Herobrine's Message (34 page)

Suddenly, Stan heard a commotion in the crowd. G stepped forward from amid the throng of people and stood opposite Creeper Khan. He had a determined look on his face, and a tear running down his cheek.

“G!” a cry erupted from the mass of stupefied Elementia soldiers, as Jayden burst into the clearing, Kat right behind him. “What're you doing?”

G closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again, before saying, “I'm doing what has to be done.”

He turned around to face his fellow councilmen, a sad smile on his face opposite the stunned confusion on theirs.

“Jayden,” he said, turning to face his best friend, “thank you. For everything.”

He turned his head slightly to the left, and his eyes met Kat's. There was a moment of silence, broken only by Creeper Khan's ongoing laughter and the sounds of battle from below them, as the two players held each other's gaze.

“Kat . . . I'm sorry. I hope that you can forgive me for everything I've done.”

And then, without waiting for a response, before either Jayden or Kat could ask what G meant, G turned around and drew out his diamond pickaxe. With no hesitation, he took off, sprinting at top speed toward Creeper Khan, who was still laughing like a lunatic. By the time he realized what was about to hit him, it was too late.

G slammed into the mobhunter like a truck, his pickaxe sinking deep into Creeper Khan's chest. The two players tumbled backward, across the roof. G was holding Creeper Khan in a bear hug to prevent his escape, and he made no attempt to stop as the pair of players plunged off the roof and over the waterfall of lava.

“Nooooooo!”
Jayden cried, finally freed from his trance as
he rushed over the edge of the bridge as quickly as he could, horror etched into every square inch of his face. He reached the edge just in time to see his best friend vanish into the moat of lava below, still clutching Creeper Khan as if his life depended on it.

Jayden found himself staring without comprehension into the lava pit for a few seconds before the explosion went off. Stan managed to grab Jayden by the back of the neck and pull him away from the edge just before he would have been burned to a crisp by the massive spray of lava that rose up out of the moat.

The noise was deafening, and all the players on the roof found themselves knocked to the ground by the massive magnitude of Creeper Khan's suicide attack. The ground below them shook like an earthquake, and the sounds of screaming could be heard as the supernova explosion rocked the Adorian Village to its core.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, the tumult stopped. Stan was lying on the ground, terrified to move, and only aware of one sound—the sound of sobbing beside him. Stan dared to move his head, only to see Jayden, sprawled out on the ground, crying his eyes out. Slowly, Stan pulled himself to his knees, and then to his feet. He felt shaky, and had to work to keep his balance, but it seemed like there had been no permanent damage to him from the blast.

Stan looked around, still feeling slightly dazed from the explosion and saw, to his amazement, other players getting up around him. Miraculously, it seemed that Creeper Khan's final attack hadn't killed a single player on the rooftop. Stan made his way to the edge of the roof and looked over the side. It wasn't what he saw that made Stan question what appeared before his eyes—it was what he didn't see.

The explosion, which, based on the shockwaves that it had sent through the ground, was the biggest explosion that Stan had ever witnessed in Minecraft, had hardly done any damage at all. The moat of lava was still intact, as was the flow of lava cascading down the side of the Town Hall. The only indication of the blast that he could see were a few dislodged dirt blocks next to the lava moat, into which the lava moat was now spilling over. Slowly but surely, Stan realized that the lava must have cushioned the explosion, and by sending Creeper Khan into the moat, G had just saved all of their lives.

As this thought crossed Stan's mind, it suddenly dawned on him what had happened to G. G was dead.

Stan suddenly felt like a fist of ice was clenching his heart. He hadn't seen G in so long . . . not since he had left for Nocturia all those weeks ago. And now, in a blink of an eye, before Stan had even had a chance to ask him how he'd been . . . G was gone, banished from Elementia. As this fact
washed over Stan, it dawned on him that of all the players who had taught him the ins and outs of Minecraft, right here in this village back when his level was in the single digits, Jayden was the only one remaining.

Stan looked over at Jayden. He was still on the ground, beside himself with grief. Stan's heart swelled with sympathy—this player had lost his three closest friends in Minecraft, and was now all alone in the world. Stan couldn't imagine how he felt. It would be like if he lost Kat, or Charlie.

As much as he longed to go over to Jayden and comfort him, he hardened his heart as he realized what had to be done. They were still in the midst of a battle. They had a job to finish. And so, Stan commanded his troops to follow him back down the stairway and into the Town Hall.

