by Mark Mulle
“That’s great for them. Really.” Elena said in a sarcastic tone, “But now I’m stuck here too!”
“Can you connect to anything? Any abilities on your end?” Steve asked urgently, “You weren’t here when the power surge happened. Maybe you were pulled through but still have some abilities.”
“You’re over estimating what I can do here, Steve. Whatever powers you have, I never had anything on that level. I can’t feel Herobrine or a way out, if that is what you are asking.”
“Try anyway.” Steve urged.
Elena sighed and closed her eyes. He didn’t think anything would happen but it was worth a shot. Now not only was Herobrine and himself stuck here, but Elena was too. But the fact that she came through the portal after the power surge could have left her with some sort of ability.
She frowned, “I see something. A palace? Is that even possible?”
“How are you seeing it?” Steve asked, surprised.
Elena shook her head, “No idea. You tell me.”
“I thought maybe if you had come through the portal, you could have some sort of abilities. Going through the portal might have left you with some powers that I don’t have right now.”
She finally opened her eyes and pointed to the west, “There’s a palace over there. That’s all I saw when I focused on the server. No idea if Herobrine is there.”
“Better than nothing. Let’s go.”
Together, they walked in silence away from the Oasis. The sand kicked up around Steve’s feet as they walked. Next to him, Elena grumbled under her breath about being stuck here. They didn’t say much else.
An hour later, Steve saw what Elena had seen. There was a palace rising in front of them. He had never seen something like this in Minecraft before. It had golden orbs instead of a flat roof, and looked like something out of an Arabian fairy tale.
Elena came to a sudden stop. Steve looked over at her.
“Are you okay?”
“Something in the distance. No, not the palace. Look over there.” She pointed.
Steve followed her finger and saw something in the piles of sand. There was something glimmering there – a diamond or something. Steve saw it flash three times and then stop.
“I think it’s Herobrine!” He exclaimed.
Together, they took off towards the flashing light.
Chapter Five
As they got closer, Steve realized it was a small tent that had been set up. There was a diamond swinging on a string outside of the tent which was how it was flashing. They slowed down when they came closer to the tent just in case it was filled with skeletons instead.
But Herobrine stuck his head out of the tent flaps, “Finally. Took you long enough.” He frowned, “Elena?”
“Hi, Herobrine. In trouble again, I see?” Elena waved.
“Why is she here?” Herobrine asked.
Steve filled Herobrine in on what had been happening on his end. When he finished, Herobrine looked lost in thought.
“Elena might be the only one here that has powers. Like you said, the fact she came through the portal might have given her some extra abilities since we lost ours. In any case, Elena might be the biggest help we have in figuring out what is going on.”
“Lucky me.”
“What about you?” Steve asked.
“After the wave split us up, I ended up in the middle of the desert. Walked for a long time and tried to get a connection going with you or another server. No luck. It is almost as if you and I are just regular Minecraft players down here.”
“Feels weird.” Steve admitted.
“Welcome to the rest of the Minecraft.” Elena joked again, plopping down inside Herobrine’s tent.
“Where did you find the tent, anyway, if you can’t pull it from another place?” Steve asked curiously.
“There was a cave nearby. I explored it but there was nothing of importance in there besides this tent. Someone had been there recently. So I took the tent and set off to try to find you. When I saw the palace, I decided to set up camp and wait until I found you.”
“Do you know anything about the palace?” Steve asked.
At the same time, Elena went, “Who would have been in the cave recently?”
“Your guess is as good as mine on both questions.” Herobrine replied to the two of them.
Steve turned to look at the palace, “I haven’t seen anything like that before.”
“Me either.”
“Do you think people live here? Or that the palace is empty?” Steve wondered aloud, knowing that Herobrine didn’t know either.
Elena stuck her head out of the tent, “So, what are we going to do? Go up to the palace? We don’t really have a choice, do we?”
Herobrine looked over at Elena, “Can you sense anything about it?”
She frowned, “You make it sound so simple like all these powers are second nature to me. I don’t think I’m nearly as strong as the two of you were. So don’t get too excited. I don’t think I’m going to be wielding any impressive Minecraft magic anytime soon.”
“Just see if you can sense anything.” He urged.
Elena closed her eyes. Steve was hoping for something. She had sensed, after all, that Herobrine was nearby. But when she opened her eyes, she shook her head.
“Nothing, sorry. All I have now is a headache.”
“We have no choice but to go to the palace.” Herobrine said.
“Wait. I mean, let’s think this through. What if we are being led to the palace? We came here and someone took the power from us. Someone is in another server, wielding as much as power as we had. We have no idea who they are. But the palace is the only thing we’ve seen here besides the Oasis and that cave. It’d logically be where we go to next.”
Herobrine nodded, “True. Good points. But they were not banking on us having Elena.”
“Whoa, slow down,” She said, getting out of the tent, “Herobrine, I don’t have any special abilities. Hello? I couldn’t sense the palace at all just now.”
“Okay, so they aren’t perfect. But they are better than no powers at all.” Herobrine replied.
“Yeah, plus you sensed what direction Herobrine was in.” Steve pointed out.
