A/N: I'm really, really sorry for taking so long to update this. I had a bit of a writer's block moment… actually, more like a writer's block month. It's difficult trying to focus on both writing and schoolwork at once; this homework thing is becoming an epidemic! Anyway, Chapter 9 is finally done, thank goodness. :3 Thanks for all of your reviews so far! I really appreciate it.
Chapter 9
Steve took a good look at his enemy's unveiled face for the first time, expecting it to be warped with deformities and gruesome mutations that only the most evil of evil could possess. What he saw came as a surprise.
He looked normal enough, with the face of a man who was probably in his early thirties, although there was something about it that made Steve think otherwise. His skin was fair and light, with the exception of his crooked, white hands. A mane of silver hair hung down to his shoulders, glistening with a youthful sheen and curving around the handsome features of his face. A pair of deep-set, teal eyes twinkled playfully at the captives over a sharp nose and smirking mouth. It was difficult to judge how old he was by his looks alone. He looked a bit younger than Steve, but then again, Steve's appearance had been weathered by many long hours under the hot sun; too much exposure to radiation had brought out the wrinkles in his face and toughened his skin until it became leathery. For all he knew, he looked like an old man compared to Alastor. Not that he really cared about looks at this point.
The tiny voice of DC snapped him out of his thoughts. "Our auras? What do you want with our auras? And how do you even know about them?"
Alastor sighed and sat up in his throne. "Of course, you wouldn't know. I suppose an explanation is in store here, yes?"
"You better believe it," Steve shot at him.
"Calm yourself down; I will explain everything as thoroughly as possible. Take a seat."
Something nudged the back of Steve's leg. Turning around, he was greeted with one of the tall creatures holding a wooden chair. It set the chair down behind him and waited for him to sit. Another one did the same for DC.
Satisfied, Alastor waved his hand, signaling the tall creatures to leave. With a robotic bow, they exited the majestic room one by one until none remained. Only then did Alastor speak. "I will warn you right now that this isn't something I can explain to you in a couple of words. In fact, this… conversation, if you will, will be quite lengthy. I suggest you make yourselves comfortable. With that said, allow me to begin.
"Auras…" A grin formed on the corners of his mouth at the word. "What wonderful things they are. The capacity for intelligence, the ability to think… It all lies in the auras. It's all very nice, yes? But I'll bet you both didn't know they serve another purpose to the living. Actually, I suppose you could say they are the very reason we are considered 'the living'."
The two captives glanced uneasily at each other. Neither of them liked where he was going with this.
"Auras not only give you a conscience, but also life itself. They are a form of life energy."
"What?" Steve couldn't restrain the outburst brought on by shock. "That makes no sense. There's plenty of creatures in Minecraftia that don't have auras, like farm animals and hostiles. They're alive, aren't they?"
"Perhaps you should let me speak before forming your own conclusions."
Steve squirmed in his seat and fell silent.
"Thank you. Now, you are right about one thing; farm animals certainly don't have auras. They were not made to have them; they live based on instinct and instinct alone, something of which is totally different from true intelligence. They do not rely on a special life force like the intelligent beings do; they were not meant to thrive on knowledge and wisdom. You were wrong, though, in assuming that these 'hostiles', as you seem so keen on calling them, don't have auras, or should I say, that they didn't have them at one point in time."
It was DC's turn to be shocked. "What are you saying?"
Alastor switched his gaze to him. "I'm saying, little creeper, that you do not know as much about the history of this world as you thought you did. So now it is my job to give you two a little history lesson.
"Close your eyes, the both of you, and imagine Minecraftia without its notoriously violent night life - no zombies, no skeletons, no living in fear that something may find its way into your window and murder you in your sleep. For that is what this world was like in the old times, hundreds of years ago. We lived in peace - farm animals, creeper tribes… and humans."
Humans.
Humans?
He didn't say humans… did he?
That's impossible.
Is it?
Steve felt his chest tighten considerably. His head went numb. He sucked in a breath and forgot to let it out.
"Caught your attention, Stephen?" He chuckled in amusement. "Yes, those were the best times. We lived in cities, you know - big, beautiful cities. Villages, too, and strongholds, mighty fortresses, and the quaintest of little towns. There wasn't anything the crafters couldn't build. Not that we needed fortresses to protect ourselves, because we lived in a world of peace (except for the occasional forest spider - they were always a nasty lot). Everyone worked together for the good of one another, to live, to thrive, to expand the world that our 'mighty god,' the 'great and powerful' Notch, 'Crafter of all crafters,' created for us." He spoke with a sarcastic tone as he mentioned his god. "He gave us a world, and he gave us life. He gave us auras. We could think; therefore, we could thrive. And he did the same for your kind, creeper; you were also given auras, in hopes that you would live and think, too. And you did. Humans and creepers existed together in harmony, as friends and as allies."
