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

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СКАЧАТЬ in his stomach, he knew that in this case, he had to be the bigger man. From what Stan had told him, Charlie was usually calm, collected and even timid. In other words, miles from what he had just witnessed. Something was very wrong, and Leonidas was going to find out what.

      Slowly, he crept over to the edge of the cave, to the outside of the stone-block dimple in the wall. As he peeked into the crack, he was surprised to see that Charlie was actually crawling awkwardly out of the hole. Leonidas stepped back as Charlie grabbed on to the cave wall and pulled himself to his feet, bearing his full body weight on his good leg. He looked up at Leonidas, eyes still slightly red, but a tired, apologetic look on his face.

      “Sorry,” Charlie mumbled, unable to meet Leonidas’s eyes. “Look at me, what I’ve become … screaming, throwing a fit, running away and hiding in a cave … pathetic …”

      “Charlie, I know that ya don’t think highly of me,” Leonidas said hastily, unwilling to acknowledge that what Charlie had just said was true. “Maybe you’re having a hard time forgivin’ me for the things I did in the past … maybe it’s something else I did, I dunno. But trust me, man … I’m not just some idiot who’s only good for a fight, I’ve got a brain, too, and I’ve seen a lotta crap since I’ve joined Elementia. If you’re willing to talk, I wanna do what I can to help ya. So please, Charlie … can ya tell me what’s wrong?”

      Charlie sighed. “I don’t have a problem with you, Leonidas … Well, I mean, I do, but it’s not a real problem. It’s totally unfair to you, and I know that …”

      “Tell me.”

      “It’s just … ever since you joined us, you’ve been nothing but amazing. You’ve helped us fight, you’ve talked with us, you’ve become a part of our group. Everybody loves you, and I was just really jealous of that – the fact that you’ve done terrible things in the past, but you’re one of our greatest assets now. For me, it’s exactly the opposite. I mean, look at me. I can barely walk, let alone fight, and … since I was imprisoned, I’ve really hurt our cause. And now there’s nothing I can do to fix it.”

      “What’re you talking about?” exclaimed Leonidas, taken aback. “I mean … OK, man, I’m gonna level with you. Since we’ve met, ya haven’t been very helpful to us in the fightin’ department, but you’ve done other stuff! I mean, it was your idea to tunnel under the wall to get into Element City! Where’s this idea that you’ve done more bad for us than good comin’ from?”

      Charlie looked Leonidas in the face. “Leonidas, can I tell you something? And if I do, do you swear you won’t tell anybody else?”

      “Sure, man,” Leonidas replied, genuinely concerned now. “What is it?”

      Charlie took a deep breath. There were tears streaming down his face, and his features expressed more pain and disappointment in himself than Leonidas had ever seen. There was a moment of silence, only broken by the scuffle of troops down the cave preparing for battle, as Charlie prepared to reveal his darkest secret.

      “I’m the reason that the Noctem Alliance found this cave. I told Drake where the entrance was when he was torturing me on the Mushroom Islands.”

      Leonidas’s jaw dropped. He looked at Charlie, hardly able to believe what he had just heard, as Charlie rambled on, sobs interspersed with his choked-up speech now.

      “I didn’t want to … I held out for as long as I could, trying to endure the pain that those savages put me through in that prison. The last thing I wanted was to give them what they wanted, our secret war plans … but then they started on my legs … it was unbearable, Leonidas. They forced my legs into a pit full of silverfish and told me that the only way out was to tell them where the secret bunker was … the little monsters started to chew at my legs, gnawing away … it was too much, I had to make it stop … so I told them.

      “I should’ve held out. I should’ve died, rather than tell them where the bunker was. I mean, Crunch held out fine. He just shook it off, the way I couldn’t … And now, because of me, we’re all in danger. They forced us to move before we were ready, and throw together this half-baked assault that’ll cause who knows how many of our fighters to die. And I can’t even fight on the battlefield alongside my friends to make up for my mistake.”

      As Charlie finished, Leonidas stared at him. He was utterly speechless. There was no anger in the stare, no exasperation, not even shock. Only sympathy shone on Leonidas’s face as he absorbed everything that Charlie had just told him.

      Charlie said nothing. He looked down at the ground again, gave a heavy sigh, and proceeded to limp away from the crack in the cave wall towards Ben and Bob, leaving Leonidas standing alone.

      “Look at them all.”

      “I’m sorry?” Cassandrix replied, looking up from the iron boots she was pulling on to look over at Kat, who was already armoured up with Rex sitting beside her, watching a large group of players load up their own gear. Judging by their mostly leather armor, they were lower-level players. Despite the fact that the army had distributed the armour for the battle, it had somehow occurred that the lower-level players had gotten the weaker armour (not that Kat or anyone else had time to fix this inequity).

      “I can’t believe that those players are being forced into combat,” Kat replied sadly.

      “They haven’t been forced!” Cassandrix replied vehemently. “Bob and Ben have made it very clear that only the soldiers are required to take part in the invasion. All others are volunteers. Those players wouldn’t be part of the invasion if they didn’t want to be.”

      “Yeah, well, they might as well have been forced into it,” Kat spat in disgust. “I mean, sure, we didn’t outright say that they had to, but what would happen if we lose? What would happen to the lower-level players? What would they have to come back to? Face it, Cassandrix, those players aren’t fighting because they want to. They’re fighting because they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t.”

      “Honestly, darling,” Cassandrix laughed, rolling her eyes. Kat’s ears perked up in alarm, as they did whenever Cassandrix used the word darling. “You’re acting like putting lower-level players into combat is the worst thing in the world … as if the little brats shouldn’t have to fight, just because they’re new and inexperienced. Well, Kat, darling, I have a question for you: if they don’t fight, then however are they going to gain experience?”

      There was a moment of silence as Kat stared at Cassandrix.

      “Exactly,” Cassandrix continued. “You need to stop holding the hands of the lower-level players, Kat, or they’ll never learn anything for themselves. Why, I never had a group of upper-level players looking after me when I first joined Elementia – there were no upper-level players! But did that stop me from taking part in the Terramist War? No, of course not! I fought that war, and in doing so, not only did I help to establish the original Kingdom of Elementia, but I also learned the skills of Minecraft by myself!”

      Cassandrix looked smugly at Kat, as if positive that there would be nothing that Kat could say that would pass over her insurmountable wall of logic. However, Kat merely returned a knowing smile.

      “So, let me get this straight, Cassandrix: You took part in a war when you were a new player, and that’s how you learned to fight so well?”

      “That is correct, dear.”

      “OK, OK. And Cassandrix … during that war … how many times did СКАЧАТЬ