The New Order (18 page)

At last, the players reached the end of the corridor, and Stan could tell just by looking at the door that they had made it to the highest-security vault. Stan had passed a few Wither Skeletons patrolling the hallways, but here, four of them stood guard before the iron doors. DZ walked up and pressed a stone button on the wall. The iron door clicked open, but only revealed a second door. The four players walked past it, and the door slammed shut behind them.

“Now we just wait for the redstone circuit to turn over and the door to open. Then we'll finally get to face this guy,” stated DZ.

They waited for about half a minute. In that time, Stan took deep breaths. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something seemed off about the whole situation. He knew that it was very possible that the spooky old building was just playing games with his mind, but something about the idea of interrogating this Noctem messenger in general made him feel uneasy, and he had no idea why. At last the door swung open, and the four players drew their weapons and entered
the room.
The quicker that we can get this interrogation over with
, thought Stan as he perspired from the heat and his discomfort,
the better
.

This room was lit by torches, presumably to keep mobs from spawning, but the room was still black inside, being ringed in obsidian. At the exact center of the small room, a player sat with his back to Stan and the others. Stan recognized the gray jumpsuit, black shawl, and hood as, indeed, the Noctem messenger who had first told them about the NNA.

The second door slammed shut behind him, and Stan knew that the time for interrogation had begun. Stan took a step toward the player, but before he could open his mouth, a voice sounded from the player, echoing ominously around the room.

“I know why you are here.”

Stan glanced at his friends. DZ was the first to speak.

“Is that a fact?” he sneered.

“Yes,” the messenger replied. “You wish to question me, and hope that by doing so you may find out more about the inner workings of the Noctem Alliance, which you know so little about.”

“Well, someone catches on pretty quick,” replied Kat, her brows knitted and her hand gripped tight on her sword. “So here's the first question: Are you going to cooperate with us,
or are we gonna have to make you? It's your choice.”

“Have you ever stopped to value the beauty of the night?”

The players glanced at one another again for a minute, eyebrows raised, before Stan responded, “Answer her!”

“The night is a fascinating thing. By day, the light of the sun shines upon us from above. We cannot avoid it, and it exposes all of us for who we truly are. At night, however, that light takes rest. Darkness and mystery rule the world. You can be whatever you want to be, and from all eyes, you are hidden from sight. And judgment is nothing more than the petty twin of sight.”

“Stop talking in riddles, or we're gonna tranquilize you!” cried DZ, whipping a bottle of blue-gray liquid from his inventory.

“Black is the color of night, a time of haven from the omnipresent judgments of the world, which calls itself civilized. Black is also the color of the Noctem Alliance, a place of haven from the ever-present constitution of Elementia, which calls itself just, yet still forces us to share our world with the lower-level scum that does not deserve it.”

“Okay, guys, let's sedate him,” ordered Stan, and all four players now whipped out their potions as the player spoke on.

“The black of the Alliance has saved me before. And the color black shall now deliver me from here!” And from the
player's hands, two black blurs flew, hitting the ground in bursts of fire and enveloping the prisoner in a plume of dark smoke.

“Attack!” bellowed Stan. Four potions flew into the smoke, shattering with loud clinking noises. Stan was dumbfounded. All players in the prison were stripped of all their items before they were brought to the Nether! How could this have happened?

As the smoke died down, a second ripple of fear struck Stan, tightening his chest. Somehow, the messenger had managed to box himself in a cube of obsidian that he had pulled out of nowhere. Stan reeled in confusion. What was this guy playing at? And where was he getting all these materials?

As Charlie began to hack away at the black box with his pickaxe, a series of black blurs flew out of a hole in the front of the box. As they hit the door, the fire charges ruptured into bursts of searing flame.

Stan sprinted to the hole in the front of the box, adrenaline coursing through his veins and a Potion of Slowness held in his hand. He was immediately forced to leap backward, narrowly missing the block of TNT that flew out of the hole. It was all Stan could do to watch in awe as the block hit the iron door. The door, weakened from the heat, fell apart as the TNT landed in the obsidian corridor. An instant later, the TNT
block exploded with the force of a Creeper, sending a shock wave over the players. Stan had to raise his axe in a block to stay safe. By the time they had lowered their defensive stances, the messenger had pitched an Ender Pearl through the blown-out doorframes and into the hallway. He then disappeared into a puff of purple smoke.