Both Steve and DC soaked in every word Alastor spoke. It sounded too good to be true. Humans and creepers? Together? In a world with no hostiles? It was mind-boggling, to say the least.
Alastor continued. "Obviously, things must have taken a turn for the worse at some point to have gotten to the state they are in today. Something did occur, after many centuries of normal life. There was a man who came along… a man with some very strange ideas." He tilted his head ever so slightly, and his eyes glazed over in a faraway look. "And an even stranger ability." He spoke in a lower, softer tone. "You see, this man could… perform certain things with the help of auras. From a very early age, he possessed a special gift - the ability to actually see auras."
DC gasped in spite of himself. Alastor raised an eyebrow at the creeper but said nothing about it. He returned to his speech.
"Through his eyes, those who possessed an aura were constantly surrounded by an electric ring of blue light. He also noticed that the older the being became, the dimmer the aura was. Therefore, he made the conclusion that auras were also life energy, and once it was drained over the course of a lifetime, the soul of the one who possessed it would die; after all, we intelligent beings cannot live without a soul.
"This man lived as a recluse for many of his younger years in a small village. His mental state had always been weaker than the average person's because of his gift, and as more and more abilities surrounding auras made themselves known to him, his level of sanity gradually decreased. He found out he could mentally tap into his own aura and 'access', if you will, the database that was his consciousness, his intelligence. He could hear every one of his thoughts aloud, as if a disembodied voice was uttering them. Every action he performed, every slight move he took… he could sense those commands being programmed into his mind before it even happened. But that wasn't all; he could also count how many years he had left in his life and the lives of others. He would sit in his house during the day and peer out the window at the auras of the common passerby; after a great deal of time spent studying the different levels of brightness on the different auras, he could roughly estimate how many years that person had left to live - he was quite accurate, too. Unfortunately, it was the kind of knowledge that was very unsettling for him to learn, for as he reached the age of thirty, he discovered he had only a year to live; his physical health was as bad as his mental health. The news was too much to handle by himself, so he called for his closest friends.
"There were only two friends he had; I was one, and the other was a creeper named Damien of the C'jasst tribe - the man and I always affectionately called the little fellow 'DC'."
Steve looked at his partner so rapidly that his neck cracked painfully. DC's face was immediately erased of any emotion as his mind struggled to make the connection.
There was no way that was a coincidence. No way.
Alastor was too immersed in his own story to pay any mind to his baffled captives. "We were the only ones that knew of his strange gift. He confided in no one apart from us. I can still remember the panic-stricken look on his face as he called us over that day and blurted out his fate. The poor man was in hysterics, and nothing we said or did could bring him any comfort.
"After several long hours of mumbling incoherent strings of sentences, something clicked in his head - an idea. He could tap into his aura; could he tap into someone else's? At first, he wouldn't tell us why this theory was so important to him, but we gladly obliged to help him test it out nonetheless, oblivious to what would happen. He used DC as his first 'test subject' and successfully reached into the creeper's aura, which he found was much brighter than his. He could read every thought his friend was thinking, sense every emotion he felt; more importantly, he now had easy access to his aura, his life energy.
"What happened next was a complete accident on his part and a tragedy for everyone present. To this day, I am still unsure of how it happened. We heard a sound like a rushing wind, and DC suddenly dropped dead, as if his very life had been sucked out of him. Poor, innocent creature hadn't seen it coming. No one had. I think perhaps this is what caused my friend to descend into madness the way he did. After all, he had just committed murder, let alone on his best friend. He stared at the lifeless body in horror, while I could only watch. He then stammered through a series of explanations, trying to justify his crime. 'It was right there,' he told me. 'The aura - I saw it. I reached out. I grabbed it. And then it… fused. It fused into mine.' But then he would deny it, saying it was impossible that he had literally drained the life from his creeper friend, that he took the life of someone else for himself. He kept muttering, 'It was a mistake. Just a mistake,' as he walked over to his mirror and examined his newly-brightened aura.
