IX-(Continuation of Arch 1)-IX
(Harsh Beginnings)

Chapter IX- Stormy Maze

"Wake up everyone, get your armor and weapons, we are leaving in 5 minutes!" Sevented warned.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. Mcarrot apparently felt cold in the night and was now on top of me. I woke it up and I threw it to the ground. I was groggy but still I could see that the sun didn't rise yet.

I slowly came out of my tent and saw Sevented and Acacia well awake, getting the weapons and everything ready. I looked to my right I saw an angry dwarf with probably a hangover and eyes that he couldn't open.

"What the hell is with ya people? Waking up in the night…!" He growled while scratching his back.

"Did you already forget we're here to kill a monster…?" Sevented said in a threatening tone.

Needless the say, the dwarf received a yelling about the mission and another one about his love for booze. After it settled , Fetch came out of another tent half-asleep but didn't said anything rude and went to help right away.

After 5 minutes, the sun started to peek through the horizon. We had our armor and weapons on, a bag for a meal just in case the exploration took too long and little else. Sevented was on his armored horse and ordered us to follow him.

IX-(Stormy Maze)-IX

It was awkward to walk in there with full iron armor with the others. I never realized this was perhaps the way soldiers in medieval times go to war. Acacia didn't have anything to protect her aside from her magical robes. Sevented had an iron armor that was a bit darker grey than ours.

About another 5 minutes in and we were without a doubt in a maze. The hills were so tall that it might as well be walls. I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about my surroundings, I was afraid something with an evil smile might shoot another arrow at me. The sheer though made me shiver with pain a bit, the wound is yet to heal.

Looking up, the clouds were getting darker and darker, and the amount of thunder was slowly increasing. If it kept going like this, midday was going to feel like midnight. The dwarf and Fetch were also feeling paranoid looking around, Acacia made aside glances occasional but Sevented kept a straight face.

After even another 5 minutes. Fetch stopped, breathing heavily and asked:

"You said that this place was like a maze! How do you know we aren't going around in damn circles?"

Unfortunately, the one in charge didn't provide an answer and was clearly a bit unsure about the situation. Acacia looked around and closed her eyes for a bit… Fetch looked at the dwarf and whispered some comments. A few seconds later she opened her eyes and pointed at path.

"I believe it's that way!"

"Very well then!" He said.

IX-(Stormy Maze)-IX

After a bit of going on circles we were now on the supposed right path. Around two minutes of walking later, Acacia suddenly froze.

"Something's coming!" She warned pointing at the way we just came.

"TO ARMS!" He ordered right away.

Without wasting any time, my friends got into position like a trained force. I tried to mimic them and took my sword out as they did. Everyone waited as the steps became audible for all of us.

"I never would have guessed we would have to fight this soon! Very well then, bring it on messy bones!" The dwarf taunted.

I waited nervously as my arms kept shaking with the fear of getting killed or worse. The steps got louder and louder. I squeezed the grip, I was ready!

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOIN' IN HERE?" Yelled an unknown voice.

I opened my eyes to see a group of ten human soldiers with armor looking at us. One of them had his mouth slightly open.

"Wait uh… Are you part of the Horizon group?" Their Leader asked.

"Yes, but! Who are you and what are you doing here!"

"We are a patrol in charge of this area of the Lost Lands! We noticed an army coming from here so we went for back up!"

"You arrived late then! I had to burry two good people, but, since you're here… I think we could still use some help. We have to bring down that tower!" Sevented said, pointing at the mob lord's tower.

"Since you provided a good service to the King, I think we can trust you. We're here to take care of all the nasty stuff after all. For you Sevented, lead the way!"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Sevented just got 10 soldiers out of the blue? And what's that King that guy talked about? This world is bigger than I thought!

"Very well then, we have to hurry though, by night this place will be pitch dark!"

Not much more was said since Sevented wanted to get to the tower as soon as possible. It was quite noticeable since there wasn't much light because of the clouds and as the day went on, that amount became less and less.

IX-(Stormy Maze)-IX

It was around 1 AM at the peak of sunlight but it was still very dark. We had to carry torches otherwise we would get surely lost. Acacia was still indicating the paths that would get us to the center.

We are getting closer… There is much less light now…

After one final turn we saw red light about 50 blocks away. The light was just next to the tower. Sevented made the gesture to stay watchful, everyone looked everyone looking paranoid. We walked a bit more and soon we realized we were in the middle of a giant field. Dead bodies were all around us, there were gravestones, posts with redstone torches and a very sticky mossy floor.

"Stay watchful, this place smells like an ambush!" He whispered.

Suddenly the lightning intensified, and was falling more around us. Everyone instinctively grabbed their weapons. I was feeling less and less safe. I looked up and I saw a fixed lighting striking the top of it.

"MWAWAWAAW!" A demonic laugh was heard coming from the top of tower, there was a dark figure there. "YOU'RE HERE! YOU FINALLY ARRIVED! Sevented… Acacia… Rendell... I would never have guessed I could kill you myself… I won't bother all of you; we have too much living people in here! RISE MY MINIONS, RISE!"

The lightning went crazy around the field, and struck one soldier setting him ablaze.

