Herobrine's Message (14 page)

Cassandrix looked puzzled for a moment, and then turned to look at Kat again.

“Of course not, darling,” Cassandrix replied, as if it should be obvious. “The Commander and I were pulling Charlie onto the boat, and there was nobody else on the beach. Why? Did you see somebody?”

Kat thought back to that moment, less than an hour ago. The explosion had gone off right in front of her. She was being struck by waves of force, light, and sound, and in the center, she clearly remembered a figure silhouetted in the smoke, wearing a black cloak, with a sword held in a block . . . as if the player was defending her . . .

“No,” Kat replied, shaking her head and glancing down at her reflection in the water. “I'm sure it was nothing. . . .”

I
gotta admit,” Jayden mumbled to G as they filed along with the rest of their class of recruits into the rec area, “I'm a bit surprised that I didn't hate that lesson more than I did.”

“Agreed,” replied G, pulling the door closed behind them. “I mean . . . I know that the stuff they're showing us is being used against Elementia troops,” he murmured under his breath, “but still, I think those interrogation techniques might actually turn out to be pretty useful.”

Jayden nodded, and he sat down on a wood block on the floor and watched the other players in their group having fun around the rec room. Truth be told, G was finding it difficult to look around the room without squinting, since everything was almost entirely white.

On the most recent update to Minecraft, quartz had been added in veins throughout the cave of the Nether. In order to flaunt their dominance over the dimension, the Noctem Alliance had apparently taken it upon themselves to mine as much quartz as possible and incorporate it into their buildings. In fact, G had heard Tess saying that their group of recruits would be going into the Nether before long to mine quartz. As of now, there was only one small part of the rec room
that was still made out of chiseled stone blocks, not having been remodeled yet.

G ignored that, though, determined not to let the white quartz distract him from the game of Spleef being played in the rec room's miniature arena between several of the recruits. After all, Spleef was enjoyable to watch no matter who was playing, and G felt that he and Jayden deserved some downtime after all their hard work.

In just the last few days, they had managed to learn crucial information about the Capitol Building, and where the hostages may be. They had narrowed it down to three hallways in the building, and all they needed now was some way to check them. How they would do that, they had yet to figure out. Still, they were doing good work, and G was looking forward to an afternoon of relaxation.

As the Spleef match was coming to a close, the wooden door of the rec room swung open. Through the doorway walked General Tess, still dressed in full uniform, her pink face as unreadable as ever.

“Good evening, recruits,” Tess said, in a voice that wasn't particularly loud, but nonetheless caught the attention of every single player in the rec room. In an instant, every player dropped what they were doing and stood up, including the two remaining Spleef players. They turned to face Tess, and stood at full attention.

“Good evening, General Tess,” all the recruits replied in unison.

“At ease, soldiers,” Tess said, still not cracking a smile, or showing any emotion for that matter. “I've only come for one of you. MasterBronze, would you come with me, please?”

G's heart skipped a beat.
Me? She wants me? What does she want with me? Does she suspect me?
Despite his racing thoughts, he tried to keep a determinedly calm and respectful demeanor as he marched over to join the general. He shared one last baffled expression with Jayden before the door closed behind him, and he found himself standing alone in the hallway with Tess.

“What may I do for you, ma'am?” G asked, standing at full attention.

“Did you not hear me before, soldier? I said, at ease,” Tess repeated, and she watched as Jayden let his hands hang loose by his side. There was a moment of awkward silence before Tess spoke again.

“What level are you, soldier?”

“Um . . . I'm sorry?” G stammered.
She must suspect me . . .

“I asked you what your level is.”

“I'm level sixty-four,” G answered, not sure what it had to do with anything. “I would be higher, but these are tough times, and you of all people must know how necessary it is
to have enchanted weapons on hand.”

“As I suspected,” Tess replied and, to G's amazement, she actually smiled. “A master Minecrafter like you? It doesn't shock me at all that you've got a good number of levels under your belt, even for someone in this Alliance.”

“I'm sorry?” G replied, not following.

“Soldier . . . actually, let's drop the formalities for now . . . can I call you MasterBronze?”

“I, uh . . . suppose so . . . ,” G answered clumsily.

