Herobrine's Message

by Sean Fay Wolfe

  Atop this spire, a single light could be seen. Torchlight shone from an open window, the only pinpoint of luminescence in the midst of the raging snowstorm. And it was within this one window atop the highest tower of the Noctem Capitol Building that Lord Tenebris sat on his throne of obsidian and quartz, deep in thought.

  Lord Tenebris had his eyes closed, yet he could quite clearly see through the eyes of one of the Withers, patrolling the skies over Element City. Lord Tenebris had been experimenting in private, drawing energy from the server itself to bolster his power and discovering more and more new skills by the day. However, this particular new ability that he had discovered had proven to be the most useful by far. On a whim, Lord Tenebris could borrow the eyes of any player or mob, provided, of course, that he knew where they were, and see all that they could see.

  In the past few weeks, during the Noctem Alliance’s drive to take Element City, this power had been especially helpful. Between clairvoyance and his ability to speak using telepathy, Lord Tenebris had been able to have direct control over the troops on the battlefield through the eyes of General Drake, while still staying hidden away in Nocturia and Fungarus. And he knew that it was for the best that he remain hidden. After all, though the Noctem Alliance now had the upper hand in the war, fear was still by far their greatest asset.

  To be honest, Lord Tenebris quite enjoyed the feeling of commanding the troops from far off and tactically maneuvering them to ensure total domination over a region. Furthermore, he was also well aware of how necessary this step was if he truly wanted control over the server. Lord Tenebris knew that, if he wanted to, he could destroy all the Elementia forces in a matter of minutes using just his own abilities. However, he fancied himself a wise leader, and he was well aware of the vast difference between destroying all the enemy forces and winning the war.

  Lord Tenebris saw through the eyes of the Wither that soldiers, clad in black, with bows, weapons, and potions at the ready, patrolled the streets of Element City, securing them in the name of the Noctem Alliance. He gave a sigh of satisfaction. Finally, after all these months, Element City was back in the hands of the players who had earned it, those who had toiled and struggled to raise the city after starting from nothing but a meadow.

  At long last, they had done it. The Noctem Alliance had conquered Elementia.

  One thing still tainted Lord Tenebris’s perfect victory, however. Although the Noctem Alliance now had military control over the entire server, they had yet to capture Stan2012. Lord Tenebris actually found it rather surprising. Drake knew exactly what Lord Tenebris was going to do to him should Stan return to Element City. If there was one thing that was certain, it was that Drake would go to any lengths to save his own neck. When added to the fact that Drake had hired a group of trained assassins to track Stan down, Lord Tenebris found it difficult to believe that Drake hadn’t delivered Stan to him yet.

  Lord Tenebris stood up from his throne and stopped using his clairvoyance, looking once again into the plain stone brick–block room, flickering in the light of the torch. The time had come, he decided. The military offensive was now over, and the Noctem Alliance had a strong foothold in Element City. There was no purpose in his staying in Nocturia any longer. It was time for him to return to the city that he had worked so long and hard to conquer.

  Lord Tenebris took a deep breath, focused intently on the Council Room of Element Castle, and vanished in a puff of purple smoke.

  G felt disgusted with himself as he dragged himself up the quartz stairs toward Tess’s office. He still couldn’t get the image out of his mind of the wounded recruit in a blue and green jumpsuit, lying on the ground and clutching the cut on his side. He had stepped in and declared the round of the sparring tournament over, and ordered that the fallen recruit be given medical attention, but the two soldiers overseeing him had cut him off. He could vividly remember the Noctem captain in the metallic Creeper costume staring him in the eye and growling those hateful words.

  “If you’re a true Noctem corporal, you’ll tell him to finish the job right now.”

  Despite the fact that every fiber of his body was telling him to stand up for the fallen recruit, G found himself unable to speak. Before he could, though, a messenger arrived and told G that Tess was looking for him. As G had left to make his way to the stairs, the two corporals had turned back to the sparring recruits, and right before G turned a corner, he heard one of them say, “All right . . . finish him!”

  G still couldn’t get the sound of that last shout out of his head. He could only imagine what they were doing to the wounded player now . . . and here he was just walking away. Even if that player was in training for the Noctem Alliance, he didn’t deserve the abuse and harassment that G was sure was coming his way. In fact, he had half a mind to turn around and go help that player, but he knew that he couldn’t. Jayden had been willing to sacrifice his life to keep G in Nocturia, and there was no way that he was going to risk anything until he cured Mella and Stull, regardless of what the cost may be.

  Finally, G reached the top of the staircase, and was standing at the threshold of General Tess’s room. The room was beautifully designed. The walls were made out of quartz blocks fashioned into different patterns, the floor was carpeted with blue wool blocks, and the ceiling was covered in glowstone blocks. A fire burning eternally in a Netherrack fireplace projected a warm glow into the room, and picture frames, showing pixel-art paintings, hung on the walls. There were glass windows that revealed the howling storm outside, and behind a cedarwood plank desk sat General Tess, her diamond sword hanging in an item frame behind her.

  “Greetings, ma’am,” G said automatically, suppressing his self-loathing for the time being.

