across what was left of his chest. Then, stumbling and dizzy, he ran off and teleported away. I had beaten him in combat. I hadn’t defeated him yet, but I had won in a fight. I quickly grabbed a new sword and walked confidently toward the girl who was chained to the pedestal, my cloak billowing behind me. The twelve guards all looked toward me at once, their iron armor gleaming in the sunlight, and drew their iron swords.

The girl tilted her head up slightly, just enough for me to see her eyes. They were dark, sad, and red. Then the guards all turned toward me, and formed four lines of three between the girl and I. Closing my eyes, I bowed my head, and then knelt on the ground, putting my hood up in the process. I waited to hear the guards charge me, but all I heard was my cloak flapping in the wind. I opened my eyes, and glanced up. The guards all just stood there, looking in my direction. I smiled admiringly, and stood up, looking straight at the front three guards.

“I admire your willingness to fight me, but it is a vain effort, and in the end, I will win.” My head was still slightly bowed.

The guards still didn’t speak, so I walked toward them slowly. As I got closer, I sped up until I was at a run. Once I got close enough to them, I jumped into the air, and slashed down on the middle guard. The sword hit the guard in the chest as he leaned back to avoid the blow, and the armor where it hit crumpled like paper. The guards who were standing next to him raised their swords and brought them down toward my head. I glanced up and moved closer into the middle guard, shoving him backwards. The swords came crashing down on my shoulders, and the tough fiber of my cloak caught them, stopping them from harming me. I grinned, lifted my sword up, and stabbed the guard on my right, took his sword, and then stabbed the guard who was on my left. All three guards collapsed on the ground, and the other guards hesitated before breaking formation and charging me all together.

Now it was my turn to be scared. I wasn’t ready for a fight like that, so I turned and ran, leaving the city, and making my way back to the forest. It took me a little while to find my stuff, which I had left behind when The Broken One had teleported me away. I noticed that two of the guards were still there, and they were each wearing two layers of iron armor, which they had taken from their comrades after they had fallen. Dropping my hood down and pulling out my lantern, I stepped out to where the two of them could see me. They had terrified looks on their faces, and they became even more terrified when they saw me.

“I have no intent of harming you,” I said, hoping that they would let me help them.

Suddenly five Slenders appeared out of the trees, and grappled with one of the two guards. There was a moment of struggling, then the guard went limp, and they moved on to the other guard. I turned away, not able to watch the fight, and realized that I was tired. It would be a good idea to move to a different spot, so I walked a little ways until I found a nice pit in the ground that was situated between the roots of five trees, and set up camp. I laid back, my cloak moving to right beneath me of its own accord like always, put my things away, and fell asleep.

I found myself wandering through the void. Gray particles of dust floated all around me. I almost wandered into a few dreams, but each time I found that I would rather wander in a state of solitude than watch something happen without being able to affect it. I wandered for a while before I noticed I was being followed. Brailyn was the same age as I was, about thirty years old, and she wasn't wearing her usual attire. Instead of a pure white, flowing dress, she wore leather boots, and and a leather jacket, with black pants that seemed to be some mixture of leather and fine string. Her hair, cascading down over her shoulders and down her back, was a deep brown color. It was so brown that I would have thought it was black if it weren't for the blackness of the void all around us.

"Minxed." Her voice was light and soothing. "Please, save me." She gestured to her right, and there suddenly appeared an image of a girl in a dungeon. It was the same girl that the iron-clad guards had stopped me from saving earlier that day.

"This is me. I know it is confusing, and that you have no reason to trust me, but please. I have," her voice trailed off for a moment. "I have some things that would be useful for you. Not just materials, but information as well."

"Then why can't you tell me right now?" I asked, confused.

The image of the girl in the dungeon faded, and was replaced by an image of a statue of Herobrine. That image faded almost immediately. "I can only tell you so much in dreams. Your friends." Brailyn started to shimmer, as if she was being pulled from my dreams by some remote force. "Have need of." I didn't get to hear what she said because she faded completely.

"No! Brailyn!" My anger swelled and I found myself surrounded by thousands and thousands of guards. "No!" I yelled as loud and long as I could muster strength. As I yelled, the void shook around me, and the guards collapsed, unable to stay standing. I swelled up, growing bigger and bigger until I was so big that I could no longer see the guards they were so far below me. Everything seemed as if it was the same size as it had been before, because there was nothing there to see but the gray dust of the void.

I let myself fall backwards into a sitting position, and cradled my head between my knees, crying. After a while of sitting there, I wiped away my tears, and collapsed onto my back, letting my legs fall flat. I stared up into the dust, watching it fall. It was just like looking up in a snowstorm, except I couldn't feel the dust like I could the snow when it was snowing. My thoughts wandered to the many times that I had played in the snow with my best friend Brailyn. I put on my coat. It was leather on the outside, and woolen on the inside. The outside was dyed light blue, and the inside was white. It was my favorite coat, and I wore it every day during the winter. I stepped outside, into the snow, made my way over to Brailyn's house, and knocked on the door. Brailyn answered. She was wearing simple clothes, and no snow gear.

"Hey Brailyn." By the sound of my voice I must have been fifteen years old.

"Oh, hey Minxed, I'll be ready in a few minutes. Why don't you come in and sit down for a bit?" Her voice was the same as when I saw her in the void.

"Okay," I said as I stepped in. Right before I was able to put my foot down, however, I slipped and started falling backward. Immediately and in one smooth motion, Brailyn reached her arm around my back and under my legs, lifting me up into the air. Then she carried me into the front room, and set me down on the couch. I sat there, stunned at how strong she was for a moment, before she spoke again.

“You know Minxed,” she said, slipping her snow pants on over her shorts. “I think we're gonna get married some day.” She looked over at me.

I blushed and said, “I hope we do.”

Next she slipped into her boots, which reached up almost to her knees. “You really are the greatest kid I've ever known.” She quickly slipped her jacket on, which was light blue just like mine, grabbed her hat and mittens, and came running over to me, arms outstretched.

I stood up and embraced her, resting my head on her chest. Brailyn was taller than me. Not by much, only about six centimeters, but it was enough that I had to look up to talk to her. I closed my eyes, smiling contentedly, and sighed. I loved hugging her. She never hugged too hard, but it was always firm. Not to mention she always hugged you for a while

I stepped back, bubbling over with joy. She giggled and said, “Calm down Minxed, let me get my mittens and hat on.” She slipped her soft hands into her mittens, put her hat on, and then opened the door for me.

“Ladies first,” I said politely.

She smiled, tilting her head toward the door, and waited for me to go first.

“Okay,” I said, giving in. “I can go first just this once.” From the way she laughed at that, I gathered that I had said that multiple times before.

I stepped out into the snow and walked a little bit away from her house, then turned back toward her slightly, holding out my hand invitingly. After closing the door, she turned toward me and ran over to me, then grabbed onto my hand.

“You know,” I said, still holding her hand as we walked. “We don’t really have a place all to ourselves that we can go when it snows.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “Well, maybe we can find one. We could look for a place in the forest over there,” she pointed to the oak forest off to our right, which lay between the village and the river. “Or we could look in the pine forest.” She grinned. No child or parent would even think of going to the pine forest during the summer, let alone the winter. There was always someplace where a branch or tree was ready to fall, or a hungry wolf stalking you to your doom, so it was the perfect place to go if you didn’t want to get discovered. It was also the perfect place to go if you wanted to get fatally wounded.

I looked at her, then at the pine forest, then back at her. “Are you sure that’s where you want to go?” I asked.

She tilted her head, then said, “Come on, hurry up, Minxed! We have to find a fort in the forest!”
I laughed as she started skipping, and joined in. We made our way to the pine forest and started looking around. It took us about an hour, but we finally found a place we could go where nobody would find us, even if they were to follow us, and we could find easily, that was to our liking. There were a couple of pine trees all nestled tightly together, forming a sort of wall. Where there would have been gaps between the tree trunks, dirt and pine needles had filled in, and snow was covering it up. The branches were intertwined, with seemingly no separation, creating an amazing natural canopy that stopped all snow from falling on us. To the right when sitting down under the canopy there was a pine tree whose branches were low to the ground. The branches also blocked any wind from entering from that direction, and there were two trees on the opposite side that did the same.

We had seen another place somewhat like this one, except that the entrance to the other one had been almost completely blocked off, unlike this one. This one was facing into a clearing, and there was a clear view of the sky from the entrance. I let go of Brailyn’s hand and helped her down into the fort.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said teasingly.

I laughed, and sat down next to her, leaning my head on her shoulder.

“Minxed,” she said softly. “You are my favorite person in the world.” I smiled and snuggled up closer to her. “I love you.”

The dream faded, and I found myself in a field of snow that extended on for forever in every direction. I looked up. It was snowing. Now I had all the motivation that I needed to rescue Brailyn, if it really was her trapped in that dungeon. I didn’t yet have proof, but I would have some soon enough.

I stared up at the trees above me for a few minutes after I woke up. I had to rescue that poor girl who had been chained up by the people of The Gray City. “Or did Herobrine chain her up?” I thought. “Ah, no matter. I have to rescue her anyway. I can’t just go back though. Now that they know how strong I am, and how dangerous I can be, they’ll probably start training their guards better, and give those who are guarding that girl iron armor.” I sat up and looked around. “I need to finish with those last two forest months of training.” By now I had gotten to the point where I was doing one hundred and twenty pull-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and push-ups, instead of just twenty.

Getting up I proceeded with my training. “That’s funny,” I thought. “I’ve never thought of it as training before. I’ve always called it working out. Oh well.” I got down on my hands, and started doing push-ups. Once I got to one hundred and twenty, I hesitated. “Should I keep going? Or should I stop here? Ah, whatever.” I kept going until I felt my arms start to strain at one hundred and sixty. “I guess I’ll be doing one hundred and sixty now instead of just one hundred and twenty.” I proceeded with the next two forest months of training, pushing myself to the limit every day. Once it neared the end of the second forest month, I was up to two hundred and eighty push-ups. I had also changed how I measured my maximum. At first it was how many I could do before I ran out of energy, but now it was how many I could do before I broke a sweat.

As I lay down to go to sleep on the last day of the third forest month, I thought back on some of the experiences that I’d had during that time. I thought back on the dreams about Brailyn. Those dreams had made me remember a little bit of my past, how I had cared, and been cared for. Then I remembered what I had done when The Broken One had come for me. I had killed people. “No,” I thought. “That was instinctual.” Images flooded my mind, images of people pleading to live, pleading to be with their families just a little while longer. Then a sword would fall upon them, and the image would fade to a different one before the sword struck. “No, It wasn’t instinctual, and it wasn’t mindless slaughter, it was self defense. I was fighting for a good cause, while they were being lead by an evil man who embraces power and slavery.” This thought eased the weight off my mind until another began to haunt me.

“I have to find out what is going on with my dreams. Why have I taken my dreams so seriously? They’re just dreams, but they seem so real. Some of them have even made me remember things from my past, and they’ve been identical to what’s happened in the dreams.” I closed my eyes, and fell asleep. The next day when I woke up, I immediately gathered my things together and made my way towards the edge of the forest. As I was nearing the area where I would no longer need my lantern, I heard a creaking noise, and then an arrow whizzed past my ear. I immediately pulled up my hood and dove toward the nearest tree root, searching for my sword among the many things that had accumulated in my pack.

A volley of arrows whizzed over my head and stuck into the tree behind me. Then I found it; the iron sword that I had taken with me after The Broken One had taken me to The Gray City. I quickly peeked over the top of the root to see two giant skeletons with four arms loading their bows. Now was my first chance to put what I had learned into action. Formulating a plan in my mind, I crawled around the tree so that it was between me and the giant skeletons, and waited, carefully watching for the skeletons to come into view. There was another twang, and an arrow whizzed past my face. That was my cue. I quickly sprang into action, diving down towards the nearest skeleton’s feet, and stabbed my sword through a gap in the foot bone, immobilizing it. Then I crawled up the skeleton’s leg, using gaps between the bones as handholds, and pulled out the stone sword that I had first made, and cut the bow’s string.

The skeleton attempted to step backward to somehow avoid me, but it wound up falling backwards because my sword was pinning it in one spot. Then I slammed my stone sword down on its skull in an attempt to cut it, but the sword shattered, and the skeleton was practically unharmed. Thinking quickly, I grabbed its bow, and was about to replace my iron sword with it, when an arrow pinned my cloak to the ground. It didn’t punch through my cloak, but it did pin me down. Then I heard heavy footsteps, and I knew that the skeleton that was still standing was coming over towards me. There was a low chuckling noise, that sounded like a choked growl repeated over and over, and the skeleton spoke in a language that I didn’t understand.

There was a rumbling sound, and I heard noises coming from its mouth, but it all seemed like nonsense to me. I covered my ears as the sound started to hurt, but it stopped almost immediately. Then the skeleton looked at me and said one word that I could understand, “Quoll.” Then it charged me, all four arms readied to strike. I quickly tore my sword out of the ground, and parried two of its arms, but the other two fists struck me with devastating blows. The first one knocked the wind out of me, and the second flung me to the ground. I was glad the third and fourth didn’t hit. Then I had an idea, and I swung my sword toward the place where its lower left arm attached to its body. My sword hit the joint and sliced it clean off. Right before the arm hit the ground, it evaporated in a puff of white dust, and then the dust settled on the ground.

I swung for its lower right arm, trying to catch it off guard. This time it caught my sword, though the sword did do a reasonable amount of damage to its hand, and lifted me up, pulling the arrow out of the ground and unpinning me. I immediately took advantage of the situation, and swung my legs up and around its arm, catching on and squeezing as hard as I could. Surprisingly, the bone arm compacted under the pressure, and the end went limp, allowing me to tear the sword out of its hand and stab it in the chest. The skeleton groaned, and I pulled my sword out, coming in for a final blow. Seeing its doom at hand, the skeleton picked me up with its two remaining arms, and threw me. I slammed into a tree, and fell to the ground. Recovering quickly, I got to my knees only to see it charging headlong towards me, obviously planning to smash me into the tree.

Knowing that there was but a slight chance of being able to escape, I stood up and leaned toward the skeleton. Then, when it was close enough, I jumped up, putting my feet on the tree trunk, and my hands on the skeleton’s skull. The pressure was immense for that short moment in which there was any, then the skeleton shattered, going up in a cloud of dust, and I fell to the ground, yet again. Exhausted, I slowly got to my feet, and noticed the skeleton that I had knocked over. It had begun to move, altering its body shape into something different. As I watched it reformed, taking up the particles of white dust emitted by the skeleton I had beaten, and grew twice the size. It had already been more than twice as tall as a normal skeleton, so this was freaky.

Groaning, I turned and ran toward the forest edge, hoping that I would be able to outrun it. Not a chance. The skeleton sneered at me, and took off running, immediately gaining ground on me. The skeleton was at least double my speed, and I quickly realized I would have to do something more to avoid it. I looked back at it, then suddenly dodged off to the side, moving past a group of trees, and kept running. I heard the pounding footsteps stop, and begin again. Looking back, I was shocked to see that the skeleton was already rather close to me. I again ducked behind a tree, and began to weave back and forth as the skeleton would change which side of me it was on. Then I saw the edge of the forest, and looked back. The skeleton was well behind me now, but it didn’t stop, neither did I. I bolted out into the open fields, the sun beating down on me, and ran to the top of the hill.

Finally, I stopped, confident that the skeleton wouldn’t leave the confines of the forest. I was wrong, yet again. My first mistake was to think I could compete with these creatures at all. The skeleton charged into the sunlight, almost completely oblivious to it. The only change I saw was that the skeleton slowed down in the light. Then I saw movement in the trees, and a group of ten Slenders raced out of the forest, chasing after the skeleton. One of the Slenders jumped at the skeleton’s back, but the skeleton swatted it down, and the Slender hit the ground with a thud, not getting up again. Another one of the Slenders turned back to the fallen comrade, and took him back to the trees. The other eight kept chasing after the skeleton, and I decided it would be a good idea to keep running.

Then four of the eight remaining Slenders jumped on the skeleton’s back. It managed to swat down three of them, but one remained, staying in its only blind spot, the center of its back. Two more Slenders jumped onto the skeleton’s back, and it slowed down tremendously, allowing the last two to jump on, and finish it off. Slowing down, I turned around and walked back to where there now lay a pile of white dust, with five Slenders sitting in it. As I made my way over to them, three of the remaining five went back to carry the bodies of their comrade Slenders back to the forest.

“Guardian V,” one of the Slenders said, standing up. “It has been a long time since we dealt with Quolls.”

“You mean the giant skeletons?” I said, looking at the Slender with a confused look.

“They are called Quolls, Guardian,” the second Slender said.

Then I noticed something strange. The second Slender was wearing armor. The armor was made of what looked like iron padded with leather on the inside. In all the time I had spent in the forest, I hadn’t seen a Slender who wore armor, until now.

Noticing the surprised look on my face, the armored Slender said, “Ah, the armor.” he patted his armor, glancing down, and then looked back up. “Our scouts, who, as it appears, are the only Slenders you have seen, need to be nimble, quick, and agile. Though this armor may seem as if it is light, that is not the case. It has been tempered and compacted so as to eliminate bulk. It does not particularly slow us down, though it does make us less nimble. Guards wear and use it to protect our city.”

I blinked, and stared at him blankly. “City?”

He smiled and looked back toward the forest, then back at me. Suddenly he stiffened and whipped his head back toward the forest. Then there was the sound of a distant tree crashing to the ground. “What is,” the unarmored Slender began, but his voice trailed off when he looked toward the forest.

“What are you staring at?” I asked, unable to see anything but trees. Then the armored Slender tensed and said, “I knew we shouldn’t have come,” and the two of them took off running into the forest.

I turned around and made my way toward The Gray City. If something was going on that was so bad that a Slender would forget their manners, I didn’t want to be around when it happened. As I was running to the city, a few things came to my mind. “What will I do after I rescue that girl? Where will I live now that I can’t go back to the forest?” Then something else came to my mind, and I thought back to when I had first entered the city. “What did that guy who was pretending to be E.J. say to The Broken One about ‘them’? Who are ‘they’, anyway?” That made me realize that they had referred to me as ‘Raider P.’ That was something I did not like.

When I got to the hill, I crawled up behind a tree, then cautiously peeked out at the city. There had been a massive change since I had last been there, and it looked much different. Windows had been added, the walls had castellations on the top, and there were archers posted in each window, and at the top of the wall. The guards at the bottoms, all of whom had swords, were patrolling along a newly laid gravel road which wound its way around the outside of the city wall. I turned around, and leaned against the tree, my back toward the city. It would be much harder to get in to save the girl now, but I had to do it. A plan began to form in my mind, and I sat there, thinking. “They are going to recognize me, no matter what I do to disguise myself, so I’ll have to come up with a better way to get in. That eliminates simply walking in or climbing up the wall. However, I could dig down under the wall. Then again, there’s the problem that I won’t know when to come up.” I sighed and looked up at the tree. As I looked, I thought that maybe I would be able to knock a tree or two over to cause a distraction, but then, they probably wouldn’t be too worried about trees falling over.

Then I stood up, smiling. “I know, I’ll bring a Quoll to the city. Let’s see how they like it.” I quickly ran back to the forest and began looking for a Quoll. It ended up taking less time than I expected, but it still took a while. There was a group of five Quolls walking down a wide pathway through the darker part of the forest. Stepping out into the middle of the pathway I yelled, “Hey you! Yeah you! The Quolls who are walking away from me! It’s Guardian V, you know me, right?!” Then I turned around and bolted. I immediately felt the ground begin to tremble, and heard loud stomping coming from the Quolls as they ran along, trying to keep up with me. It seemed that combining with the dust of a previously defeated Quoll made them stronger. I managed to dodge between the trees enough to evade the Quolls until I got out of the forest. Then it was either I outrun them and they fall into combat with the city guards, or they overtake me and pummel me to dust.

I only realized how close they got when I was nearing the city, so I quickly dove behind a tree, and the Quolls stampeded toward the city. Except that there were only four. My eyes widened as I realized that I had been outsmarted, and I quickly whipped around to get an arrow to the shoulder. Crying out in pain, I charged the Quoll, jumping into the air, drew my iron sword which I had managed to slip into my bag while running, and slashed down on its shoulder for revenge. The sword glided through the Quoll, slicing it in half. That, I realized, was not such a good idea. Moving as quickly as I could, I turned and was about to run toward the city wall, when I saw that two of the Quolls had already fallen, and had been absorbed by a third, which was now more than six meters tall. The giant Quoll stopped, and turned around. Then it charged toward the dust pile of the fourth defeated Quoll, and quickly absorbed it, paying me no heed.

Taking advantage of the chaos that ensued after the giant Quoll returned to its attack, I managed to slip into the city, and pass the guards without getting noticed. As I was slipping from alleyway to alleyway, I heard a crashing noise, and I looked back to see what it was. The Quoll was now eight meters tall, and had seemingly run into the wall, causing it to shake and deform slightly. I turned back to the city, one thing on my mind. “I have to find where that dungeon is.” I made my way to the house that had once been mine, and checked to see if anybody was coming. Nobody was, so I quickly slipped in through the front door, and made my way down the hall to the room that had been unfinished when I last checked.

I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when I saw that it had been changed into the entrance to a dungeon. When I got to the bottom of the large stairway, I saw cells, set into the walls, branching down hallway after hallway. Then I noticed signs hanging from the ceiling. The sign above the hall to my left said ‘Prisoners,’ the sign in front of me said ‘Monsters,’ and the sign to the right said ‘Traitors.’ I grinned. “Hahaha, this is all too easy,” I thought. Then I paused. “Yes. Yes it is too easy.” I looked at the signs again. I stared. The letters on each sign suddenly rearranged themselves. The one to my right now read ‘Traps,’ the sign to my left now read ‘Rioters,’ and the sign in front of me read ‘Trinem Roon.’

“Ahah,” I thought, my eyes gleaming in triumph. “But what does ‘Trinem Roon’ mean?” I stood there for a short moment before deciding that I shouldn’t waste my time, and walked down the hall with the ‘Trinem Roon’ sign above it. As I walked further and further in, I saw more and more people in the cells. It seemed I had chosen the correct hallway. Then I noticed a group of guards up ahead, standing around a prison cell with a cage entrance made from solid gold. The cell was situated in the center of a room, and there were pathways going around the cell, and continuing the hall around the back of it. One guard, who was standing in the center front of the cell, was wearing full diamond armor, and had a diamond sword. To his right stood two guards dressed in full iron armor, one with an iron sword the other with a bow, and the same to his left. In the cell sat the girl I had come to rescue.

Still wielding my sword, I walked up to them, hood still up and shading my eyes. Thinking quickly I said, “Step out of the way. I have come to execute the girl.”

She gasped, and crawled into the corner, covering her face. The guard in the middle looked at me and spoke. His voice was drawn, as if he was trying to stall me. “The last to have come to supposedly execute her set her free and attempted to escape with her. Now also held in the Trinem Roon, the one called E.J. is soon to be executed. However, one before him, Tankinator by name, managed to escape our grasp. At least, for a short time period. Now, it is my duty to execute her when the time comes.” He looked at me blankly, waiting for a response.

I looked down, a grim look on my face. “Then, my friend, your time has come.” The girl began to cry, and the man in the diamond armor bowed his head slightly, then began to turn to face the cage. After a moment, I continued. “However.” I pulled out a tiny vial filled with a clear, water-like substance. “When I said ‘your time has come,’ I did not mean your time to execute her.” Uncapping the vial, I poured a few drops of the liquid onto my sword, then drank the rest. Nothing happened at first, and the guards in iron laughed at me and began to advance. The guard in diamond armor, turned back toward me, his right arm dropping to the hilt of his sword. Then I suddenly felt a strange change come over me. I was able to see more clearly, hear better, and I felt a rush of energy to my body. My sword gleamed with a soft white light, and the guards slowed, then stopped.

