Chapter Eleven: Ender Dream

Seven days of hard travel had led Nori to the snow-packed villages of the north. She resisted the urge to lick her dry lips; she knew by now it would only cause them to crack and bleed. Nori stood in the center of the village, watching several men dig a pit around the area where she was sure the portal would appear in a few days' time.

Had it only been a week ago that she had emerged from the Nether to start her wearying trek? It seemed like an eternity. She recalled riding into camp on a proud white stallion, clad in her shining new armor. She remembered the awed looks and hushed whispers of the Nomads she had lived and trained with, remembered feeling like a stranger once again.

Only Lila and the Enchanter had approached her no differently. Lila had been in happy hysterics to see Nori alive, and wouldn't stop apologizing for hours. Nori had been struck with a strange worried feeling when she heard Naasir and a stranger had gone off after her.

Even though she felt horrible about leaving her teacher to the dangers of the Nether, she knew she couldn't help him. The entire human race hung in the balance. Once they understood this, the Nomads insisted she ride at once, supplementing her packs with extra food and their own unique potions.

Nori's expression became more pained as the wind picked up in the frozen plain, not from cold, but from a memory. She remembered her faithful dog, so happy to see her again. But she knew she couldn't take him with her. He wouldn't be able to keep up with her steed, and she wouldn't want him in more danger than necessary. So, with a heavy heart, Nori had entrusted him to a young female Nomad who had been thrilled at the prospect of having a pet. Snow had loved the girl at once, and seemed to understand to some extent what had happened. His owner had given him away.

'Now Herobrine really has managed to take my closest friends, the ones I depended on most... though at least Snow is alive and happy. What I wouldn't give to see Quin again.'

"Okay! That should be deep enough to kill the bastards."

Nori came back to the present, shivering in her borrowed coat, watching the men climb out of their pit and pull their rope ladders up behind them. She backed up from the edge of the hole, wary of the icy ground and how easy it would be to take a fatal tumble.

"Excellent work, men," said the short, chubby village head, his voice muffled from within the thick fur of his robes and hood. "Well, Miss Stone, do you recommend any other courses of defense against the coming threat?"

The girl hesitated, looking back at the deep pit. Would it be enough? Would the trap combined with the villagers' alertness be enough to stave off an attack from the Nether? She smiled slightly and picked up a handful of snow, her fur-lined leather gloves shaping a snowball easily. "This climate should be especially useful against Blazes."

In her precious spare hours, Nori had been studying more from her father's vast store of books in her magic bag. "Though it may sound silly, snowballs burn them the way fireballs burn us. Since they can levitate, they will be your biggest threat, but your village is fortunate to have their weakness all around you."

The mayor gave a bobbing little bow of acknowledgement. "We appreciate your warnings, Miss Stone. Please, won't you reconsider spending the night here? It would be no trouble to house you."

"I wish I could, sir, but I have three more villages to warn within four days. I must go at once. Thank you for your hospitality." She tried to hand her borrowed coat and gloves back to the woman who had loaned them to her, but the villager refused.

"Please keep them. I've seen your map; the next two villages are in even colder climates than here."

Nori fervently thanked the woman, donning the outerwear gratefully. 'I definitely wouldn't want to live in this kind of place, ugh. Give me my warm, grassy plains any day. If I never see a snowflake again it'll be too soon.'

A few villagers followed her to the outer walls, watching while she mounted her horse and waving their solemn goodbyes as she rode away. "Good luck!" she called back over her shoulder, her voice whipped away at once by the freezing wind. 'You'll need it... We all will.'

Over the next two days, Nori covered more ground than she had thought possible. It was, in part, the urgency of the journey itself, but mostly the desire to get back to a temperate climate. She finished warning the three villages and overseeing the building of their defenses early, leaving herself two full days to desperately try and find Herobrine's weakness.

'That can come in the morning, though. I'm so exhausted.' Nori drove a single fence post into the soft earth and tied her horse on a long line so he could graze and lie down if he needed to. Nori was still trying to come up with a name for her stallion, but inspiration seemed to have fled along with her energy. Such things could come when there was peace once again.

She bundled up in her coat and lay next to her campfire, her sword barely an inch from her fingertips. It wasn't safe to sleep out in the open like this, but she had to rest. Her mind would be useless if she went without. If only she could sleep without nightmares...

It was completely dark. Nori felt she might have even been stricken blind, so complete was the blackness. She reached around to try and feel what kind of place Herobrine had taken her to this time, but unlike the other dreams she seemed to be in a wide open space. The ground was solid stone.

A low, oddly familiar, chilling laugh sent shivers up Nori's spine. It wasn't Herobrine's voice. It was a woman's, and yet the voice was even more menacing than that of the demon that had tormented her.

"Who's there? Who are you? What do you want?"

