Hmm… I'm supposed to have stuff to say in the first A/N, aren't I? Er, well, review I guess!

As much as it would make my day, month, year, and possibly my existence, I did not develop Minecraft or write PJO. :,(

The torch guttered, launching tiny shards of redstone into the air. Its sharp metallic odor mixed with the musty aroma of old books and mold, filling the cave with an off-putting smell most people couldn't tolerate‒ but Tyx wasn't most people. He loved this place, everything from the smell to the cool, damp air to the eerie red glow of his redstone torches. Books surrounded the spot where he sat cross-legged on the floor, piled up on shelves that filled every nook and cranny of his basement library. There were books of prophesy written by ancient sages from the time before enchanting even existed, scrolls dedicated to the proper care of baby slimes, and even history books about cow genocide.

A particularly yellow page of a particularly moldy book was open on his lap, covered in Standard Galactic Runes and pictures of various ores. It was his favorite book, full of funny stories about idiots who thought they could just dig straight down to get this one bit of obsidian…

Tyx had a rather morbid sense of humor, he knew. Still, everyone knew that obsidian formed on lava lakes, and anyone who insisted on mucking around anyway deserved to lose their diamond pickaxe.

He leaned back, resting his head on the dusty leather spines of the books behind him.

"Tyx!" someone shouted, batting at the side of his face. He turned his head, alarmed, but no one was there. "Tyx!" they shouted again, and he felt something jab him in the stomach, hard. "Get up you bloody useless lump!" The cave began to fade, colors fading away into black-and-white. His smell was slowly fading away, replaced by the odor of wool and sweat.

"GET UP!" the voice bellowed, jolting Tyx out of his dream.

"Mmph…" he mumbled, desperately clinging to the fading memory. Another slap connected with his ear, making his head ring. His eyes snapped open, and he obediently began wriggling sideways. Once again, he was holding up the line. A major design flaw of the barracks was that if someone was still asleep, there wasn't much anyone else could do about it. It was not made for comfort. It was built to cram as many beds into a single room as physically possible, with little to no regard for how in the name of Notch anyone was supposed to sleep well. They were stacked no less than six high, with the bottom bunks in danger of collapsing and the top ones very nearly scraping the ceiling. One topic of much lively debate was where the optimal place was in that crush of wool, blankets, and sleeping bodies.

Some said that the top was the best place, despite the few inches of extra space all the other rows offered, as there was zero danger of being crushed by a metric ton of sleeping soldiers if a bedpost shattered, as one inevitably would. Others argued that the bottom was best; its members could slip out from the middle of the row without having to wait for however many people to awkwardly squirm out from their cramped sleeping place and climb down the ladder. Plus, the bottom got out first while the top had to wait for everyone else.

The ladder was how those in the top few rows were expected to get in and out of bed, although falling was much more popular for the latter task. It was set in one wall, going right from the floor to the ceiling. While some few had mastered the art of squirming out from between their sheets, grabbing a rung, and swinging down into a standing position…

Thud! Tyx had not. Massaging the back of his head where he'd banged it on the way down, he struggled to his feet. Another problem with the top row, where he himself slept, was that there was farther to fall.

Bed slots were assigned randomly, and he had the misfortune to end up right next to the ladder. This meant that every morning, when the alarm noteblock outside completely failed to wake him up (Whose idea was it to make the wake-up call sound like a piano anyway?!), his bunkmate Grease would poke and prod him until he got moving. Grease wasn't particularly gentle, nor patient.

Maybe it made sense to stick him in the slot with the least space. Tyx was built like a feather; light, thin, and completely useless in combat. In a pinch, he could tickle his enemies, but one good puff and he went flying. Kandy, their leader, had taken this into account. (Her full name was technically KandyCrushh. She let people call her Kandy, but didn't tolerate anyone referring to her as Candy, KandyCrush, CandyCrushh, or, Notch forbid, Candy Crush. She really could hear the extra h.) He was never assigned to anything that remotely resembled physical labor, and instead spent his days pouring over magic books, offering counsel (which she ignored), and enchanting weapons.

It made sense; Tyx was a wizard before he came to the Stronghold. He would give people's weapons and armor buffs in exchange for various items, or just basic food and supplies. Now, he was stuck in a castle built by one of many factions Tyx had wanted to be independent from.

There were perks of course. For one thing, he had access to all the books in the castle. Unfortunately, all the books in the castle meant less than an eighth of his collection back home.

Hastily running his fingers through his moss-green hair in a pathetic attempt at personal hygiene and rubbing the sleep from his yellow eyes, he ducked through the barracks door and into the crisp night air. Tyx had really come to hate, despise, and wish eternal Nether-fire on nighttime. He, like any other Minecraftian, nursed a healthy mistrust of night and darkness in general, but no one had seen the sun in nearly a year. Somehow, some idiot had decided that it would be hilarious to rig up some kind of eternal night machine. Every 'morning,' just before the sun peeked out above the horizon, it would suddenly and inexplicably trade places with the moon.