“Soldier, even at ease, I'm still your commanding officer,” Tess said, her voice suddenly stern again. “When I ask you a question, you will respond with ‘yes, ma'am,' or ‘no, ma'am.'”

“My apologies,” G said, taking a deep breath to overcome his discomfort. “Yes, ma'am, you may call me that.”

“Good,” Tess replied, smiling once again. “MasterBronze, ever since you won that Aptitude Tournament a few days back, I've been keeping my eye on you, and I must say, as a soldier I see some real potential in you.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, ma'am.”

“Besides already being well versed in fighting, I see that you have a drive to you. In every training exercise that we've done so far, you in particular have given all your energy to it. You do this in every area, from your fighting to your skills training.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“And because of that, MasterBronze, I would like to personally appoint you as my apprentice.”

“I'm . . . I'm sorry?” replied G, taken aback. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Well, to be honest, it's a bit unorthodox,” Tess replied. “No general in the Noctem Alliance has ever handpicked a student to personally train before. However, I've never seen any recruit come through this program with more potential than you, MasterBronze. Therefore, after initial training sessions are completed each day, I would like to train you myself in various high-level tasks.

“None of the other students will have the opportunity to do this, and it is more than likely that you will advance much faster through the ranks of the Noctem Freedom Fighters than any of your fellow recruits. What do you say, MasterBronze? Does that sound like something that you'd be interested in?”

“Of course, ma'am,” G replied enthusiastically, a huge smile breaking across his face.
This is fantastic,
he thought to himself.
The faster I can get access to high-level Noctem information, the better!

Tess smiled even wider. “Excellent. We will begin tomorrow. For now, you may return to the rec room.”

And with that, General Tess turned on her heel and
walked back down the hallway. G pumped his fist in ecstasy, and strutted proudly back toward the rec room. He couldn't wait to tell Jayden the great news that he was one step closer to uncovering the Noctem Alliance's deepest, darkest secrets.

“Okay, noob,” Sally said, flying high in the sky. “Let's do one more drill, and then we can take a break. All right?”

“Sounds good to me!” Stan shouted from the ground about a hundred blocks away.

“Here's how this goes,” said Sally. “I'm going to try to catch up to you. I won't go at full speed, but I won't go slow, either. Your job is to try to keep away from me for as long as possible. You can use anything that you've learned so far to slow me down. For now, I'll come directly at you, which means I won't, like, loop around anything you put up, I'll go through it instead.”

“All right!” Stan shouted back.

“Are you ready?” asked Sally, a devious glint in her eye.

“Just a sec,” replied Stan. He took a deep breath, focused as hard as he could on feeling weightless, and, with all his might, he launched himself into the air. Stan flew upward until he was at the same eye level as Sally, and then just floated there, looking back at her.

“Okay,” he shouted back to her, a diamond axe popping
into his right hand as a manic grin crossed his face. “Come at me.”

Sally flew directly toward Stan, a diamond sword appearing in her own hand. Stan stretched out his hand and, through the power of his mind, he summoned a giant wall of bedrock directly in front of Sally. While she was punching through, Stan focused harder, and a flow of lava appeared at the top of the wall. When Sally burst out through the wall of lava, she gave a short scream of pain as she caught on fire.

“Nice one, noob,” she chuckled after the shock wore off, and she swigged down Potions of Fire Resistance and Regeneration. “I've gotta admit, I didn't see that coming.”

Stan smirked, and he swept his hand through the air, causing a cascade of gravel blocks to appear above Sally and immediately fall back down onto her. Without flinching, Sally dived to the ground but wasn't expecting to see the grid of sand and cacti that Stan had summoned directly beneath her. Sally did a U-turn in midair and barreled back up through the falling gravel, squinting her eyes as she did so, only to get caught headfirst in the mess of gooey cobweb blocks that Stan had summoned directly above her.

“Well, I give you points for resourcefulness, noob,” remarked Sally in a muffled voice as she hacked through the mess of cobwebs with her sword.

“I'm not done yet.” Stan laughed as he focused all his
energy on a spot right next to Sally. A moment later, with a pop, a Blaze appeared out of nowhere. The spinning inferno of a mob fired off three tiny fireballs, which hit the cobwebs and engulfed Sally in flames.

