Book Three: Part 2 Herobrine’s Message. Sean Wolfe Fay

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СКАЧАТЬ hold on a sec, I think Charlie’s idea could still work!” Leonidas replied thoughtfully. “I mean, maybe if we were extra careful, and only let a few of our guys into the city at …”

      “He said it wouldn’t work, Leonidas, so drop it!” Charlie spat, glaring at Leonidas. All eyes in the room turned to Charlie, caught totally off guard by this alarming display of hostility. However, when Charlie looked up, his face showed nothing but crestfallen depression, and there was a collective, unspoken decision around the room to forget that it had happened.

      Nonetheless, though the conversation continued, Leonidas found himself staring at Charlie. He had tried to be polite to Charlie, to try to get around whatever it was that he was holding against Leonidas. Clearly it wasn’t working, leaving Leonidas to wonder if his efforts to befriend Charlie would ever pan out.

      “So what should we do?” Charlie demanded, an urgent tone in his voice. “We need to get out of this stupid cave, and we have to do it fast! The Noctem Alliance is going to bust in here any—”

      “Hold on a moment,” Cassandrix cut in, her eyes lighting up and a smile crossing her face.

      “What is it?” Stan asked, as the entire room turned to look at her.

      “Charlie, you seem to be experienced in underground navigation,” she said slowly, and Stan could see the gears whirring in her head. “How long do you think it would take to dig a tunnel to the Adorian Village from here?”

      “I don’t know,” Charlie sighed, still looking crestfallen. “A couple of days, maybe …”

      “Then that’s what we ought to do!” Cassandrix exclaimed. “We should dig a tunnel and invade the Adorian Village! They’ll never be expecting that!”

      There was a moment of silence as the idea sank in. Then, Ben spoke up.

      “Cassandrix … that’s brilliant! All of the Noctem Alliance’s attention is focused on securing Element City. They’ll never be prepared for an attack on the Adorian Village. And once we take control of the village, we can use the resources stored there to launch an assault on Element City!”

      “Hold your horses, Ben,” Bob cut in, turning to face his brother. “I think that this is a good plan, except for one thing. The citizens that we have down here in the mine aren’t all soldiers. Not only that, but being down here for so long has done a number on them. Before we reveal ourselves, we have to be sure that those who aren’t able to fight have somewhere safe to go. The second we invade the Adorian Village, it’s going to turn into a combat zone.”

      “Well, why don’t we just have them stay in the cave for now?” Kat suggested. “You just got through saying that the cave is probably gonna be safe for a while, Bob.”

      “Uh … guys?” Charlie said slowly, sounding mortified, as if he were on the verge of divulging classified information. “I … um … really don’t think that this cave is safe. I think that we should leave … like … as soon as physically possible.”

      “What are you trying to say, Charlie?” Leonidas asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.

      He was cut off by an ear-splitting explosion.

      The blast shook the walls. Seconds later, the sounds of terrified screams started to ring through the air, followed by a second explosion. Stan leaped to his feet and dashed onto the balcony, his friends hot on his tail.

      He looked wildly around the basin of the cave and saw people running around panicking but no visible signs of damage. A third explosion rattled the cave, but yet again, Stan could see no damage.

      “What’s going on?” he yelled to his police chiefs, struggling to make himself heard over the sound of yet another explosion.

      The two brothers sputtered in confusion, trying to piece together what was happening. Suddenly, a soldier burst onto the balcony through the door. Ben whipped around to face him.

      “Private! What’s going on here? What’s the meaning of the explosions?”

      The private gulped, took a deep breath, and spoke.

      “It’s the Noctem Alliance, sir. They’ve found us, and the Wither is blasting its way in.”

       CHAPTER 4

       THE LAST CHANCE

      Although the Wither’s assault on the outer walls of Element City was nearly a week in the past, the fires continued to blaze on. There were still piles of loose stone-block rubble scattered around the perimeter of where the proud wall used to stand. The remnants of pistons and mechanisms scattered the ground, forming a barrier of rubble that served as a border to the city in its own right. Although the buildings adjacent to the wall within the city had taken some damage through the invasion and the subsequent fighting between the two armies, the outside of the wall had fared far worse.

      A plain of stone and dirt blocks extended around what had once been the outer wall, expanding far out of sight until it finally connected to the untouched forest. This battlefield, blasted far below ground level by TNT cannons, still bore the scars of the fights that had raged at the wall for so long, and the four players who were now trekking through the silent plain had to avoid craters, blazing fires and arrows stuck in the ground as they continued to hike hastily away from Element City.

      The four members of ELM did not speak. Since they had watched Lord Tenebris strike down their comrade and then threaten to do the same to them, they hadn’t stopped moving, running through the streets of Element City until their legs ached. They continued to walk until, at last, they reached the outer wall. Crossing the threshold of the city into the war-torn biome beyond, the four mobhunters saw no reason to stop walking. After all, they had nowhere to go. It wasn’t like they were aiming for anywhere in particular.

      After trekking across hundreds of blocks of stone, the mobhunters finally reached a steep incline of dirt blocks, atop which sat the forest. Upon reaching the hill, they didn’t break stride, opting instead to make their way up the hill using the path of least resistance, occasionally punching dirt blocks out of the way.

      Arachnia reached the top first, and she turned around to watch her team scale the incline behind her. One look at their faces and Arachnia knew that it was time to take a rest. She jerked her head over to a clearing a way into the forest, and without speaking, they walked over and proceeded to pull an assortment of spare blocks from their inventories to set up camp for the night. Creeper Khan placed a Netherrack block in the centre of the clearing and stretched his hand out over it. A tiny explosion erupted in midair, just grazing the block enough that it caught fire.

      The four players huddled around the makeshift campfire, and Arachnia reached into her inventory, a sombre expression on her face that was reflected by the other members of ELM. She extracted four bottles, which were filled with liquid. She was a bit disappointed that water was all they had, but it was better than nothing. The bottles were distributed around the fire in silence. As soon as everybody had one, Arachnia raised her bottle into the air. The others followed, and she took a deep breath, and let it out.

      “To Zomboy,” she whispered.

      “To СКАЧАТЬ