“It hungers for life,” Forpech said. “Hmmm … must hurry, before it is too late.”
Glaring at the purple stain, Digger climbed the stairs Herder had constructed and stood on the platform. He moved to the very edge, the tainted ground throbbing as if it had a pulse. Holding the fishing pole high over his head, he threw the line toward the trio. It missed them all and landed on the ground. Digger pulled the line back to him, then threw it again. This time it snagged on the oversized backpack of the pech. Instantly, sheets of magical power ran down the fishing line and enveloped the pech, causing the little creature to cry out in pain. Digger screamed as well, the same magical energy wrapping around his muscular body.
“Digger … PULL!” Gameknight shouted.
The stocky NPC yanked on the pole with all his strength, but the jagged bolts of magic that stabbed at him were sapping his strength. He was only able to lift the peck just a few inches off the ground.
The taint somehow sensed this, and began oozing upward, trying to snatch at the pech’s foot. Digger pulled back on the fishing pole, but the pain was too great … his strength was failing. Suddenly, Gameknight was at his side, the User-that-is-not-a-user grabbing onto the big NPC’s muscular arm and allowing the pain to wash over him. Gameknight yelled in agony as the magical energy flowed from Digger and into him.
“Pull!” the User-that-is-not-a-user moaned.
Digger pulled up on the fishing pole, raising the pech just before the Taint reached the creature’s foot. Then, Hunter moved to Digger’s other side. She tossed her bow aside and grabbed hold of Digger’s hands. Shafts of magical energy moved away from Digger and stabbed at Hunter. She screamed out in anguish, but did not let go.
“You … can do … it,” she moaned. “PULL!”
Digger leaned back, pulling the pech a little higher.
Stitcher ran up the steps and wrapped her arms around Digger’s huge barrel chest. She screamed in pain, but held on, drawing some of the pain away from Digger and into her small body.
“You can do it, Digger,” Crafter whispered into his friend’s ear, then put a hand on his shoulder, allowing the magical energy to flow into his own body.
Herder and Weaver ran up the steps and added their strength to the painful hug, their screams of agony combining with the others, creating a symphony of torment.
Digger suddenly pulled with all his strength, and yanked the pole backward. It sent the pech flying through the air, passing over their heads, to land with a thud on the gray stone near Forpech and Empech. Digger fell backward, bringing all his friends with him. He released the fishing pole and the pain finally stopped.
A strange rushing sound filled Gameknight’s ears, as if a strong breeze were blowing past him.
“Quick, the others,” Crafter said.
Digger dislodged himself from the tangle of arms and legs, then stood and readied the fishing pole for another cast. But the tainted stone had finished its work. The last of the pristine white quartz was gone, replaced with the lifeless gray brick. Where the mother and boy had last been, now stood an evolved zombie villager and zombie child, space helmet and oxygen gear covering their scarred faces.
They were too late.
“Noooooo … not again!” Digger moaned, and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
CHAPTER 21
GAMEKNIGHT’S FAILURE
“Digger, are you alright?” Crafter rushed to his side and cradled his head in his hands. “Come on, Digger, wake up … please wake up.”
He gently shook his head, trying to draw his big friend back to consciousness. Gameknight knelt at his side and checked his oxygen tanks; he still had lots of air.
“What’s wrong with him?” Hunter asked.
Crafter pointed at the two zombies that stood on the ground, staring up at them. There was a pained expression in their beady red eyes, as if they could somehow remember the horror that had befallen them, but then the expressions changed from sadness to overwhelming hatred as the newly-transformed monsters glared up at the intruders.
Gameknight sighed.
“Those poor villagers,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said.
“They’d be better off dead,” Hunter said grimly.
She notched an arrow and aimed it down at the zombie mother.
“No,” a hoarse voice croaked. Digger reached out and grabbed Hunter’s ankle. “Leave them be. This is my fault. Just like with Topper. I was too late and my failure has doomed more innocent lives.”