The woman gave a shriek of mirth before laughing even louder, her voice echoing endlessly in Nori's mind. She knew she should recognize the laugher, why couldn't she remember?

"Forgotten me already, Nori? I'm hurt. But don't worry; we'll be meeting again much sooner than you think."

Nori's eyes widened, her pupils huge in the darkness, searching for even a single glimmer of light. "Quin? Quin!"

Quite suddenly her dream shifted, and she forgot her previous horror. Nori was floating now, floating in a vast space. This time, scattered in the darkness, were billions of stars, warm and beautiful and calming. She had never seen such an amazing sight; she had no words for what was before her. How was she to know of nebulae, of galaxies? But nonetheless she could see them and take in their perfect form and rhythm.

"The monster can only exit this world through the destruction of whence he entered, Nori Stone. You must remember this," the stars whispered to her, charging her. "Destroy his entry point. Only then will he be banished forever."

Nori woke with a start, her sword in her hand as she leapt to her feet. A large hand on her face had awakened her. To her horror, she was staring up into the fathomless purple eyes of an Enderman. She dropped her gaze at once, readying her blade to fight, but the enormous being simply zipped away as if she hadn't broken the most important rule of dealing with Endermen.

'Why didn't he attack me? Wait... was it him? Did he give me that dream? The Enchanter and Rhett both said Endermen have foresight... they must want to help me! But what did he mean, that I had to destroy Herobrine's entry point? What did Quin say Rhett had done...'

In a snap Nori remembered, and she knew with a sick lurch in her stomach what she had to do. She had to find and destroy Herobrine's shrine, deep under the village now coated in lava.

*Elsewhere*

Though Naasir had managed to stay positive through the first few hours of his imprisonment, watching Herobrine grow stronger in Quin's body as he prepared to take down the human world was demoralizing all on its own. That was completely leaving out the fact that he was being tortured almost the entire time. He was so covered in cuts, bruises, burns, and other marks that he was nearly unrecognizable from his unmarred former self.

In spite of his torment, he couldn't bring himself to give in entirely to despair. In his precious moments alone in his cell, away from his captors, he was painfully aware of the fact that Nori was about to face a strengthened Herobrine in her cousin's body. A cousin she believed to be dead. Not only that, but his entire army would be behind him, and she would be all alone.

He realized now that he had been wrong to hate Nori for something she had no part in. The deaths of his parents and the general hatred of the Nomads by Villagers was not her fault, and she had very clearly transcended that hatred. She had grown to respect the Nomads perhaps even more than her own people, who had rejected her and treated her just as badly as if she had been one of the Nomads.

Naasir couldn't give up while he still owed her an apology, difficult as it would be to overcome his pride (and current imprisonment). Helping her defeat that demon once and for all was high on the priority list too.

'Think, Naasir,' he scolded himself. 'No situation is hopeless. There is always a way out.'

Optimistic though he was, his chains and cell door were solid iron, his weapons had been taken away, and he was weakened from torture and lack of food or water. If he was honest with himself, he'd never faced such a bleak scenario.

Naasir's head jerked up slightly when he heard the cell door creak open. Thankfully it wasn't Quin/Herobrine come to gloat yet again, but he wasn't exactly thrilled to see one of the hideously rotting Pig-Men either. "Give up, Monster, I'll never serve that sniveling coward of a demon," he snarled. Even though it probably would have saved him several scars, Naasir derived strength from verbally abusing his jailers. Until they cut out his tongue, they couldn't quell his ability to speak as he wished.

The Pig-Man paused, then gave a low snort of... could it be amusement? "That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Speak low now, boy, we could be overheard."

The Nomad's eyes narrowed. His first instinct was to expect a trick. But why would the creature state such a thing? He stayed quiet, waiting for an explanation.

"So you can be silent when the occasion calls for it. Good. My name is Rhett. Nori granted me the name for use in her tongue before I assisted her in escaping. But there is little time for idle chatter, soon the attack on the Overworld will begin." Naasir's legs crumpled beneath him when the Pig-Man released him from his chains; he was too weak to fight or run, and the creature's words and actions were shocking enough to give him pause. Rhett, as he called himself, caught Naasir before he could hit the floor and propped him up by slinging his arm over his shoulder.

"To keep it short, there is a resistance within the demon's army," Rhett murmured, still trying not to be heard. "We will heal you and arm you if you will consent to fight with us. Are you willing? We need all the help we can to bring him down."

It seemed too good to be true, but Naasir knew he had little choice now. He decided that if the pig was lying to him, he would take down as many of their kind as he could before they ended his life. The Nomad nodded and gave a low chuckle. "Count me in."

((Wow! Just when you think life can't get any crazier, it proves you completely wrong. Sorry about how long this one took to get out, but we're nearly at the finish! Thank you all for reading, please review with constructive criticism and stay tuned for the final chapters!))