  “You took a long time,” Tess retorted, not bothering to return the greeting. “Please try to be quicker next time, Corporal.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” G replied, his disgust with himself now replaced with irritation at Tess.

  “I have a task for you,” Tess continued. “I need you to patrol the grounds again.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” G replied, glad that it was only a mundane task that was being asked of him, and he turned back down the stairs to go carry it out.

  “Oh, and one more thing, Corporal,” Tess continued, sounding almost lazy. G turned around and watched as she reached into a chest next to her desk and pulled out a Potion of Slowness. “Tell Captain Zingster to execute those twenty Elementia prisoners today instead of tomorrow. Now that we’ve taken Element City, there’s really no point in keeping hostages anymore.”

  G’s eyes widened, and he did all that he could to hold back a gasp of horror. Regardless, Tess still raised an eyebrow, setting her glass back down on the table and glaring at him.

  “Do you have a problem with that, Corporal?”

  “No, ma’am,” G replied quickly, the gears in his mind spinning as he tried to work out how he could possibly save these prisoners without arousing Tess’s suspicion.

  “Well then, get to it,” Tess ordered, taking another sip of potion as she reached into her desk a second time. G was about to go down the stairs when he paused for a moment.

  All throughout his stay in Nocturia, G had spent hours upon hours with Tess. Because of her constant presence, incredibly high expectations of him, and casual talk as if they were the best of friends, G had felt incredibly awkward and hated every minute of it, but he had forced himself to do it for the sake of Element City. And he had done his job quite well, never letting on to his aversion to Tess, and always letting her feel like they were becoming close friends. And perhaps now would be the perfect time to try to get some payoff for all his hard work for the sake of rescuing those trapped players from Element City.

  “Um . . . excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Why are you still here, Corporal?” Tess asked in irritation as she glanced up. She had been searching for food in the chest, and hadn’t realized that G hadn’t left yet.

  “Well, because I have a suggestion for you.�
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  “I don’t want to hear it, Corporal. You have duties to attend to.”

  “Please, ma’am, I think that it may be important.”

  “Fine!” Tess shouted in frustration. “What do you want, Corporal? And make it fast. I have a lot of work to do, and so do you!”

  G took a deep breath, and let it out before continuing. “Well, it occurred to me that the war in Elementia is going to be over soon and it seems like we’re on the verge of winning. I think that, if we’re going to rule over the citizens in Element City again, perhaps we might be able to get more support from them if we were to be a bit lenient.”

  “Oh?” Tess asked, her eyebrow raised suspiciously as she eyed G. “And how do you propose we do that, exactly?”

  “My suggestion,” G replied tentatively, aware of how Tess was probably going to react to his proposal, “is that we don’t execute the soldiers just yet. We hold them captive here until—”

  “That is a preposterous idea.”

  There was a moment of silence as Tess glared at G, and G struggled to hold his feelings in. He knew what he had to do, and even though he was aware that he was pushing his luck, he tried to press on.

  “Well, the reason I think that is—”

  “What are you trying to say, Corporal? That the atrocities that the soldiers of Elementia have committed during the war deserve to go unpunished?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “Then I see no reason why this conversation should continue.”

  “Please, listen to me!” G exclaimed, something snapping in his head as he felt a surge of anger toward Tess for all the wrong reasons. “I’ve been following you faithfully since the day I arrived here, and I’ve devoted my life to you. The least you could do is hear me out!”

  Tess’s face took on a dangerous look. “You’re treading on thin ice, Corporal.”

  “Please, General,” G said again, trying to curb the acid boiling in his stomach. “It would mean a lot to me if you would just allow me to—”

  “I am your commanding officer, Corporal MasterBronze,” Tess shot back, standing up at her desk and giving him the evil eye, “and I am this close to having you executed for insubordination! Stand down right now!”

  G stood still, his mouth still slightly open, and found himself unable to speak. As Tess had yelled at him, a startling realization had hit G like a train. He merely stood still for a moment as he flashed back to over a month ago, when he was standing in the hallway of Element Castle, enraged and hurt, and he had yelled . . .

  “Get a move on!” Tess barked at him. “Are you just going to stand there all day? You have no idea how lucky you are that I haven’t already ordered you out in front of the firing squad!”

  G barely heard her. He was making his way down the quartz block stairs, back toward the group of recruits, his mind swimming in a vortex of realizations and guilt.

  Since G had entered Nocturia, he had given barely any thought at all to Kat. The two of them were clearly done and over with, and with far more important things going on, the issue had been dormant in G’s mind for quite some time. However, the last time he had thought about her, he was still under the impression that she was being unreasonable in not getting over their fight, and that she had been stupid to want to break it off in the first place, given how much attention he was lavishing on her.

  Now, though, G found it amazing that, given everything General Tess had put him through since he had joined Nocturia, Kat hadn’t come to his mind sooner. It hadn’t occurred to him for a second, all this time, that the way that he had treated Kat, his former girlfriend and fellow council member, was disturbingly similar to the way that General Tess, the commanding officer of the organization that he had sworn to destroy, had treated him as an underling.