Jayden didn't even notice that they were gone. He didn't notice the smoke from the explosion dying down and blowing away. He didn't hear the gasps of disbelief from below him as Stan's troops found that most of the Noctems had been taken out by the explosion. He didn't acknowledge the hoots and cheers going on below them, in celebration of the fact that the Adorian Village now belonged to Stan and the Elementia soldiers. And he didn't notice as Kat climbed back up the staircase and joined him on the roof.

Rex immediately turned his focus to Jayden, offering himself to be pet. Kat didn't comfort Jayden, though; there
would be time for that later. Instead, she made her way over to the edge of the Town Hall. For the first time, she looked down at the moat, the damage on the gravel shoreline, and the lava waterfall that she knew was hiding massive internal damage to the Town Hall.

She had come within an inch of death today. They all had. Creeper Khan might have destroyed the entire Adorian Village in the blink of an eye if it weren't for the player who had gone down with him.

As G had turned to Kat, and spoken the last words that he would ever say on the Minecraft server Elementia, she had recognized something in his voice. It was something that she hadn't been ready for, something unexpected, and something amazing. What she had heard was sincerity.

G was sorry for what he had done to her. She had heard it in his voice, had seen it in his eyes. And he had sacrificed himself for the sake of all of them. Kat looked into the settling cloud of smoke that still hung in the air, and a single tear rolled down her cheek, falling from her face and landing silently in the lava moat far below her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

And with that, Kat turned around, took a deep breath, and walked over to Jayden, prepared to comfort him.

I
t was an hour before the Adorian Village was under the full control of the citizens of Elementia. The wall around the village perimeter was occupied by Stan's troops, and the few Noctem soldiers that hadn't been killed in the battle were now imprisoned under strict supervision in the hotel. The lava flowing off the Town Hall had been removed, revealing the war-torn skeleton of a brick-block building beneath. Stan didn't really care about the Town Hall, though; he was much more interested in the storehouses.

Since he had last been to the Adorian Village ages ago, several storehouses had been constructed of brick blocks. They stretched across one side of the Adorian Village, stuffed to the brim with food, materials, medicine, weaponry, and everything in between. Materials had been distributed to all the republic fighters within a day of breaking into these warehouses. The soldiers graciously healed their battle wounds with Potions of Healing, and got their first square meal in ages, before passing the food on to the citizens. These starving victims, who had stayed in the mine and were too sickly to fight, were elated to finally eat real food and have real medicine. With the essentials distributed, the warriors finally started to loot the warehouses for high-grade weaponry.

“Sweet!” exclaimed Stan, as he reached into a chest and pulled out a diamond axe, glimmering with the luster of enchantment. Suddenly, he did a double take, not sure that he had recognized the enchantment correctly.

“Sharpness?” he asked in awe. He turned around to face Sirus, who was brandishing a new diamond pickaxe. “How did they make this?” he asked. “Only swords are supposed to have offensive enchantments on them. Did they use hacks?”

“Oh man, you're so behind the times, man,” Sirus said in his jittery fashion. “You've been able to mix up enchantments on stuff for a while now, but you don't do it on an enchanting table now, no no, you've gotta do it on an anvil, you know, one of those things that always falls on people's heads in a comedic fashion in cartoons but would probably squash your entire body into a fleshy puddle of goop if it were to happen to you in real life—”

“He's right, Stan! Check this out!” a call came from across the room.

Stan jogged over to the end of the warehouse, where Kat was standing over a large gray block that Stan knew to be an anvil. On the top of the hunk of iron, side by side, were Kat's diamond sword, already glowing brightly with enchantments, and a book, bound with a red leather strap. For some odd reason, Kat was smashing the cover of the book in with a cast-iron hammer, a bead of sweat trickling down her blocky
forehead from the effort as Rex looked up at her quizzically.

Stan was about to ask Kat what she was trying to do (he knew that she didn't like reading, but this was taking it a bit too far), but then, on a particularly hard strike, the book vanished into thin air. A cloud of glimmering dust hung in its place for a moment, before drifting through the air, as if carried by an undetectable wind, and wrapping itself around Kat's sword. The dust hung there for a moment yet again, before being drawn onto the sword by some mysterious force, causing the sword to glow even brighter.

“Look at this,” Kat breathed, in utter awe of what she was holding in her hands. The sword was shining brighter than any piece of weaponry that Stan had ever seen, and the luster was shifting in hues between red, purple, and blue. “This sword is now enchanted with the highest levels of Knockback, Fire, and Sharpness . . . all at the same time! From now on, I hereby name this diamond sword, ‘Gas-Powered Stick.'
Eeeeek
, I'm so excited!”