There was a teleporting sound as Sally warped out of the disordered cobwebs, floating above them instead. She squinted her eyes, clearly focusing hard, and all of a sudden, there was a crash of thunder as the sky turned gray, and heavy rains started to fall from the clouds in waves. The fire of the Blaze was instantly extinguished, and a moment later the mob itself fell dead from the sky, leaving only a single blaze rod to fall to the ground.

As he watched it fall, Stan felt himself clutched in the grasp of an invisible power as Sally stretched out her hand toward him, followed by a mischievous leer. Try as he might, Stan couldn't break free of her hold, and she levitated him toward her until finally they were close enough for her to poke him in the forehead.

“I win,” she replied cheekily. With a pointed blink from Sally, the weather instantly turned back into sunshine again. She released Stan from her telekinetic grip, and, totally unprepared, he plummeted toward the ground, flailing for a good few moments before he caught himself in midair.

“Hey, no fair,” Stan laughed. “You weren't supposed to use powers I haven't learned yet.”

“Noob, if life were fair,” replied Sally coolly as the two of them levitated back to the ground, “then my personal online business that sells pants with built-in life preservers would have taken off by now, and I'd be a multibillion-dollar entrepreneur rather than some chick who stays home all day hacking Minecraft servers.”

Sally focused on her hand, and instantly two pumpkin pies appeared.

“Eat up, noob,” Sally said with a smile, tossing Stan one of the pies, which he caught in his outstretched hand. “You've earned it.”

And with that, the two players both conjured up blocks for themselves to sit on—Stan's block being a block of iron, and Sally's being a block of obsidian—as they began to eat. There was a long stretch of silence as the two players stuffed their faces with food, tuckered out by the long work session. After a while, Sally finally spoke.

“So, how're you doing back in Elementia, noob? Has the Alliance been giving you too much trouble?”

“Actually, no,” Stan said, his pleasant surprise at this truth reflected in his voice. “I mean, I had a run-in with Leonidas a few days ago, and I thought I was a goner then . . . but I guess I must have hurt him more than I thought I did, because I haven't seen him or any other Noctem troops since then.”

“Well that's good,” Sally replied. “You managed to make it back to the mainland yet?”

Stan forced the final bite of his pie down in a giant gulp before responding. “No, not yet, although I am making good progress. I found an island with some trees on it yesterday, so I was able to make a boat for myself and that's really sped the travel up. I also killed some monsters, and got some supplies from them. I'm actually camping in the Taiga Archipelago right now, which means I'm getting pretty close to Diamond Bay. Unfortunately, if my hunch is correct, then it won't be safe to go back to the city through there.”

“And what is this brilliant hunch of yours, exactly?”

“Well, I've been out of contact with everybody in Elementia for a while now, so I have no way of knowing anything for sure. But one thing I did find out before leaving the Mushroom Islands was that Blackraven was leaking our plans to the Noctem Alliance, so our attacks almost certainly failed. Element City was probably hurt pretty badly in the attack, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Noctems managed to take Diamond Bay.”

Sally nodded gravely. “Makes enough sense, I suppose. Well, I'd definitely head for the swampland peninsula, if I were you. Better safe than sorry, you know.”

“Yeah, that's what I was planning on doing. I mean, I don't know the swamp well or anything, but I figure it's
probably better to go somewhere it's easier to hide than to be a sitting duck out in the ocean.”

Sally nodded, and spawned a steak from her inventory. Stan was still hungry, but not
that
much, and so he opted to summon an apple for himself. As he bit into the red fruit, an old thought started to float to the front of his mind.

There was a question that had been eating away at Stan for months now, from even before he had defeated King Kev. Since he had become president, he had found that he had become far too busy to give it any thought. However, having been alone for so long over the past few weeks, Stan had finally had the time to think about it, and it occurred to him now that, just maybe, Sally could help him find the answers he was looking for.

“Hey, Sal?”

“Waddup, noob?” Sally managed to get out as she scarfed down the last bits of her steak.

“I've been thinking . . . about some stuff . . .”