Chapter 4
Katherine's POV
We ran into the crowd of people in the dome waiting for the keynote to begin. The dome was made of stone bricks and the top was made of glass. There were Endercon and Gabriel keynote posters covering the walls, and a stage where I supposed Gabriel was about to give his speech.
"Where did he go?" Axel asked, looking around for the creepy guy. He seemed to have vanished.
"In there! Petra said, pointing to a basement door by the stage that was still open a crack. We walked over to it.
"Wait. What are we going to do once we go in there? We need a plan." Lukas informed us.
"We politely ask for what's ours." Jesse said.
"Short, sweet, and to the point. Not bad." Lukas smiled.
We crept into the basement and peered around the wall. I gasped when I saw all the books.
"Books!" I exclaimed excitedly in a loud whisper.
"Shhh!" Olivia shushed me.
I blushed in embarrassment and started looking around. Luckily the creepy guy wasn't there. I didn't like it here. It was cool, yet very eerie. "I don't want to be here longer than I have to! Let's just get Petra's thingy and get out." I say unsteadily.
"I thought you loved books, Kathy." Olivia teased.
"I love books when they're not in a creepy guy's creepy basement filled with creepy cobwebs and creepy artifacts." I replied.
Jesse and Axel started arguing about stealing some of the guy's stuff.
"I don't want to stoop to his level." Petra told Axel, walking up to the two of them.
"Yeah, the faster we find Petra's Wither skull, the faster we can get the heck out of here!" Jesse tells them.
So that's what we're looking for. I thought to myself. I started searching the shelves. As I was looking, I found a dusty picture frame and picked it up. It was too dusty to see the picture properly, so I blew it off. It was a picture of the Order of the Stone. Everyone in the picture was much younger.
Magnus was on the right, crouching next to Gabriel, who was in a dramatic pose to his left. Soren was standing on the far left, smiling happily, and Ellegaard was to his right, she had one hand on Soren's shoulder and one on Gabriel's.
I smiled and set the picture down to continue looking.
Suddenly, Jesse flipped a switch and there was a rumbling sound, a bookshelf lowered to reveal some blocks arranged in a T shape. One block of Soul Sand stood on the bottom with a weird, pulsing block on top of it, and one Soul Sand block on the left and right of the pulsing thing. A double chest sat in front of the odd configuration.
"What is that?" I asked them, and creeped up to see it.
"Soul Sand," Petra told me, "it was everywhere in the Nether."
Olivia looked at the pulsing block in the middle.
"What is that?" She asked, sticking out her hand to touch it, "maybe if I just take a closer look... Do you see that? It's almost pulsing." Before she could touch it, Jesse leaped up to stop her.
"Don't touch that Olivia!" he said, shaking his head vigorously.
"But I was just-"
"Remember what we're here for! Find that skull!" Jesse reminded her.
Olivia nodded and walked away.
Jesse walked up to the chest in front of the contraption and opened it. "Soo… good news, weird news." Jesse began, "I found the skull but…"
"What the hell?" Petra exclaimed angrily. "Why did I risk my neck for that skull if he's got two of them already!?"
"Maybe he's a trophy collector?" Jesse suggested.
"Wait… Soul Sand… and three Wither skulls…" Lukas began, "That's the recipe for a Wither!"
"We need to get out of here! Quick! Grab the skull and get out!" Petra said.
Just before Jesse could grab one of the skulls, the basement door creaked open.
"Scatter!" Petra told us.
I quickly look around and see a chest to my left. I jumped in and curled up into a tiny ball. I felt something move next to me. I quickly took a torch out of my back pocket, hoping I didn't just jump into a chest with some sort of mob. I shined the light and saw Lukas next to me.
"What are you doing in here!?" Lukas whispers.
"I don't know! What are you doing here?!" I whisper back.
"It was the first hiding spot I could find!"
"How did you get in here so fast?!"
"I'm a really fast at hiding!"
"That makes no sense!"
"It doesn't have to!"
"Yes, it does!"
"Just be quiet so we don't get caught."
"Fine. Whatever." I cracked the lid of the chest open to see the creepy guy we were looking for practicing some sort of speech.
"Surprised to see me? Yes… that's better..."
I heard a potion crash somewhere in the room and held my breath.
"Who's there!" the guy asked. "Come out now!"
"Hello, Ivor." Jesse said, jumping out of his hiding spot.
Petra jumped out of her hiding spot as well. "Thought you could cheat me off and get away with it, didn't you?" she snarled at him.
"You two!" Ivor exclaimed, "What are you doing here?" In a smaller voice he added, "What did you see?"
Olivia and Axel jumped out of their hiding spots as well. I stayed put, not knowing what I was supposed to do.
Ivor said something offensive and Axel got overprotective. "Hey! Nobody talks to my friends like that! So, shut your mouth, or else."
"Enough! You've wasted enough of my time already!" Ivor yelled, running up to a 'T' shaped formation of iron. "If you won't leave of your own volition," he threatened, putting a pumpkin on top of the iron 'T', "then I'll happily remove you myself!"
Everyone gasped as the iron rumbled and turned into an iron golem.
"Golem! Show our friends the door, will you?" Ivor commanded it.
The iron golem started to attack Jesse, Axel, Olivia, Petra and Reuben. They narrowly escaped and the four of them made it out the door.
Yes! I thought triumphantly. They made- oh crap. I realized something. My friends had made it out, but Lukas and I were trapped.