I charged them, grinning triumphantly as they fell beneath my crushing blows. It seemed as if everything else had slowed down and gotten much weaker. One blow from the flat of my sword was enough to crumple their armor and immobilize them completely. Stopping in front of the diamond-clad guard, I frowned, sadly. He didn’t seem frightened by my power at all, but it didn’t seem like he would let me through, either. Then he lowered his sword, and took off his helmet. I was shocked to see that it was Tankinator, but I made sure not to show it on my face, knowing that he wouldn’t recognize me. “My name is Tankinator,” he said. “I can tell you have come to rescue her, like I did.”

“Before I can trust you,” I said, slowly. “You have to give me that sword,” I gestured toward the diamond sword, which he still held in his right hand. “I’d also appreciate it if you would hand over that hidden bow you have with you,” I added, lowering my sword.

Tankinator looked up at me, with a look of wonder in his face. Then, shaking his head, he pulled a bow out from under his armor, and threw the bow and sword to me. I caught them, and put them both in my pack. “So do you have a way to get into the cell?” I asked, walking over to the bars and grabbing onto two of them.

“Well, when I first tried to break her out, I tried cutting them but that didn’t work out at all,” his voice trailed off.

“I think I’ll try that before I resort to more extreme measures.” I pulled out the diamond sword Tankinator had handed over and told him to step back. Then I swung as hard as I could toward the bars, but the sword simply bounced off, making a loud ringing sound. “Ah, well, it was worth a try,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“So what are these extreme measures?” Tankinator asked curiously.

I grinned and pulled out another vial of liquid, though this one had a purple liquid in it. Being careful not to use too much, I slowly poured a fourth of the liquid down one of the bars, and then another fourth down another bar. Then we waited. After a moment of waiting, we heard footsteps coming from down the corridor where I had come from, and a group of guards approached, all in full iron armor and wielding bow and arrow. Then there was a sizzling sound, and I looked back to see the two bars erupt in smoke and disappear. I glanced back at the guards, and saw an arrow whizzing through the air towards Tankinator.

Grumbling, I jumped in front of him, snatched the arrow out of midair, and handed it to him, then retrieved the bow from my bag and gave him that too growling, “You can use this, right?”

Tankinator grabbed the bow, notched the arrow, pulled the string back, aimed, and fired. I watched as the arrow traveled straight and true, and implanted itself in one of the guards’ necks, killing him instantly. I blinked, stared for a moment, then turned back to the cell and walked over to the girl in the corner. She had stopped crying, and was looking at me, still somewhat afraid. Kneeling down and pulling off my hood, I reached my left hand out to put it on her shoulder. She looked from me, to my hand, then back, and bowed her head sadly. “Brailyn?” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at me her eyes widening, and a single, quiet word escaped her lips. “Minxed.”

Hushing her quickly, I said, “Brailyn, do you want me to get you out of here?” She nodded, and I carefully picked her up, flipping my hood back up over my head. Then I became aware of arrow after arrow whizzing past me to bounce off of the wall. I looked around, and saw Tankinator launching arrow after arrow, splitting on coming arrows in half one after another, and taking out guard after guard at the same time. Ducking down as an arrow whizzed toward my face, I jumped behind the wall with Tankinator, and said, “Is there any other way out?”

He shook his head as if to say no, then loaded six arrows in the bow, and fired them around the corner. Then all of a sudden a huge arrow whizzed by and embedded itself in the stone wall of the cell. Groaning, I turned around, still carrying Brailyn, and ran toward the hallway behind the cell crying out, “Run!”

Tankinator fired one last arrow, then turned around and chased after me. Even though I was carrying Brailyn, he had a hard time keeping up with me. Up ahead the hall ended, and split off to the right and to the left. Once I got to the split, I turned right and ran down that corridor, the sounds of guards’ footsteps echoing behind us. Looking back, I saw the guards taking the opposite direction from us, and I slowed to a walk, turning around. Tankinator caught up to me, gasping for air. “H- how do you, how, run, fast, so much, carrying,”

“Breathe. Don’t talk, just breathe,” I interrupted.

He looked at me, as if to ask how to breathe, then he looked down at the floor, putting his hands on his knees, and bent over, still breathing hard. I carefully laid Brailyn down on the ground, and knelt beside her. “Brailyn,” I whispered, hoping that Tankinator couldn’t hear me. “I have to keep my identity a secret.” I looked at her, hoping that she would understand why.

Looking me in the eyes, she said, “So do I,” and upon seeing my surprised reaction, she added on. “I’ve been undercover for a while. I said my name was Lyndra Beinmix.”

I looked at her, then grinned, closed my eyes, and said, “You took my name combined it with your name, and rearranged the letters.” Opening my eyes, I laughed slightly.

She looked at me with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open, then she closed her mouth and eyes and shook her head. “Just as smart as always I see.” She laughed, then looked past me at Tankinator.

He had regained his breath, and had just walked up next to me. I looked up at him, then stood, picking Brailyn up in the process, and said, “We’d better get moving. By now they must have figured out that we didn’t go that way.”

Turning around, we headed down the hallway to where another hall intersected and continued on its way. We turned right, and made our way down the hall. This one was empty, though there were many cells that could have been filled, and there was still no sign of guards when we got to the staircase. Signaling to get flat against the wall, I peeked around the corner, then quickly pulled my head back when I saw all of the guards standing at the top of the staircase.

Turning to Tankinator, I asked, “Can you take on thirtyish guards with just a bow?”

He looked at me, smirked, and said, “It’s not me that’s doing all the aiming, it’s the bow. My friend named Minxed enchanted this bow so that it can aim of its own free will.”

I blinked. “I did that?” I thought. “Huh, well, whatever he says.” Pursing my lips, I said, “So if I were to give you any old bow you wouldn’t be very good?”

He sighed and said, “Well, I could still hit them, just not exactly where I want to.”

“Ah whatever,” I muttered, pushing him toward the corner. “Just get rid of them.”

Tankinator loaded an arrow in the bow, and held the bow around the corner, pointing up at the guards. When he was about to release it, a huge arrow hit the bow handle, and pinned it to the wall. Tankinator jumped, releasing the arrow and letting go of the bow, and fell backwards against the wall, allowing the bow to snap in half Then, from down the ‘Trinem Roon’ hall, two Quolls came walking, bows drawn. One of them pointed its bow at Tankinator, and loaded an arrow, pulling the string back. I wielded my sword and charged the Quolls. As I charged, the Quoll with the loaded bow turned the bow toward me and cackled. I stopped, almost too close for the bow to be effective against my cloak, but just far enough that I would still have time to react. The arrow leapt off the string, and I reached out my hand, grabbing the arrow out of the air. Then I continued my charge, and I swung my sword down on the second Quoll, powdering him instantaneously.

Almost instantly, the second Quoll made to walk into the white dust, but I quickly slashed upward, powdering that one as well. Then I felt arrows hitting my cloak and falling to the ground behind me. I attempted to move out of their line of sight, but as I was running through the Quoll Dust, I tripped on something, and fell on my back. Rolling over to my stomach, I covered myself with my cloak, and sifted through the dust with my hands. As I was doing so, my hand bumped into something that felt like a bow. Dusting it off, I revealed a giant bow, approximately twice the size of a normal one.

An idea dawned on me, and I quickly felt around for one of the arrows that had been shot at me. Something pricked my finger, and I quickly grabbed it. The arrow was tiny, but I still managed to load it into the bow. I knocked the arrow, pulled back the string, and turned around, releasing the arrow in the direction of the stairs. The arrow hit the stairs, rebounded off, and hit the ceiling, causing it to crack and crumble down on the guards, blocking the exit.

“So now we’re stuck in a dungeon under a city, with who knows what down here with us, and no light. How much worse can it-” Tankinator said.

“Don’t say that,” I said, interrupting him suddenly.

I could see his outline, as well as Brailyn’s, but it was apparent to me that neither of them had a clue where I was. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Maybe the potion hasn’t completely worn off yet.” Tankinator stood there for a moment, simply staring off into the darkness, before he sat down and hugged his knees. I continued standing, trying to figure out what I could do for light. “So we have a whole bunch of arrows, we might be able to gather a bit of stone, and I have a whole bunch of wood in my pack that I have yet to use. Hey! Wood!” I quickly fumbled through my pack until I found the wood. Then I grabbed a bit of iron, and I felt around for an arrow. As soon as I found one, I took my sword, and sliced the wood into sticks with heavy blows. Then I took the tip of the arrow, and struck it against the iron, causing sparks to dance around, and light the wood.

I held up my newly made torch, and saw Tankinator and Brailyn covering their eyes. The torch gave quite a bit of light, though I knew it wouldn’t burn for too long, but I did have a lot of wood. Looking around, I saw hundreds of arrows scattered all over the place, and I began to pick them up, hoping that they would be of use later on. There was a long moment where the only sounds were that of my footsteps, and me picking the arrows up and putting them in my pack. Then Tankinator spoke, making me jump a little. “Is it just me, or is it cold in here?”

Looking over at him, I raised my eyebrows in amusement. “Is that all you can think about?” I almost said, but I withheld myself. “Yeah?” I said instead. “What about her? Did you ever think how cold she must be, from all this time down here?”

Tankinator looked over at her, then back towards me. “You could give her that cloak of yours,” he said, suggestively.

I laughed, and picked up the last visible arrow. “Right, why don’t you just give her your clothes, and I’ll give her my cloak. Then she’ll be warm, and we’ll both be freezing cold.” I emphasized the last two words to make sure he understood.

He sighed and said, “Well, you’ll at least have clothes.”

Rolling my eyes, I put the arrow in my pack, and said, “Except that I’m more susceptible to the cold.” Putting that conversation aside as Tankinator blinked in surprise, I said, “So. Any ideas on how we’ll get out?”

Brailyn, who had been completely silent almost the whole time, said, “We could mine through the rubble on the stairs. You know, just an idea.”

I looked at her and shrugged my shoulders. “However, the person who mined it would get crushed because the rubble isn’t very stable. It’s just stable enough to hold itself up, but not stable enough to hold up while being mined. I don’t think that we’ll be able to mine our way out through the stone wall, seeing as we’re directly below a city. So it seems we will have to search through these dark tunnels to find an exit.”

Tankinator stared at me for a second, before sighing and looking down at the ground, and sitting down again. There was a moment of silence, and then he looked back up at me and said, “We’d better get going if we’re going to look for another exit, since I don’t know of any and I’ve been down here for a while.”

I stood there for a moment after he finished talking, looking over at Brailyn. She looked starved, and it seemed she wouldn’t be able to walk for a while. Sighing, I walked over to Brailyn, and knelt down next to her. “You okay, Lyndra?” I asked, remembering she was undercover too. “Can you walk?”

She looked up at me, then down at the ground, and shook her head silently. I put the giant bow in my pack, handed Tankinator the torch, and picked Brailyn up. The torch was already going out, so I handed Tankinator another stick of wood to light, being careful not to hurt Brailyn. Then I stood up, and we began to walk, Tankinator’s torch lighting the way, while I carried Brailyn through corridor after corridor. Eventually, we got to a path that split three ways; forward, left, and right. To the right, the cells disappeared, to the left, the path led to a drop off, and in front of us lay a path that lead to more cells. After a moment of indecision, we went right. We walked for a long time before we ran into any monsters, and then it was only a zombie. I immediately kicked the zombie into a wall, set Brailyn down carefully, and finished the zombie off with a punch to the chest.

I yawned and said, “Let’s rest here. I have materials we can use to block off the tunnel, so we won’t have to worry about monsters attacking us.”

Tankinator handed Brailyn the torch, as well as some extra fuel for it, and helped me set up the cobblestone walls. When we finished, I sat down next to Brailyn, and she laid her head down on my shoulder, shivering. Tankinator, who was shivering as well, though not nearly as much as Brailyn, sat down against the wall opposite us, and closed his eyes. Looking through my pack, I found a bit of cloth and string. “This should make a nice blanket.” I thought, and I quickly set to work weaving the cloth and string it into a blanket. When I was finished, the blanket was big enough to cover all three of us, so I quickly separated it into two pieces, one for Tankinator, and one for Brailyn.

Brailyn quickly fell asleep, the blanket being a luxury to her, and Tankinator was quick to follow, so I took charge of keeping the torch going while the two of them slept. By now we had gone through just under thirty torches, and I was getting worried that we wouldn’t have enough wood to last us. Using some of the leftover string to prolong the fire, I kept it from reaching a new torch until Tankinator and Brailyn awoke. It was a long, and grueling process, but I managed to pull it off. The torch lit up right when Tankinator woke up, and Brailyn had already been awake for a short time.

“Tankinator,” I said, startling him a little. “I need to you stay here with Brailyn, while I go and search for some materials we can use to make it out of here.” They both looked at me like I was crazy to think I could see in the dark. “I have a lantern that will be able to give me light, though it provides no heat,” I added on. They both sighed, and laid back against the wall cuddling up. I set up torches along the walls, with string leading from the bottom to the next torch, so as to prolong the light, and set on my way.

Lantern in hand, and sword in the other, I stalked my way through many corridors, cutting down monster after monster, until I found a cave, and some coal. Making sure I was alone, I pulled out my pickaxe and mined the coal, looking around every now and then to check that I was still alone. Once I had gotten all the coal, I made my way back through the corridors, remembering every turn, and found Tankinator protecting Brailyn from a small group of zombies. I quickly drew my sword, and cut down the zombies in groups of two or three, each one disappearing in a puff of smoke, until they were all gone. Tankinator, who was leaning against the wall panting, had managed to keep Brailyn from getting injured, but had taken a few blows to his chest.

“You okay?” I asked, speaking for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

He looked at me as if I was insane, and almost screamed at me. “What does it look like!?”

I rolled my eyes, grabbed a vial out of my cloak pocket, and walked over toward Tankinator. Grabbing onto his arm, I pulled him over to Brailyn, and threw the vial down at the ground. It shattered, and the clear liquid inside exploded in a cloud of white dust, then disappeared, leaving all of his wounds healed, and Brailyn feeling a little better. They both blinked, and looked at me for a second before looking away. It seemed they were getting used to me surprising them. Then I pulled out the coal that I had found, and took a plank of wood. Being careful not to mess up, I made torches, then filled them with coal. As I held up the torch, another idea came to mind, and I quickly grabbed some cobblestone, and my pickaxe, and began to build a furnace. It took a long time, and Tankinator and Brailyn fell asleep a couple of times during the process, but I managed to make a furnace using only the light from my lantern. Finally, I smelted some iron into a form where it could hold a torch, and set the torch in it. I repeated this a few times before lighting two torches, and handing one to Brailyn and Tankinator.

After I had rested up a little bit, we set on our way. I guided them through corridor after corridor, going through a path that seemed random to them, but we ended up in the very same place that I had mined the coal. It was the beginning of a cave, which was out of the ordinary for how man-made the pathways had seemed so far, and was also our first glimmer of hope. Caves could extend for kilometers on end, go up or down, lead to huge underground chasms, tiny branches, or the outside world. They branched in seemingly random directions, crossing through and around themselves many, many times, or going straight for a long ways. I’d had my fair share of cave exploration, if not more than my fair share, and I knew how to navigate them rather well, as well as some of the best methods of navigation I had ever run into. I definitely had the best form of navigation that could extend through the different types of caves.

As we stepped into the cave, an arrow flew past me, and bounced off the wall. I quickly pulled out the huge bow, loaded an arrow into it, and shot in the general direction that the arrow had come from. The arrow embedded itself in a wall, and the cave trembled as it collapsed on a group of skeletons. Smirking, I slipped the bow into my pack again, and we made our way deeper into the cave, climbing up whenever we could, and going down as little as possible. After a large number of encounters with monsters, we finally got out of the seemingly endless maze of caves just as the sun was going down. The cave exit was situated in the side of a large mountain that reached up far above our heads, and dropped off for even further in front of us.

We were all tired, especially me, considering I had slept less than half as much as either Tankinator or Brailyn, so we set up camp at the top of the cliff face. Before I laid down to sleep, I tucked Brailyn in, and set up a fire pit, with a fire burning brightly in it. I didn’t know what season it was, and I couldn’t feel the cold because of my cloak, so I made sure to give the fire enough fuel to last throughout the night. That night my dreams lead me to a safe place. It was a place that I had visited many times during my childhood, and only remembered recently. It was the place that I had last dreamt of, the place that I had always gone when it was raining, or snowing.

The wind drove through the trees, scattering the snow through the air in tremendous amounts. It was the worst blizzard I had even experienced, and the perfect time to hide in my fort. I ran through the snow, my footprints getting filled in behind me, and made my way to the pine forest. Snow pummeled me from every side, and I was almost completely blinded by it, but I knew this path all too well. I ran through the forest, dodging and weaving, until I found myself in the clearing, right next to the fort. Brailyn was already there, and she had brought a blanket with her. I quickly dove into shelter, and slipped under the blanket. It was warm, and cozy, and I felt at home. There was nothing I wouldn’t give to experience this once more.

I woke up to a cold morning. The clouds covered the sky, and there was snow everywhere. There seemed to be a giant sheet of paper covering the plains below us there was so much snow, and there were deep snow drifts to the left and right, as well as covering the cave behind us. I woke Tankinator and Brailyn up, and told them about our predicament. Tankinator handled it well, walking over to the cliff and staring off into the distance, hands on hips. Brailyn, on the other hand, broke down sobbing, and it took me hours to calm her. By that time I guessed it was about noon, but the clouds had become thicker, and it was dark. Dark enough that it seemed like early evening, when the sun starts to go down, but we could still see because the light reflected off the snow. We sat on the edge of the cliff for a while, contemplating the ways we could get down.

“We should build some sort of shelter as soon as we get down,” Tankinator noted. “To get down, though, we should probably dig through one of the snow drifts.”

I glanced over at him, then looked back out at the plains. “Tankinator, we’re not going to be able to dig through the snow. It’s compacted too hard. Climbing would be a possibility if we had snow gear, and I don’t think either of you would want to jump off of the cliff.”

Brailyn looked at me, then leaned over to get a better look at the cliff face. I leaned over to look too. It wasn’t very rough, and it looked like it would be traversable if we had a boat, or something like it. Then Brailyn stood up, a light coming to her eyes. “A boat!” she said. “All we have to do is make a boat, then pad it with wool in case it rolls, and add a roof! Then, Guardian V can push it off while Tankinator and I are in it, and follow after us on foot!” She looked from Tankinator to me, then back to Tankinator.

I raised my eyebrows, nodded my head, and looked over at Tankinator to see if he approved. He sat there, head tilted slightly, thinking. After a moment, he started slowly nodding his head in agreement. I paused for a moment, looking around for trees. Up above the cave entrance, I could see a single tree, but other than that there didn’t seem to be any around. I pulled out two sticks, and climbed up the snow drift to the left, then pulled out my axe, which was gathering dust at the bottom of my pack, and walked over to the tree. Using the blunt end of the axe, I dug the snow out from around the tree, and chopped it down. It was a long while before I finished the covered boat, but I finally managed it after Tankinator and Brailyn had gotten in.

Looking out over the cliff, I slowly, and cautiously pushed the covered boat over the edge, and down the cliff face. I watched as it sped up, gaining speed, moving faster and faster. Then I noticed something up ahead of it. There was a bump. Not just any old bump, this bump was the size of a large boulder. Large enough that it had it’s own tiny cliff. The boat sped over the bump, and flew into the air. Frightened, I jumped over the edge, and put my feet out to slide down the cliff face, one foot in front of the other, like we had planned. However, I felt my cape snag, and hold me back for a moment, before I continued to slide.

It took a lot of concentration, but I managed to keep myself from falling over. After a moment, I saw a bump up ahead of me. I tried to move to the side, but it was to no avail. My speed was too great for me to be able to change direction. The small bump sent me flying, and I expected to fall forward and hit the snow face-first, but instead, I wound up rocketing downward flying through the air. As I fell, air whipped me in the face, and it was almost impossible to see, but I managed to make out the boat still flying through the air. Pulling my arms to my sides, and straightening my legs, I felt myself speed up, and saw the boat getting closer and closer.

The boat began to fall right as I got close enough to grab on, so I only had a short moment to react. Quickly pulling my arms to my chest, I reached out toward the front of the boat, and my arms were snapped to the side because of the speed I was going at, and my fingers closed on the bottom, pulling it up closer to me. Then I felt another sudden jerk from behind me, and our fall slowed suddenly, almost completely stopping, before we started falling straight down. By now the boat was starting to fall apart, and I was worried that it wouldn’t make it the rest of the way, short though it was compared with how far it had already fallen.

Just as I expected, the boat shattered when it hit the ground, and Tankinator and Brailyn fell out, struggling not to slide. Again, my cape jerked, and I fell between the two of them. Looking up, they both grabbed onto my legs, and I fell forward. This time I didn’t feel anything from my cape, and I fell flat on my face, and began to slide downward. My first reaction was to put my hands out. That did not turn out how I expected. I thought that Tankinator and Brailyn would slide past me and continue to fall, and that I would stay there, stuck. Instead what happened was I ploughed into the snow, and wound up fully submerged beneath the surface, with Tankinator and Brailyn right behind me, pushing me further in.

Then I felt Tankinator and Braily’s grip relinquish from off my ankles, and I quickly pulled my right leg up and under my chest, pushing up and out from under the snow. Now able to breathe, I gasped for air, and tried to turn around, but I lost my balance, and fell backwards, beginning to roll. Direction lost meaning, and up ceased to exist, as I rolled the rest of the way down the cliff. My mind whirled, and I couldn’t see when I hit the bottom. Laying there made me feel sick to the stomach, and I felt like I was going to throw up, but I managed to hold it back. Giving it everything I could, I hauled myself to my feet, and stumbled around blindly, before falling over again, and barely catching myself.

I lay there for a moment longer, before the dizziness left me, then I got up and looked back up the cliff for Tankinator and Brailyn. I was relieved to see that Tankinator was standing up, but I didn’t see Brailyn anywhere. Putting my hands to my head, I felt snow stuffed in my ears. When I got the snow out of my ears, I heard a short scream, and then the scream was cut off by a loud thud. Looking back up at Tankinator, I saw him pointing out past me, into the plains. Then it dawned on me, and I realized what had happened. Brailyn had fallen out of the boat long before, and had hit the same bump, but had gone flying much further, and only now had she reached the bottom.

Still slightly sick from my roll, I turned around, groaning, and saw a hole in the snow, where I supposed Brailyn had fallen. It looked about ten meters away, and it looked really deep. I ran over to the hole as fast as I could in the state I was in, and knelt down, looking into the hole, hoping that she was alive. After a moment, I heard a quiet groan, and my fears were slightly lifted. Acting quickly, I crawled down into the hole, and found that it only seemed dark from outside, and wasn’t actually that dark. Brailyn lay at the bottom. She looked like she was in a lot of pain, and it seemed she was dying. What I did next surprised even me, and I didn’t understand why I did it until later, but I crawled closer to her, dug out a crevice, and laid down next to her. As I laid down, my cape glided under me, and covered Brailyn, keeping her warm.

After a moment of laying there, my mind began to shut down, and I fell into a sort of trance. Not asleep, but not awake either, though I could tell what was going on around me. Time no longer seemed to exist, and it wasn’t long before Tankinator appeared at the top of the hole, and crawled down to bottom of the hole, kneeling next to me. Then one thought came to mind, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it earlier.

“Tankinator, in my pack there is a small vial with a light-green colored liquid in it. Find it, and give a single drop of it to Brailyn. Then drink a drop yourself, and return it to my pack.”

Tankinator quickly obliged, grabbing my pack and searching through it. As he searched, his eyes grew wider and wider, shocked at the variety of things that I had. It didn’t take him very long to find the potion, and he quickly administered the potion to Brailyn and himself. There was a noticeable change that came on Brailyn almost immediately. She seemed less distant now, and her breathing leveled. When Tankinator took a drop of the liquid, his spirit seemed to brighten, and he became more aware. Shaking his head in quick motions to wake himself up, Tankinator sat back and looked at Brailyn. The potion seemed to be taking its full effect, and she was coming to.