“I just don’t want everyone getting their hopes up.” Elena said as she got to her feet.
“The palace is the next logical place to go…which probably means there will be something waiting for us,” Herobrine said, “So be ready.”
Together, the group set off towards the palace.
***
Even though the palace was massive and sprawling, it ended up being farther away than anyone had been planning. After two hours of walking, Elena was yawning. Steve couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t exactly thrilling. Nothing attacked them. There was just sand everywhere.
Finally, Elena spoke up, “Isn’t that the cave you went in before? I still think we should look at it more before we go to the palace.”
“Nothing was there.” Herobrine repeated, “I told you, besides the tent, nothing.”
“Alright, you got me. I want a nap. Can’t we go to the palace later?” Elena said as she set off towards the cave, “I’ll log off, nap, and come back later. No offense but this isn’t very interesting –”
Elena had almost reached the cave when the sand began to part. She stumbled backwards as five skeletons came out of the sand. It all happened so fast that Steve hardly had time to equip his weapons to go after Elena.
One of the skeletons slammed its massive sword down into the ground. Elena rolled away as the sword struck the sand next to her.
“Alright, apparently we shouldn’t be going this way!” She cried out, scrambling to her feet.
Steve tossed Herobrine an extra sword from his inventory. Herobrine usually fought by altering the game. Now that he couldn’t, Steve wasn’t sure how good his friend actually was at just straight fighting.
But he didn’t have to worry. Herobrine had become this powerful in Minecraft for a rea
son – he was a fantastic player. Even without his special connection to the game, he darted around the battle with ease, dispatching two of the skeletons closest to Elena.
Elena was notching an arrow in her bow. She let one fly and it stuck a skeleton that was behind Steve. As it stumbled, Steve whirled around and finished it off.
The two remaining skeletons barreled towards Elena. Steve guessed it was because she had been the one that had triggered the trap near the cave. She fired an arrow but it missed.
Herobrine leapt forward and struck down the skeleton that was nearing Elena first. The two rolled through the sand together before he managed to strike it down with his sword. Meanwhile, Steve smashed into the other skeleton. It fell down on the sand.
Elena hit it with two arrows rapidly and it crumbled back into sand. The air around them went still. There were no other skeletons. Steve helped her to her feet. She brushed the sand off of her.
“So, we’re being led towards the palace now.” Herobrine said, rejoining them.
“Not exactly reassuring. That definitely means someone is waiting for us there.” Steve went.
“Just be on your guard. We have to go there now.”
Once again, they set off. Elena stifled another yawn. Steve knew she had been hoping to get a nap in but it didn’t seem as if they were going to be able to. Whoever was controlling the server wanted them at the palace.
So to the palace they went.
Chapter Six
When they finally reached the palace walls, Steve had been expecting skeletons to be waiting. But there was nothing. A breeze had kicked up, making the sand spin around them. In the distance, Steve could see what looked to be a sand storm slowly coming towards them.
“We need to get inside. That sand storm looks bad.” Steve said to Herobrine and Elena.
“So, let’s get this started. I’m going to knock.” Elena said and before anyone could stop her, she started hitting on the door, “Hey! We’re here! This is what you wanted, right? Let us in!”
“Not very subtle.”Herobrine remarked.
“Attacking us with skeletons when I just wanted a nap wasn’t subtle either.” Elena grumbled.
As if it had heard her, the door opened up, allowing them into the palace grounds. They followed Elena in. Steve wasn’t sure what the grounds were going to look like. But he came to a stop when he saw them.
The palace grounds were more like gardens. They were covered in flowers and trees, with a river of water snaking across the palace. There was no one else in sight.
“Wow.” Elena whispered.
Even Herobrine had fallen slightly, taken aback by how pretty everything was. Somehow, even the temperature was cooler. Elena crouched next to the river of water but didn’t touch it.
“Looks delicious and I’m really thirsty but what if there is something wrong with it?” She said over her shoulder.
“Good thinking. Be alert. Everything here looks nice but we don’t know what is lurking behind the corners.” Herobrine said.
“I thought for sure after all the trouble of getting us here; someone would want to greet us.” Steve said.
But there was no sign of anyone. As they walked through the garden, Steve gripped his sword, expecting a creature to appear. But the gardens were silent.
“Look, a door.” Herobrine pointed.
Elena hurried over to it and banged on it again. She shouted to be allowed inside but this time, the door didn’t open. She tried again but the door remained shut. Turning the handle to see if it would open, Elena shrugged.
“It’s locked.”
“Maybe there’s a key around here.” Steve said.
As they spread out across the gardens to find a key, Steve couldn’t help but think it was pointless. There wasn’t going to be a key just waiting to be plucked out of a tree. Someone had allowed them into the palace grounds. There was a reason they couldn’t get inside the palace. Maybe whoever was behind this didn’t want them in the palace yet.
“That sand storm is coming over here,” Elena said, “We should make camp at the very least. If they don’t want us in the palace, we need to be ready for the storm.”
Finding a grove of trees, the three of them set up a camp as quickly as they could. They set up Herobrine’s tent, which Elena promptly slipped into.