Besides screwing with everyone's sleep schedules, this made leaving the Stronghold, well, suicide. Mobs were constantly spawning everywhere outside the castle's walls. At any given time, one could see at least a dozen creepers from the tops of one of the many towers adorning the high battlements that kept their faction safe.

The Stronghold was essentially a big wall with a couple of towers and a few buildings inside. They were about as pressed for space as it was possible to be, which was why the barracks were so incredibly… compact. Generals ‒ and Kandy ‒ got their own rooms, but 'personal quarters' were only three by three blocks, which used to be considered basic needs, and piled one on top of another in a tall tower.

Cramped it might be, but the Stronghold was easily the safest place for kilometers around, far more than a day's walking distance from Skyland, which was the nearest other haven for players. In short, it was either live behind the castle walls or surrender your brains to the nearest zombie. The walls themselves were impressive, to say the least. Five blocks thick, if you counted their hollow center. Well, not exactly hollow. Each wall's center was completely filled with lava. It had taken a lot of Nether-diving and several deaths, but eventually a pretty much impregnable fortress had been built.

The thing about impregnable fortresses, though, was that they needed gates. Gates tended to defeat the purpose of a lava-filled wall, as covering a gate with lava rather defeated the purpose. Unless you had the materials to make as many fire-resistance potions as you wanted, on demand. Which they didn't. Not even kind of. The perfect solution, or so they had found so far, was to set up a dispenser and dump lava across the entrance whenever it wasn't being used. Bam, impenetrable walls and gate!

That said, keeping thirty or so Minecraftians (People not known for their easy-going natures) cooped up in a very small area, supported only by an eighteen block square plot of farmland and the occasional farm animal was such an incredibly bad idea that Tyx really didn't have the words. Soldiers put each other in the hospital over small arguments almost daily, draining the already meager potions supply, and the eternal night didn't improve anyone's mood.

Tyx would give just about anything to get the Nether out of there. Except his life. So, he was stuck.

First stop, farm. No one could enchant on an empty stomach, although he was so sick of eating potato and carrot soup for breakfast that he'd almost prefer spider eyes.

Once he arrived at the field and was handed his breakfast rations (One bowl of depressingly flavorless stew and a loaf of bread), he quickly turned an about-face and tried very hard not to start running. He may have had a bit of a crush on Tracy, their resident cook. He really would rather be eaten alive by silverfish than admit it, though, so he tried to avoid her as much as possible.

Sighing, he made his way through the twisty alleyways that led from his sleeping quarters to his workplace. Tyx rarely ever did anything except work, eat, and sleep, mostly because there wasn't anything else to do. Back in the golden age, you could just hang out in a tavern, eat some mushroom stew. Lots of places would even have a jukebox and a Cat disc. 'Course, no one in their right mind wasted diamonds on jukeboxes anymore. Just about all of them had been lost. Some bandit makes off with a joint's music player, falls into some lava lake on the way home, and no more jukebox. Guys who rob random clubs in search of diamonds don't tend to be the brightest of people.

Finally, Tyx arrived at the only other building he regularly visited. He didn't do much else besides read, actually. Technically, everyone was allowed a day off now and then to spend chatting with their buddies or sniping creepers. Kandy wasn't fond of that particular pastime, as it was a waste of valuable bows and arrows, but Notch, it was fun. Okay, he had done that once or twice. Revenge was sweet. Still, he never spent his spare time talking with his friends. Actually, he didn't have friends… probably becasue he didn't like people all that much.

Most likely a symptom of spending the last ten years or so of his life as a hermit, Tyx was uncomfortable around fellow humans, hated conversation with a passion, and had a terror of crowds that exceeded his fear of finding Herobrine himself under his bed. It made living in close quarters with 30 other people about as much fun as sleeping in a creeper dog pile. So, he hid in the library.

Wincing as his bare feet touched the freezing cold floor of the Crafting Tower, which housed everything from furnaces to brewing stands, Tyx jogged across the tiny first floor to the ladder. He probably should ask Kandy about some leather boots. Armor was usually iron, which was useless against cold floors, and only given to those who tended to tank damage. Or take damage. Or see mobs. Still, he was the only one in the entire Stronghold who could read Standard Galactic, the language of enchantment. Why it was called Standard Galactic, instead of something magic-sounding like Standard Wizard, he had no idea, but the little squiggles and dots made almost more sense to him than English. Surely that entitled him to a lousy pair of cow hide slippers!

Although… you didn't strictly need to read Standard Galactic to enchant. Not that Tyx was planning on telling anyone that anytime soon. Someday, he'd find a correlation between the seemingly random words on the pages of the Book of Mysteries and the resulting enchants. The fact that he'd twice enchanted swords with The Cold Wet Water and gotten Fire Aspect was irrelevant.