The whole army of bones and corpses started to slowly rise. Among them were spiders, black armored skeletons, skeletons, zombie and a few creepers. Because of the amount of lighting around it was hard to guess their numbers. A rough estimate was around from 50- 80 monsters and more kept rising.

"KILL THEM!" It ordered.

Everyone took hold of their weapons and started fighting. As adrenaline rushed I quickly forgot the pain on my leg and ribs, but it still wasn't too easy to stay up in a fight. I squeezed the grip of my sword and I threw a blow to an approaching zombie, slicing part of it.

Thundask was doing some sort of magic and the clouds above were getting thicker. Less and less light was coming, the lightning got intense and nasty rain started to fall.

Sevented charged a wither skeleton with his horse in an attempt to knock it down, but because it was dark and the monster itself was dark, he didn't noticed an incoming blow to him and knocked him off the horse. He slowly stood up, and made a horrified face as he saw that the skeleton was pulling back its gigantic sword in order to kill him. The then horse came back and rammed the skeleton knocking it off its balance. Sevented stood up and screamed.

"ACACIA! WE NEED LIGHT. DESTROY THOSE CLOUDS!"

Acacia made a field in order to reflect an arrow back to its sender and nodded back in response. She pulled out a staff and pointed at the sky, making a beam of light to the clouds that were about to enter a spiral in order to create a tornado.

The beam itself gave back enough light for me to start using my torch as a weapon without the fear of getting stuck in the dark. I was breathing heavily and received spikes of pain on occasion from arrows, fortunately, all ricocheted back because of the armor.

I threw another blow at an annoying skeleton, destroying it. I looked to my left and was impressed by an unarmored wither skeleton charging at me. I quickly dodged it and I tried to slash it with my sword but the blow was parried by its gigantic stone one. Each blow that it threw was difficult to parry, and one of them broke my defense and hit the armor. Another dent in that place would surely hit flesh, I screamed with pain and I launched myself at it in a rage. Because of that, I was knocked again, and into the floor. It then proceeded to place its foot on my chest making all the air leave my lungs.

"YEAAAH!"

The dwarf launched himself and hammered the skeleton's leg with his axe snapping it. The skeleton fell down and the dwarf jumped to it and slashed its neck splitting it.

"I may be tiny but I'M FIERCE!" He boasted.

The fighting kept going normally for another 30 seconds until soldiers started dying. Thundask noticed Acacia's magic and tried to fight it with its own but she was still slowly opening up the sky.

I slashed another spider, and split its hairy head. With blocky sweet going through my face I glanced at the tide of undead that kept rising. I slowly backed away, and on the corner of my eye I saw a soldier being blown up by a creeper. I looked up, the sky was still very cloudy but more and more light was starting to sink in, improving the group's morale.

When are they going to stop coming.

The lighting was still intense but was now striking at random hitting both us and the undead since it was busy trying to beat Acacia.

"YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WIN THIS!" She screamed with confidence. As she finished her words, her beam grew larger and made a flash of light, almost letting the bare sky in.

I was trying my best to finish off the endless torrent of undead. With each blow I grew more and more tired. The dwarf looked like he was about to fall off to the side if adrenaline didn't keep him going. Sevented and Fetch were still fighting normally and weren't really tired, but I could see they were slowly coming down. If the fight kept going like this with no breaks to take a deep breath everyone would eventually fall off. We started cluster into a circle around Acacia, I there noticed there weren't really that much people left.

As we started to lose hope, she gave one final shout and the beam blew up the clouds, letting the full sunlight in. The army of undead around us started to burn, the last creepers were caught in the flames and blew up and the spiders ran off. As the final skeleton burned to death, I dropped my weapons and crumbled to my knees. Everyone was breathing heavily.

Then I saw that Acacia was on the floor, lifeless. Sevented's horse was dead and only both the leader and a soldier aside from our group were still alive. Sevented ran towards her but it was clear there was little he could do since she was the medic and he didn't know much.

"She's alive!" He announced.

I wide opened my eyes in hope.

"She is very tired and really needs to rest. Fetch bring her back to the camp, she might get ambushed if we let her here alone."

"Oh my god…" The leader looked around at his dead men, undisturbed at the stench of crisped rotten flesh.

I picked up my sword and I stood up. Everyone that was still alive was very messed up. Sevented had his armor full of scratches and dents and his face had some blood, Fetch was in a more or less state, with a beaten up armor but was fairly unharmed, the dwarf was fine except that his breathing sounded like he was about to hyperventilate.

"We can't let that monster to gain back its strength! Let's go!" Sevented ordered.

We walked then to the entrance to the tower, Sevented pushed it open and everyone slowly walked inside.

And another awesome fight scene… Tried my best in a maze scene but I knew it could be done much better! I believe my biggest flaw right now is the dialogue. Anyway… Chapter X is upon us and will the climax of the first part of the story(I hope!) . After X I'm going to change the chapter structure and will also enter a regular schedule so you readers know when to check this out again for news. This chapter is also as far as Minecraft The Fight For Leadership went, so chapter X 100% new! I believe this is all so see you later on the climax and thanks for reading till here! And as always, leave a review that it helps way too much! Thanks!