"As a loyal friend (and his only one at that point), I decided to stay by his side instead of reporting him to the authorities, for such actions would surely cause him to be banished from the village altogether. Therefore, I made a promise to him, that no one would find out about the mishap. We dug a hole in the floor of his house and buried our deceased friend in the dirt before covering it up once and for all. From then on, I stuck by my unstable friend as we went about studying the matter that is the aura… and he slowly continued to lose his mind. Eventually, we both forgot about DC.
"My friend change into a completely different person, one I could hardly recognize. He became very… power hungry - not the sort of power that you use to control others, but the sort of power you use to acquire control over your own life. Think about it; he finally found a way to extend his years and ultimately dodge his fate. He now held no fear of death; he would never need to face it… as long as he continued to supply himself with auras. And so the quest began.
"I suppose you could say I was his accomplice, his sidekick, a partner in crime. I put up with him not only for the sake of any sanity he had left, but also because I was curious of his strange powers. The idea of an extended life and the possibility of immortality was… oddly pleasing to me, not to mention the prospect of increased intelligence. Of course, I didn't tell him this, for I was afraid he would become suspicious and lash out. Until I found a way to acquire the same power he had, I was nothing more than someone to tagalong.
"I came across an old book at the village library a couple of days after the incident. It told of an ancient practice - a sort of meditation, if you will - that could allow you to reach into the deepest corners of your soul and access your aura. The book was in the restricted area; people didn't want someone coming across such a 'dark' and 'evil' idea. My curiosity got the better of me, and I stole the book, taking it back to my house, where I would practice in secret. In just a few short days, I was able to succeed. From then on, I could see the actual aura like my friend could. I had his gift, even if it wasn't one present from birth. I practiced the 'draining' technique (the very one that caused the death of our creeper friend) on myself, extracting a bit of the energy into my hand and focusing it back into myself. I felt powerful. Invincible. I kept all of this a secret from my friend as the two of us carried out our plan.
"By day, we were normal villagers, and by night, thieves - thieves of life. We'd wait for the rising moon, when the village was sound asleep. We crept into their houses one by one. My friend would drain the victims of their auras, while I would keep watch by the nearest window. We didn't bother to hide the bodies; there was no evidence to prove that we were the villains, no evident cause of death. No blood, no screaming, nothing. And so we moved on, house after house, until half of the village was gone. My friend refused to stop there; greed had driven him too far to stop. More houses were infiltrated, more people were drained. By morning… there was no one left but us. Everyone was dead. Humans and creepers alike. I was beginning to feel rather angry with my friend, but he was having the time of his life. Countless years had been added onto his, and the minds of an entire village resided within his own. He was forever young, brilliant, crafty, and crazy. And he wanted more. No amount of intelligence was enough, and there were never enough years to add on. He wanted more.
"I don't know why I didn't say something. We spent our evenings going from village to village, from city to city, wiping out anyone in sight. It was out of control. My friend was overwhelmed by knowledge and cunning, and the number of years on his life was innumerable; he was becoming more almighty than Notch himself. The god of Minecraftia was being dominated by his own creation. He couldn't simply kill my overpowered friend to end the catastrophe, so he created an alternate dimension and banished us to it, along with the bodies of the ones my friend had drained." He outstretched his arms. "That place was here - the Nether. Hell.
"I was enraged at that point. After all, what had I done wrong? What did I do to deserve this? It was all his fault. We were stuck in a dark, hot, fiery world with no escape, and it was entirely his fault.
"He didn't see it coming; he had his back turned. I focused all of my energy on performing this task correctly, because one wrong move would be my last. In a blinding fury, I took my fist to his head and knocked him unconscious. Then, I stood over him and drained the very life out of him. It took a good couple of hours, but I succeeded at last. My 'friend' was no more, and I… I felt wonderful. What wisdom! What energy! Such things I had never felt before - not in such a powerful way.
"I could count how many different auras I had dwelling within me. Each one felt as unique as the person it had belonged to. I isolated my friend's aura in my mind, and to my surprise, I could sense how sorrowful it felt. 'How could it be?' I thought. My friend may have been dead, but his soul was still very much alive - in me.