Brailyn moaned, sitting upright. She didn’t look too good, though it seemed she would be able to walk. Reviving my consciousness and awakening from my almost-trance, I sat up, being careful not to startle Brailyn. There was a moment where she didn’t seem to realize where she was, but then realization came upon her, and she stood up. Her steps were cautious, and her gait was a little precarious. I quickly stood and helped her out of the hole. We began to make our way across the plains, though with the condition Brailyn was in we weren’t able to move very fast. As we traversed across the plains, the clouds in front of us descended, blocking off our view. The next day when we awoke, the clouds had begun to rise, and where they had been previously, there now was an army of zombies.

I looked around. We were, in fact, surrounded by a huge army of zombies. It seemed we had already been discovered. As the horde slowly advanced, incapable of quick movement in the deep snow, it began to snow, and the wind began to blow, whipping up a blizzard. With snow getting in our eyes, it was hard to see, and there was no way we would be able to escape.

Story Overflow

During those weeks that we lived without incident, I told Brailyn and Aboba all about my experiences in the forest. I told them about the Quolls that I’d fought, the Slenders I’d met, and even ventured to tell them about the supposed Slender City in the forest. That peaked Brailyn’s interest, and she suggested we go out and look for it.

“If these Slenders are as friendly as you say, they shouldn’t mind us visiting them in their city,” she reasoned.

Aboba grinned, he seemed eager to go on an adventure. “Okay,” I said submissively. “But if we haven’t found it within four or five days, I’m coming back here.”

They both agreed, and we set out on our adventure the next day. When I woke up the next morning, Brailyn was sleeping soundly in bed next to me, and I couldn’t hear a single sound in the house. I got up, grabbing my cloak, and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Getting ready to make my specialty, I pulled out two uncooked steaks, grabbed four apples, and two cups of sugar. Then I grabbed a pot, and put the food in it. First the steak, then some sugar, an apple, and the juice from an apple. I repeated this process in another pot, and then put the pots in the oven. After a while, I took the pots out of the oven, and ground up the food. Then I ground up a loaf of bread, and put half of it in each pot, and stirred it. Next I added in two eggs to each pot, poured three cupfuls of milk in each pot, and added a gold nugget, my secret ingredient, to each one. Finally, I stirred it all up, and put it back in the oven for another thirty minutes.

“Mmm, what’s that good smell?” Brailyn stood at the entrance to the kitchen, grinning. “Minxed, you know you don’t have to do this for me. I can cook you know.”

I laughed, slightly embarrassed. “Well, I just thought that you might want a day off every now and again.” I grinned, then added on, “ I know you can’t resist my Apple Milksteak.”

She laughed, but didn’t deny it. After all, even Aboba had to admit that it was pretty good, and that was quite the compliment. After we had finished breakfast, Brailyn and Aboba went to pack their stuff, and I went to the kitchen to clean the dishes, and put the leftover Milksteak in glass jars. Leaving the Milksteak in the kitchen, I went to my room and began to pack my stuff. Two hundred and fifty six unlit torches, four fire starters, thirty two iron ingots, a bucket for carrying water, sixty four oak logs, an iron axe, ten iron pickaxes, and five iron shovels. Brailyn stared at me like I was crazy, then when she noticed I was looking, returned to what she was doing. Grinning, I grabbed my stuff, went back to the kitchen, and grabbed the jars of Milksteak, eight loaves of bread, and eight steaks.

Brailyn walked in just as I was packing the last of the steak away in my bag, and grinned. “Minxed, you think of everything.”

“No,” I said, holding up my pointer finger. “I forgot one thing.”

“But you still thought of it. So therefore, you think of everything,” she concluded.

I rolled my eyes and went and grabbed the enderpearl from a secret chest under my bed. Grinning widely, I put the pearl in a small satchel, and slipped the satchel into a closed pocket in my cloak. Then I returned to the lounge, where Brailyn and Aboba sat waiting silently. They both looked up when I entered, but stayed seated.

As I walked in, I remembered Tankinator’s warning. Inhaling then exhaling, I spoke. “It has been far too long since we spent time like this together in peace and silence; it has been far too long since we were free from the clutches of Herobrine and his armies of the undead; it has been far too long since people have gotten into bed with the knowledge that they will awaken the next morning; it has been far too long since families have been together, and friends have gathered, to celebrate the defeat of Herobrine. Now here we are, Brailyn, Aboba, and Minxed, living in peace. This peace that we have experienced may only be the ‘warm before the storm’, however. We cannot forget those who suffer by the devices of Herobrine, and we must not become careless in our actions.”

Brailyn and Aboba, both with hardened looks on their faces, stood up and looked at me, expecting me to take charge. It was obvious that neither of them was ready to take our fate into their own hands. I walked to the door, opened it, stepped out, and breathed in the cool air of the morning. Brailyn and Aboba followed me out, and closed the door behind us. No one spoke as we walked into the forest, and the first few hours were filled with silence, and the noises of the forest.

Finally Brailyn began conversation, startling me a little bit, though I didn’t show it. “So if you were going to hide a city in a forest, what kind of land formations would you use to hide it?” she asked the air.

“Probably something big, like a mountain. Or maybe a few giant trees.” Aboba made a good point, sarcastic though it was; you probably couldn’t hide a city behind anything else.

“However,” I chimed in, “If you’re going to hide a city in this particular forest, all you would have to do is build it really deep in the forest. There’s a point where the trees become so close together that travel becomes impossible. Then again, that might be exactly what the city is hidden behind. I mean, the only creature that has any sense of direction in here is an enderman or Slender.”

“So then we’re looking for a thick wall of trees.” Aboba finalized.

Brailyn, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to stop there. “Or does it gradually get harder to move around?”

I blinked, and tilted my head. “I actually can’t remember. But if we’re in the right place, that should matter.”

Suddenly there was an explosion, and the trees creaked, groaning from the pressure. Another explosion sounded, this one more close, then an innumerable cascade of them, knocking down trees all around us. Brailyn screamed, covering her head, and Aboba quickly dug a hole big enough for two people to fit in. It was only when Brailyn and Aboba were already in it that they realized I wouldn’t be able to fit. Shrugging, I turned toward a tree that was falling toward me, and held out my right hand.

“Ezeh-rehfay-hessallf! Eert seet puots!” My hand turned cold, and then everything was suddenly coated in a thick layer of ice, stopping all commotion.

Brailyn and Aboba, now stuck in their little hole, looked up at me through the ice, awed. I looked around, and surveyed my work. An area of about twenty five meters was covered with ice over two meters thick, except for the ground, on which the ice was only about half a meter thick. The sun wasn’t too high, so it couldn’t have been later than nine or ten in the morning, and there were clouds covering almost all of the sky. The ice reflected light everywhere, making it hard to see, and there was a moment when nothing moved. Then the clouds moved and covered the sun, causing a dramatic difference in lightning.

After a moment, a group of about thirty endermen walked up onto the iced-over trees, staring down at me angrily. I narrowed my eyes, and my cloak morphed into armor. Then I held my right arm out in front of me, hand opened as if to grab a sword. “Droce seertekele eem no-muss ee,” I said, my voice echoing off the ice, and a bolt of lightning leapt down from the sky, hitting my arm. After it faded, a seething electric sword remained in my hand, letting sparks fly off in random directions constantly. It seemed that my magic was getting more powerful already.

Half of the endermen held up their left arm, and a voice rang through the forest. “Peece rehtoh, tenue rehtoh. Peels neentheel, nure neentheel. Pael aireef, neeps aireef.” After the voice faded, fire leapt up around me, lightning sparked, danced, and bolted, and water span above my head.

I reached both my arms out to my sides, palms pointed outwards, as if commanding something to stop, and bellowed, “Eevah-kekoce!” stretching the syllables and lowering my voice as I spoke.

There was a thundering sound, as if a thousand bolts of lightning had just struck simultaneously, and multiple, huge, powerful, lightning-quick blasts of air rocketed from my body outwards, cracking the ice, extinguishing the fire, breaking the lightning, and launching the water. The waves of air continued outwards, smashing the ice like a giant hammer on stone, and slammed into the endermen, throwing them backwards, smashing them through trees, and obliterating the forest within fifty meters of me.

Holding my sparking sword, I walked over to where three enderman stirred. Bearing down on them, I swung my sword. One of them reached out its arm, and it sparked with electricity. Then it swung its arm at my sword. Thunder rolled when they hit, and my sword slashed right through the enderman’s arm. Brailyn and Aboba walked up behind me, and Aboba pulled out his iron sword. The other two endermen stood up, and I sighed. It seemed they wouldn’t give up even in the face of death. A plan formulated in my mind, and I turned away from the endermen. Aboba, who was ready to do anything, charged the endermen, and their dying screams echoed through the forest.

“Erf og ot stegg sneew ray-vehoh! Dehvee-veruce ooh oohoy foo esote susrev sue foo eert et! Eltab ah ot oohoy egnay-lek ee! Namred-nay!” I said as I walked to the middle of the huge clearing.

Suddenly, all of the endermen that were left, which numbered about ten, surrounded the three of us. They stared at us, then charged simultaneously. As they ran towards us, I fabricated a sword for Brailyn, and the three of us stood back-to-back, wielding our swords. I narrowed my eyes, and a slight growl left my throat. The endermen hissed, and Brailyn tried to take a step backward, but she wound up stepping on Aboba’s leg, and they both fell over. Quickly glancing back toward the two of them, I stepped toward the endermen, and my cloak transfigured itself into armor. As I moved towards them, another low growl left my throat, and the endermen slowed.

I ventured another glance toward Brailyn and Aboba, and saw two endermen had reached them, and were now starting to drag them away, unconscious. Furious, I reached my hand out toward the two endermen, and hit them with a beam of light. They screamed with pain, and the other endermen covered their eyes. After a moment, I turned my beam on the other endermen, blinding them, and causing them to teleport away. After the last enderman was gone, a light mist rose from the ground, and the wind blew through the trees. We had won the fight, and none of us had been harmed. I walked over to Brailyn and helped her up. Aboba was already standing, looking around, and nodding his head.

Then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and I stepped toward it. “Show yourself!” I said. “Guardian V spares only the innocent!” After I said that, a Slender dressed in full diamond armor stepped out from behind a tree. Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned to Brailyn and Aboba. “This is a Slender,” I said to them quietly. “They are all friendly.” Turning back to the Slender, I said, “It is good to see a friendly face.”

It grinned. “Ah yes, Guardian V. I have heard much about you, though there is little to hear, it is all good news.” It’s voice was light, like that of a girl’s.

“Something I have failed to do when I have encountered any Slenders is ask their name. So, what is yours?”

“Such trivial talk is best saved for a safer location, though it would be unkind to dismiss your question now. My name is Lavira, guardian of Sedue-wuh et nee Eltsak et, our city. I suggest you follow me to safety.” Then the Slender, who I guessed was a girl, turned, and began to walk deeper into the forest.

Turning to Brailyn and Aboba, I said, “It means ‘The Castle in the Woods.’ Come on, let’s go.”

Lavira lead us through the forest in silence for a while, before we came on an impassable wall of trees. Facing us, she said, “Our city is through here. Before I let you in, however, you must promise me that you will not come here ever again. Those endermen were following you.”

I nodded my head in a single, swift motion, and Lavira turned toward the wall of trees. After a moment, her eyes began to glow, and the tree trunks parted, allowing us entrance to the Slender city. She ushered us in, and the tree door closed behind us. We now stood on a cliff with about a two hundred meter drop to the city below. The city, which extended for kilometers on end, was nestled in a huge valley with sheer cliffs on every side.

There was a moment of silence, then Aboba spoke. “How do we get down?”

I grinned. “Well, I don’t know how you two will get down, but I’ll get down like this,” I said before running and jumping off the edge.

As soon as I began falling, my cloak morphed into a sort of glider, and I began to glide down to the city below. I saw hundreds of Slenders below me. Some of them looked up, pointed me out to their friends, and waved at me. Waving back, I smiled, and realized for the first time that to them, I was a hero. However, to Brailyn and Aboba, I was just plain old Minxed. Laughing at the thought, I landed in one of the many town squares, and found Brailyn and Aboba waiting for me.

Confused, I raised my eyebrow and asked, “How did you get down here before me?”

Lavira laughed. “We have built along each wall, a piston elevator that can only be activated by Slender magic. At least, we think only by Slender magic.” She grinned, and right before she could continue, there was a huge explosion from behind us.

Whipping around, I saw debris flying down from above, and a huge cloud of dust near where we had entered. There was a growl-like laugh from behind us, and I turned around slowly to find a giant Quoll standing directly behind Lavira. Suddenly a volley of arrows bombarded us from where the explosion was, boring into the ground. More explosions sounded from every direction, causing a tumult of noise. Sedue-wuh et nee Eltsak et was under attack.

“Minxed!” Lavira yelled. “You go and hold back the Quoll army! Our forces are not nearly strong enough to withstand them!”

I was about to attack the giant Quoll instead, when Aboba stepped forward, and reached out his arms, palms facing each other and fingers arched. “Neentheel!” he bellowed, and a ball of pure electricity formed between his palms. Looking up at the Quoll, he smiled wickedly. After a moment, the Quoll began to move, and Aboba turned his palms to face the Quoll. Lightning leapt from his palms, crackling like a fire, and causing the air around it to humm with energy. The occasional spark leapt from the main bolts, almost making it look like a tree of lightning. Screaming with agony, the giant Quoll stumbled backwards, going up in flame, and evaporated in a puff of white powder, which quickly went up in flame. A group of about four giant Quolls approached, and Aboba proceeded to obliterate them one by one. While he was taking care of that, I turned toward the army of Quolls, which was now pouring over the cliff and into the valley safely.

My cloak again formed into armor, and I reached out my armor-covered hand, chanting, “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee. Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee. Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” As I walked toward the approaching army, a beam of blue light projected from where each of my eyes were, and clouds began to gather above me. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” I continued, and it began to snow. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” My voice began to echo throughout the valley as the Quolls charged. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” Thunder rang in the distance as Aboba’s lightning obliterated Quoll time and time again. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” Lightning began to flash in the army, and hundreds of Quolls burned up. It was not enough, however. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee...” My voice continued to echo through the valley, and the wind picked up, causing a blizzard. “Slow-uke et leek ot, raz-zeelb et no-muss ee!” I yelled one last time, and the snow turned to ice, falling on the Quoll army with such force that they began to back off.

As I was walking, an image suddenly impressed itself on my mind. A solid blue figure walked toward an army of skeletal creatures, beams of blue light emanating from where his eyes would be. A blizzard raged around him, leaving him completely unharmed. I knew what this was, this was how the Quolls saw me; I was a being of unprecedented power who was intent on ending the lives of the Quolls. In time, I lowered my arm, the Quolls having retreated, and the storm faded into nothingness. The town was covered in a layer of snow at least two meters thick, and the air had a deep chill to it. Exhausted, I crumpled to the ground, losing consciousness before I even impacted the ground.

Story Overflow

Sitting up suddenly, I looked around; I was most definitely not in a plain that extended for forever. Sighing, I realized that I was in my bed, back at home. “That was a horrible dream. It was so... real.” I shuddered. “I hope I never have a dream like that again.” My breathing was raspy, and I was sweating all over. Moving as quietly as I could, I put on my bed robes and walked to the kitchen. As I was getting a drink, I heard voices coming from the lounge.

“...he’s alright?” It sounded like Brailyn, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I hope so,” I heard another voice say.

Still tip-toeing, I moved down the hallway, and peeked into the lounge. Just as I suspected, Aboba and Brailyn sat on the sofas opposite each other by the stairs.

“He’s been out for almost a week now, though. If he doesn’t get food, he’ll die soon.”

“Don’t say that Aboba! He can’t die! He won’t die!”

“Shhh! You’ll wake him up!” Aboba whispered carefully.

“Good! He needs to wake up!” Brailyn was crying now.

Trying to be as quiet as I could so as not to surprise them, I went back into the kitchen to see what food there was. “If I’ve been out for a week, it’s probably a good idea to get some food. Let’s see, steak, bread, apples, that’ll do.” Grabbing two steaks, a loaf of bread, and four apples, I began to eat, and quickly devoured the lot. I sighed contentedly, and went back to the room. Laying down, my thoughts turned to Brailyn. “Brailyn... she really cares about me a lot, doesn’t she? I kind of assumed it was feigned love, but I guess not.” I sighed yet again, and moved back into the position I was in when I had woken up. Brailyn walked in, still wearing her bed robes, and I pretended to be asleep. She smiled sadly, and laid down in the bed next to me. “It looks like I’ll be able to get some sleep tonight.” I smiled, and before I knew it, I was sound asleep.

The next morning I awoke to Brailyn getting up out of bed. Still tired, I sat up. “Brailyn?” I asked, pretending to be confused.

“Minxed!” she squealed with delight. “You’re awake!”

She immediately ran over to me and jumped on me, like a wolf on its prey, and kissed me. I felt energy flow through my body, and I felt alive again; my mind sped up, time slowed, and I felt happiness bubbling up inside me. Blushing, she stood, and helped me up.

“Yup, I’m awake alright,” I said, grinning widely. She had never kissed me like that before, and in fact, I couldn’t remember if she had ever kissed me before at all.

Brailyn, now more embarrassed than I’d ever seen her before, looked away and said, “I’ve never kissed you before. I can’t believe I just did that.”

“Brailyn, it’s okay,” I said as she started to cry. “Hey, come on Brailyn. Come here.” I held out my arms invitingly, and she sat down on my lap, burying her face in my chest.

After a bit, she got over it. Still a little shocked by her own actions, she stood up, and smiled. I smiled back, and we quickly got dressed. Brailyn went to the kitchen, and I went to the dining room to find Aboba sitting there waiting. This was the first time I’d been in the dining room, because Aboba had built it with Brailyn’s help, and we always ate in either the lounge, or outside on the porch. It was a rather long room, with a long window in one wall, and pictures along the other. In the center of the room there was a table with three chairs on each side, and one on each end. Aboba sat on one end of the table, with three plates and sets of utensils set out, one in front of him the other two to his left.

As I sat down, Aboba looked up from what he was doing, then looked back down.

“What’cha got there?” I asked, interested.

“Hm? Oh, this? Just my journal, nothing special,” he stated, and returned to writing.

We sat there in silence besides the scratching of pen on paper until Brailyn came in carrying a large bowl, with steam rising from it. Smiling she said, “Don’t get too excited, this isn’t everything,” and placed the bowl on the table. Then she went back and got two covered plates. She set the two plates on the table in front of us, and then sat down on the chair between Aboba and I. Brailyn served all three of us, starting with Aboba, then me, then herself, giving us a pile of shredded potatoes, five pieces of bacon, and four sausages. Digging in, the daily conversation commenced.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Aboba started.

“Oh my goodness!” Brailyn moaned. “Everything always starts with ‘So I’ve been thinking’! Is this like a conspiracy or something?” She laughed sarcastically.

I shook my head grinning, and Aboba put his hand on his face. “How about about we keep it that way,” Aboba suggested, looking at her blankly.

She grinned, and he continued. “So, I’ve been thinking,” he paused, waiting for Brailyn to interrupt again, but she didn’t, so he continued. “We really should start a garden. Having to scavenge for all of our food is rather tiring.”

Brailyn and I nodded, and I swallowed a bite of food. “We’ll need to gather together the materials to make it first,” I noted.

“Already done,” Aboba said, grinning, and he handed me a list of materials.

“Two iron hoes to till the ground, seeds to grow, shovels to dig out the canals for water, glass for a roof and walls, stone to hold up the roof and walls.” Brailyn nodded her head, but I had one more thing to add. “What about lighting it up during the night? We’ll need either redstone torches, glowstone, or glowstone lamps for that, none of which are easily obtained.”

“Oh, the list continues on the back,” he smirked, digging into his food.

I turned it over, and read the last item on the list, “Redstone-powered glowstone lamps.” I looked up, nodding approvingly, and finished the last bite of my food.

When we finished breakfast, Brailyn went to the kitchen to clean the dishes, Aboba went into the lounge to work on a contraption of his that he said would make him be able to fly, and I went to my room to write in my journal. I hadn’t gotten far, as of yet, but I finished writing up until the zombie attack in the plains. Sighing, I went out and found Brailyn sitting on the sofa watching Aboba work on his contraption, which I had seen only once before. Originally it had been solely a box with torches in it, but now it was much more. On the inside, from the top to the bottom, ran a hollowed-out cylinder made of some sort of blue material I had never seen. The material seemed to writhe, a turn, but neither Aboba nor Brailyn seemed to notice. Outside of the cylinders, but inside the box resided eight torches, positioned at an angle, four facing each cylinder, one from each direction. The flame seemed to be bending in toward the cylinders, and now and again there was a rush of wind from the direction of the box.

I moved closer and noticed that there was obsidian lining the outside of the box, and lapis lazuli lining the inside. The cylinders were most definitely not made of diamond, but couldn’t have been lapis, so I assumed that it was some sort of mix between the two.

“What are those cylinders made of?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“Cylinders? What cylinders,” Aboba’s voice trailed off for a moment, before he realized what I was talking about. “Oh, those are called tubes, Minxed. Tubes. Tubes or pipes. Yup, pipes.”

“Uh, okay. What are they made of?”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly, to be honest, but I do know that the material they’re made out of was handed down from my great, great, great, great... well, eighth-great grandfather.”

“Aboba, you do know that no one has anything from anyone beyond their fourth-great grandparents, right?” Brailyn chimed in.

“Except for me,” he grinned.

“Yeah, but Aboba, that’s over twenty-one hundred years old. There’s no possible way it’s been kept that long,” I added, shocked.

Brailyn and Aboba looked at me, then Aboba said, “Did you just do that in your head?”

“Do what?” I asked, slightly confused.

“Two hundred and sixty five times eight. In your head. Just now.”

“Uh, yeah. So?”

“Dude, okay, no. You did something. No one I know is that good at math.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“Aww come on!”

“Bring it,” I said, opening my arms invitingly.

Brailyn grinned and said, “Five thousand eight hundred ninety two point seven five three times sixteen to the third power.”

I laughed. “Easy. Twenty four million, one hundred thirty six thousand, seven hundred and sixteen point two eight eight.”

Aboba looked at Brailyn, and returned to his work. Then he paused, grinning, and looked back at me. “You have no way of proving that.”

“Oh don’t get me started!” I warned.

Brailyn put her hands on her hips, and stared at me, daring me to back up my claim. Smiling widely, I went through a long detailed explanation backing up my reasoning behind it. When I finished, Brailyn and Aboba had had their fill of math for the next long time, but they now knew that I was much better at math than either of them, or both of them combined.

After a while of silence, I glanced over at Brailyn, and saw that she had dozed off on the sofa, though Aboba kept working on his flying box. Aboba paused, and glanced back at the two of us. “I think it’s done,” he said very loudly, startling Brailyn and I.

Brailyn leapt into the air, and landed on her feet, and I snapped my head up suddenly, then started laughing at Brailyn’s response, Aboba joining me. After a moment, Brailyn realized what had happened, and started laughing along with us. Then Aboba stopped laughing, and we slowly followed suit.

“So, as I was saying, I think it’s done. In fact, I’m positive that it’s done. Now all we need to know is if it works.”

“Yes, and you can test it while we’re making that garden. Are you going to help us or not?” I smirked, grinning slightly.

Brailyn and Aboba looked at me. “Oh, right,” they said in unison, and quickly gathered together the materials we needed to get the job done.

As I walked out the door, I heard a series of twanging sounds, and realized almost too late that about thirty arrows had just been fired at me. Dropping the materials, I ran inside, yelling, “Aboba, get your sword and forget the shovel, and hurry out here! There’s an army of Skeletons!” Then I whispered to myself, “Rehtall malf-airupe foo droce ah em merohff, aireef.”