“Digger, you can do only so much,” Gameknight said. “We do our best and then we deal with the consequences. It’s all any of us can do.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Digger bit back, trying to sit up. “You didn’t just condemn a mother and child to a life of misery.”
“Digger, it wasn’t your—”
“The other pech,” Crafter suddenly shouted.
Gameknight glanced down at Forpech and Empech. They had put a space helmet and oxygen gear on the newly rescued pech, as the transformed air in the chamber was now completely poisonous. Empech shook the tiny gray creature, trying to get him to wake up. The new pech had been knocked out by the fall, and maybe even gravely injured.
“I think it best we get out of here,” Hunter said. “We need to stay on Entity303’s trail.”
Gameknight nodded, then cast Digger a worried glance. The stocky villager was struggling to his feet, an expression of despair on his square face as he stared down at the zombie child glaring up hungrily at him. The wolves growled at the zombie and formed a line between the pechs and the monsters’ razor-sharp claws, but the two zombies made no attempt to attack … at least not yet.
Gameknight leapt off the raised platform and landed on the cold brick floor. Not slowing a bit, he sprinted for the passageway that led out of the boss chamber. Following the corridor, he ended up in the treasure room. Columns of glowstone lined each corner, as they always did in the treasure rooms, stretching from floor to ceiling. Scattered across the floor were small pieces of wood, a single metallic hinge mixed in with the sprinters.
“There should have been a chest here … a tier-eight chest,” Gameknight said, his voice getting softer and softer, until it was but a whisper. “What are we gonna do?”
He sank to his knees just as the others came into the room, the pechs carrying their unconscious brother.
It was here, Gameknight thought. The chest was here, but we were too late … I was too late.
Waves of despair crashed down upon him as the reality of the situation hit him.
“It’s gone … it’s gone,” the User-that-is-not-a-user moaned.
“What’s gone?” Crafter asked.
“The chest,” Gameknight said. “The tier-eight chest is gone. Entity303 destroyed it and now it’s gone.”
“We have lots of chests, can’t we just use another one?” Crafter suggested.
“You don’t understand,” Gameknight said, his voice barely a whisper. “The mod will only put the items in the original chest if it’s already here. Entity303 destroyed the tier-eight chest before the Boss was created. So when the Dionian Boss is destroyed, nothing will spawn here. I’ve failed all of you … as I knew I would.”
Waves of despair crashed down upon Gameknight, the overwhelming sense of failure making it hard to breathe. His heart pounded in his chest like a jackhammer as his eyes burned. Emotions surged within him; grief mixed with guilt and despair. He gazed across the faces of the friends he’d doomed to a long and drawn out death on this planet. It was all his fault, just like the deaths of Fletcher and Woodcutter.
How many people must suffer because of me? Gameknight thought .
“It’ll be OK, we can just—” Stitcher started to say, but was interrupted.
“You don’t get it,” the User-that-is-not-a-user snapped, frustrated and upset. “We need to keep following Entity303. You can be sure he is heading farther into this solar system. But we have no rocket that can follow him.”
“Hm
mm … yes, the enemy seeks the edges of the Far Lands,” Forpech said.
“So let’s use the one we have and get moving,” Hunter said.
“You don’t understand. We can’t follow him with our rocket. It will only take us to tier-four planets. I’m sure Entity303 is heading for the tier-eight planets, and without the plans that were stored in the chest he destroyed, we can’t go any further.”
“What do you mean?” Hunter asked. “You saying he’s won?”
Gameknight sighed. Tears of frustration and helplessness began to trickle down his cheeks. He hoped his helmet would hide them from all his friends. One of the tears became dislodged from his face and floated in the lower Dionian gravity for a moment, then stuck to his faceplate, creating a long smear on the glass.
Glancing up at Hunter, he nodded his head. “We can go no further,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “All we can do is go back to the Overworld and wait for …”
He grew silent, not wanting to say the words.