“I’m napping. I’ll log in again in an hour. No, Steve, I need my beauty rest, okay?” She cut him off and then waved.
A second later, Elena had logged off. Alone with Herobrine, the two hunkered down in the tent.
“Wish she would have stayed.” Steve said.
“She’s right though. She needs her rest. Elena isn’t as serious of a Minecraft player as we are. She has lots going outside of this game. We can’t expect her to stay in here all day just because we need her powers.”
“Feels so weird,” Steve said, “Not having any connection to the game. I never realized how much I rely on it.”
“We fell right into someone’s trap.” Herobrine said with a sigh.
Steve could hear the wind picking up outside. The sand storm was definitely rolling in now. They had tried to put up the tent behind some trees to block out the wind and sand but Steve wasn’t so sure how much the tent could actually withstand.
“Someone was waiting for us to come here and get rid of the power. But who? I mean, you said it yourself. You tried to find the Oasis for a while now.”
“I don’t know. Someone knew where the server was but couldn’t get to it themselves. So they connected to it and just waited for us to get there.”
“So now, someone has all that power and we have nothing.”
“We have Elena.” Herobrine pointed out.
“Yeah, we got lucky, I guess. I thought she’d be able to get us out, not sucked in. But at least she has some connection to the game now. Even so, you said it yourself. She isn’t an experienced player. Someone like that shouldn’t have those abilities.”
“Well, she’s been with us through a lot. She was determined to help stop her sister when Beth tried that crazy Snow Labyrinth stuff. She came to help me. She’s a good friend. So we just have to make sure we help her too.” Steve said firmly.
Herobrine nodded in agreement as the sand started to hit the side of the tent. The force of it was powerful and the tent began to shake.
“Wish we had a better tent.” Steve admitted as the storm seemed to grow more violent.
“At least we have a tent. I got lucky finding it. Let’s just hope we can wait out this storm.”
They hunkered down together, ready to try to wait out the sand storm.
***
The sand storm wasn’t small. It felt as if it went on for hours but in reality, it was probably only an hour. It just felt longer due to how intense it was. The sand rained down on the tent which was barely able to hold together.
After an hour of this, it seemed as if the storm was finally slowing down. Steve let out a sigh of relief that the storm hadn’t destroyed the tent.
And then he heard a low growl.
Alarmed, he looked over at Herobrine. His friend had heard it as well and blinked in surprise. They heard the growl again and suddenly, the tent was ripped up by something and tossed away from them. It went flying through the air and left them exposed.
Above them was a creature that Steve had never seen before. It was a creature made completely out of sand. It had jagged sharp teeth that glimmered like diamonds in its mouth. Its hands had talons on the ends that looked deadly.
Steve pushed Herobrine out of the way as the creature swiped at them. He ducked and the talons whizzed over his head, barely missing him. Herobrine tried to attack but his sword bounced off of its skin.
“The sand is too hard!” Herobrine shouted at him as the creature knocked Steve back.
Steve went flying backwards, slamming against the palace walls. The storm was starting to pick up again. The creature let out a roar which made the ground shake underneath his feet.
T
hen the creature whirled around and tried to attack Herobrine. Luckily, his friend was a lot faster than he was. He darted underneath the creature’s claws and brought his sword up against the bottom of it.
But the sword did nothing to the creature. Herobrine was right – the sand had hardened to stone. Swords bounced off of it.
Steve had to close his eyes as the sand whipped around him. He tried to cover his face and still see where he was going but it was almost impossible. The creature didn’t seem to be bothered by the sand that was flying around them.
Herobrine was hit and went flying back. He fell into the stream and rolled over on his back. The creature was heading towards Steve now. But between the wind and the sand, there was nothing he could do. He felt the creature smack his sword out of his arm and then pick him up.
He went swooping up into the air. The creature tightened its grip on him. Steve tried to open his eyes but sand got in his eyes and stung. Forced to close them, he had no idea how he was going to get out of this one. Was this really it?
“Hey! Put him down!” Someone cried.
A second later, the creature let out a roar. Its grip on Steve loosened. He went plummeting down to the ground and landed in the middle of a shrub. Rolling away from it, he tried to look up to see who had saved him.
Elena had logged in at the perfect time. She stared the creature down, seemingly unaffected by the sand that was flying through the air. Trying to protect his eyes, he watched as Elena leapt forward and shot her bow directly at the creature’s face.
It let out a roar that was so loud, Steve winced. Elena rolled forward, dodging its attack. Her speed was enhanced and it didn’t come close to hitting her. With another arrow striking the creature, it toppled forward and landed, crushing the tent.
Then the storm stopped. Steve was able to watch as the creature turned to sand in front of his eyes. Elena hurried over to him.
“Are you okay? Good thing I logged in, right? That was close!” She helped him sit up.
“I’m okay. A little dizzy.”
Elena rummaged through her inventory and handed Steve a health potion. He drank it in one gulp and then looked around.
“Herobrine was knocked down somewhere.”
“Stay here. Let the potion help you before you go running around.”
Steve watched Elena go over to find where Herobrine had landed. The potion was instantly helping him. The dizzy feeling was going away and he was able to stand up. Something blinked in the sun and he went over to the pile of sand.