The entire escape happened in the space of less than ten seconds.

Stan, Kat, Charlie, and DZ stared at one another for a moment. Stan was completely dumbfounded. It took him a moment before his brain could fully process what had just happened. Then, all at once, the realization came to him. This was the Noctem Alliance playing another game with them. There was only one way to determine how the Noctem messenger had gotten so many materials in the prison. They had to capture him.

“Come on!” Stan yelled, and with that, his friends seemed to snap out of their stupefied states. They followed him, leaping over the burning door and sprinting into the hall.

The messenger was leaping and rolling around the room like a rabbit, but always with the slashes of the Wither Skeleton's stone swords right on his tail. A wall of the tall dark mobs blocked the entrance to the prison, and Stan could barely make out the form of the guard from the front entrance, who was trying to comprehend the madness breaking loose
within the fortress. Stan stared at him.

“Go get backup!” Stan yelled to the guard. After the guard looked around, saw Stan, and processed what he had said, he nodded and sprinted down the cobblestone bridge toward the Nether portal.

Stan's heart, which felt as though it were being clenched in a giant fist, loosened slightly, but immediately tightened twofold when he saw that the messenger had reached the entrance. There was no time to waste. If they hurried, they could still catch up to him. They had Ender Pearls on hand, but there was no room to warp. There was a crowd of Wither Skeletons in front of them. Stan pushed and shoved his way through the throng of idle monsters.

Wait a second
, thought Stan, the realization dawning on him as he pushed nearer and nearer to the exit. If a highly dangerous criminal was in the process of escaping . . . and the Wither Skeletons were there to guard the prison . . . then why were they just standing there idly as the highest-security prisoner escaped? Why had they stopped fighting? As Stan finally made his way to the front of the crowd, he saw the reason, and he staggered in shock.

The Wither Skeletons were standing, transfixed, as the Noctem messenger stood at the base of the fortress stairs, clicking and making sounds that Stan recognized as the language of the Skeletons. He barely had time to be caught
off guard by the messenger speaking the language of these monsters when the messenger jabbed a finger directly at Stan and his friends, and gave what sounded like a powerful command in the clicking language.

Stan's instincts kicked in and he feinted backward, down the stairs, as no less than three giant stone swords swung toward him. Stan managed to duck the attacks, but he lost his balance and fell down the stairs, landing painfully on his back on the cobblestone bridge. Stan looked up and saw all the black Skeletons converging on his flabbergasted friends, except for one, which sprinted down the steps and prepared for another swing at him. Stan clambered for his axe, which had fallen on the ground beside him, but before he could reach it, the giant Skeleton fell apart, courtesy of the sword that the guard of the fortress had stuck into its side. He reached down toward Stan.

“Are you hurt, President Stan?” the guard asked, pulling Stan to his feet.

“No, I'm fine,” replied Stan gruffly as he brushed himself off. He looked back toward the fortress. His friends were gradually fighting their way out, past the giant black Skeletons.

“What happened in there?” the guard asked urgently.

“I . . . I really don't know,” replied Stan, trying to recall the insanity that was the last sixty seconds. His thoughts
landed on the messenger, conversing with the idle Wither Skeletons. “Listen,” Stan asked hastily, whipping around to face the guard. “Did you hear what he said, the guy who escaped, to the Skeletons?”

“Yeah,” the guard replied, looking confused. “He said something like, ‘The time is now, my friends, fight the tyrants and rejoin your master,' but I still don't understand how he managed to—”

“Listen, we can explain later, we've got to catch that guy!” exclaimed Kat, huffing and puffing as she ran over to join Stan, the others close on her tail.

“Where did he go?” panted DZ as he reached the others as well.

“There he is, over there!” shouted Charlie, pointing down the bridge. The messenger was already a third of the way down the cobblestone bridge, headed toward the Nether portal.