“For what?” Stitcher asked. She moved to Gameknight’s side and put an arm around his shoulder. “Wait for what?”
“For the end,” Gameknight moaned.
Suddenly, an explosion shook the planet. Pieces of debris fell or were dropped through a hole in the corner of the room. A laugh echoed through that vertical shaft.
“Ha ha ha … enjoy your time down there, losers!” Entity303’s voice shouted down from above.
Gameknight stood and stared up through the narrow opening. The hole stretched all the way to the surface. At the other end, Gameknight’s nemesis glared down at him.
“You messed with the wrong user, Gameknight999, and now you must pay the price. Either stay there and wait for the destruction of Minecraft, or betray your friends and abandon them by going back to the physical world … your choice.” Entity303 laughed again, his maniacal voice echoing through the chamber. “I’ve enjoyed our little game, but now it is time for me to go. Sorry about blowing up your rocket, but maybe you shouldn’t have just left it lying around; accidents happen all the time.”
He laughed again, then disappeared from view. Minutes later, the sound of a rocket blasting off trickled down through the shaft, filling the dungeon with thunder, then everything became deathly silent. They were stuck here, on Diona, and there was nothing Gameknight or any of his friends could do but wait for the destruction of Minecraft.
CHAPTER 22
CONSEQUENCES
Digger sat down next to Gameknight999 and leaned against him, their helmets touching. They just sat there for a moment, the room completely still. One of the zombies out in the boss chamber gave a sorrowful moan, then moved through the room, its growls and wails of despair getting softer and softer. Digger turned and gazed into Gameknight’s eyes, their helmets slightly fogged up from their breathing.
Gameknight glanced around at his friends. A myriad of emotions stared back at him, with everything from anger, to hate, to a thirst for revenge, to sorrow, to sadness; all of them being displayed on their square faces. But the one constant amongst them all was sympathy for the User-that-is-not-a-user.
“This is why I wanted to continue alone,” Gameknight said. He lowered his gaze and stared at the ground, ashamed to look any of them in the eyes. “I didn’t want to do something that would get any of you hurt, and now you’re all sentenced to death on this desolate planet because of my failure.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” Crafter said. “Entity303 was just too far ahead for us to catch him.”
“I agree with Crafter,” Stitcher said. “This isn’t your failure … it’s our failure.”
“You don’t get it either,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “I could have done this whole thing on my own. I could have gone through the Twilight Forest, then gone through Mystcraft and eventually come to Galacticraft all by myself, but I was afraid. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to save Weaver on my own, so I selfishly took you all along for the ride. And now see what I’ve done. You’re all stuck here on Diona, and you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Gameknight, that might all be true,” Hunter said.
“Hunter, be nice just for once,” Stitcher chided, but her older sister raised a hand, silencing the younger girl.
“You might be right,” Hunter continued. “This might all be your fault. Maybe you could have left us behind. Maybe you could have done all this on your own. And maybe you could have stopped Entity303 without our help, but the fact is … it wasn’t your call to make!”
Gameknight saw her eyes sparkle with anger.
“Sometimes, you think you have to do everything on your own. You want to do all the suffering for all of us, and you want to take all the blame … every time, and I’m getting pretty sick of it!”
“Hunter …”
She ignored Stitcher and continued. “Let me tell you the way it is, Gameknight999. When I first met you, my family and village had been destroyed and my sister Stitcher had been taken as a slave. I was alone and had nothing but hatred in my heart, yet you still took me in. You made me part of your family, as you did with Crafter. And then you adopted all these other people around you, gathering people with different strengths and weaknesses. You formed us into an unbreakable family, and now, because things are bad, you think you can break us apart and say you should have gone on alone? Well … you don’t get to make that decision.