My cloak didn’t form into armor, but I didn’t mind, I rather preferred my cloak to the armor it formed. As Aboba ran into the room garbed in iron armor, sword in hand, I nodded. He looked at me, nodded back, and I opened the door, charging out. Running toward the first skeleton I saw, I swung my arm back, imitating the actions of swinging a sword, and a flame burst into life, quickly forming into sword of molten hot fire. The blade sliced through the brittle bones of the skeleton easily, but an onslaught of arrows required me to give up some ground and block the attack. Skeletons everywhere loaded their bows to fire again, and for a moment I thought I saw Tankinator fighting, but then I realized it was Aboba.

I had never seen him fight like this before; ducking and weaving, dodging every arrow, he cut down everything in his path, decimating them one by one. Grinning, I charged the skeletons, now feeling much more confident that we could and would win. Another volley of arrows flew at me, and I dove forward and rolled toward the attackers, letting the arrows fly past me. Determination showing on my face, I raised my sword, the flame leaping into the air, and slashed at the skeletons, instantaneously incinerating every one I hit.

As the battle waged on, I noticed a change in the skeleton’s tactics. At first they would simply attack, reload, and attack again. Now they were being more strategic, attacking with some, retreating those that had just attacked, attacking with a new group, then having them retreat and be replaced by the first group, who would be ready to go by then. I shook my head. This strategy would work against any normal group of beings, no matter the size, but Aboba and I were not normal. “Hah, it’s been a while since I’ve actually fought hand-to-hand combat. I actually kind of miss it. Well, only if it’s fair, and this is not hand-to-hand combat, nor is it fair.” I grinned, and extended my right hand, sword burning in the other. “Serutaerk luoaf eset yortsaid dena, tops eeno no raywop roohoy sukoaf, rehtoh foo mehrahts!”

For a moment, nothing happened, and the skeletons aimed their bows. Then my hand began to drip, and the skeletons fired. I aimed my hand at the arrows, and there was a thundering sound. Suddenly individual droplets of water launched themselves off of my hand, propelled through the air by some unseen force, and shattered the arrows. I quickly abandoned my fire sword to support my right arm with my left, and I aimed my water laser at the skeletons. Each skeleton it hit was instantly pulled along by the water, and smashed against the trees, or pulled into the current and crushed.

Stopping, I looked around. My water laser had crushed and disintegrated hundreds of skeletons, and about thirty trees had been knocked over from the force. I smirked, and looked up at the sky. The sun was already setting, so we wouldn’t have time to make the garden. “Maybe tomorrow,” I thought as I turned around to go back in the house. Then I saw Brailyn kneeling in front of the door, holding a bag.

“What’s that?” Instead of answering me, she opened the bag and showed me. In the bag resided about ten enderpearls, seemingly untouched and definitely unused. “Where’d you find that?” I asked, confused.

She moved her mouth dumbly for a moment, before speaking. “One of the skeletons was carrying it. I picked it up right before the body disappeared.”

“Why would they be carrying a bag of enderpearls?” I wondered out loud.

“And why so many?” Aboba walked up from behind the house carrying yet another bag. “I got nine right here.”

“Eight in here,” Brailyn added.

“But why, though. Why? I mean, if they’re going to attack us, what good is running away?”

“Unless they didn’t intend to run away.” I looked at Aboba, skeptical.

“And what makes you so knowledgeable?” I asked haughtily.

“Well, what if it they had them so the skeletons could disappear right before we hit them, and reappear behind us? What then? We would be completely helpless.”

“Not completely, just mostly.” I rolled my eyes.

“Okay guys, calm down. We just don’t want to get stuck outside while it’s dark, right? Come on, let’s go inside.” Brailyn opened the door and invited us in.

I stepped inside, followed by Aboba, and Brailyn closed the door behind us. “Well that was an adventure,” she said heartily. “Anybody hungry? There’s steak and milksteak waiting.”

“I’ll beat you there!” I said, and raced off to the kitchen, followed closely by Aboba.

The next morning I woke up to the smell of bacon wafting through the air. Smiling, I got up, dressed, and went to the dining room, where I found Aboba just finishing breakfast. Exhaling, I sat down, and Brailyn plopped a steak down on my plate, and I began to eat.

“So,” Aboba started, looking cautiously at Brailyn. “It seems that we didn’t get to build that garden yesterday.” He put an awful lot of emphasis on ‘garden’, so I knew he was cheerful, though serious.

Grinning, I pointed at him with my fork, mouth still full, “Well, looks like we’ve got a cheerful one here, don’t we? What’cha gonna’ do? Plant some melons in my stomach? Ha, fat chance!” I said with a Slender accent.

I heard Brailyn try to stifle a giggle, but she was too late and started laughing. Aboba’s face turned red, and he tried to hit me over the head, but I ducked, and he stumbled past me into Brailyn. She tripped, but managed to grab onto a chair, and Aboba fell over. Trying not to laugh, I continued eating my steak, and heard Aboba getting up behind me.

Quickly, I snarfed down the rest of my food, and said, “Well, we’d better get to work on that garden.” I put emphasis on ‘garden’, and raised my eyebrows, smiling as I did so.

Aboba smiled back at me, getting up slowly, then the smile left his face, and he started to chase after me. After he finally caught me, and Brailyn broke up the fight, play fight though it was, we gathered the materials to build the garden.

“I hope there’s not an army waiting for us again today,” I said sarcastically, and opened the door. Almost immediately an arrow flew past my face and embedded itself in the ceiling behind me. I sighed, and closed the door. “Well, Aboba, looks like you’d better go get your sword. I’ll just go up to the second floor window, and shoot at them from there. With lightning of course. Or maybe I should use fire? I already used water, so that’d be boring. Lightning’s getting kind of old, so I think I’ll use fire.”

“Minxed, will you just get up there already?” Aboba asked, and ran off to get his armor and sword.

I smiled, put away all the materials that I’d gotten out, and went up the stairs to the second floor. Looking out the window above the door, I exhaled, and clenched my fist. “Denah ekee,” I whispered. A wave of pressure flowed over me, and my right hand became covered in ice. Stepping toward the window, I swung at it as hard as I could, and the glass shattered, falling down the front of the building in shards, but leaving my ice-covered hand unharmed. After a moment, the ice melted away, leaving my hand slightly wet. Arrows fired by the skeletons bounced off the stone wall of the building just below the window; either their bows were not powerful enough to reach me, or they weren’t aiming high enough. Hoping it was the later, I stepped to the edge, the toe of my shoes sticking out slightly, and extended my arm.

The arrows continued to pelt the building below me as Aboba charged out. Confused and frightened, the skeletons stumbled backward, and Aboba was able to disintegrate a sizeable amount of them before they got back together. As they loaded their bows, aiming for Aboba, I made my move. “Tesud et nee tore ot met evael dena, serutaerk eset foo senob et nairube, aireef.” A beam of flame jumped down from my hand, and I moved my arm, setting alight skeleton after skeleton. The skeletons burned up quickly, and I could feel the heat from the intensity of the flame. “Wraithes of ice, aid me in this battle, come and shatter the bones of these skeletal beings,” I thought, and my flame and newly-summoned wraithes distracted the skeletons yet again as twenty wraithes appeared floating above the skeleton army, and Aboba was able to take out some more of them before they regained their composure and came up with a new plan.

A majority of the skeletons retreated into the trees, climbing up and settling on the branches. Arrows rained down on Aboba, and he was forced to return to sanctuary in the house. Pursing my lips, I furrowed my eyebrows and continued my onslaught. After a moment, a volley of arrows approached, and I had to direct my attention to incinerating them. Another volley, this time from below, caught me offguard, and I had to move backward to avoid them. We were losing this battle, and the wraithes had disappeared into the fray.

“Minxed, we won’t be able to beat them so easily this time,” Aboba said, coming up the stairs.

“Hm, yeah, I noticed,” I said, burning yet another volley of arrows.

“You sure don’t seem to be doing anything about it,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall next to me.

“That’d be because my magic would attract too much attention, which I’ve already done once. Not to mention it would probably destroy the house.” Another volley of arrows burned up and fell to the ground.

“Right, and what about your armor?” he asked hopefully. “That cloak thing, I mean. Turn it into armor, and you’ll be fine!”

“Aboba, I don’t make it transform, it does of its own free will, though I have no idea how.”

“Oh,” he said, slightly disappointed. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to go out there without armor then. Bye.” When he finished what he was saying, he turned around and walked down the stairs.

I blinked, and turned to the window. “Droce aireef, em deeah.” A sword of flame appeared in my hand, and I felt energy emanating from it. The wind began to blow, and my cape billowed behind me, the hood folding up to cover my head and shade my eyes.

I exhaled, held my breath, and inhaled. Then I closed my right fist, temporarily stemming the flow of fire, and jumped out of the window. The skeletons aimed at me, and fired, but they underestimated the speed of my fall. Every one of the arrows flew over my head, and I landed on my feet with a thud. As soon as I landed I attacked the skeletons, stabbing them with my sword, and incinerating them with my flamethrower, my cape billowing behind me. Arrows deflected off of my cape as I attacked, some burned in my flamethrower, and still more were incinerated by my sword as I fell upon the skeletons. Hundreds of skeletons fell before my purifying flame, but for every one that I killed, ten more took its place.

Then I noticed a light flashing down from above me, and I looked up momentarily. Directly above me hovered Aboba, but he did not look normal; from his thighs extended continuous bolts of lightning that formed together to create a cloud of searing electricity below him, and his arms extended to thunderous bolts of lightning, glowing with light. I quickly averted my eyes and dropped to the ground. If he was going to descend on the skeletons, I didn’t want to be vulnerable when he did so. For a moment, all I could hear was tap of arrows bouncing off my cloak, but then I heard the humming of electricity as Aboba descended on the skeletons. After a moment, the tapping and humming faded to nothing, and I stood up to find the ground seared around me, and the skeletons retreating to the trees with Aboba slashing at them as they ran.

Determined not to let them get to a vantage point in the trees, I charged through the midst of them, and around to the back of the army, taking them out from behind. The skeletons didn’t become even slightly confused, by our tactics. Bunching up in the forest, they climbed the trees and evaded us. Volley after volley of arrows rained down on us, and I was forced to turn my attention to warding off their attacks. Meanwhile, Aboba struck them down one by one, pulling them apart and shattering their bones with every bolt of lightning. One by one, the skeletons bows began to break from the strain of shooting so many arrows, and they began to retreat. Now was his chance, and Aboba obliterated every one of the skeletons.

We finally returned from the fight, stepping out of the forest as the sun was setting. Brailyn approached us carrying three bags similar to those that we had found the day before. “Guess what I found. Three bags of enderpearls, totaling fifty one enderpearls. The pearls from yesterday plus today’s pearls add up to sixty eight. We should use the sparingly, and only when necessary, but I think we might be able to use one for fun now and again as well,” she tried to withhold a smile, though she couldn’t help but grin.

Exhausted, Aboba and I trudged across the clearing to the house, arms and head drooping, though I was slightly more dignified than him due to my stature. Later that night after I lay down in bed, I saw Brailyn putting the enderpearls into the chest closest the desk in our room. As she was opening the chest, she dropped the bigger of the three bags, and enderpearls spilled everywhere. What I saw instead of enderpearls like before was a whole ton of eyes; the pupils were pure white, and the rest blood red. Fear tore through me, and I tried to hide from them, but they all swiveled in my direction. Suddenly I felt heat building up inside of me, and I felt like I was going to boil.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t, and I felt sweat begin to soak my clothes through. Brailyn began to pick up the eyes and put them back in the bag one by one, but I knew I would be dead long before she returned all of them back to the bag. Frightened, and determined to destroy the eyes, I tried to move, but to no avail. My body wouldn’t respond, and I could feel myself beginning to lose consciousness. Pain began to build up, and I wanted to do anything to get Brailyn’s attention, but I was starting to have a hard time thinking. Again, fear tore through me, and now I just wanted to kill myself. This time I could move, but it was more out of instinct that anything. In my right hand I found a knife, and I was slowly moving it toward my throat.

Suddenly I sat upright, beads of sweat pouring down my face. The sun shone through the window in our room, and Brailyn was getting dressed; no eyes or enderpearls were in sight. Shuddering, I got up, and tried to stand to dress, but my legs collapsed beneath me, and Brailyn was barely managed to catch me before I hit the ground.

“Minxed, are you okay? You seem tired today, do you need some rest?” she seemed about to cry, but I didn’t mention it to her.

“No, I’m fine,” I lied. I actually felt absolutely horrible, as if I had really almost been boiled to death during the night. “Really, I’m just fine. I just need some food,” I said as she tried to get me to lay down again. “And I’ll definitely need some time with you, Brailyn. That’s something that I couldn’t go without, and shouldn’t have for all that time that we were apart.” She looked at me, and we stayed there for a moment before she finally gave in and let me attempt to stand. I knew I wouldn’t be able to, so I quickly whispered under my breath, “Yelleedah-ets klao em spleh dena, nees nee-eb tuoheteew em denuorah sevom tahet ekee etaerk.” As I stood up, I felt the effects of the ice, and I could feel it slightly cooling my body.

Brailyn held on to me for a second, before gingerly letting go, and then stepping back, surprised that I wasn’t falling over this time. I stepped forward to get dressed, and Brailyn moved to catch me, but I didn’t fall; the ice was doing its job. “What was that dream about?” I wondered silently. “The majority of my dreams or visions have become reality, so why not this one? I’d better be careful, this could be a trap set up by Herobrine. After all, not many people would bypass the opportunity to get an enderpearl, myself included.” Once I had dressed, I went to the kitchen to help Brailyn make bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Brailyn came in right behind me, and said, “Minxed, I won’t pretend not to know that something is going on, nor will I ask what it is. Just for now, I think it’s best that you go and wait in the dining room.”

When I turned toward her to make a retort, the serious look on her face made me change my mind, and I said simply, “Okay.” After breakfast I was feeling much better, enough that I could walk without the support of the ice. “Ekarb ekee et seemseed ee,” I said, waving my hand, and the ice disappeared without a trace. I noticed Brailyn looking at me, eyebrows furrowed, and I smiled at her, tensing up slightly. She raised her eyebrow and grinned, the waved back at me. “I guess she’s not suspicious of my wave,” I thought, relaxing slightly.

“Well, I think it’s time we actually build that garden,” Braily laughed, coming over to me as I left the dining room.

As soon as she finished speaking, Aboba came up to me, a sour look on his face, and said, “Minxed, I don’t care what happens to the house, just do that thing that you did before.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Just make sure that we don’t die.”

“Uh, I’ve really got no idea what you’re talking about.” I was now even more confused, and slightly frightened.

“Here, let me take you up to-” he started, but Brailyn interrupted him.

“How much bigger is it than yesterday’s army?”

Aboba smiled with rueful disdain, and said, “Oh, probably a couple thousand times larger. The ground is almost invisible, we’re completely surrounded, and I can see white shapes pretty far into the forest. They’ve climbed the trees everywhere, and I think we’ll have to destroy part of the forest to kill them all.”

“Aboba, weren’t you the one taking down those huge quolls the other day? I’m pretty sure you’re lightning alone is far more powerful than even three of my powers combined.”

“But Minxed, you can’t forget the power that that blue-robed guy gave you, that’ll go a long ways in helping us win, won’t it?”

I blinked, holding my eyes closed for a moment before opening them again. “The eyes. Those red eyes. So it’s true after all. The enderpearls were supposed to be a trap to kill us. However, if we use them against the skeletons, we’ll be rid of them and the skeletons in one move!”

“Minxed?” Brailyn raised her eyebrows, looking at me, slightly worried.

“What? Oh, right. The enderpearls. Throw them out into the army of skeletons, that should thin them a bit,” I finished, turning to go and get my enderpearl. They stood there for a moment, gaping at me dumbly before I said, “Well go on, get going now! We wouldn’t want the skeletons to kill us or anything, would we? And don’t worry about the pearls, not a single enderpearl will be harmed during the fight, you can trust me on that one.” Then I went to my and Brailyn’s room, grabbed the enderpearl, and nodded to Brailyn on my way out. She gave me a sour glance, and continued in to grab the eyes.

When I got to the broken window, Aboba was already there, waiting for us. I looked at him, a resolute look on my face, and I turned to face the army of skeletons waiting to kill us. I was about to summon an ice sword, when I had a different idea. “Though it’s said to be impossible, maybe I could make a sword of air. Hm, just maybe,” I focused my attention on my hand, clenching it as if holding a sword, and said, “Droce ah foo epahs et oatnee reeah et ekorf.” Wind flowed from every direction as the air formed into a sword. When it was done, I could feel the energy pulsing from the sword, though it was supersensory to my eye.

I grinned as Brailyn walked up from behind us. “What’re you grinning at?” she asked grumpily.

I laughed slightly, and said, “Oh, nothing. It’s really nothing.” I grinned again.

“What, do you not trust me or something?”

“Okay, fine. I just made a sword of air; something no one has ever been able to do.”

She frowned, then handed Aboba two of the bags of pearls. “Whatever you say.” There was silence for a moment as we watched the skeleton army moving around below us like an amoeba before Brailyn continued. “So what do you want us to do with these enderpearls?”

“Just throw them out all at once. Don’t grab them one by one though, that would be bad.”

She looked at me, eyebrow raised, but consented, and they threw the eyes into the midst of the skeletons. As they fell, the eyes all rotated to face us, and Brailyn and Aboba stepped back, shocked.

“What are those things!?” Brailyn screamed, disturbed by the sight.

“They’re a weapon that Herobrine intended to use against us, but now we’re using the weapon against Herobrine’s army. Just wait and see what happens. You’ll be glad you never tried to use them.”

When the eyes hit the ground, the skeletons immediately went for them, crushing them in their hands as if they were enderpearls. However, when they crushed them, the eyes would burst with a flaming explosion that instantly incinerated the skeletons within about a meter of it, and set alight any within three meters. Chaos ensued, and the skeletons believed that we were killing them as soon as they tried to use the pearls. About two thousand skeletons died before they realized it was a trap, and by then the eyes were attacking the skeletons. Beams of red light stretched from the pupil of the eye to lay hands on one victim after another. Each of the eyes would kill about a hundred skeletons before it would explode in a cloud of flame, which killed some more skeletons in turn.

“How many do you think that killed?” Aboba asked, grinning as he watched the destruction.

“Oh, I’d say about seven or eight thousand.”

“You are aware that we still have to kill all the rest of them, right?” Brailyn slumped against the wall as she spoke, and put her head in her knees. “We’re doomed!” She started to cry, and I had a gut-wrenching feeling that she was right.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t about to give up hope. “Brailyn, we’ll make it out alive.”

“No we won’t!” She started sobbing.

“Brailyn. Look at me. I will not let let that happen. Do you hear me?” She nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Come on,” I said, turning to Aboba. “We’d better get going now if we want to get it over by nightfall.”

“Right,” he said, looking out the window. “Tehgeef seet nee em pleh retebb dah droce neentheel eem.”

“Droce tahet heteew em morf pleh emoce esue delue-oak oohoy, Aboba,” I said in response, and a seething sword of electricity appeared in Aboba’s hand. Then I turned to the window and, hoping that speaking in the magical language would summon more creatures, said, “Eltab seet nee sue deeah ot deloh foo serutaerk taerg et no-muss ee!” I waited for a moment, but nothing happened.

We looked at eachother, then leapt out of the window simultaneously, throwing ourselves into the fray. The battle raged on for hours and hours, starting as the sun was first peeking above the treetops, and continued even as the sun was starting to set in the evening. Above the noises of the battle, I could hear sounds of crickets chirping, and I saw the shadows of the trees cast on the ground, though mostly obscured by the skeletons. Suddenly an arrow pierced my leg and pain shot through my body. I stumbled into a skeleton and felt another arrow pierce my leg. Yelling in pain, I slashed at the skeletons around me, severing and fracturing every bone my sword impacted. After a moment, I heard Aboba yelling in pain, and I charged over toward him.

“Eevah-kekoce rehtoh,” I growled, and a shockwave of water flowed out from me, smashing every skeleton it hit. There was a moment where an area about ten meters in diameter opened up, letting us breathe, but it quickly disappeared, and we were engulfed by skeletons yet again. I swung my sword, but found that it had dissipated already, and my lack of energy caught up to me. In my last attempt to fight back, I stumbled forward and collapsed on the ground. Skeletons swarmed me, and I knew that this was the end. Above the sound of the skeletons’ bones clicking and clacking, I heard a scream.

“No! Minxed!” The skeletons parted momentarily, and I saw Brailyn in the broken window. She was crying.

Suddenly I heard a crashing sound, as if hundreds of trees were getting knocked over, and then an explosion. The skeletons around us looked off into the trees, and begin to retreat. A series of more explosions, and a low humming sound, like that of redstone. I sat up, and saw a large moving box of iron on some sort of turning mechanism, with a large pipe sticking out the front, and a circular cover of some sort on top. Confused, I watched as the box shot some sort of sharpened cylinder out of it. As soon as a cylinder impacted the ground, it would explode like TNT.

The box thundered around, moving at least twenty meters every second, the thing crushed hundreds of thousands of skeletons, and shot TNT at those skeletons that tried to escape. Some skeletons were dumb enough to try to shoot it, and each and every arrow they shot would rebound off of the box. After a moment, the whole army of skeletons had been destroyed, and Aboba and I were left sitting on the ground, watching as this giant box slowly creeped up to us. Then it stopped, and the circle on the top lifted up to reveal Tankinator crawling up out, clad in iron armor. The Iron Ninja had returned.

Story Overflow

The next morning I awoke as Brailyn was getting out of bed. She didn’t notice I had woken up, and I dressed quietly. When I got out to the kitchen, I was surprised to find Brailyn removing a few cupboards. Standing in the entrance, I watched as she opened a place to build in a doorway, then stepped back, and extended her arm. “Mure ec huorhec wolf oc Slauf Zeerah ec morf rehcoh roff ecaufs ah nefoh nec. Airekem hekefeef eereveh enokes foo raleeauf eev foo zleh, lac sairekem rue-oaf zena, ezeew sairekem eecreac, wenol sairekem zairzenue eeno ecaufs ah rah-elc. Keseu-kwar eem, leefluff zena, lorcnok eem oaknee ezauf; Reykah ec foo Sek-seheerf Hewee ec foo zenamoc ec yehvoh, Cray.” She spoke in a language that sounded like the Magical Language, but was definitely not the same.

My jaw dropped, and I stared as the solid stone shifted silently, opening up a huge room, supported by hundreds of pillars, each spaced about four meters away from each other, and lit by strips of glowstone snaking across the walls, and up the pillars. About a meter to the right of each pillar, a pathway appeared, about two meters deep, and half a meter wide. Then the stone floor changed color from gray to brown, leaving dirt in its wake. After a moment, the lower part of the wall about a meter to the right of each pillar at the far end of the room opened up, letting water flow through. The water slowly trickled through, at first, but soon there was a full-blow river flowing through our underground home.

Without hesitation, Brailyn stepped into the room, and I noticed that she carried a bag, presumably filled with seeds. Shocked, I watched as she began to plant seeds in the soil next to the rivers. Still awed, I noticed Brailyn look up at me, then back down. Suddenly she whipped her head up, realizing that I was there. Smiling feebly, she padded over to me barefoot.

I smiled back. “So you didn’t give my power back permanently?”

“Not exactly. What I didn’t tell you is that I’m actually the Aether High Priestess. When an Aether Priestess returns a power to someone or grants them a power, the Priestess can tap into the person’s magic. The Priestess in return is able to use the same power granted to the other person, but only with a quarter the strength of the person granted the power.” She smiled feebly again, and looked at me hopefully.

I responded immediately. “So if you can do this,” I said, spreading my arms to the room, “Without trouble, and your power is a quarter as powerful as mine, then what am I able to do?”

“Minxed,” she started.

“Brailyn, I prefer Guardian V. It’s more powerful.”

