"And this, this is Barry," Zoey finished, proudly finishing up her tour of her village, ending with her most impressive mushroom.
"Right, this is cool!" Maide answered. "We don't have much at S.M.R.T corp- what was that?" he looked up as a white blur flew past them.
"Oh, that's just Duncan, he has a flying ring," Zoey explained happily. Her expression became slightly more worried once they heard the sound of arrows hitting armor and stone alike.
"What's going on now?" Maide shouted in the direction Duncan had flown, but there wasn't a response. It was doubtful he even heard him. Though squinting into the distance, Maide noticed something out of the ordinary.
"Huh…"
"Fire, that's fire!" Zoey exclaimed, beginning to panic.
"You know, you really should just use magic, I mean it's so much better than machines and stuff," Rythian tried to convince Teep. Teep shook his head.
He pulled out his chalkboard and wrote the message;
I JUST DO WHAT SJIN SAYS
"Yes, I know, but I could teach you…" Rythian continued to try and persuade the dinosaur. A crackling in the distance brought his attention to more important things. "I hear fire!"
The dinosaur put his claws up as if claiming innocence. Rythian looked outside to see what had happened. The forest near Zoey was burning furiously.
"HOLY GOD THAT'S FIRE."
"Ben, can you hear something?" Strippin asked his friend as he finished fastening a tie to one of their latest inventions.
An explosion sounded somewhere in the distance.
"Seems like it's at Sjin's, don't worry about it mate," Ben replied from atop their house.
A distant bang distracted Nilesy from the puzzle he was preparing in his adventure tree. Shaking his head, he thought nothing of it.
"I see that!" Maide yelled back at Zoey, who was starting to panic.
"Pretty sure that's fire!" She kept saying, tugging on her hair.
"That's a lot of fire," Maide agreed. The fire that started in Duncan's forest was quickly making its way to the mushroom village they were standing on. "Zoey, are mushrooms flammable?" he asked, fearing their safety.
"My mushroom is on fire…" She replied in a daze. Looking out, Maide saw that the outskirts of her village had indeed, caught alight.
"Tee," Rythian turned around, not noticing the fire spreading closer. "Did you vandalize my sand?" He'd noticed the stone amongst his beach when he looked outside, and the mess bothered him. Teep shook his head. "I'm pretty sure you did," Rythian said sternly.
Teep grabbed his board again. 'IT WAS RAVS.' Rythian shook his head in amazement at the audacity a mute dinosaur could display, before looking out the window again.
"The forest is pretty much burned down…" He frowned. "I hope Zoey will be okay, she lives pretty close."
"Oh my glob!" Zoey cried as the two antagonists flew directly over her village. "No, stop! You're setting fire to everything!"
Maide was trying to douse the flames at the edge of the village, with little success. As fire began leaping up his body, he said quietly, "Hm. I appear to have caught fire."
"That's a lot of my mushrooms on fire!" Zoey worried as she looked around for her friend. "Maide!"
Maide didn't reply. It was clear now that the smoke he'd been inhaling had made him dizzy and weak. Zoey couldn't reach him.
"Maide!" she coughed out again, but flames surrounded him.
Zoey would later swear that the last thing she heard from him was, 'Some people just want to see the world burn…'
"Ben, I really think we should go!" Strippin called as a figure in quantum armor whizzed overhead.
"I think you're right, buddy. Why can't these guys just keep it to themselves?" Ben replied in anger as he climbed down. "Come on, let's go to our bunker. We won't take any fire from there."
Strippin nodded, and the two hastily made their way underground, though weren't aware that their tunnels led in the direction of Duncan's house.
"No!" Zoey cried, running in circles beneath her village. "Not my prized mushroom that I spent literally two seconds cultivating!" She looked for a way up, to try to salvage what was left, but it was too late. The mushroom had burnt almost to the ground.
Zoey sank to her knees in shock. "Barry the mushroom…" she whispered, as something in her snapped.
A fireball whizzed overhead in the direction of the Israphel and chicken statues, but she barely noticed.
"Whoa Nelly!" Rythian yelled, standing outside his house, trying to figure out what was going on. "That almost hit me!"
"Go downstairs!" He called to Teep, "The Mage Tower is on fire!" He caught once last glance of the dinosaur climbing the ladder down before he activated his own flying ring, heading up to his tower to put out the flames.
"My power flower!" he noticed. All that work, burning before his eyes. "Ouch!" he cried as an arrow grazed his arm. He looked up to see Duncan flying near him, laughing manically as he fired freely at the wizard. He retreated to the ground to avoid the fire, but Sjin had joined him now.
Duncan continued laughing as he shot through Rythian's house with one of those…mining lasers.
"OH GOD! MY HOUSE!" Rythian panicked. He hoped Teep had gotten to safety in time. There was nothing left to do but to run, so he headed into the not yet burnt part of the forest.
"Rythian?" Zoey noticed the cloaked figure running around wildly. "Where's your house?" she asked, looking over at the island where his house had once stood. The fire was getting closer to her, but still she hadn't moved. She had to save her mushrooms.
Rythian thought he was safe, until Sjin appeared in front of him.
"Going somewhere?" the bearded man smirked as he let fly an arrow into Rythian's leg.
"What the Hell Sjin?" Rythian shouted angrily. "We were partners! I used my magic to help you!" Sjin just smiled as he let loose another arrow, this time into Rythian's torso.
The last thing Rythian saw was Sjin smiling as he leveled his bow directly at his forehead.
"Sorry!" Duncan called down to Zoey as a stray arrow flew past her cheek. She slowly raised her hand, noticing the small cut and the blood that followed.
A dim awareness of pain in her right shoulder made its way to her consciousness, and she felt around to see what the cause was. An arrow stuck out the back of her shoulder like a quill.
"Zoey," the cool voice came from beneath one of her last mushrooms. She turned slowly to see an arrow flying straight for her.
As she lay on the ground, bleeding, she decided she ought to say something.
"My only regret…" she huffed out. "Is that I have," she coughed as a pair of boots crunched next to her head. "Boneitis," she finished seriously.
The sound of arrow fire had ceased, and Strippin and Ben had relaxed slightly.
"What do you think they're doing?" Ben asked, nervously.
"Hopefully they're dead," Stripping said bitterly. They had destroyed their rails, every last one of them. He couldn't believe Duncan could ever be so careless. But Sjin must have started it. It was the only explanation for Duncan attacking him.
"Should we go back-" Ben was cut off as the rumbling sound of a growing explosion rocked through their cave, and everything went white.
It wasn't much, but it was complete. Nilesy wasn't great at redstone, but he thought he had made a decent puzzle. He had been humming to drown out the sounds of arrow fire in the distance. It was none of his business. He kept to himself, and that was how he liked it.
The sun is remarkably bright today, he noticed as he looked outside. It was almost glaringly white. It was hurting his eyes, it was so bad. And what was that rumbling sound?