"Then I noticed an odd-looking stone at my feet - the one that rests on my staff here." He pointed a crooked finger at it. "I was captivated by its beauty, how perfectly round and smooth it was. As I picked it up, I heard a booming voice speak from it. 'Foolish human,' it rebuked. 'You do not know what you are doing. The aura is not something to be toyed with. Because of the corruption you and your friend bestowed upon the earth, I can no longer call Minecraftia a peaceful place; the Overworld has been ridden with the bodies of victims - your victims. I have separated the world into three dimensions to protect my people from harm. The Overworld shall only be used to separate you from them. Forever shall they dwell in the sky with me. Forever shall you burn in hell, with your victims.'
"It was a horrifying message. At least, it should have been; I was more angry than I was scared. How dare he abandon me like that? I wasn't the one to blame! From that day forward, I abandoned him as my 'god.' I have been ruling as King of the Nether ever since. I vowed to take control over all three dimensions, one way or another. This stone allows me to see the goings on of the Overworld; I have been watching you two through it. How you managed to stay in the Overworld, Stephen, I'll never know; I was told that everyone was taken into the sky. And you." He waved his staff at DC and furrowed his brow. "I don't know about you, either. Both of you shouldn't be here; you should be in the sky. That I don't understand." He sighed. "Of course, that all doesn't matter now. You're here. You're mine. Powerless."
He stopped to catch his breath after the elaborate story. This gave the two captives a chance to ponder over what had been said. Steve tried to summarize it in his mind.
Minecraftia wasn't at all what he thought it was. There used to be humans? Creepers weren't considered to be hostiles? A peaceful world? It sounded wonderful. But Alastor's friend ruined it all, because he was afraid of death. So here they were, trapped in the Nether dimension under the rule of a nearly-immortal madman. Things weren't looking too good.
But all questions hadn't been answered yet. Steve decided that it was now or never to ask. "If you're stuck here, then what's with that weird purple thing that got us here?"
"Good question, Stephen."
Steve really wished he'd stop calling him that.
"That 'weird purple thing' is a portal. I had my servants, the Endermen, build it for me. They know all about portals."
"The who?"
"Endermen. Those tall, black creatures that escorted you here? Never mind them now, though; they aren't important enough for your concern, believe me. Just know that they are the ones who built it.
"Anyway, I cannot travel through portals. There is some odd force field that is holding me at an arm's length away. It is quite frustrating, to say the least. You could travel here, but I can't. That's just the way it is, I suppose."
"What about hostile mobs? How did they come into existence?"
"Ah, yes. The hostiles. It was a simple matter, really. On the day I saw you wash up onto the shore, I was shocked. And irritated. After all, you were an intrusion upon my soon-to-be perfect world. I needed to get you down here somehow, but there wasn't anyone I could send; I needed to keep the Endermen here at my fortress (I figured they wouldn't be of much use otherwise), and I myself couldn't use the portal. All I had were the rotting corpses, some of which were nothing but bones.
"I got a brilliant idea; it would cost me, yes, but the pros heavily outweighed the cons. Remember how I said I could 'extract' bits of my aura and focus it back into myself? Well, I did the same thing here, but instead of focusing the energy into myself, I focused it into the corpses. Mind you, I only allowed them the slightest amount, an amount that wasn't even visible on the outside; I needed to keep most of it for myself, and I didn't want them being too intelligent to disobey me. What I found out was that since it was technically my aura that was injected into the corpses, I could still control that aura, ergo I could control the corpse itself. I could bend its will to do my bidding, no questions asked.
"I was ecstatic when I saw my minions rise from the ground (I had been a bit skeptic that a pile of bones could still function properly). They were rather stupid, but what could I expect? They would do. I… what's the right word… program? Yes, I programmed them. I programmed them to search for you, the one with the aura. I programmed them to sense any being that had the aura and find them. I sent them through the portal, and they would pop up randomly in any dark spot in the Overworld. They would search. For you. I planned for them to kill you. You were a crafty one, though, always on the move, building shelters and weapons to defend yourself. Because of that, I had a change of plans. I wanted to meet you. I sent my Endermen to the Overworld to get you. And then you showed up!" He once again pointed his staff at DC, who cowered away in fear. "I had never seen you before. My friend didn't drain you. You spawned in the middle of a forest… with an aura. It baffled me. It really did. It still does, too." He sighed. "Any more questions?"
Steve looked at DC, and DC looked at Steve. Both of them just wanted to get out of this horrible place. "No," Steve finally answered. "No more questions."
"Good." He stood up and loudly tapped the floor with his staff. The Endermen guards returned to the room, wearily awaiting instructions. "Take them to the cell," he ordered. "Perhaps they'd like to meet my good-for-nothing friend, Herobrine."