She rolled her eyes and continued. “Guardian V, the ability to control the earth is a hard power to control. Even with your innate ability to use magic, you must speak commandingly to have full control, or something could go wrong. The language spoken in the Aether was created for the sole purpose of controlling the earth, but only with the proper power can you control it completely. A quarter of your power is far greater than just the ability to clear a room. With it, I could raze a mountain to the ground with no trace. Because of this power, and the pure controlling power of the Aether Language, I have immense power of the earth. However, you, with your inability to control this power, can do far greater things than I, with much more safety.”

This revelation stunned me, and Brailyn had to guide me to the dining room. Aboba came in and sat down, and Tankinator was soon to follow. Brailyn told them about everything as we began to dig into our bacon and eggs, and conversation quickly followed.

“So then we could defeat Herobrine right now,” Tankinator said. “This is ridiculous. Why do we have to hide then?”

“To make it more dramatic,” Aboba said simply.

“Yes, we could defeat Herobrine right now,” Brailyn confirmed. “However,” she continued. “It would also result in the destruction of a major part of the land, leaving a permanent scar.”

As she finished talking, the world around me shifted, and I was standing at the edge of a flaming pit. In the center of the pit floated Herobrine, dark purple lightning humming from his body. Around the edge of the pit, thousands black shapes flew, keeping Herobrine at bay. One of the shapes dove toward Herobrine, and he hit it with lightning. Immediately, hundreds of the shapes swarmed him, pushing him back toward the bottom of the pit, where there resided a cage made up of some sort of blue material. The top of the cage was shattered, and in the cage, broken chains made up of the same material lay on the ground. Then the vision seemed to split in two, showing me two images at once. On the one hand, the black shapes attempted to return Herobrine to his cage. On the other, Herobrine fought an army of diamond-clad people. As the Herobrine in the pit moved farther from the cage, the Herobrine fighting the humans grew more and more powerful.

When the vision ended, I realized that Tankinator, Brailyn, and Aboba had gotten into a heated discussion about Herobrine. “Actually no,” I said quietly, silencing the three of them immediately. “Herobrine’s powers are far greater than you know. The only reason we haven’t been discovered is because we’re being sheltered by something from Herobrine. Some sort of black shapes are attempting to hold back Herobrine’s spirit from escaping his long resting place, but their power is fading. And as their power fades, Herobrine’s power increases. When I was in Mal Heim, I heard him talking to an enderman, The Broken One. I didn’t see Herobrine himself, but that’s only because he is not yet fully resurrected. I don’t have enough control over my powers to take him on as he is. This is why we will need help from the rebels in Mal Heim.”

There was a moment of silence where the three of them stared off into the void. “Those black shapes... were they endermen? No, endermen teleport, and don’t move that fast. Enderdragons? But they were too small! Slenders? No, too big. So then what were they?!”

My thoughts were interrupted when Tankinator spoke. “Then we can’t waste anymore time. We have to go get those rebels.” I could tell he was determined, and I agreed with him.

“You might just be right, Tankinator. Herobrine will most likely be there, so I’d better come along so I can help hold him off.” Tankinator nodded, and Brailyn sighed.

Then Aboba spoke. “I’ll come too. Tankinator won’t be able to find them on his own.”

The three of us looked at Brailyn, and she said, “I’ll stay here. We wouldn’t want to lose our base before we get to use it,” she reasoned, and went off to the kitchen.

“Then it’s settled,” I finalized. “Tankinator, Aboba,” I said, looking at them. “Gather your things. We’re going on a hunt.”

As we left the secret tunnel, our things already gathered together, I heard a voice, and looked around to see where it came from. Then I realized that Tankinator and Aboba couldn’t hear it. “Yes Brailyn?” I thought. “Minxed,” her voice said. “Come back in one piece... please.” Tankinator’s tank moved up in front of us, and we quickly climbed in.

As the tank rumbled along, the redstone humming and pistons churning, I had some time to myself, while Tankinator and Aboba chatted in the control room. “Whenever something happens, it always happens so quickly. None of us ever really think things through. Like now, what did we forget? Well, what if the rebels are dead? Or what if they were discovered? What if they don’t want to come with us? Maybe it’s all just a trick laid out to ensnare us. It could even be a joke. What are we gonna do about the giant tracks the tank leaves? Nobody could miss those, no matter how zombrained they are. What if we get attacked while everyone’s getting in the tank? What if their army is so big that the tank can’t take care of them all? What then? Do we give up?”

Sighing, I stared down at the floor, slightly depressed. Momentarily I thought of Brailyn; her beautiful laugh, like the sound of trickling water in the brook, her excited squeal, as high pitched as a scream, but as soft as a feather. My mind cleared, and I felt one emotion; determination. I was determined not to let anything happen to Brailyn. “I want her to be happy,” I thought, a fire lighting in my eyes.

Without realizing it, I stood up, posed to attack. Then I heard Tankinator’s voice blaring from the control room. “Minxed, get ready, we’re in for it soon!”

I grinned, opening and closing my hands. “I’ll have to be cautious with my newfound power, but when I use it correctly, it’ll have devastating effects.” The tank came to a stop, and I felt the ground shaking beneath us. Whatever was coming was huge, and it was coming fast. Aboba ran out of the control room right as a shot thundered from the armament of the tank. “Come on Minxed, we have to get out there. There’s a giant on the way, and the tank’s missiles aren’t slowing it down one bit.” He began to climb up the ladder, and when I didn’t follow, he turned back toward me. “When I say giant, I mean giant for a giant.” Then he turned back away from me, and climbed out of the tank.

Immediately I heard lightning thundering outside, and there was a scream that sounded like Aboba. Narrowing my eyes, I bolted up the ladder, and found a smoldering corpse on the top of the tank. Fearing the worst, I glanced around as my cloak formed into the blue armor; the giant moved closer and closer by the second, Herobrine’s army of spiders and skeletons approached, and Herobrine himself stood hovering above the wall of Mal Heim, laughing evilly. I couldn’t see Aboba anywhere.

“You.” His deep, smooth, malicious voice thundered across the plains, and I was sure Brailyn would have heard it. “You and all of your petty friends are doomed to a miserable death. Oh but don’t worry, I’ll kill you last; the troublemaker must always endure the worst punishment.” I looked around frantically for Aboba, but he was still nowhere to be seen. “Don’t bother looking for your friend out there, he’s right next to you. At least, he was until I killed him.” He laughed again, the gravely screech echoing like the moan of a ghost.

Anger swelled up in me, and I was about to cover Herobrine with a mountain, when a fleeting thought came to my mind; “I don’t yet have full control over my powers. If I do this, I’ll end up wandering endless plains like in my dream. I don’t want that.” I lowered my arm, which I had unconsciously raised toward Herobrine, and said, “Herobrine. Your victory will be short lived. My powers have grown beyond when The Broken One took me. In all your gloating, boasting, and swimming in power, you have grown lazy. Aboba may have died in vain, but he will not be gone for long. Woleb neebok et nee demrah-nue luoce seeh nee-evael, meheem ot eedob Aboba’s erot-sair ee, em nee sedeesair tahet raywop neelaeh et heteew.”

As I spoke, Herobrine’s expression changed from that of pure enjoyment, to extreme anger and slight confusion. I smiled evilly as Aboba’s body retook its form, and glided through the top of the tank, to rest in the cabin below me. Now Herobrine became even more angry. “Kekalb neentheel!” he screamed, reaching his arm out toward me. His eyes glowed even brighter, and purple-colored electricity jumped between his fingers, casting a dark glow on Herobrine. After a moment, it gathered in his palm, and a bolt of lightning arched down toward me.

Reacting instantly, I lifted my arm up and countered his spell. “Eh-aulb neentheel,” I said calmly, and a thunderous bolt of dark blue lightning immediately formed, arching up toward Herobrine’s black lightning. The two bolts met, and more lightning gathered around me, lifting me up into the air. Now distracted by my display, the giant paused for a few moments, giving Tankinator and Aboba enough time to get into the city. Herobrine was not so quick to let them go, however. Infuriated by my power, and his inability to simply crush my resistance, he turned all of his attention to the tank, somehow completely forgetting about me. The two bolts of lightning separated as Herobrine aimed his at the tank, and mine impacted him before he had a chance to hit them.

A storm brewed above us, and rain started to lightly trickle down. Herobrine was flung back by the power of my bolt, and was forced to deflect it with two of his own, allowing Tankinator and Aboba to escape into the city. I could feel pure hatred flowing from his body, and Herobrine’s eyes, filled with malice, seemed to be glowing brighter than normal. After a moment, both of us gave up on lightning, and Herobrine smiled again. “You fight well. Almost worthy of being my nemesis. But you haven’t seen my full power. Nothing close to it.” He yelled loudly, thrusting his arms toward me, palms facing outward, and I was launched backward. Flung out of the sky, I skipped across the ground like a ragdoll, creating craters every time I hit the ground.

When I came to a sudden halt, I saw Herobrine diving down toward me, lightning-brimmed diamond sword in hand. With barely any time to react, I created a shield of flowing water above me, temporarily stopping Herobrine’s assault. Still determined to kill me, Herobrine crushed me with my own water, causing it to bore into the ground, with me as the tip of the drill. My armor blocked most of the pain, but the impact still hurt, and I was mostly immobilized by the spinning water around me. I lost all sense of direction, and it felt like I was going to get pulled apart from the momentum. Suddenly one thought popped into my mind; “I wonder if enderdragons are real?” Almost immediately there was a serious of roars from somewhere, and the spinning water stopped. The remaining momentum flung me to the ground, and I was left sprawled out in a giant pit in the earth.

The world continued to spin around me, and I closed my eyes, waiting for everything to become more clear. From a direction that seemed logical to be up, the roaring continued, making my ears ache from the sound. I lay there for a moment, recuperating from Herobrine’s last attack, until everything stopped spinning. When I opened my eyes, I was shocked to see how deep the pit was. Shaking my head, I climbed to the top as quickly as I could, which was rather slow considering my condition. As I crawled out, I saw eight enderdragons flying gracefully through the sky as they battled Herobrine. Then I noticed two more enderdragons circling far above, and another five circling farther away, now and again taking out part of the army.

Reaching my hand up toward Herobrine, I said, “Tefel eem morf hehcar dena, denah tehgeer eem denuorah rehtag, neentheel eh-aulb, neht. Eelef ot em esuak dena em denuorah rehtag, reea.” Air gathered around me, pushing me up toward the battle, and lightning gathered around my right hand. As soon as I was near enough to hit Herobrine, I reached out my left hand, and another bolt of blue lightning arched toward him. The flame from the enderdragons was easy for him to deal with, though their claws, tail, and maw not so easy, but the lightning was simply too much. He was again subjected to a hit from my lightning, and quickly afterwards was enveloped by one of the enderdragons’ massive jaws, the teeth digging into his flesh.

I had a second-long vision in which I saw Herobrine in the pit break free from the shapes momentarily. Then the vision ended and I saw black lightning swarming everywhere. Lifting up my right hand, I protected myself from the bolts, but the enderdragons were not so lucky. All eight of the nearest enderdragons were hit and killed, their bodies falling to the ground. The rest of the enderdragons swarmed in, but were also hit, and I was left facing Herobrine myself. He laughed once more, and focused all of his power on me. Before he could finish me off though, I had another split-second vision in which Herobrine was again subdued by the black shapes, and his power weakened dramatically.

When the vision ended, Herobrine was returned to his lowly skeletal form, and his powers weakened with it. Releasing the power stored up in my hand, I flung him to the ground in defeat. He lay there, sputtering helplessly. However, when I tried to finish him off, I found my power insufficient to kill him, and left him to his suffering. Just then, Tankinator and Aboba returned from gathering the rebellion, and I quickly joined them in the tank. With my energy drained, and my body aching, I laid down on the soft floor, while Aboba sat on the sofa, staring blankly off into space, and the rebels sat around; on the floor, the sofas, some even playing games from tankinator’s game box.

As I lay there on the floor, falling asleep slowly, I thought back to my fight with Herobrine. “It all happened so fast. But I defeated him. Isn’t that all that matters? The enderdragons came when I called. How many were there? Fifteen? Eighteen? I thought there were only three. The father and mother, who live in some hidden place nobody’s discovered, and the younger enderdragon, who lives in The End. They were also weaker than I expected. Shouldn’t they have at least been able to avoid the lightning for a little bit?” These thoughts lead my dreams as I fell asleep on the soft woolen floor of the tank, surrounded by people.

When I awoke, I remembered nothing of my dreams, and found that we were still moving. Yawning, I crawled up on top of the tank, and saw that we were lumbering along side the river, going upstream rather than down. The tank left giant prints in the muddy bank, so I quickly climbed back down in. After my long nap, I was ready to go; opening the door slowly, I stepped into the control room for the first time. Along the walls to my right and left, chests slumbered peacefully, supposedly containing Tankinator’s missiles. Behind me, the wall was made of pure obsidian, and in front of me, a series of complex turning mechanism churned, moving every which way. Tankinator sat in a seat surrounded by the mechanisms, looking through some sort of reflective glass.

I was silent for a moment, before I cautiously said, “Tankinator, the tank is leaving huge prints behind us. Shouldn’t we do something about them?”

Completely unsurprised by my question, he responded simply, “Only once we cross the river. Then we’ll need you to submerge the tank in the water, and move us down into the forest. From there, you’ll have to remove any tracks the tank leaves. Right now we’re going up the river to make them think we’re somewhere in the mountains. Our tracks will then disappear into the water, and you can safely guide us down the river like a giant fish.”

I nodded. “Ah, I see. It could also make them think that we’re somewhere in the river, too, because you’ve already disappeared into the water once before.”

“Which is even better, because they’ll be even more confused.”

He returned to guiding the tank, and I exited the control room, sighing. “It’ll be a while before we get home, and then there’ll be even more chaos while we’re trying to find places for everyone to sleep.” I laid down on the floor again, and quickly fell asleep, apprehensive of returning home.

When we arrived home, I had gotten extremely tired of covering up tracks, so I flopped down on the sofa to the left of the door upon entrance. Two of the rebels walked over to me. “I’m Watercress, leader of the rebellion, and I’ve heard that Tankinator doesn’t know I’m a girl.” She seemed to be about two-and-a-quarter meters tall, with blonde hair and dark brown eyes.

“I’m Monterey. That’s mon-turr-ay.” Much shorter than Watercress, Monterey looked just under two meters tall, with short brown hair, and emerald-green eyes.

I smiled, and sat up, shaking their hands in turn. “Nice to meet you. My name is Guardian V. I suppose I’m the leader of my group of friends.”

“I wouldn’t assume otherwise,” Watercress said. “After all, you were able to stand up against Herobrine alone. Though you didn’t defeat him, you did manage to bring him to his knees. Guardian V, you have struck the first blow against Herobrine and his armies, and saved us all. For that we are indebted to you.” She bowed her head, kneeling on her left knee, hands on her right.

“She thinks she owes me something. I could ask to become leader of the group, which could help lessen the amount of chaos. Yeah, I’ll do that,” I thought, smiling. “There’s no need for that, Watercress. All I ask is to become leader of our group.”

She lifted her head, just to be sure, and I rolled my eyes. Slightly embarrassed, she stood up and said swiftly, “Yes Sir.” Then she turned to the group to make an announcement. “Everyone settle down!” she commanded loudly. As soon as she spoke, everyone went silent, turning to look at her. “I have an announcement to make. As you all know, we are all indebted to the man who brought Herobrine to his knees: Guardian V. So, by way of his request not to be rewarded, I hand over my leadership of the rebellion to him.” Everyone broke out in loud chatter, talking amongst themselves. “However!” she yelled. Once again everyone went silent. “Before I do so, I would like to have the privilege of naming our rebellion. The new name will be,” she paused for a moment to make it more dramatic. “The Guardians.”

There was a murmur through the group, then silence. A few of them began to whisper to each other, and soon, everyone had to yell to be heard. I stood up, a battle-worn look on my face, and everyone was silent long before I spoke. “Welcome to our base. From now on, this will be your home, and your protection. If one of you leaves this place without consulting me, for any reason, you will be killed. This rule does not exist to frighten you from leaving, or imprison you here, but instead, to keep us all safe from Herobrine. One slip up can mean the discovery of this base, and we will no longer be safe. We have started a... how should I put this, farm, underground here, and there will be soon to follow, another level added on. The new level will be the dormitory. In the near future after that, I intend to have added on another two levels; one for training, which will have an expansive room with makeshift landscapes, and the other for eating. The current dining room is much too small for all of us to eat at once, and my friends and I will need the privacy.”

As I spoke, Brailyn stepped to my side, and waited patiently for me to finish. Glancing at her, I continued. “For now, however, some of you will have to sleep in Tankinator’s tank, other in the lounge down here, and the others in the rooms on the second floor.” I paused for a moment, not sure what to say next, and Brailyn whispered to me.

“Guardian V, I’ve already made the other levels. See, there’s just this thing where I think ahead more than you guys do. Everything is already done. Oh, and by the way, do you realize you were gone for almost an entire week?” She smiled when I raised my eyebrows, shocked, and I turned to the waiting crowd.

“It seems that everything is already in order. I believe the entrance to the lower levels are in the dining room right this way,” I said, walking over to the entrance to the dining room. “If everyone would please make themselves comfortable, dinner will be served in an hour and a half. Oh, and please do not cause a ruckus, we wouldn’t want to have to talk to you already, would we?”

Everyone laughed, and quickly made their way into the dining room, and down the stairs. “How did you know where the stairs were?” Brailyn asked, coming up to me after they had all left.

“I guessed,” I grinned. “It makes sense for them to be in the dining room; after all, we wouldn’t want them in one of our rooms, going up to the second floor makes no sense if you’re going to go down, the kitchen doesn’t have any more space for stairs, and there aren’t any new ones down here.” She nodded her head in admiration, and turned toward the kitchen. “Brailyn, would you like some help cooking dinner?” I asked.

“And what can you do to help me?” she questioned.

“Well, let’s just say I have a bit of authority in this place.” She grinned, and I went to the top of the stairs in the dining room. “Hey down there!” I yelled, almost laughing. “Anyone want to help with dinner?!” There was a moment of silence, and then Watercress and another girl came bounding up the stairs.

“What do you need us to do?” Watercress asked, slightly out of breath.

“Ah, I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to Brailyn about that. The kitchen is just over here.” I nodded to them, and showed them to the kitchen.

An hour and a half later, as we sat down for dinner, I could hear chatter coming up from downstairs. “They seem awfully excited,” I noted as we began to dig in to our food.

“Well, tonight’s the first night where they’ll be able to sleep without having to worry about being killed during the night, so I think it’s pretty reasonable,” Brailyn said.

“Yeah. There was also a sort of firework display featuring you, dragons, and a guy with glowing white eyes, so there’s quite a bit to talk about,” Tankinator said, jabbing the air in front of me with his fork.

I jumped and leaned backward to avoid getting stabbed, and Brailyn quickly tipped my chair backward, knocking me to the ground. There was a loud bang when I hit the ground, but the chatter downstairs didn’t stop. Smiling overly pleasantly, I attempted to stand up, but Aboba stepped on my chest to stop me. “Tsk tsk tsk. Naughty naughty naughty. Let’s not go around knocking chairs over our dear Guardian V,” he said mockingly. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think you were childish or anything, would we now?”

“Right,” I said, trying to sit up again. Tankinator jumped over the table, and landed with his knees in my chest.

“Ha! Now let’s see if you can get up! With both Aboba and I, you’ll never escape! Muahahaha!” he cackled playfully.

“Okay then,” I laughed, and threw them both off of me with ease. The two of them hit the ground simultaneously, and groaned in sync.

“Ugh, I forgot you were so strong,” they both moaned in unison.

Brailyn laughed and said, “Watch this, I can hold him down without a problem.” Then she turned to me, and smiled knowingly. Slightly frightened, I started to crawl backward away from her. She immediately jumped up, landed sitting on my chest, throwing my arms out from under me. Winded, I lay on the ground as she pinned me down, a hand on each of my arms, and a knee on each of my legs. Now stretched out, I had difficulty sitting up, though I did manage it after a moment of struggling, and then managed to stand without trouble.

Grinning, I said, “You did a better job than Tankinator and Aboba, but you didn’t hold me down.” Laughing, we all sat down at the table and finished our food.

When we went to bed that night, Brailyn snuggled up close to me and said in a barely audible voice, “Minxed, I love you. I don’t want to ever leave your side again.”

I smiled, and wrapped my arms around her warm body. “I love you too Brailyn. I want you to always be happy.” As I fell asleep, I had a warming feeling that everything would be alright.

However, my dreams returned to Herobrine and the pit; the exact opposite of alright. This time the shapes had Herobrine in shackles, and some of them were attempting to pull him down toward the cage, but he continued to slowly inch upwards, away from it. Suddenly my view panned around to the other side of the pit, and I saw myself standing at the edge, looking down grimly. I was taller than I remembered; standing just under three meters tall, my bright blue eyes looking down on the scene, and that dark hair shimmered, reflecting light from glowstone hanging above. With my hands clenched behind my back, I stared down unblinkingly at the commotions going on below me, doing nothing to help hold Herobrine back.

The idea came to my mind to help, but a thought that was not mine swept fleetingly through my mind, almost like an arch. “Guardian V, if you assist them in chaining Herobrine down, you will break the seal between the upper and lower Nether. Not only this, but you will find yourself in the lower Nether yourself, standing at the edge of the Nether Pit.”

I laughed inwardly. “This is a dream!” I thought. “I have complete control over my dreams.” I grinned, and simply thought for the outcome of the struggle to change. Nothing happened, and I unclenched my fists, tensing. After a moment, Herobrine began to falter, and the black shapes started to pull him back. After a short moment, Herobrine began again to pull slowly away from them.

“Minxed, I am warning you! Interfere anymore and you will be thrown into the Lower Nether.” The voice seemed wary, and scared.

“Who are you?” I wondered. “And if simply falling asleep, dreaming about the Lower Nether, and doing something there brings me there, why can’t I do the opposite? Fall asleep there, dream about the Overworld, do something there, and I’ll just appear there, right?”

The voice laughed, a resounding, jubilant sound. “My name, well, I have many names. The First Father of the Overworld, Destructor of the Nether, Creator of the Aether, Master of The End. There are two more. Two you should recognize, and know like your family. Notch, The Predecessor.” The voice went silent for a moment, then continued. “Yes, you can simply fall asleep in the Lower Nether, dream about the Overworld, do something in that dream, and simply appear in that location. However, there is something you should know. To do so is futile. My death came by such means.

“Herobrine had been defeated, and cast into the Nether Pit, but the bridge to the Lower Nether would not close. So I had to go to the Lower Nether, and close it from inside, where I was able to harness Herobrine’s power to aid me in doing so. Then I slept. Herobrine, furious that I had captured him, brought him to the Lower Nether, cast him in the Nether Pit, and caged him up, set in motion a device that worked faster than anyone anticipated. He created the Ghasts. They served him then, and continue to serve him now. The Ghasts gathered together a massive army, and came to battle me. However there was no battle. Each of the hundred thousand Ghasts fired a single fireball at me, and I became history.

“But now I have returned. My essence is gathering from the far reaches of the Aether; it is assembling under Herobrine’s feet in the Lower Nether; coming together as one from The End. From the four corners of the universe, my essence masses together into one body. Into the Overworld; In a person who will, one day, change the world forever. Guardian, my end came by sleeping in the Lower Nether while Herobrine was in chains far below me. It is foolishness to think that you can succeed in more dire circumstances than where I failed, in less dire of circumstance.”

The voice subsided, and I watched for a moment as the black shapes struggled against Herobrine, my arm outstretched. Forcing my action, I lowered my arm, and the dream ended. I awoke that morning to find Brailyn still snuggled up in my arms. My mind was depressed from the weight of the past night’s dream, so I carefully slipped my arm out from under her, and slowly got out of bed, so as not to disturb her. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I was surprised to see that it was only five o’clock in the morning. I slipped out from under the covers and walked over to my chest to get dressed. As I was walking, I heard Brailyn stir, and I looked back to see that she had woken up.