“This is a family. We take care of our own, and that includes knuckleheads like you.” She pointed a finger at him. “You don’t get to decide if you need to be a martyr or not. We do things together, regardless of the risk, because that’s what families do. What one of us does … all of us do.” She moved a step closer. “What you don’t understand is the incredible gift you’ve given to all of us.”
“A gift?” Gameknight pulled his gaze up to her chocolate-brown eyes, confused.
“Yeah … a gift.” She knelt so that they were face to face. “All of us know what it means to be alone in this world, and you made it so that none of us would ever be alone again. That’s what made your attempt to continue on without us hurt so much. We weren’t mad at you, we were mad because we wouldn’t be able to help you, and that’s our job … to help each other. And none of us will allow anyone to ever take that away. We’re a family, we’re together, and that’s the way it’s always gonna be … forever.” She then stared at him with an intensity that almost made him look away. “In a family, you are never alone.”
The words resonated in him, bouncing off the walls of his mind like an endless echo. She was right … they were a family, and nothing could ever change that. He thought they hated him because he wanted to go on alone, but they just wanted to keep their family together.
At least they don’t hate me, Gameknight thought. That’s something, but I still led them here, and now we’re trapped. I failed them all.
“I know what you’re feeling,” Digger said softly. “You think this is all your fault.”
The User-that-is-not-a-user didn’t reply.
“I get it. I feel the same. I should have been able to save that mother and child, but I didn’t. I have no idea what I could have done different, but I still feel guilty, maybe because of my past, or maybe it’s my own insecurities at being a bad father.”
“You aren’t a bad father,” Gameknight snapped. “Your kids love you!” Then he grimaced when he realized what he said. “I mean Filler loves you, and … uhhh … Topper loved you and … um …”
“I know what you’re saying,” Digger said. “Maybe in your timeline, where Topper is still alive, things are different, but here, in this timeline, I must own my guilt. But like you told me earlier, we do our best and then we deal with the consequences. We can’t just stay down here and feel sorry for ourselves. You and me … we have things to do. You have to get us off this planet, and I have to save Topper by helping you, and neither of those things are gonna happen if we stay down here and feel sorry for ourselves. So now it’s time to deal with the consequen
ces.”
Digger stood up, then reached down and lifted Gameknight to his feet, whether he liked it or not.
“I’m digging my way to the surface, because that’s something I actually know how to do without getting anyone killed. By the time we get to the surface, you’re gonna have some ideas for us to try, or you and me are gonna have a serious discussion, and that’s gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me … you got that?”
Gameknight stared up at Digger and saw that, for the first time, his seafoam green eyes had something in them nobody had seen for a long time: courage.
“But how do we go on?” the User-that-is-not-a-user asked.
“I think you told me a long time ago, ‘If you quit, then you guarantee the outcome.’ Well, this outcome is not acceptable. So instead of giving up, we’re gonna keep fighting and get it done.” He pulled out his pickaxe and gave him a wry grin. “You better step back if you want to keep all your fingers.”
The stocky NPC started to dig. His pickaxe rang out as it smashed through the Dionian soil, the metallic tool vibrating like a struck bell. The wolves picked up on the sound and started to howl, their voices cutting through their helmets and filling the chamber with pride and strength.
Gameknight glanced around at all his friends and saw the same thing he saw in Digger’s eyes: courage and hope. Crafter stepped up to him with his bright blue eyes.
“I think it’s time we got Weaver back where he belongs,” the young NPC said.
Hunter moved to his side. “Yeah, and after we catch that Entity303, I was thinking of doing some target practice, with that evil user as the target.”
Stitcher laughed and put a hand on her older sister’s shoulder.
Weaver moved next to Crafter, his blue eyes matching his distant nephew’s in brightness and clarity.
“I think maybe it’s time to stop following Entity303, and start attacking him, like Smithy of the Two-swords did with Herobrine.” Weaver took a step closer, the wails of the zombie barely audible. “It’s payback time for what that evil user has done to Minecraft.”
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