Kat raised her clenched fists to her mouth and did a little dance, smile wide, like a kid whose parent had just caved in and let her buy the toy that she really wanted. Stan smiled and shook his head as Kat bathed in her own mirth, and then he became aware of Ben walking over to him and, for the first time since the death of his brother, a smile was on his face, too.

“Hello, Ben,” Stan said politely, as Kat walked over to join the two of them, returning her newly enchanted diamond sword to her inventory. “How's the occupation holding up?”

“Pretty well, actually,” Ben said. “We've got troops on the full perimeter of the wall, and we're ready to go totally underground in a minute in case the Withers attack. Not only that, but thanks to all the extra gear in these warehouses, we have enough to give everyone here diamond armor. Commander Crunch is actually teaching a class of new players in combat as we speak, so we'll have more soldiers on standby.”

“Excellent!” Stan replied, as Kat grinned even wider.

“Anyway, that's not the reason that I've come to talk to you, Stan,” continued Ben. Stan expected his tone to shift to a more serious note, but to his surprise, Ben continued to be rather cheery as he kept talking. “We've got some news, both good and bad. Which one do you want to hear first?”

“Surprise me,” Stan replied with a shrug.

“Well,” continued Ben, now struggling to contain a huge smile, “when G came back from Nocturia and had those rescued prisoners with him . . . well, that wasn't all that he brought back.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean? Did he bring back more fighters?”

“Well, no, not exactly . . . but I still think you're gonna be pretty happy. Come on in, guys!” Ben yelled.

He turned to face the entrance to the warehouse, and Stan and Kat turned to follow his gaze. Slowly, two forms, one as tall as a player and one half the size, stumbled awkwardly into the warehouse. As Stan realized who they were, his heart lifted.

“Greetings, President Stan!” Mella exclaimed as she made her way toward Stan. Little Stull smiled up at him as he walked next to her.

“Mella! Stull!” Stan cried out in joy as he rushed over to see them, Kat not far behind him, as Ben smiled on. “I'm so glad to see you guys!”

“It is very good to see you as well,” she replied, slowly yet kindly, “now we are not Zombies, and therefore we are not going to try to eat you.”

Kat laughed. “Yeah, that's probably for the best. So what happened to you guys? How did you get back here?”

“I do not remember very much of what happened,” Mella said, clearly thinking hard about it. “I know that I was in the village, when a large explosion took away most of my house. I went to the church, along with Stull and Blerge, and waited with the rest of my people until the sun came up. The Zombies broke through our door, and one of them attacked me. The next thing that I remember is being carried through a tunnel, with a group of kind players, led by a player who called himself Goldman.

“He told us that we were turned into Zombies by bad players, and that he freed us from the bad players and he was taking us to the village with the good players. When we got here, Goldman told us to wait in a hole that he dug near the village until a player would come to get us. We waited there for two days, and today a player returned to us and brought us here.

“And here we are!” Mella exclaimed, raising her arms in the air. It seemed that she was one step away from yelling out “Ta-da!” as Stull tried to imitate her, struggling to raise his stubby little arms into the air.

Stan gave a warm-hearted smile. He would never tire of the innocuous simplicity of the NPC villagers. As he let Mella bask in her own glory for a moment (from the look on her face, she was quite proud that she had remembered everything that had happened so she could recount it to him), Kat stepped forward.

“Mella, we're very happy to see you two, and we can't tell you how relieved we are that you're okay,” Kat said, managing a smile for a moment, before bearing a pained expression. “But there's something that we have to tell you.”

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes before continuing. “Do you . . . know what happened to the NPC village?”

She opened her eyes, prepared to see a horrified, scared
expression on Mella's face . . . but she didn't. Rather, the villager had begun to wander around the warehouse, weaving in between the players, as if totally unaware that anybody was talking to her. Kat rolled her eyes, grabbed Mella, and pulled her back over to the group, her eyes sliding back into focus.

“We were told what happened to our village,” little Stull suddenly piped up, tilting his head backward to see. “Me, my mother, and my brother were the only ones who escaped from the village alive. My father and my future wife are both dead now. This is very sad.”