Rolling over, she looked at me, squinting in the light and glancing at the clock. “What’s wrong?” she asked, pulling the blankets up to her chin to keep warm. Sighing, I walked over to the bed, and sat down by her. She simply waited there, cuddled up under the light-blue, woolen blankets, looking up at me softly, her light violet eyes quivering. I reached my hand out, and gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face. Smiling pleasantly, she reached her left hand up, holding mine in her own “Did you have another dream?” she asked, tilting her head toward me, raising her eyebrows slightly, and looking up at me.

I sighed again, and recounted my dream from the night before. Brailyn listened intently as I told her the everything, and was silent for a moment afterward. The she spoke again. “Minxed, do you know what those black shapes are?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Pausing for a moment, I said, “No, no, I don’t.”

She grinned, and said, “I didn’t think you would. Let me tell you a bit of history. The Predecessor, Notch, created the dragons to help in the final battle against Herobrine. Herobrine’s hideout was yet to be discovered, so The Predecessor created a new dimension, and sent the dragons there to dwell in safety. Eventually, Herobrine discovered the dragons and this new dimension, and revealed his presence so he could kill them. After a horrible slaughter by the hands of Herobrine, only three dragons remained; the Father Dragon, the Mother Dragon, and the Child Dragon. Herobrine was later defeated, with the help of the Father and Mother Dragon, and the dimension sealed. The dimension was given the name ‘The End’, in honor of all the dragons that had been killed that day. Each of the dragons that were killed became known as the enderdragons.

“As time passed, the Three Dragons grew more and more powerful, and the tales of the dragons turned to myth. Thus, the Three Dragons became, mistakenly, referred to as enderdragons as well. After so long being trapped inside The End by Herobrine, the Child Dragon, also known as Aehon, has gone partially insane, and attempts to kill any creature it sees on sight. Any creature besides endermen, that is. After Herobrine was captured, it was found that he had begun to attempt to escape. Ghasts appeared, and The Predecessor disappeared. The spirits of the enderdragons, not having been fully dispersed, began to return.” She paused for a moment so I could compute everything she had told me. “Those black shapes were the spirits of the enderdragons.”

I nodded, intrigued. There was a moment of silence before I spoke again. “I’m hungry. We should probably go make breakfast now.”

Brailyn grinned, and we both got up and dressed. After breakfast, I went down to the lower dining room, where everyone waited, chatting incoherently. “Good morning!” I yelled, spreading my arms to them, smiling. There was a chorus of joyful ‘good mornings’, and everyone quieted down to listen. “So today we will start your training. We can’t have a bunch of untrained soldiers going to war, otherwise we’ll get thrown aside without a second’s notice. There won’t be any schedule, and there won’t be many rules, but what rules there are will be strict. Rule number one! Everyone must participate. If you don’t participate, you’ll be letting your group down, and won’t be getting any experience yourself. As for the other rules, we can talk about them later when we have need for them.

“There will be a number of ways we’ll train, and a number of situations we’ll train for. We have to be able to adjust to fighting in groups; helping each other out, watching each other’s backs. We also have to be able to fend for ourselves so that in the case that you are separated from your group, you can get out alive. We have to train to be able to assess the situation while we’re fighting. The scenery and layout of a battle ground can change constantly, so we must always be aware of our surroundings. Skeletons fight differently than spiders, and even zombies. Creepers can be much more difficult to defend against. When fighting endermen, your lives depend on you always concentrating on paying attention to everything.

“We’ll go over each of these different scenarios in the next few days, but to start out, you have to be able to swing a sword, and fire a bow. So today, we’ll start there. Everyone meet in the training room in thirty minutes! Be there, or you’ll miss today’s training session.” They all clapped, admiring my on-the-spot speech, and quickly dispersed.

As I was turning around to go get Tankinator and Aboba to help me, I noticed a girl sitting all alone at a table, previously obscured by the crowd, crying. Something told me she had been hurt, so I walked over to her slowly, taking light steps. She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, and fear showing clearly in her face. I sat down next to her at the table, and closed my eyes, keeping her company. Suddenly I heard footsteps from the stairs, and I opened my eyes to see Tankinator and Aboba running down, then stop dead when they saw me. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, Tankinator spoke. “Aboba, Guardian V, why don’t you two go take care of the crowd awaiting you in the training room?”

I simply nodded my head, and Aboba joined me in descending to the training room. It was a huge room, big enough to exceed three hundred meters in length, two hundred in width, and one hundred in height. Held up by massive beams, the curved ceiling stretched far above our heads, leaving an area big enough for ten enderdragons to battle in. Scattered across the arena’s floor were various areas for training in; a few groves of trees, two rivers, one of which stretched through another grove, a grotto, surrounded by water, a grotto surrounded by trees, tall grass that reached above my head, and a mountain with a grove, and lava pouring down the side.

Awed, I slowly walked in, taking in the view. After a moment, I noticed that the whole place was lit by an artificial light that simulated the sun. The light floated in the air close to the ceiling, making the place seem like it was actually above ground. Still awed, I walked over to the group with Aboba. They were chatting, as always, until they saw me. When they saw me they all went dead silent. I was about to begin speaking when I heard a sound I couldn’t recognize. Pausing for a moment, I recognized it as birds chirping, and wind whistling through the grass. Shaking my head in amazement, I proceeded with what I was going to say. “Okay. We’re only going to split you up into two groups today instead of three, because Tankinator is busy taking care of some of his own business.” I glanced at Aboba, and he shrugged his shoulders. Clearing my throat, I counted them off; “One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two...”

When I finished counting them off, Aboba and I each took twenty two of them, and went off to separate areas. “To start out,” I said as we walked further into the plains. “I’ll teach you how to fight zombies and skeletons in an open area with flat ground. Zombies, can be merciless creatures, but they are the weakest of all the enemies you will encounter. So, when you are fighting one-on-one, it is best that you practice your fighting skills on it, and then cut it down.”

“So then,” someone said, and I glanced back to see it was Watercress speaking. “So then, you’re telling us to show off when we fight zombies?”

I smiled, stopping, and turned around to face them. “Precisely. Now, here will do. Okay, let’s start out with names. It seems the only person here I know is Watercress.”

A girl with a yellow bow tied carefully in her golden-brown hair stepped forward, wringing her hands together nervously. “My name’s Di’enne, I’m uh, I’m thirty eight.” She glanced up at me momentarily, and I got a glimpse of her gray eyes, but she quickly looked away, stepping back into the group.

When everyone had introduced themselves, we proceeded with training. “Okay, today we’ll only do one-on-one, so let’s do this one at a time. Enotes foo droce ah.” A stone sword appeared in my hand, and everyone gasped. “Let’s see, who should go first? How about, Lainene.” A blonde girl with pale blue eyes stepped forward confidently, ready to go. “Ah yes,” I said, handing her the sword. Turning away from her, I summoned a single zombie, and instructed it to attack her, but not hurt her. “Show me how you fight. Kill that zombie.” Stepping out of the way, I let them see the zombie, and the zombie see them.

After a moment, the zombie charged, and Lainene wielded the sword masterfully. As soon as it got within range of her sword, she dodged to the side, performing a spin, and slashed at the zombie’s back. Then she jabbed at its face, making it stop and turn toward her with a wicked smile on its face. It lunged toward her, and she parried with a blow to the arm. Lunging toward its legs, she dropped down to her knees. As the zombie moved to block the attack, she stabbed upward, pushing off the ground with her legs, and drove the sword home, finishing it off quickly. Everyone clapped, and the zombie dissipated, vanishing in a cloud of white smoke.

“Very nicely done. If you would like, we could bring you up to the next level; fighting zombies in groups. If not, pick someone else to come up.”

Lainene turned to face me and said, “I think I’ll keep going.”

“Very well. Get ready, there are ten zombies this time.” I stepped to the side, and where I had been previously, ten zombies appeared, materializing with a puff of black smoke.

After the day’s training was over, Brailyn came and gathered everyone together, taking them up to the large dining room for lunch. As I turned toward the lake, and the grotto therein, I heard light footsteps approaching me from behind. Turning back, I saw Di’enne approaching, wringing her hands together as always. “H-h-hi,” she stammered, looking at the ground nervously.

“Hey there,” I said, lightening my voice so as to be less threatening. When she didn’t say anything, I knelt down, looking into her eyes. “You okay?” I asked gently, my voice barely a whisper. Though I already knew that she liked me, I pretended not to so she could be more confident in herself.

“Um, I j-j-j-just w-wanted to ask if, if y-y-you we-were busy t-t-t-tonight,” she managed to say, her face turning bright red. “I m-m-mean, I know th-that y-y-you al-already,” she started, but I interrupted her.

“Di’enne.” She went silent, and stopped shaking. “I can now tell how you feel about me, but I’m sorry. I’m sure Brailyn is soon to ask me to be her spouse, and really, we’ve been together for so long that it just seems like the right thing to do. I’m really sorry.” Tears came to her eyes, and her breath became sudden, coming in sudden bursts, and she started to cry. “Hey hey hey, come on Di’enne, come ‘ere.” I reached out, enveloping Di’enne in a massive embrace. “You’ll be okay,” I whispered sofly, “You’ll be okay.” As I sat there, cradling Di’enne, my vision blurred, and I closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself sitting in the window in my and Brailyn’s room. I glanced around, and saw Brailyn laying in bed, staring straight through me. Apparently I was a ghost. The clock struck nine, and the lights went out. Two hours later, as the clock struck eleven, Brailyn got up and dressed. Following her as she left the room, I wondered, “What is she doing? And was I not in bed next to her?” Strangely enough, Brailyn didn’t stop or slow down as she passed by every room in the house on the way to the exit. Leaving the underground base, she quickly patted up the tunnel quietly, exiting the safety of the tunnel carelessly.

After Brailyn had completely covered the entrance to the tunnel, an arrow whizzed past her. Not even slightly surprised, she charged past the skeletons, somehow managing to avoid every arrow. Without slowing down even in the slightest, Brailyn charged on into the forest edge, dodging beneath branches, around tree roots, and past trees. Panting, I followed after her, running through the branches, my spirit not even slightly interacting with the world around me. Eventually we reached the plains, and I saw Herobrine facing away from us with his hands behind his back, the hood of his cloak covering his head.

Brailyn extended her arm toward Herobrine, and began to speak, but was quickly silenced by a wave of Herobrine’s hand. His malicious chuckle sounded through the plains, much lighter than before. “It seems you have finally come. I let you go before, but this time you cannot escape. My power has grown far beyond what it was when your hero Guardian V fought me before. Oh, and don’t worry, he won’t be coming to your aid today, Brailyn, High Priestess and Overlord of the Aether. Today, the final battle between the Queen of the Aether, and the King of the Nether, End, and Void will be, to put it simply, an execution, ordered by the King.” He lifted his arm above his head, and Brailyn was pulled toward him. Turning to face the forest, Herobrine drew his diamond sword. Rimmed with purple lightning, the menace of a weapon absorbed the light, expelling it as a purple-blue glow.

Brailyn struggled, but it was no use; Herobrine’s power was, as he said, far too powerful for her to escape. Momentarily, Brailyn was flung to the ground, and chains writhed up out, binding her down. Herobrine chuckled again, then growled angrily, his white eyes glowing brightly as he brought the sword down through Brailyn’s heart. The lightning gathered in her, and thrust itself outward, vaporizing her body in a shower of purple electricity. She was dead.

The vision suddenly ended, and I found myself still holding Di’enne. A few moments after she stopped crying, she sat up, and I let her go. She smiled weakly, and stood up to leave. Before she left, she turned to me and said, “What is your real name?”

“Guardian V,” I said, smiling softly. “I have no other name.”

She nodded, then turned and left, leaving me alone. Shuddering from the shock of the vision, I stood up and made my way over to the grotto in the lake. Sighing, I stepped into the water, submerging myself in the lake. Walking slowly, I floated along the bottom of the lake, breathing the water like it was air, and let myself get pulled down through a waterfall, into the grotto. It was a beautiful place; with three waterfalls tumbling down into a small pool at the bottom, the grotto was shaded by many tiny bushes leaning down toward the pool, hoping to be the first to take a sip of the pure water.

Letting my legs collapse beneath me, I slumped down against the wall, and let my thoughts wander. Voices, through my mind. “An execution... the King of the Nether... End... Void... tonight... busy... get ready... no other name... Guardian V.” The voices slipped through my head. “Guardian V.” The last voice grew louder and louder. “Guardian V.” The Predecessor’s voice. “Guardian V, things are changing... Tankinator, Steve, E.J., Pluto... nothing will be the same again... Brailyn... a dark night... despair... execution... there will be another...” his voice faded, and left me trembling. Looking around shakily, I realized that the artificial sun was going down. Chuckling feverishly, I floated up out of the grotto on wings of air, and landed at the edge of the lake. Glancing back, I shuddered.

The next day, when I awoke, I went out to the leader’s dining room, and found Aboba and Brailyn sitting there silently, with three other people whom I had not seen in quite a long time; Steve, E.J., and Pluto. However, Tankinator was nowhere to be seen. Brailyn looked up when I walked in, and I could tell she was angry. “Where have you been?!” she yelled, making me wince. “It’s three in the afternoon, Tankinator and that girl that he was supposedly helping yesterday are gone, and you’ve been in bed, immobile, unable to be stirred even slightly, cold as stone. What is going on?!” By the time she finished, she had moved on from a yell to a scream, and I was sure everyone in the base had heard her.

“Strange. Why can’t I remember what I did last night after I turned away from that lake?” I thought, tilting my head to the side. “Brailyn,” I said, hardening my voice into a menacing growl. “Calm down. Can any of you remember what you did last night after, say, seven?”

Everyone was silent for a moment, before they all responded in unison: “No, but why does it matter?” They all looked at eachother, fear in their eyes, shocked that they would be able to speak all at once, saying the exact same thing.

Groaning, I slumped into a sitting position with a thud. “No no no no no no no!” I moaned. “‘Things are changing’, he said. ‘Nothing will be the same’, he said.” I stood up angrily. “Nothing will be the same, huh?!” I yelled furiously. “Well I’ll show you not the same!”

Suddenly there was a thundering sound from somewhere above ground. Everyone braced themselves as the ground shook violently, and rocks fell from the ceiling. “What is going on up there?” Aboba asked, worried.

I clenched my fist and said, “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon.”

A man stood on his porch. Alone. No friends, no family. Just him. His gold-dusted brown hair reaching down to his neck matched his gold-dusted brown eyes, searching. Ever searching for something he could never have. In his right hand he held a cane that he used to aid himself whilst walking, for he had been crippled some time ago by an unknown means. A young girl with long, golden hair dragged a body up a path to the house. The man smiled, a simple, meaningful gesture, showing a single golden tooth. He spread his arms out wide, his black suit opening up to reveal a golden-brown shirt and dark brown tie. His brown slacks rustled in the wind, and his black business shoes clacked on the cobbled stone as he approached the girl. Then he spoke, his whisper of a voice carrying a detectable Ancient accent. “Welcome home, dearie.”


We charged up the tunnel, and burst out into the open. The sun shone directly in my face, burning my eyes, and I stumbled back, blinded. The noise was even louder above ground, and I couldn’t hear anything anyone said. I bumped into someone, but I couldn’t tell who it was because of the deafening sound. My foot caught on something, and I fell backward, reaching out with both arms to catch myself. Something burning jabbed into my right hand, and I began to roll down the tunnel. Heat emanated from somewhere, causing beads of sweat to roll down my face, and I felt a burning sensation on my back.

Suddenly a hand grabbed me, followed by a few more, and I was dragged off. The fire continued to burn, scorching my back, and I realized that a second sound had joined that of the first; my scream. I was released, and after a moment a great weight was dropped on me. After a moment I realized that I had been submerged in water, and couldn’t breathe. My arms and legs had been tied down, and I began to flail in an attempt to escape. I heard what I thought to be the sound of a door opening, and I was pulled out of the water.

Still partially blinded from the bright light, and now by the water, I couldn’t see anything clearly. Something brown or gold, a humanoid figure with something black, and a gray splotch. A strong hand gripped my arm, and I was thrown toward the splotch of gray. A gate creaked behind me, and a lock clicked; I had been thrown into a cage. My legs gave way beneath me, and I slumped toward the bottom of the gray thing. I attempted to put out my hands to catch myself, but found that my hands had been bound behind my back with a strong cord. Groaning, I realized that the gray thing was the ground, and I slammed into it with a loud thud.

Pain seared through my side when I fell, and I closed my eyes, hoping I would be able to see better after I opened them again. However, when I closed my eyes, something strange happened. I found that I was able to see clearly with my eyes closed. “Of course. I have visions of the future and the past, so why not the present where I am, from my point of view?” The gray splotch turned out to be the walls, ceiling, and floor of a cell, and the golden thing was a man. He wore a black suit, a brown shirt and dark brown tie, brown slacks, and fancy black business shoes. In his right hand he held a black cane, matching his shoes and suit, and his hair was gold-dusted. When I sat up, he glanced over at me, and I saw he had gold-dusted eyes, too.

To the right of the cell I was in there was a counter littered with various different artifacts, varying in size and shape. The counter stretched across three walls, and there was a door opposite the entrance and behind the counter. Though he did not look kingly, he had an air of leadership around him. He turned toward the cell, his cane moving in time with his right leg, and put his left hand on one of the bars. I wriggled backward away from him, and he smiled. “Can you see me?” he asked, and I was surprised to hear an Ancient accent.

Hoping to trick him, I said, “Of course I can’t see you, my eyes are closed. I just heard footsteps and assumed someone was coming to get me.”

He chuckled, a quiet, soft sound, and said, “Come come, dearie. I know your gifts all too well.”

I gulped, and started to say, “Herobrine,” but he interrupted me before I could continue.

“Now now. Don’t be disrespectful, dearie.”

“So if you’re not Herobrine, then who are you?”

“The name’s Mr. Gold,” he said, letting go of the cage bar.

There was silence for a moment as he turned and walked away, then paused at the window, looking out. “No other name,” I thought, remembering the voices from the day before. “What’s your real name?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.

“Mr. Gold,” Mr. Gold responded, turning back toward the cage slightly. “Let’s make a deal, dearie,” he began, but now it was my turn to interrupt.

“No, no deals. I make deals with no one,” I growled, getting to my knees, my eyes still closed.

But Mr. Gold was not to be discouraged. “You address me as Mr. Gold without question, and I address you as.. ah yes, I do believe you forgot to introduce yourself.”

“My name is,” I began, but I let my voice trail off, thinking better of it.

“Yes?” he asked, turning back toward me.

“It doesn’t matter. What do you want with me?” I said forcefully, hoping he would give way.

“You will know, in time,” he said with a smile. “But for now, all you need know is my name, and I yours.”

I grumbled to myself for a second, then finally gave in. “Guardian V, my name’s Guardian V.”

“Ah,” he said leaning on the counter. “Guardian V. You fall short of my expectations, guardian. I hear many stories of your... accomplishments... and yet, you are hardly a struggle to capture. Why is that?”

“You caught me off guard,” I said simply.

“Well,” Mr. Gold said, walking around back of his counter. “Do you accept the terms of agreement?”

“Yes,” I mumbled quietly.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Yes,” I said, more loudly this time. “And don’t ask again.”

Quietly, he pulled a key out of a pocket in his suit, and slipped it carefully into a lock on a cupboard. Turning the key a few times around, he pressed the key into the hole, almost completely burying it in the lock. There was a click sound, and the cabinet creaked open, swinging away from the wall as if by magic. I watched as he reached into the cupboard, moved a few things around, and pulled out a silver-colored feather. Then he turned back toward me and whispered, “Do you know what this is?”

I almost answered, but then remembered I was supposed to be blind, and said instead, “I can’t see, so how could I know?”

“Oh but I do believe you can.” He smiled knowingly, and I sat there silently until he spoke again. “This is a feather from a ghast.”

There was silence for a moment before I asked, “Wait, a feather? From a ghast? Don’t feathers only come from birds?”

“What most people don’t realize,” he continued, ignoring my comment. “Is that ghasts are just the spirits of birds condemned to life in the Nether.”

“Why am I here?” I tried, but by now I knew that he wouldn’t break.

He looked at me, staring interestedly. “Why the curiosity? With all your grand power,” he said, emphatically over-emphasizing ‘grand power’. “Why don’t you simply, wave your hand and go frolicking away?” He waved his left arm animatedly toward the door, his tone mockingly gentle.

“Yeah, why don’t I just leave?” I smiled, and said, “I didn’t think of that.” Smiling, I uttered, “Neentheel!” Lightning jumped from my hands to the cords, and then back to me, electrifying my arms. I yelled in pain, and flopped down on the ground. “Why didn’t it work? How did it hit me?”

“Oh yes, I forgot to warn you; those ropes are enchanted. Don’t worry, you can be my long-term guest, dearie.” I growled, and flopped down on the floor as Mr. Gold smiled, disappearing around the door behind the counter.

There was complete and utter silence for hours after he left, and I sat there, shifting around, unable to settle in one position comfortably for more than a few minutes. As the sun shone through the window, informing me that it was sundown, I heard a groan from somewhere in the room. Startled, I sat up straight, listening silently. The groan came again. “Who’s there?” I called, my voice startlingly loud. No answer. “Hello? I know you’re there, show yourself!” I commanded.

Nothing; disappointed, I leaned back against the wall again. Suddenly there was a screech, and a large black bird of smoke materialized in front of me. Frightened by the sudden appearance of the beast, I scrambled back away from it, pressing myself up to the wall. The screech continued, and wind bellowed from the throat of the creature. Each individual feather was a separate strand of smoke, and each eye a dying ember. The creature fumbled with the bars, trying to break through them, as if it was a solid being. At the end of each of its four wings were situated five finger-like claws, with spikes of smoke jutting out of the wing halfway down it, pointed toward the clawed hand.

There was a whooshing sound, and the creature disappeared. In its place stood Mr. Gold, left hand extended, with smoke pouring off of it like waterfalls. He closed his hand, a triumphant grin on his face, and limped to the cell, his cane and shoes clicking on the floor. When he was but millimeters away from the bars, he bared his teeth, and said, “So, we have ourselves a seer.”

I sighed, and relaxed, slumping back down on the floor yet again. Mr. Gold stood where he was, teeth still bared in a grimacing smile. “What was that thing?” I asked him after another moment of silence.

He chuckled slightly, and turned away, going back around his counter. “I can’t tell you exactly what it was, but I can tell you this; your worst nightmare is not Herobrine.” With that, I felt the ropes around my arms fade away, and Mr. Gold smiled. “I was wondering when those would vanish. Now then, I have something for you to do, dearie.”

I stood up, infuriated. Lightning crackled, and the air around my hands warped. “I will do nothing for you, old man!” I yelled, clamping my fists on the iron bars of the cell. Mr. Gold flinched as the bars burst into flame, evaporating without a trace. I smiled evilly, and charged forward, my hands warping space. “You will pay for what you’ve done to me!” I shrieked, speeding around the corner of the counter.

Mr. Gold backed up shakily, his cane hand sweating. “Now now, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure we can work something,” he started, but I wouldn’t let him speak.

“Silence!!” I bellowed, causing the building to shake.

Stumbling backward, Mr. Gold bumped into the counter, and tried to crawl over it backwards, a lunaticial look of fright on his face. Not allowing him to escape, I pinned him down with my left arm across his chest, my right arm raised. As I was about to speak, Mr. Gold began to laugh. Confused, I paused; his laugh wasn’t normal. It was a high-pitched cackle, not his usual calm, smooth chuckle. “Hee hee-hee hee!” he squealed with delight. “Now what do we have here?!” His Ancient accent had mostly disappeared, and was now quite frightening. “A man, trying to kill me?!” He cackled evilly, and pushed me off of him. “Let’s make a deal! Let’s make a deal!” he squealed rapidly. “I’ll give you your,” but he was cut off quickly by the entrance of the girl Tankinator had been talking to.

