The Complete Elementia Chronicles: Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message. Sean Wolfe Fay

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СКАЧАТЬ out of it and some pumpkins scattered around it. Upon examining the hole, Stan found that there was a ladder going down the side of it. Stan climbed down the ladder and at the bottom found an underground room.

      There was a dirt roof, a stone floor, and walls made of a combination of the two. In the corner sat a furnace, a chest, and a crafting table. Two beds sat against the wall, while Charlie stood at the crafting table making a third one. On the nearest bed sat Kat, who had a stone shovel in her hand and looked exhausted. Lemon and Rex sat on the bed beside her. They all looked up when Stan entered.

      “Hey, man, please tell me you brought in a lot of wood, because we need tools real bad,” said Charlie.

      “Guys, the most amazing thing happened!” He told them about his exchange with the Apothecary. Kat and Charlie listened to his story with steadily widening eyes. When he was finished, there was a moment of silence before Charlie spoke.

      “So, you didn’t bring back any wood?”

      “And more important,” said Kat, her voice rising quickly, “you told our plans to a total stranger?”

      “Weren’t you listening?” said Stan, exasperated. “He wasn’t a total stranger. He’s an experienced player who’s been on this server a long time, and he hates the King! He’s got knowledge of the server. If we’re going to overthrow the King, we’ve got to start somewhere. Why not with the Apothecary?”

      “Is that his name, the Apothecary?” asked Charlie, standing up. “Doesn’t that mean, like, a pharmacist, or a healer?”

      “That’s right,” said Stan. “Maybe he knows about healing. Does anybody else know any potential medics that could help us in a battle with the King? I mean, if he does know medicine, then maybe he could train other medics!”

      “Maybe you’re right!” said Charlie, nodding fervently.

      “Are you even listening to yourselves?” yelled Kat. “Stan, you gave this man classified information after he shot and gassed you! And now you—”

      “Hey, that knockout gas worked instantly! Do you know how to make knockout gas, Kat?”

      That stopped her. She closed her eyes for a second. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face as she imagined the effect that a cloud of knockout gas could have on a group of enemies. She opened her eyes again.

      “OK, let’s go meet him. But let’s make some new weapons, so if he betrays us and steals our stuff, we’ll have backups here.” Stan rolled his eyes, but Charlie nodded in agreement.

      Charlie hadn’t found any iron ore during his mining expedition, just a bit of coal and almost two stacks of cobblestone. His pickaxe was worn out and broken, and he had to craft a new one from the little wood he was able to gather by hand. Kat had also crafted a stone shovel and pickaxe to expedite the process of creating the house. The remainder of the wood had been used to make torches together with the coal.

      Stan quickly used his axe to gather a fair amount of wood, which he then converted into planks through crafting. Then they made sticks, which, with the cobblestone, became a stone sword, a stone axe and a stone pickaxe. For good measure, Kat used leather from some cows she had killed to craft a cap and tunic, leaving her iron armour in the chest. She also crafted a new cap for Stan. They put their good weapons and all their excess materials in the chest, and Stan used the compass to find his way back to the Apothecary’s house.

      It turned out that Kat’s worry for her tools’ safety was for naught. The Apothecary didn’t even ask for their weapons upon their entering his house. Stan saw that he had set up two new chairs to accommodate the extra guests. Stan was excited. The Apothecary seemed to have been anticipating their arrival. They were all introduced and then sat down.

      “So, now that we’re all here, tell me: Why do you hate the King so much, and why do you want him overthrown?” asked the Apothecary.

      With the help of Kat and Charlie, Stan told the Apothecary everything that had happened to them since they had joined Elementia. They omitted no details, even though there were certain things that Kat obviously would have preferred they had left unspoken, such as the part where she had almost killed Stan and Charlie. But as Stan recounted every injustice, every instance of prejudice, every senseless murder, it only increased his feeling of hatred for King Kev and the overwhelming desire to convince the old player sitting across from him to join their cause.

      The Apothecary said nothing until Stan finished the story of Charlie acquiring Lemon (who was sitting outside with Rex, guarding them from monsters and the King’s men). Then he spoke. “Well, I can certainly understand why you so dearly want to see my old friend King Kev dead,” said the Apothecary gravely.

      “What do you mean, ‘your old friend’?” said Kat quickly, and Stan noticed her hand moving towards the stone sword at her waist.

      “Oh, don’t worry, he certainly isn’t my friend any more,” said the Apothecary, and Kat’s grip relaxed, though her hand didn’t move from the sword. “Trust me, that evil dictator is the reason I have to live out here as an old hermit. If I had my way, I would reopen my chain of apothecaries in the city.”

      “Wait, you mean you owned all those abandoned apothecaries that we saw in Element City?” asked Kat.

      Stan remembered. There was at least a store on every street, all closed up and abandoned. All of them had “Apothecary” written on signs above each empty window display.

      “That I did. You told me your story. Would you like to hear mine?”

      Stan and Charlie nodded enthusiastically, and even Kat said, “Yes, please, sir.”

      The old player chuckled. “All right then, please try not to get bored and fall asleep. Let’s see, where to begin …

      “I joined this server in its very earliest days. Elementia was one of the first extremely successful Minecraft servers, and I joined Elementia within a week of its founding. King Kev, the operator of this server, used his operating powers to found Element City in that meadow. He and I were good friends, as we were with a number of others. However, I always felt unfulfilled, like I was meant to do something else in Minecraft besides build.

      “Then we learned of the alternate dimensions. Soon thereafter, the King opened Elementia’s first portal to the Nether.”

      “Excuse me, sir,” interrupted Charlie, “but could you please explain to me what, exactly, the Nether is? I’ve heard people talking about it, but I don’t really get what it is.”

      “Of course,” the Apothecary said. “The Nether is a dimension reached by constructing a portal. It is a hell-dimension of lava and fire, populated by mobs far more terrible then those of the Overworld we are in now. When the portal was first opened, most of the players stayed away from it, fearing the dangers. But I kept finding myself drawn towards it. I explored every aspect of the Nether, yet I couldn’t find what it was that I was looking for.

      “One day, on an update, Nether Fortresses were added. These were even more treacherous than the rest of the Nether, but they held two valuable pieces of loot: Nether Warts and Blaze Rods. The rods were used to craft brewing stands, and the warts were the bases for potions.

      “I had found my calling. The brewing of potions is what I am good at. I loved it so much that I opened up a chain of apothecaries around the city, and even changed my name to Apothecary1. Those were the good СКАЧАТЬ