“Oh, no you don't!” bellowed Kat as she flung an Ender Pearl down the bridge toward the messenger.

“You,” said Stan, turning to face the guard as Kat disappeared in a puff of purple smoke, and Charlie and DZ threw their Pearls in the same direction. “Lock down the fortress, and see if you can get them to settle down.” He gestured to the Wither Skeletons, who were falling back into the fortress for reasons Stan had no time to care about. Stan didn't even
wait for a response before he flung his Ender Pearl down the bridge and an instant later felt the rush of air all around him as he warped into the air and landed feetfirst on solid brick.

It was pandemonium around him. Kat and DZ had drawn their swords and Charlie his pickaxe, and were stabbing and slashing away, hoping to land one single hit on the Noctem messenger, hoping to do anything at all to pin him down. It seemed in vain, however, as the messenger ducked, weaved, and bobbed his way through every attack with the ease and grace of a bird surfing an air current. Curls of light blue smoke rose from his back. He wasn't trying to counterattack, didn't even have a weapon drawn. It seemed that, yet again, this agent of the Noctem Alliance was simply toying with them.

Stan knew better than to try to pull his axe, which would do nothing to help in the fight. An opponent like this required precision to take down. Stan drew his bow and arrow, pulled back the string, and looked down the shaft of the arrow, constantly shifting his aim as the messenger swerved and bounced around like a jumping bean. Finally, after the messenger dodged a particularly close swing of DZ's sword, Stan saw his shot, and fired.

The arrow came within an inch of the messenger's shoulder before he sensed it coming and leaped to the side, right into the path of a powerful swing of Charlie's pickaxe. The hit connected, and the messenger staggered backward, colliding
with the side guardrail of the bridge and tumbling over it, beginning a free fall toward the lava sea hundreds of blocks below.

Stan sprinted to the edge of the bridge and saw a Netherrack island protruding from the lava. Stan knew he couldn't let the Noctem officer die from the fall—there was far too much precious information riding on it. An insane idea coming into his head, Stan leaped over the edge of the bridge after the messenger.

Stan was too focused on putting his extremely dicey plan into action to be terrified at his increasing rate of free fall. He drew two Ender Pearls from his inventory and pitched one toward the messenger. As the Ender Pearl made contact with the messenger and cracked open, Stan felt himself fly at the speed of sound, appearing next to the messenger in a puff of purple smoke. The messenger's eyes flew open in shock, and before he could react, Stan pulled him into a bear hug and pitched the second Ender Pearl at the fast-approaching Netherrack island.

The effect was immediate. Right as the duo was about to slam into the ground at terminal velocity, the Pearl shattered on the ground and took effect. Both players were dumped on the ground in a puff of purple smoke, a slight stinging in the legs as the only memento of the fall.

Stan kicked the still stunned messenger off him and
leaped to his feet, pulling his bow and arrow out of his inventory and training it on the messenger. The messenger shook his head clear of the shock and sprinted toward the edge of the island. He was about to jump off the edge when Charlie materialized on the ground in front of him in a puff of purple smoke, bow raised. The messenger cut a sharp left and was about to dive off in that direction when DZ suddenly appeared in his way, followed by Kat opposite him, both with bows drawn. The messenger was surrounded.

The messenger glanced around at the four players before finally chuckling and throwing his hands up in the air.

“All right,” he said, sounding amused. “You caught me, good job, you four. Well, you obviously want me really bad for something or other. What is it?”

“We want answers,” said Stan gruffly, pulling the bowstring back a little bit tauter.

“Yeah, and you'd better not lie!” shouted DZ.

“Oh, give me some credit, DZ.” The messenger chuckled, and four pairs of eyebrows raised at the use of his name. “The Noctem Alliance is a great many things, but it is not dishonorable, and as an agent of the grand organization, neither am I. You four have rightfully bested me, Count Drake, in combat. I, therefore, will provide you with any answers that I am permitted to give. I shall not, of course, lie. That wouldn't be very honorable at all now, would it?”