“Father,” she said sternly, “Stop it. Now.” Everything went silent, and Mr. Gold’s breathing became heavy. “I’ve been gone for far too long.” She seemed to notice me for the first time, and quickly changed the subject. “You need some rest father, your customer can take his leave, and we’ll close the shop for the day. Maybe you’ll be well tomorrow,” she said, staring at me intently while she spoke. Her accent was exactly the same as Mr. Gold’s; a lighthearted Ancient accent with the tiniest note of sarcasm.

Moving shakily, I walked out of the shop, glancing back at the two of them as they watched me leave. When I stepped out of the building, I saw a village for a moment, before everything blurred and I suddenly appeared in the clearing by the entrance to the base. It was night, and there was no moon. I quickly ran down into the base, and found Brailyn sound asleep in bed, the blankets down at her feet. Smiling feebly, I lifted them up over her, and tucked her in. Then I went into the lounge, and laid down on the sofa nearest the dining room.

The next morning when I awoke, I had a vivid memory of what had happened the day before. I glanced at the clock on the wall; 4:30 in the morning. Sighing, I rolled over, and stared up at the ceiling. “It hasn’t been too long that I’ve been gone, maybe two days. I’ll have to explain what happened to me while I was gone. What did happen to me? A man dressed in brown and black, with gold hair? No, that can’t be right. That must have been my dream! But, it wasn’t. Some sort of smoke bird,” I shuddered, and it all came back to me, clear as it had been when it took place.

I again looked at the clock, and was surprised to see it was already 6:00. “My my, how time does fly,” I muttered.

Chuckling inwardly, I sat up, stretching. Suddenly I heard footsteps, and Brailyn and Aboba both walked in, Brailyn from her room, Aboba from his. They were both yawning, their hand covering their mouth, and walking in sync. As soon as they saw me, they stopped dead, staring with disbelief.

“But you’re dead,” Aboba said, his voice shaky.

“Dead?” I asked, utterly confused.

“Herobrine brought us your head himself!” Brailyn said rejecting the fact that I had returned.

“Some guy who called himself Mr. Gold came by. He said that heroes are made not by saving people from evil, but by stopping evil,” Aboba said. “Only heroes can stay in this base, and you are not a hero.”

“Oh and you are?” I said, standing up and facing Aboba.

“Why yes, every one of us.” Brailyn stepped around me, and stood by Aboba before continuing. “Everyone who lives in this base has, over the past month, helped free the people of Mal Heim. With the powers that I have,” she said, continuing on and on about their victories.

But I knew that something was not right. My legs collapsed under me, and I dropped down onto the sofa. Every word that Brailyn and Aboba spoke was blocked out of my hearing, and replaced with the sound of my beating heart. The suddenly it came to me, strength returning to my legs, and I stood up. “You’re not Brailyn, and you aren’t Aboba,” I said accusingly. Closing my eyes, reality was revealed to me.

Mr. Gold and the golden-haired girl stood side by side in their home, and I was still in the cell. Keeping my eyes closed, I bellowed, “You dare to imitate my friends?! For this you will pay! Nee-aga eseer ot reven, trei et ot met tesak dena leh-reeg dena nam seet ekaut, aireef foo seebah!”

I felt the world around me turning to molten heat, and the air boiling. After a moment, Mr. Gold held up his hand and said one word, “Puots.” The commotion stopped, and Mr. Gold lowered his hand. “Don’t do that, Guardian V, it was simply a test of your strength. After all, a real hero is not one who can stand up to their enemies, but one who can stand up to their friends.” With that, the two of them turned and left, leaving me alone in the cell.

As I was sitting down, I again heard the groan that I had heard before. Opening my eyes, I looked around, but saw only the inside of Mr. Gold’s shop. Disappointed, I went to sit down again, but there was another groan, and I hurried over to the bars to see if I could pinpoint where the sound was coming from. This time I noticed something that I had not seen before; a trapdoor in the center of the room, with a hole in the middle. That was where the sound was coming from. I closed my eyes again, and was surprised to find that I could see right through the trapdoor. Beneath the trapdoor was a small room with a hardwood floor, and almost no light. In the room sat Tankinator, who had apparent cuts all over him. I peeked at both doors, then looked at my hands; I had, after all, been released from the bonds.

Muttering various enchantments under my breath, I tried to think of one that would allow me to bend space around my hands. Then it came to me, and I spoke. “Reeah dena eeteeseer-tekele et heh-surk ot neeseir-pemok, sedenah eem denuorah retegot eneebmek, rehtoh den reeah, trei neentheel.” There was a slight humming sound, then thunder rumbled somewhere outside, and my hands were surrounded by a dim, semitranslucent, violet glow. I grinned, and ran my hand through the bars. As soon as I pressed on the bars, there was a low humming sound, and my hand passed through, completely unaffected. Grinning, I whispered, “Leps Heg-uorah-tessap et leps seet enam ee.” Everything around my flickered black and white, then back to reality, and I spoke again, “Heg-uorah-tessap.”

A moment later, the glow surrounded my whole body, and I grinned. Acting quickly, I tore the trapdoor out and lifted Tankinator out. Then I murmured, “Meheem laeh.” A green fluorescent glow flowed from my hand, engulfing Tankinator completely. When the glow disappeared, Tankinator’s wounds were completely healed, and he was left unconscious on the ground. I grumbled to myself, and lifted him in the air. Suddenly the ground shook, thunder roared nearby, and the front wall of the building was blown in. My hood lifted up over me, and my cape wrapped up around my back, protecting both Tankinator and I from the splintered wood, glass, and stone. I laid Tankinator down, and turned to face the road.

In the road there marched a brigade of ten men, all dressed in flowing red cloaks identical to the one Herobrine wore. Each of the men held their arms out, spewing destruction out of their hands in the form of fire, lava, and jets of air. They burnt down and blew apart every house that stood within range of them, leaving only the flaming corpses of people and buildings behind them. Chaos shot about gracefully in the streets, leaving hundreds of innocents dead or dying, many more confused, and the town in disarray. Two of the mages noticed me standing there, surrounded by a chaotic spurr of burning wood, flying stone, and melting glass, and yet completely unharmed, and they quickly notified the other eight of me.

All at once, they turned their heads toward me, then faced me, letting their destructive waves of evil flow toward me. I lifted my right hand toward the flame, and a bright, light-blue, circular light appeared about five decimeters away from my hand. When their streams of flame, lava, and air finally met the light, they were redirected around me, completely missing their target, and instead tearing down the rest of Mr. Gold’s shop. Tankinator stepped up next to me and watched as the mages faces lit with astonishment, relieving their attack, and lowering their arms. Extending my own arms to my sides, I cried out, “Why are you destroying this town?”

The tallest of the ten mages stepped forward and spoke. “These are they who despise the Great And Holy One, Herobrine! All those whom wilt not bow to his kind and fair wishes must be returned to the dust from whence He created them! Thou art one of them, are ye not?! Ye are one whom must be cast down to the,” he hollered, but I would not let him continue.

“Enough!” I uttered, and a powerful shockwave rolled out from where I stood. “Herobrine is not holy, he did not create any of us, he is not kind, nor fair, and though he may be great in power, my power is of equal magnificence! Em deeah, merahts dena neentheel!” I yelled at the top of my voice, reaching my hand to the sky.

Clouds gathered, and lightning flashed in the sky. Then rain came pouring down on us in heavy sheets, and a bolt of lightning swam down through the sky, and landed in the center of the group of mages. Electric dust sparkled everywhere as half of the mages were incinerated instantly, and three more sliced in half from the momentum of the bolt. The two remaining mages turned and ran, destroying what they could before they too were blown to smithereens by yet another bolt of lightning. Rain continued to pour down, and the fire soon went out, but it was too late. Not a single building had been left untouched by mages’ evil, and there were but a handful of people left.

I heard a clicking sound, and turned find Mr. Gold slowly walking across the burnt wooden floor. “I suppose it’s safe to tell you now.”

“Tell me what?” I mused, trying to figure out what he was talking about before he told me.

“Why I brought you here,” he said, looking down every time he stepped with his cane. The sound of the streaming rain filled the air as Mr. Gold stepped up to the edge of what had once been his shop. “Those magi made a deal with me. I was to bring you to them, and they would owe me a favor. Those magi were known for cutting short in deals, and so it seems their first deal with me will be their last deal with all.” He turned to face me, a pained look on his face. “In the past they have caused much chaos in this town, but never this much. Thanks to you the days of their vile deals are over, and their deal with me ended. I fulfilled my end of the deal, to bring you to them, and they fulfilled their end of the deal, to do me a favor.”

“How did they do you a favor?” I asked, confused as to why he was telling me this.

“By requesting you be brought here, and you’re ending of their lives, the favor is simple; I, nor anyone else, must deal with them any longer.

I wrinkled my nose, then sat down on the remains of Mr. Gold’s steps, and looked off at the ruined town in front of me. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I owe you my life,” he stated simply. “From this day forward, I will seek to always pay my debts, and I expect all who become indebted to me to pay their debt.”

“No one should owe me their life. How ‘bout we say instead of owing me your life, all you have to do is simply support The Guardians in the fight against Herobrine.”

“So you’re really asking me to join your side.”

“Correct.”

“Well,” Mr. Gold muttered, looking around. “I have never taken sides before, but I feel that in this situation it is safe for me to be particular.”

“So you will join us?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment where no one spoke, whether mourning for the dead, lost belongings, or simply watching in silence. “Mr. Gold,” I said, turning to face him and Tankinator. “You seem like you know a lot. Do you know of anything about the Enderdragons or The Three Dragons?”

“Ah yes, the dragons. Beautiful, frightful, and powerful creatures. The Enderdragons were a race of Red Dragon, most of which were killed by Herobrine long ago, though they all returned as spirits to help hold him back after he broke free from the Lower Nether Chains. As spirits, they had shed their mortal body, and grown in power. Such was also the state of the Enderdragons that had not been slaughtered. When there emerges a sorcerer with great enough power, the Enderdragons will return to the Overworld, freed from their burden. Freedom is, however, something that The Three Dragons will never again have a share in.

“The dragon trapped in The End, known as Aehon, has become mistakenly referred to as an Enderdragon. Due to the great length of time in which he has been trapped in that empty place, he has become an enemy to all, Endermen, Enderdragons, and his parents alike. His parents, whose names remain unknown to this day, have not been seen in even the Aether for hundreds of years. Some say they died of great age, others that Herobrine murdered them, but most believe that they too managed to shed their mortal frames, exalted to a higher plane of existence by Notch himself.”

I nodded, taking it all in. When he finished, I stood slowly, and said, “Now it makes sense why I could summon only weak Enderdragons. I am not ready to face Herobrine yet. Well, we had better get back to our base. Everyone will wonder where we went.”

Mr. Gold smiled, then his eyes started to glow, illuminating the area with the goldish color of his eyes. “Dra ons terug na die basis en die huis van die voogde,” he uttered, and everything around us blurred until I couldn’t hold my eyes open.

There was a sucking sound, and I felt my feet suddenly hit the ground, and I was flung downward, though I managed to keep my footing. I opened my eyes, and found that Tankinator, Mr. Gold, and I were standing right outside the entrance to our base. Nodding to Mr. Gold, I uncovered the entrance to the tunnel, and ushered Tankinator and Mr. Gold in, then followed, checking to make sure no one had seen us entering. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, I turned to Mr. Gold and said, “Let’s not make too much of a stir, so just act nonchalant. You know, pretend you know the place.”

“I can do that,” he said with a grin.

I opened the door and found Brailyn about to open the door herself. When I came in, she stood there, shocked for a moment, before she greeted me with a tight embrace. She released me after a moment, still holding my arms. “I’ve missed you so much!” she said, tears coming to her eyes.

“We’ve got some news for you,” Pluto said, standing up.

It had been a while since I’d seen Pluto. His green skin and four legs made him stand out from everyone else here, along with his ability to move things without touching them, and his tendency to explode. Half creeper half man, Pluto stood about two meters tall, the creeper side of him, the outside, showing fully, and the human side of him, the brain, revealing itself in time. E.J. stood next to him, his body built much like mine, but not nearly as tall, and his pure-white hair long and wavy. Steve remained seated. As an average man, it had generally been Steve’s job to play the decoy when we lived underground before, until we were separated.

Tankinator, Mr. Gold, and Aboba followed us into the dining room, and we all gathered around the table. No one asked about Mr. Gold, and Mr. Gold didn’t ask about anyone else. “Herobrine has created a new kind of creature,” Pluto began. “He calls it an immanis aranea. It’s a monstrous spider at least twenty meters tall, with sixteen legs, tipped with razor-sharp blades, and four fangs, each with a razor sharper than the ones on their legs.”

“That’s the bad news,” E.J. added.

“Then what’s the good news?” Mr. Gold questioned.

Everyone looked at him, and Steve spoke up. “Herobrine thinks Brailyn is dead. She tricked him with a little bit of magic, then escaped back here.”

“So,” I said. “Immanis araneas, huh. Monstrous spiders. Oh boy, I can’t wait to fight those things. Yup, I can’t wait.”

Story Overflow

Three days later, as I was sitting down for lunch, one of our spies stepped into the room in a frenzy. She entered as I was about to put the first forkful of mashed potatoes in my mouth, my mouth hanging open slightly. Her clothes were muddy and torn around the hems, her pack was ripped in multiple places, and her iron sword in disrepair. As soon as she saw me, she began to utter all sorts of things that made no sense, before her legs collapsed under her. “Reh huketak, reea!” I said in the matter of a second, and I saw the faintest outline of a person appear in the air, holding her up. Putting down my fork, I quickly sat her down in a chair at the table, and had Brailyn serve her a plate of food.

Her hair was a light blonde with a tint of blue, and her eyes a light, stormy gray. She looked strong, the muscles in her arms and legs bulging through the torn clothing, and her appetite rivaled that of my own. When she finished eating, I said, “Tell me what you saw.” She looked at me, then leaned back in the wooden chair, and closed her eyes. There was a long moment of silence where she tried to speak, but was unable to form a sentence.

In time, she managed to clear her thoughts enough to speak. “Mal Heim,” she said slowly. “Is covered in a forest of webs. It all started three weeks ago, when I first found a house there. A group of people, who I assumed to be a resistance, marched through the town, burning down all who didn’t oppose Herobrine. The next day when I awoke, there was a thin layer of webbing here and there, with some thicker webs in more hidden places. During the night, I heard screams, and went out to see buildings falling, and the resistance getting killed. As the days passed, holes appeared in secluded corners, out of sight at first glance, and the webs progressively got thicker.”

She went silent for a moment before continuing in a shuddering voice. “As I was leaving, I heard a sound behind me.” Again, silence. “I turned around, and saw,” but she was cut off as a spider bit her neck, ending her life instantly.

I jumped back, surprised, and reached out my hand to kill it, but I wasn’t quick enough. A sword protruded through its back, and Steve appeared out of seemingly nowhere. “It followed her here all the way from Mal Heim, killed the guards, and then her. There may be more going on there than we know.”

So much had happened in such a short time that it took me a few moments to process it. “Okay,” I said, looking away from the spy’s dead body. “Well, we may be able to recruit this group of rebels to join us, so everyone get ready to go. We’ll leave in three hours. Pluto, Steve, E.J., you’ll come with me. Brailyn, you take Aboba, Tankinator, and Mr. Gold. The rest of us can stay behind and take care of the base for now.”

After a moment, we realized that Tankinator was nowhere to be seen. I raised my eyebrow and looked around. “Hey, does anyone know where Tankinator went?” Brailyn asked.

For a moment, everyone was silent, but then Mr. Gold spoke up. “I saw him walking off into the forest the other day, and he hasn’t been around since.”

I nodded my head, and said, “Alright, we’d better pack up then. Everyone meet down here in about three hours, and we’ll get going. Brailyn,” I said, turning to her. “Take your group around back of Mal Heim, and make your way to the main entrance to the city. We’ll camp outside of the city for a week, and go deeper and deeper in every day, so you’ll have to make your search quick. If you get attacked, have Aboba launch a bolt of white lightning into the sky, then burn the webs in the immediate vicinity.” She nodded, and we quickly got to work preparing to go.

Less than three hours later, Pluto, Steve, E.J., and I were on our way to Mal Heim, and a storm was rolling in on the horizon. As we approached the river, the looming shape of The Gray City came into view, towering far over the trees of the forest. Even from this distance the webs that covered the city were apparent, and I had the fleeting feeling that something was not right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Later that day as we set up camp in the plains, I glanced up at the city and had the same feeling that I’d had before, but this time it lingered for a few minutes before it went away. As I laid down to goto sleep, I heard Pluto mutter something about spiders, but I blacked out from exhaustion before I could ask him what he said. That night I dreamt of a city. It was an expansive place, lit with glowstone down the streets, and towered over by a mansion set on a hill, far above the rest of the houses. At night, the glowstone gave off a bright yet pleasant glow, illuminating everything around it. During the day, the pleasant hum of the glowstone set a vibrant tone in the city, waking people early, and sending them to bed late.

Everyone in the city bustled with life, seemingly singing a song as the days passed by, and I watched on from afar. But the happiness and brilliance did not last; seemingly moments later, a swarm of spiders poured out of a cavern in the ground, consuming everything they could as they passed through the city, coating it with a layer of web and dust. The city was demolished, and brought to the ground right before my eyes, and replaced with a ghost-town, covered with dust and webs. As I watched, spider after spider came skittering out of their lair in panic, and darted off into the hills.

Ridiculous numbers of spiders, one after another, all leaving the safety of their home for no apparent reason. It seemed to have been a few months since the city had been destroyed, but I had no way of determining the time besides the rise and fall of the sun, which I had failed to keep track of. In a single day, every spider had left the confines of the stringy lair, searching out safety from some unseen terror to the sporadic landscape of the hills. Then, the webs seemed to bend in, as I saw one last spider exiting the lair. First one leg came into view, still inside the tunnel though it was, then another leg. As I watched, the legs extended far beyond the length of the normal spiders’ legs, and I knew I was dealing with something of colossal proportions.

There was something going on that I didn’t want to be a part of, so I slowly began to move backward away from the city as the spider’s body began to be revealed. It looked to be about twenty meters tall, with razor-sharp blades on the sixteen legs, and four even sharper looking pincers, designed to slice through even obsidian. The spider had been scrunched up when it was first in the tunnel, legs near the top of the tunnel, and body near the bottom, but as it exited, the full height and majesty was revealed. It saw me, and I smiled feebly, then turned and ran with all my might.

Humans can manage up to sixteen meters per second when running, but with my training and practice, I had managed to reach double that speed. Yet the spider gained on me. Fear jolted through my body when I glanced back and saw that the enormous spider had been joined by three more spiders. “No, not spiders, immanis aranea.” This realization hit me harder than anything ever before, and I stumbled over, plowing into the ground. Rolling over I looked up at the immanis aranea as they approached, then reached out my hand.

In a moment of panic, the first thing that came to my mind was to use earthen magic, and I couldn’t stop myself before I used it. “Nurevak ah etaerk!” I yelled, and the ground around me began to rumble. Looking down, I saw a gigantic cavern begin to open in the ground. The split began to run like tree roots, splitting every which way, creating chaos. “Puots!” I yelled when it began to get out of hand, and the rumbling stopped. The spiders had already fallen into the crevice, so I slowly stood up, shocked by what I had seen, and turned toward the plains, set on finding somewhere to go.

Suddenly I heard the sound of rocks falling a moment later, and turned around quickly. Nothing. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned back to the plains, and began to walk to wherever. Then the sound came again, and I turned around to find myself watching as the four immanis aranea crawled up out of the cavern, unharmed by the fall. Panicking yet again, I growled, “Noeet-ahnee-mobuh eset new-ord dena snee-ahlp et doolf!” Less than a second later, a giant wall of water came thundering up from the plains. Turning to the spiders, I grinned, then my grin faded when I saw them jabbing all sixteen of their legs into the ground, burying half of their twenty-meter long legs completely.

In less than a second, the flood reached us, and sent me sprawling, though I could still breathe. When I looked up at the spiders, they were still standing there, waiting. A long time passed by before the spiders began to move again, the water leaving them unharmed, and unaffected. I got up and began to run again, before yet another idea dawned on me. Turning around yet again, as the spiders swam through the water, diving down now and again to get closer to me, I yelled, “Neentheel!” The lightning burst from my hand, throwing the water aside, and hit the spiders. Then the water filled in the holes the lightning had created, and I saw the spiders still moving toward me.

Something was wrong here. These were no ordinary spiders, they had to be exactly what Pluto had said; Herobrine was done messing around, and had created the immanis aranea for the sole purpose of killing us, or more specifically, me. There was one kind of magic left that I hadn’t tried: summoning. “Sharks, come to my aid,” I thought. “Only an army will suffice.” As the immanis aranea approached, I could feel waves of water pulsating around my back, and I turned to see a fleet of sharks charging towards me at full speed.

As quickly as I could, I began to run through the flooded plains, breathing the water, and past under the sharks. I didn’t stop running until I could barely see what was going on behind me. Then I paused, and turned to watch the sharks’ teeth piercing the thick hide of the immanis aranea with ease. Not a minute later, all four of the spiders were dead, and the sharks had swam off. Flopping down on the ground beneath the layers of water, I realized that the dream was beginning to fade. Before the dream ended, something came to my mind. “Sharks can’t swim in air, but dragons can.”

For a moment after I woke up, I thought I was still dreaming, and it took me a second to realize that this was real. Something was incessantly tapping on my cloak, and when I sat up to find out what, I was greeted by hail. Giant, cold, hard little pelts of hail just over five centimeters thick thundered down from the sky with immense speed. The others were sound asleep, strange as it was, and the ground was slowly yet persistently getting covered with hail that crunched as I walked. I quickly woke the others, and we packed as fast as we could

It couldn’t have been hailing for long, otherwise we wouldn’t have survived that predicament, and for some reason it never hailed when the sun was down, so it had to be about six thirty in the morning. The four of us bolted for the nearest shelter we could find; Mal Heim itself. There was one house standing on the edge of the city, that didn’t have webs completely covering it. Steve lit a torch and went first, wielding an iron sword in his left hand, with E.J. following closely behind, carrying two slightly curved swords on his back, and holding two more, one in each hand. I entered after E.J., and Pluto took up the rear, less out-of-place in this spider’s den.

Luckily, there were no monsters in the house, so Steve quickly burned the few webs, and set up torches on the wall, one every meter. E.J. laid out our sleeping pads, and Pluto kicked the door closed behind him as he came over to talk to me. “Guardian,” he said contemplatively. “What if we don’t find the group of rebelsss? And what if we get attacked by the immaniss aranea before we can essscape? I can exssplode five timess before I get too dizzy, and if thesse thingssss are really twenty metersss tall, how isss an exssplossssion going to hurt them?”

Letting myself have a moment to think, I held up my finger, motioning for him to wait, and sat down on the cold stone ground. Trying to think left me feeling helpless, so after a moment of silence, I said, “I’m coming up blank. Right now I think we should go look for them, and worry about being caught later.” Standing up, I opened the door, then said, “Droce tenomaeed,” and a diamond sword appeared in my hand. The others stood, and I spoke to them. “Whatever happens out there, stick together. The worst thing that could happen to us would be to get separated. We have to stay close together. Close enough that we will, without a doubt, notice immediately if someone moves away.”

Everyone nodded, and I stepped out of the door, the other three following after me. I glanced around, looking for the nearest tunnel. There was a street about twelve meters wide, and sixty five meters long, with houses decorated in fine webs, and surrounded by broken walls and caved-in ceilings. I reached into my pack and withdrew a torch, then lit it with flint and steel to avoid attracting attention. Then I withdrew two more torches, lit them as well, and handed one to E.J., and the other to Steve. Turning back away from them, I began to burn the webs with my torch, clearing the street to show that we had already been there.

Right as E.J. was about to burn the webs to one of the two tunnels in the street, I stopped him and said, “Only burn the webs of areas we’ve explored. That way we know where we have and have not been. Right. This way,” I said, turning to the tunnel closest to our temporary camp, which was inside the city instead of outside like we had planned.