  It felt like a void had opened in G’s chest as memories came flooding back to him. All that time, he had thought that he had been an amazing boyfriend to Kat, and he was frustrated because he didn’t feel like she was putting in as much effort as he was. But now, G could see quite clearly that he had been far too demanding of her, and incredibly disrespectful. She had agreed to go out with him, and continued to make an effort even when things got difficult while still keeping sight of her responsibilities. But he had neglected his duties to the council, only wanting to spend time with her, and was infuriated when she hadn’t done the same.

  And to top it all off, he had only put up with Tess because he had to. Why Kat had put up with him at all, G could only guess . . .

  G sat down on the stairs for a moment, overwhelmed. He had just snapped at Tess for something that he himself had done before. Because he had done that, Tess was now suspicious of him, and his cover would surely be blown soon. And if he was executed as a spy, not only would Mella and Stull never be saved, but G would never get a chance to return to Element City and let Kat know how sorry he was for what he had done to her.

  G stood up, his stomach blazing with resolve. He knew what he had to do. It was do-or-die time now, and drastic actions were called for. All at once, an insane plan formulated in G’s head, and he knew that he’d have to go through with it. If it worked, then not only would he spare the hostages’ lives but free them as well, along with curing the NPC villagers and escaping the nightmarish Noctem Capitol. If the plan failed, then they would all die.

  G took a deep breath, let it out, and set off down the stairs to put his plan into motion.

  A roar of furious shouting erupted from the base of the cave as Ben walked off the stone brick–block balcony. Even as he walked back inside the command post that had been carved into the cave wall, he could still hear the threats and boos that followed his most recent announcement. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He still couldn’t stand the fact that he’d had to cut the food rations again, but unfortunately there was nothing else that could be done.

  Ben shut the wooden door behind him, yet he could still hear the jeers. Sighing, he walked into the room, which was nothing more than a small cave that had been cleaned up and turned into the head office of the military as long as they were stuck down in the bunker. A few chests sat pressed up against the stone-block wall, and some maps and papers sat on a wood plank–block table, but other than that, the room was barren. Bob was sitting on Ivanhoe, and upon his entry, they both looked up.

  “Sounds like it went well,” Bob muttered bitterly, glancing at the door, which was doing nothing to block out the noise.

  “Well, how did you expect them to react?” asked Ben, a resigned look on his face as he pulled another wood-plank block from his inventory, set it on the ground, and plopped down on it. “I’d be pretty upset, too, if somebody told me that I’d only be getting two slices of bread a day, every day, for the foreseeable future.”

  Bob gave a grim nod. The two brothers sat in silence for a moment. Both of them knew that they had the same thing on their minds. It had been the only thing on their minds since the incident.

  “It’s eerie,” Bob finally said, his voice sounding almost disconnected as he stared off into space, “to think that it’s already been four days.”

  “Yeah,” Ben replied, glancing at the ground. “It’s even more eerie that the two of us are still here and talking to each other, like normal, while . . . while Bill is . . .”

  Ben couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He had finally managed to stop the waves of nauseating depression over the past few days, and he wasn’t going to allow them to return. They were still fighting a war, and grief had no place in a war. Ben choked back his sob, letting it out as a raspy sigh. Bob was about to open his mouth to respond when, all of a sudden, there was an earsplitting crash.

  Both brothers leaped to their feet, bow and sword drawn, ready to defend themselves as they whipped around to face the source of the sound. What they saw was the door they had just exited through knocked down, window broken, and a brick lying on the ground not too far inside the room. With no door, there was no barrier to protect the two brother
s from the raging, hateful taunts from the basin of the cave below them.

  Ben let out a growl of fury, which was drowned out by the jumbled chants of protest from outside the door. “This is ridiculous!” he yelled to his brother. “What are they complaining about? Yeah, sure their food supply got cut. Well, you know what? At least they’re safe from the Noctem Alliance for now! At least they’re not dead!”

  Bob sighed in disgust. “And I suppose you want to go out there and tell them that?”

  Ben was about to respond when, without warning, the Mechanist hurdled into the room through an entrance in the back wall, pickaxe drawn.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. “I thought I heard a . . .”

  Suddenly, the Mechanist realized that Ben and Bob were in the room, and he stopped in midsentence. He hadn’t spoken to the brothers, except through messengers, since Bill’s death.

  “Well,” the Mechanist said, recovering and attempting to regain his composure. “Is everything all right out here? I thought that I heard a crash.”

  “Yeah, someone threw a brick through our door,” replied Ben forebodingly, gesturing to the wooden door and brick lying in the empty doorframe, through which the boisterous anger of the crowd was still raging. The Mechanist’s eyes widened at the sight.

  “It would seem,” Bob continued for his brother, giving a look to the Mechanist, “that the citizens aren’t very happy with us right now. Since we’ve been holed up in this bunker, they haven’t gotten any good news at all. The only thing that we’ve done for them is cut off their food supply.”

  “Well, what do they expect?” the Mechanist asked, baffled. “We’re doing everything that we can for the citizens. What else do they want us to—”