Stan wasn't sure what to say. Obviously, he felt terrible for Mella and Stull; their entire life had been ripped away from them by the Noctem Alliance, and they were, as of now, the only survivors of their village. On the other hand, neither Stull nor Mella, who had refocused and was now reentering the conversation, seemed particularly distraught about it.

“You are surprised that we are not upset,” Mella said. Kat and Stan turned to her in surprise. “Do not worry about us. We used to be very sad that many of our friends and family are dead, and we were very sad that we do not have a home. However, there is nothing that we can do about it now. We cannot focus on the fact that our village has been destroyed, or that our family is dead, or that the one who brought us here named Goldman is now dead. We must simply move on.”

The mention of G's name hit Stan like a sucker punch to the gut. To be honest, of all his friends, he was probably the least torn up that G was gone. The two of them hadn't been particularly close, and during the rise of the Noctem Alliance they had gone through a period of open hostility, especially when he was acting out toward Kat. However, now that he had died—and he had sacrificed himself for the sake of the entire army—Stan felt like there was a black hole in his chest where G used to be. Although G was flawed, he was still a good guy at heart, and he only ever did what he truly believed was best, even when things got hard.

Despite this, Stan had forced himself not to think about G. Right now, they had to devote all their focus to destroying the Noctem Alliance, and ensuring that nobody would ever be struck down by their tyranny again. Mella was right. They simply had to move on. He knew that it would be easier said than done, however. Kat had seemed slightly more solemn then usual since G's death, although she was slowly becoming more upbeat. Jayden, on the other hand . . . Stan hadn't seen him since his best friend's death. It occurred to him that maybe he should go in search of Jayden. . . .

Stan suddenly realized that he had become lost in his own train of thought. He looked up and saw that Mella and Stull were playing together, carefree and happy, as Ben was in serious discussion with Kat. Realizing that they must be
talking about the state of the war, he rushed over to join them.

“. . . and the Noctems don't appear to be preparing for any attacks,” Ben said, with Kat nodding her head as Stan arrived. “In fact, from what we can see, they appear to be shifting all their efforts to defense. They're drawing in their troops from all across the server, and concentrating them in Element City.”

“What do you think that means?” Kat asked.

“It means that Lord Tenebris is ready to end the war, and end it on his terms. He wants to have a battle, all our forces versus all of his, and he wants it to happen in Element City.”

Stan nodded solemnly, trying to think through the implications of this. “Do you think that our armies are prepared for an attack on Element City?”

“I think we're as ready as we'll ever be,” Ben replied. “Now that we have food and medicine, we've got tons more volunteers. I'd say that, as of now, we have around three hundred fighters in total, and the Noctem Alliance has probably close to four hundred in the city. I know that those odds aren't great, but they're the best that we're going to get.”

“I agree,” Kat said, nodding with a pensive look on her face. “So are you saying that we should march on Element City as soon as possible and confront them full on?”

“Not quite,” Ben answered. “You see, according to the
spies my brother and I have sent out, the Noctems are drawing troops from all over the server—from their outposts, from the Nether, from the Mushroom Islands, you name it. And yet, for some reason, they haven't done anything with their troops in Nocturia. Their capital has about another hundred troops in it, and the Noctem Alliance hasn't moved any of them—which is kind of odd, when you consider that they seem to be preparing for a final battle. You'd think that they'd move at least a
few
of those troops.”

“So . . . what are you saying?” Stan asked, confused. “Are you saying that we should invade Nocturia instead?”

Ben looked up, and Stan was surprised to see a grin on his face.

“Even better,” he replied. “Do you remember back when we first declared war on the Noctem Alliance, and you had to leave the meeting because Sally was contacting you?”

“Yeah . . . ,” Stan replied, not sure where he was going with this.

“Well, I seem to recall that she told you something rather interesting—something about how the Noctem Alliance was planning to lure you into the Capitol Building in Nocturia, and then detonate it, because they had turned the Capitol Building into a giant bomb.”

“Yeah, she did say that . . . ,” Stan answered slowly, still unclear as to what he was getting at.

“Well, when you told that to me, I started thinking to myself,
Gee, if they turned that entire building into a bomb, then that seems awfully risky.
I mean, wouldn't it be unfortunate if some unforeseen incident caused said bomb to go off?”

Stan's jaw dropped as he realized what Ben was suggesting. “You don't mean . . .”

“Oh, I
do
, Stan,” he continued, his eyes blazing with wild energy. “We're gonna blow up Nocturia.”

There was a moment of silence as Stan and Kat tried to comprehend what he had just said. Kat was the first one to speak.