There was silence for a while, and we didn’t find any spiders as we ventured deeper and deeper into the maze of tunnels that branched in seemingly random directions. At one point the tunnels became so steep that even the spiders didn’t seem to be able to traverse it, seeing as there were many dead spiders strewn across the ground below us, though there were webs covering the walls. As I stepped to the edge of the sudden drop-off and peered over, I heard a tapping sound, as if a spider or two was coming. Looking around, I noticed a smaller tunnel above us.

Heavy breathing ensued behind me, and I turned around to see Steve shaking with fright; he had always been one to fear spiders, and had never managed to kill one before. As the sound got louder and louder, and the spiders closer, I realized that the sound was coming from the tunnel below us, not the one above. I quickly tossed my torch up, and the webs above us went up in flames, illuminating the tunnel below us for an instant.

I quickly climbed up the wall, and reached down to help Steve up, but he didn’t move. Confused, I noticed that he had gone pale, and was pointing up the tunnel. Assuming that it would just be a few spiders, I jumped down, brandishing my sword, and found myself face-to-face with an immanis aranea. My cloak morphed around my arm, and I ran my sword through the creature’s face, then pulled it out and stabbed again. Now certain that the spider was dead, I turned around and lifted Steve onto my shoulder, then climbed up the tunnel.

Steve seemed to calm down when the spider was out of site, and E.J. quickly followed behind me. We waited for Pluto for a moment before there was an explosion, and Pluto jumped up the tunnel, following after us. Dashing up the tunnel, we came to a point where it became impossible to walk. After a moment of silence, we again heard the tapping sound of the immanis aranea’s legs on the stone. This time Steve came up with an idea; he started climbing the webs. Sticky as they were, it was possible to, after a moment of prying, pull away from them, thus making it possible to climb.

It took Steve a few seconds to get accustomed to it, but he started to speed up, and E.J. joined the climb. Pluto, however, had to arms or hands, so he wouldn’t have as easy a time climbing. However, Pluto was a born acrobatic, so he managed. There was a hissing sound, and I turned to see the immanis aranea that I had stabbed through the face crawling up the tunnel toward me. “These creatures are so incessant!” I thought. “It’s time I practice my earth magic, guys!” I yelled up to them. “E.J., take care of them!”

Steve paused, looking back down at me, then looked at E.J. and Pluto in turn. “Guardian we’re staying with you!” he yelled, and let himself slide back down to my side, pointing his iron sword at the spider.

After a moment, E.J. slid back down, but Pluto stayed suspended from the webs, waiting. The spider lashed out at Steve and I with its four front legs, and E.J. jumped up, slashing off the end of two of its legs. Steve lunged forward with more courage than I had ever before seen, and cut off one of its legs, leaving himself vulnerable. Acting quickly, I swung my sword horizontally at the immanis aranea’s mouth, shearing off one of its four fangs. The gargantuan spider seemed shocked, and Steve drove his sword home, then sliced off its head, and the spider began to sputter and hiss.

Five seconds later, there was a puff of white smoke, and the immanis aranea was gone; Steve had defeated his first ever spider, and the first immanis aranea in one move. “Alright, enough gloating over your kill,” Pluto called out after a moment. “We’ve gotta get a move on or more of those things will catch us! Come on! Move!”

I grinned, and shook my head, then bounded up the nearly vertical tunnel. When we finally got out of the maze of tunnels, we had explored every possible route, and encountered no more spiders. As the days waned, we searched deeper and deeper into the web-covered city of Mal Heim, and found no sign of this rebel group, though we did encounter plenty of immanis aranea. Then one day, as we were leaving our little camp site, a bolt of white lightning leapt up into the sky, leaving its sparking trail behind. We packed up our belongings, and quickly made our way to where the lightning had come from.

Light continued to burn where the white lightning had flown, and we easily found our way to Mr. Gold, Brailyn, and Aboba. As I stepped up to the edge of yet another abandoned house, I heard clicking coming from seemingly all around us. Then I looked down, and saw our three friends in the middle of the town square, surrounded by at least twenty immanis aranea. From the middle of the square there emanated a deep humming sound, and I saw Mr. Gold waving his cane around, and moving his mouth, as if chanting, though I couldn’t hear a word he said.

Light jumped from a blue orb that surrounded the three of them, and slammed into one of the spiders. The immanis aranea recoiled, curling up into a ball, then got up again. One of the spiders was daring enough to touch the orb, and was launched back in a blinding beam of light that instantly incinerated it. Some of the spiders were blinded by the light, and didn’t see that the orb had disappeared. The rest of them, about fifteen or so spiders, advanced toward our friends, knowing there was no way for them to escape.

E.J. stepped up beside me, looked at me, nodded, then said, “It was an honor serving with you, Guardian V. May you fare well in your journey to eradicate Herobrine.” He saluted me, then, before I could respond, jumped down on top of one of the immanis aranea. E.J. had always been an amazing fighter, nearly as amazing as Tankinator, and this was no exception. Hundreds of razor-sharp legs thundered down toward him to end his life, but his swords continuously withstood their blows. Diving, weaving, and slashing, he whipped around and around at infuriating speeds, climbing up a spider now and again to stab it, then getting thrown off.

Right after he killed a third immanis aranea, Aboba charged forward, garbed in enchanted diamond armor, and wielding an enchanted diamond sword. One of the spiders lunged toward E.J. as he fell off of the dissipating body of the third immanis aranea, but Aboba stepped between them, taking the blow instead. Though it shouldn’t have surprised me, the spider’s leg rebounded off the armor, leaving Aboba completely unharmed. “E.J., save Mr. Gold and Brailyn, then get everyone out of here,” I heard Aboba say. E.J. nodded, and ran over to Mr. Gold and Brailyn.

Then the spiders converged on Aboba. After a moment of struggle, five more of the spiders stumbled backward, then disappeared in a puff of white smoke. Now there were but ten immanis aranea left, and Aboba’s armor was wearing thin. Taking my attention from the fight, I saw E.J. helping Mr. Gold and Brailyn escape, when I heard a horrible scream. Aboba was flung into the air, and one of the spiders crawled up on top of another. As Aboba fell back down, the upper spider extended one of its twenty meter long legs, and hit him again, tearing open his stomach in the process.

He seemed to hover in the air for a moment, and his entrails spewed out of his stomach. Then he began his final descent, and the spider reached out its leg yet again. This time, Aboba was too far away to get hit, so the spider began to retract its leg. However, Aboba’s entrails, now strung around his neck, got caught on the spiders leg. The jolt was too much for him, and Aboba died, hung on his own entrails.

I gagged, turning from the scene, and let Brailyn lead me away. The immanis aranea chased after us, and I looked back to see them advancing quickly. One of them, the one in the front, was wearing Aboba like a necklace; his entrails were held together here and there by webs, but besides that he was untouched. Fury leapt up inside me, despite the gruesome sight, and I moved to turn back toward the spiders to get Aboba’s body back, and saw a single wraithe fighting them. It took me a moment, but I realised that it was Aboba; Aboba had become a wraithe.

Shock hit me like a tsunami, and I let Brailyn lead me along, while the wraithe of Aboba warded off the remaining immanis aranea. We ran through the city as hundreds more immanis aranea swarmed out of their lair from deep within the earth, and quickly found ourselves surrounded. The spiders had yet to get within a kilometer or so of us, but we were surrounded. E.J. led us down one of the tunnels, and we soon found ourselves facing yet another immanis aranea in the tunnel. This time I collapsed the roof of the tunnel on it, and we retreated back into the open. With nothing left to do, and no way of escape, everyone began to slump down, giving in to imminent death.

In a moment of panic, as the huge spiders approached, images from my dream flooded my mind. Four immanis aranea falling down a cavern, then climbing back up, unharmed. The plains flooding, and the spiders swimming through the water, unaffected. A bolt of lightning slamming into one of them at thunderous speeds, and leaving it unfazed. Then a blade pierced the immanis aranea, and it collapsed dead on the ground. After a moment, I returned to reality, and found myself laying face-up on the ground.

Streaks of black now replaced the immanis aranea in my vision as I became less and less lucid. Then a roar jolted me from my stumbling trance, and I looked up to see a single dragon with diamond-clear scales and white hide standing on the highest tower of the city. A voice whispered in my head, “May the creator of the Diamond Dragons free the world from the oppression of Herobrine, and escape the clutches of the immanis aranea, banishing them to an eternal rest in the depths of the Nether.”

Another roar leapt through the air, and the goliath of a dragon took off into the sky, each flap of its wings sending blasts of wind that lasted for nearly a minute. Then the dragon was joined by two more dragons, which seemingly melted out of the blue sky, and dove down toward the immanis aranea. I watched in awe as the Diamond Dragons crushed the enormous spiders with a single slash of its tail, jab of its talons, or obliterating bite from its maw.

In little more than five minutes, all of the spiders had been either slashed to smithereens, or retreated to their lair and been crushed as the city was demolished, sending the spiders to the Nether, never to return. Then the three dragons gracefully landed in front of us, and bowed, furling their wings, pulling in their front left leg, and touching their snout to the ground. The first dragon I had seen, whose eyes were deep sapphire-blue, looked at me intently, and I had the impression that it was waiting for me to command it.

Letting my mind wander freely as to what I should do, I realized that the only thing I had ever wanted for dragons of any kind was for them to be free to do what they would. Even as I thought it, I heard three names in my mind, and saw three images corresponding with them. The first name; Gurrandiel Erevannel, and the image was one of the blue-eyed Diamond Dragon. The second name; Karaviiel Erevannel, and the image was one of the second dragon that had appeared, which had bright emerald-green eyes. The third name; Zartaniik Erevannel, and the image was one of the third dragon that had appeared, which had deep amethyst-purple eyes.

Less than a second later, the three Diamond Dragons flew took off into the air, each flap of their wings causing the ground to shudder. As the three dragons flew off, I could distinctly tell that they were discussing something among themselves. After a moment, the one with the purple eyes, Zartaniik Erevannel, turned around, and landed next to us. Then the dragon spoke, and its voice resounded through the now empty remains of the city Mal Heim. “Guardian V, friends of Guardian V, we have come to the conclusion to help you in your endeavors. As our creator, Guardian V, has power beyond reckoning, so have we power beyond reckoning, and grant unto two of you, the girl, and the other the average-looking boy, the power to transform into Diamond Dragons.” Its voice was obviously female, deep, yet soft, and soothing.

Everyone turned to Brailyn and Steve as the dragon took off into the air. There was a rush of color, and Brailyn and Steve simultaneously transformed into dragons; Brailyn’s eyes were bright yellow, and Steve’s were pure black. They were, however, nowhere nearly as big as the Diamond Dragons. Reaching to nearly the top of the Diamond Dragons’ legs, Brailyn and Steve had white scales, instead of clear. The two of them seemed amazed by their new forms, and stood their, marveling at their own majesty for a moment. Then Brailyn took off into the air, faltering for a moment because she wasn’t used to the feeling of flying.

Rays of sunlight shone down on us as Brailyn and Steve lifted the others up, and another roar thundered through the plains. I glanced around, and saw yet another dragon. This one had silvery scales that shifted in the sunlight, and bright blue eyes the color of the sky on a clear day. Then a name came to my mind; Fuurtien Erevannel. The silver-scaled dragon landed next to me, inviting me to climb on. Grinning, I obliged, and quickly found myself soaring through the sky on my very own dragon.

When we landed outside of the base, Fuurtien Erevannel, the silver-scaled dragon, spoke. His voice was light, gliding, yet deep and full of power. “Guardian, I am forever in your debt for freeing me from the bonds of the immanis aranea. When called upon, I will come to your aid to serve you.” Then he stepped back, and leapt into the air, each feather-light beat of his wings barely disturbing the dust on the ground.

As the others approached, I had the intense feeling that things were coming to an end; a final battle was soon to ensue, and in thus, many things that we held dear would be lost. Brailyn walked up to me and patted me on the back. “Minxed, your power is amazing. You’re probably already more powerful than Herobrine himself. However, such power can,” she started, then paused when she saw the pained look on my face.

“Brailyn, I have no intention of keeping this power. This power is magnificent, yes, but it is only necessary for a time. Once Herobrine is gone, I intend to free myself of this power. I’ll be handing over to someone more worthy of it; someone who, though I’ve only known for a short time, I know to be much more capable of handling this power,” I said, looking her in the eyes.

The weight of having such power was starting to get to me, and I was beginning to feel weak from it. Brailyn smiled, nodded, and looked up at my dragon. “What’s his name?” she asked after a moment.

“Fuurtien Erevannel. The silver-scaled Diamond Dragon.” I smiled as I spoke, looking up at the magnificent dragon.

The two of us sat outside the base for the rest of the day, talking. As the sun began to set, and I realized I was hungry, Mr. Gold stepped out of the secret tunnel, and said, “Guardian V, Brailyn, dinner is ready.”

I thanked him and turned to Brailyn. “Come on, let’s go get some dinner,” I said as I reached out to her hand. She grinned, and took my hand, then let me lead her down to where dinner awaited us in the dining room.

The next morning Brailyn woke me up. “Minxed, wake up!” she said softly. I groaned and rolled over in bed. “Come, on!” she said, shaking the bed. When I didn’t respond, she jumped up and landed on me, startling me.

“I’m awake!” I said loudly, sitting up suddenly.

She laughed and got off the bed, then sat down while I dressed. When I was dressed, she followed me into the living room, where I found E.J., Pluto, Steve, and Aboba discussing the immanis aranea. When I entered, they all looked at me, and Pluto turned toward me. “Guardian V, Herobrine has sent a challenge.” Steve said, standing up. “Herobrine himself is waiting for you in some valley in the mountains. He said that if you can beat all of his forces, and stand up to him, he will leave this world.”

I nodded and said, “Challenge accepted. We’ll go after breakfast.”

“Wait!” Mr. Gold said, coming into view.

“No. We go after breakfast.” I stared him down, and he quickly gave in.

When we finished breakfast, which Aboba had made with Steve’s help, I went down into the lower dining room and greeted everyone. “Today we will be going up to the mountains. Thirty minutes and we leave!” I said loudly so everyone could hear.

When we finally departed, Tankinator was still nowhere to be found, so we gave up searching and headed for the mountains. As we approached the valley that Steve had seen him in, I saw Herobrine standing in the middle of the huge valley, alone. Grinning, I proceeded downward, the others following close behind. Approaching closer to Herobrine, and the end of the war, we passed by an area where the valley got thinner, then opened back up to form a circle.

As we passed between the neck of the valley, Herobrine held up his hand, and thousands of immanis aranea appeared from thin air. Most of our group fled, running back up the valley as soon as they laid eyes on the beasts, but some remained. I summoned a diamond sword, and readied myself for battle. However, this fight would be different than when we had fought the immanis aranea before; now we were going to have to cut them down to our height, whereas before they were already at our height. As this thought came to me, it seemed to come to everyone else, so I quickly summoned another diamond sword, and my cloak transformed into the blue armor, letting mist glide out calmly.

“We should’ve told the dragons to come with us. I should have known this would be a trick, it is Herobrine after all; but there’s no turning back now,” I thought as we began to charge, the sound of people yelling and the ground shaking from the sheer number of spiders becoming distant. “This is a fight to the death. With the last of us few remaining in The Guardians, there can be only one outcome in this battle.” Then there was a yell, and a group of people appeared from seemingly nowhere, and charged past us into battle; apparently we had managed to get the resistance from Mal Heim after all, even though I didn’t know about it.

“I guess I don’t have to learn about everything,” I thought as I dodged a spider’s leg, then slashed off the sharp tip of it. Then a voice bellowed through the air, saying, “The doom of all Minecraftians is at hand! The power of the great Guardian Watcher has diminished, and Herobrine has risen to power once more! Bow to Lord Herobrine and be spared, or resist, and meet your doom, cast down to the Nether like Herobrine before!” The voice was smooth, and accentless, so it couldn’t have been Herobrine speaking.

I looked around, wondering who it was that had spoken, when I saw something large moving down the canyon toward the battlefield. Having left myself vulnerable for long enough, I returned to the battle, when I heard a very loud bang, and saw an explosion in the middle of the swarm of immanis aranea. Looking back, I realized that the large thing was Tankinator’s tank. Another shot rang through the canyon, giving us a chance to retreat, and regroup. After four more shots fired from the tank, we charged forward again, and re-engaged the enormous spiders.

We were again forced to retreat, but this time we retreated past the tank, and turned around to see it getting swarmed by immanis aranea. Hundreds of them clustered around it, penetrating the thick ironhide of the tank. After a moment, the tank exploded in a fiery ball, sending what few immanis aranea that survived the blast skittering away into the hills, only to be burnt to death. Tankinator was dead. Knowing that there was no way we could survive another engagement, and still having hope of life, we began to retreat back up the canyon entrance.

The immanis aranea were much too fast, however; the beasts charged up after us, gaining ground that it took us minutes to traverse in mere seconds. As we turned to embrace our doom, we felt a notable difference in the quaking of the ground; something heavy was coming, and it was coming very, very fast. One of the immanis aranea got within arms reach of me, when a giant, human-shaped iron-giant jumped down off the cliff, and landed directly on top of the spider, crushing it to death.

The giant of a robot was about twenty five meters tall, with what looked like giant armaments for fingers, and glowing green eyes. After a moment, we heard Tankinator’s voice, amplified by some sort of mechanism. “Go! While you still have the chance! Run!” Tankinator had returned. Again.

An immanis aranea tried to get by, but Tankinator’s mammoth of a robot turned, grabbed it by the pincers, and swung it around, using it like a club. Immediately, those of us who remained turned and bolted up the valley side. When we were nearly at the top, I turned back and saw that some of the spiders were getting by. As I watched, there came a whirring sound from the robot, and it sped up substantially. The immanis aranea that had gotten by were quickly caught and crushed. Then, as Tankinator’s robot turned back to punch yet another of the spiders, it stopped dead in its tracks, out of power.

Simply out of instinct, I dropped my swords, and reached my arms up to the sky. “Neentheel!” I bellowed. Six bolts of lightning jumped down from the sky, three hitting each of my hands. After a moment, I began to feel energy running through my body, and I cupped my hands together, forming the lightning into one place. Then I opened my cupped hands, and released the lightning. However, instead of hitting the immanis aranea, I hit Tankinator’s robot, and the thing began to move again; without even a clue of what I was doing, I had fixed the robot, and possibly saved the day.

Tankinator’s voice drifted up from the robot. “Overdrive in three...” The immanis aranea swarmed up past the robot. “...two...” Ground closed rapidly between us and them as they charged forward to end us. “...one...” They clambered over each other in an attempt to be the first to get to us. “...overdrive.” Suddenly the robot charged up the valley, tossing immanis aranea out of the way like they were nothing.

This colossal monstrosity of a contraption that Tankinator had created was fulfilling its purpose: to destroy all who opposed The Guardians. Now the immanis aranea were trying a different approach; running up around back of us to get us from behind, leaving a way open in front of us. I had the choice of watching Tankinator fight the immanis aranea, or fighting Herobrine in his most powerful, yet most vulnerable form. In the end, I chose to fight Herobrine. When we finally reached the bottom of the valley, we looked back up to see the last hundred or so of the immanis aranea swarming Tankinator in his robot.

After a moment, we heard a loud, monotone voice say, “Self-destruct activated. Self-destruct in two... one...” A tremendous blast shook the land like nothing I had ever experience before; the sound deafened me, and light half-blinded me. The blast of red and orange flame leapt up into the air and consumed everything within a hundred meters of it. I couldn’t watch, so I turned to Herobrine just in time to be run through.

Herobrine’s pitch-black sword tore right through my armor, and punched out the back, leaving a gaping hole in my chest. Pain seared through my body and my mind screamed as my blood began to drip onto the clean, green grass beneath me, staining it red. The triumphant cackle that I knew all too well from my dreams flowed through the air, leaving me paralyzed from pain, fear, and shock. As I drew my final breath, I looked up at Herobrine.

“Herobrine,” I said, spitting blood, my voice cracking horribly. “You have not won. I will do everything in my power to stop you and return peace to this world. For that is all I seek, and all I have ever truly sought in this world.”

He smiled evilly, and said, “Oh, well I apologize that you’ll never be able to do that, because now, you’re dead.” Then he slashed his sword through my neck, and my head rolled to his feet. Never before had I experienced the excruciating pain that seared through me then. Yet I was not finished; for as I had sworn an oath to stop him in my dream and returned as a wraithe, so had I sworn to stop him now.

Rising up from my body, I felt what it was like to be a wraithe. I was free, and I felt it. Herobrine stopped as he turned away from me, and looked back. Smiling, I summoned a diamond sword for the last time, and funneled all my power into it. Energy hummed through the air as I drove my sword home, and Herobrine’s screams racked the air. As Herobrine’s life faded into nothingness, so did my consciousness. When I fell to the ground, and before I blacked out, I had the faint feeling that something had returned to normal, though I wasn’t sure what.

Epilogue

I found Aboba in there.

All my kewl factors.
Anyways, your story has been deemed acceptable by Farteh16. I'm just glad it's unique. Welcome to MInefic and PLEASE copy-paste the "This story supports Minefic..." etc. etc. churva eklabuch from the thread. If you would, Rainbow Monkeys and Rainbow Dash and Rainbows farted from Poptart Cats sing catchy pop tunes will rain down on you!

Quote from Farteh16

I found Aboba in there.

All my kewl factors.
Anyways, your story has been deemed acceptable by Farteh16. I'm just glad it's unique. Welcome to MInefic and PLEASE copy-paste the "This story supports Minefic..." etc. etc. churva eklabuch from the thread. If you would, Rainbow Monkeys and Rainbow Dash and Rainbows farted from Poptart Cats sing catchy pop tunes will rain down on you!

Thank you. I hope it's not too 'unique', or that 'unique' is a good thing. And, yup, Aboba.


Updated to Chapter IX. Read through it, vote on the poll, and please comment.

This is a good story! It was really fun to read. I really like the action scenes, like when Minxed fights the zombies. Keep writing!

Quote from Xyr

This is a good story! It was really fun to read. I really like the action scenes, like when Minxed fights the zombies. Keep writing!

Thanks! I plan on adding more action scenes in chapter 10, so that should be a good thing!

I like the story a lot. I just hope that my character becomes more useful than he is currently. and possible a little more like me, and you know how that is Minxed so I shouldn't have to tell you.

Quote from Tankinator

I like the story a lot. I just hope that my character becomes more useful than he is currently. and possible a little more like me, and you know how that is Minxed so I shouldn't have to tell you.

Thanks, and I'll try to make him more like you, if I can. But don't worry, he becomes more useful in chapters after just chapter 1. read more?

I read the entire thing

• Added chapter X
• Chapter I: Added a couple of words and rephrased a few sentences.
• Chapter II: Added a couple of words and rephrased a few sentences.
• Chapter III: Removed unnecessary bits of information, added in some more interesting scenes, rephrased most of the paragraphs.
• Chapter IV: Rewrote almost all of the chapter.
• Chapter V: Rewrote half of the chapter and rephrased the rest.

Please comment, rate, review chapters I-V, and a little +1 down in the bottom right hand corner of each post would be nice too.

This is truly awesome! You are very talented at writing! Oh and not bad at fighting haha! Looking forward to more chapters!!!

Quote from Immortus

Awesome. Best chapter so far.

Really interesting magic. I love it. Now I just have to wait till the 28th...

Thank you very much. I actually might post it on the 21st, but don't count on it. I'm thinking of re-doing the language that they have to speak in to use the magic(Well, certain types anyway), but I need people's input before I do.

So now I'm asking the question. Please comment. I will proceed with trying to figure out a way to change it until I get at least eleven people to answer the question (Hmm, maybe eleven is a few too many?):
Should I change the language that needs to be spoken to use magic?

I liked the parts when Tankinator fought the bad guys

Quote from Tankinator

I liked the parts when Tankinator fought the bad guys

Then you'll thuroughly enjoy the part I have planned for chapter XIV. At least, it'll be somwhere from chapter XIV to XVIII. Something like that.