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 it’s very very very very very important!” came Oob’s exasperated, rushed response.

      “Oob, buddy, we’re kind of busy defending your butt right now, so talk to us later, all right,” said DZ, and he did something that Stan had only seen someone do once before. DZ drew out two swords, with his red-iron sword in one hand and his unenhanced diamond sword in the other. Stan supposed that this was an advanced form of sword fighting.

      “Oh, come on!” came Oob’s voice, and his face appeared in the window. “Don’t you want to see my new little brother?”

      Stan suddenly snapped to attention. “Wait, what did you just say?” he asked.

      “Oob, did you just say you have a new brother?” asked Charlie.

      Oob’s face disappeared for a few seconds, and when he came back up he was holding up a miniature version of himself. It seemed that he did, indeed, have a new brother. “Mother and Father decided that if we are to remain in the village, we must have new members. Then they stared at each other for a few moments, a heart icon appeared above their heads, and my new brother Stull appeared!” Oob’s smile was so big that it was visible even beneath his colossal nose.

      “Wait,” said Charlie, and Stan could tell that he had just realized something. “Oob … how many buildings are there in your village?”

      “Including the houses belonging to those killed by evil mobs, there are thirty-one,” replied Oob.

      “And, counting your new brother, Stull, how many people live in the village now?”

      “I am the tenth resident of this NPC village,” answered Stull in a surprisingly deep voice for an infant.

      “But that means that … if there are really ten …” said Charlie, completely ignoring the fact that his question had been answered by a newborn baby, “and thirty-one … then that means that … soon—”

      Charlie was cut off by a metallic rumbling sound.

      Stan, Charlie, Kat and DZ all whipped around as the figure charged down the road. The beast was enormous. It was metallic, a little taller than the players and about twice their width, and it had long, gangly arms. Vines grew all over its body, and save its gleaming red eyes its face bore a direct resemblance to a sort of grey NPC villager.

      As the beast charged forwards, Stan was afraid for an instant that it was going to attack them, but it flew right past them and into the horde of mobs that had now entered the village. The thing raised its great long arms, and swung them side-to-side in rapid and crazy attack patterns, with each new swing knocking mobs apart as if they were life-sized sculptures of gelatin. The victims of this thing truly did end up liquefied under its pure physical strength.

      “What is that thing?” asked Stan in awe, his mouth agape at the awesome battle taking place before him as the beast eliminated wave after wave of hostile mobs.

      “It’s an Iron Golem,” replied DZ, looking at the beast with admiration. “They spawn in large villages and help defend the people against these sieges.”

      “And Stull’s birth gave this village ten people, making the game officially classify it as a large one,” added Charlie as he watched the carnage.

      The evil mobs were simply no match for the Iron Golem. The second they came within the range of the iron arm, they had no chance to initiate any attacks before they were crushed.

      Stan suddenly remembered something, and he looked at Kat. Her face was solemn, as he had expected it to be. He remembered that she had described a metallic clanging noise that followed her after she pillaged the last NPC village she went to. That village had undoubtedly had an Iron Golem, too, placed there to defend the village from having its citizens taken advantage of. He expected her to look scared or at least a little uncomfortable, but Kat now seemed fully at ease and it appeared that she, finally, had forgiven herself.

      For an hour, the four players watched in stunned silence as the Iron Golem laid waste to all evil mobs that entered the NPC village. The last mob to die was a Skeleton. Right before it could shoot, the Iron Golem delivered a roundhouse punch to its head, knocking it dead to the ground.

      The Iron Golem then stood still, glancing into the horizon, ready to defend the village at all costs. It looked very impressive, silhouetted against the white square of the rising sun, a sure indication that the siege, at last, was over.

       CHAPTER 23

       THE TWELVE EYES OF ENDER

      As the sun rose over the NPC village, Stan surveyed the village to see the effects of the siege. He was relieved to find that no villagers had been injured during the siege, but he was surprised to see that the villagers seemed truly devastated when they heard of the loss of Lemon. From what Stan understood, they had never seen a cat before Lemon, and they had had great joy in petting him.

      “He was so gentle and kind,” said Oob with a frown on his face and a tear trickling down his cheek. “I am so sad that he is no longer with us.” DZ was about to comfort him when the villager started wandering again, making his consoling effort moot.

      The villagers also seemed very fond of the Iron Golem, who seemed to showcase a gentler side when he was around them, and especially around the children. As the newborn Stull played a game of tag with another villager child, a girl named Sequi, the Iron Golem joined in, tagging the children with a light, harmless tap on the head, as opposed to the wild, fanatical arm swings he had used to destroy the evil mobs the previous night.

      Stan, Kat and DZ were all quite contented that the village was safe, and Kat in particular was noticeably pumped up with anticipation for the Enderman hunt that was now next on their to-do list. Charlie, on the other hand, was taking the loss of his cat very hard. He spent the first day after Lemon’s death sitting on the wood blocks that made up the border of Blerge’s wheat farm, staring out into the desert sky, a pensive look on his face and an occasional tear rolling down his cheek.

      As the afternoon rolled around and DZ entertained the villagers with more bad jokes, Stan and Kat caught each other’s eyes for a moment and knew that they had to talk to Charlie. They went around to the back of the house, and they sat down on either side of their friend. He raised his eyes slightly to both sides in acknowledgement of their presence, and then proceeded to look down at the sand below him.

      “You doing all right, man?” asked Stan.

      Charlie didn’t answer.

      “What’s the matter, Charlie?” said Kat.

      Charlie still didn’t answer.

      “Charlie, I’m really sorry about Lemon,” said Stan, “but we’ve got to keep going. We’ve got a King to take down, remember?”

      “What’s the point?” asked Charlie in a dejected voice. Stan was alarmed at how depressed he sounded. “All that’s going to happen is more people dying.” He looked up at Stan. “My cat just got killed, and I feel miserable. What’s going to happen if you get killed? Or you, Kat?” he asked turning his head the other way to face Kat.

      “Charlie, СКАЧАТЬ