Tyx, who wasn't the most athletic person, was gasping for breath by the time he had hauled himself up onto the third floor of the Tower. He breathed in the smell of books, hoping for that comforting scent he missed so much… but it wasn't the same. Still, it was books, and that was what he was good with. Never, ever people. Books didn't talk back.

He curled up contentedly in his wooden chair. It wasn't very comfortable, as it was basically a block of wood carved into an L shape with a couple of planks slapped onto the sides, but it was as close to home as he could get in this castle.

Open on the enchanting table, pages flapping absently, was the Book of Mysteries. No one had written it, and no one could read it in its entirety. It opened to whatever page it bloody well felt like opening too, and really couldn't care less about what you wanted. After all, you were just some human, not a supernatural tome wished into existence by Notch himself.

Okay, maybe some books did talk back.

Placing his bowl on the enchanting table ‒ the priceless enchanting table that had bloody diamonds embedded in the corners, diamonds that were now smeared with stew ‒ Tyx lifted the spoon to his mouth.

"Alright," Tyx said around the wooden spoon. He had developed the habit of talking to the book long before he came here. It was perhaps the only thing that remained of his old home, as every single enchanting table ever made simply had a copy of it, no matter what the original book used in crafting had been. A lonely hermit enchanter really didn't have anything else to speak with, and if you were going to talk to an inanimate object it might as well be an incredibly magical and mysterious one.

Also, there was a good chance it was a sentient being, so it didn't hurt to be polite.

"What have you got for me today?" he asked, peering at the open page. Naturally, it wasn't the one he'd left off on yesterday. Well, approximately eight hours ago. It was hard to have a yesterday without first having proper days.

Squinting at the runes, he froze.

Gnidnib fo lautir eht. He was sure he'd translated that right. Well, pages of the Book of Mysteries often read like complete gibberish. Ah, there was a second bit! And the imbuing of Their golden blood

Ah… this was most unusual. He should probably run away; unusual things happening tended to mean that there had been a secret update. For all he knew, this was a new way to summon the Wither.

Or, it could be Sharpness X or something. He should really use a diamond sword just in case…

That was completely against regulations. Kandy didn't want him wasting diamond equipment on unknown enchantments. Instead, he was supposed to copy the enchantments into books, and apply them to the special gear later. Pfft, regulations shmegulations. He was a bloody wizard, he could do what he wanted! Kandy couldn't kill him if he had an uber-enchanted diamond sword anyway. 'Sides, who knew how much magical power it would take to get this new spell from paper to a sword anyway?

He had a chest full of books and weaponry, including one diamond sword that he kept around, just in case Kandy's rules needed some bending. Spoon still between his teeth, he hauled the weapon into his lap.

The spoon fell out of his mouth.

It landed squarely on the page.

It started to glow.

Tyx stared uncomprehendingly at the utensil for at least a minute.

"HEROBRINE'S UNDERPANTS!" he screamed. He'd enchanted a spoon! HE'D ENCHANTED A BLOODY SPOON! HE'D GIVEN A NOTCH DAMNED SPOON MYSTERIOUS POWERS HE'D PROBABLY NEVER SEE AGAIN!

"Bloody Nether…" he mumbled, letting his head plop down onto the table with a thud.

"Ouch!" Note to self, Obsidian is really hard.

The Notch damned book was laughing at him, he just knew it! Well, he should check out what amazing, epic enchantment he'd put on a spoon. A spoon. He almost felt like crying.

Sharpness X, it read. Fire Aspect II. Blood of the Gods I.

Sharpness X. On a spoon. And what in the Nether was Blood of the Gods?!

On a spoon.

"Fff‒" he began, but was cut off. A loud crack filled the air with the smell of gunpowder, a flash of light blinding him as he tripped backwards over his chair, still clutching the spoon.

Oh, he thought, his mind finally realizing what exactly the enchantment had said. Gnidnib fo lautir eht… was 'The ritual of binding' backwards.

Ah, Nether… he thought, remembering one of the stranger pages in one of the oldest books he'd ever read.

A backwards incantation has the opposite effect.

He'd just released a demon. Kandy was going to snap and stab him this time, he just knew it. Not that he could really blame her. He'd ignored all her rules, and now… he wasn't even sure what the Nether he'd done, exactly.

There was another flash of light, another blast of sound, even louder than before. He opened his mouth to swear, but a vicious wind picked up and blew the words right out of his mouth. Books went flying, papers freeing themselves from their bindings and sticking to the walls. Tyx closed his eyes, clutching at the nearest shelf and hoping to Notch he didn't get blown away.

Finally, the noise stopped. The air went still. Tentatively, he opened his eyes.

Someone was sitting on the enchantment table.

Eheheh, cliffie. Sorta.

I'm not going to include youtubers, but that doesn't mean I can't make references! ):D

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