Chapter 12
Katherine's POV
"Soren really lives down here? It's so far from... Anyone." Lukas noted.
"Maybe it's so he doesn't have any uninvited guests. His experiments may take a lot of concentration." I guessed. We walked into a room. There was no floor. Only wide columns leading to a door on the other side.
"I'm really not feeling those columns." Lukas said uneasily.
"It's fine! Look!" Magnus shouted, jumping onto a nearby column.
"Wahoo!" Axel shouted, following Magnus's example. The others started going across.
What am I waiting for? It's not like it's haunted! I thought. I started jumping from column to column. This isn't that bad! I thought triumphantly. Suddenly, my arm started hurting and a wave of pain spiked up my arm. I stumbled in surprise and missed the next jump by a few inches. "Ow!" I shouted as I hit the ground below. Why does this kinda stuff always happen to me?! I thought angrily.
I pulled up the sleeve of my hoodie and saw a purple mark on my arm. I gasped in surprise. "What the heck?! Where did that come from?!" I asked myself. I had no clue what it was, and I didn't want anyone to know. I pulled my sleeve back over the mark just as somebody jumped into the pit beside me. "Lukas?! What are you doing down here?!" I asked him.
"Well, I heard you fall and thought I'd come down here to help." He replied, brushing himself off. "Thanks. I really appreciate it. Even if it was a reckless and dangerous thing to do." I thanked him.
His eyes widened, and he hastily looked away. "Kathy? Whatever you do, DON'T look behind you."
"W-why?" I asked, frozen in place.
"Because there is an Enderman standing behind you!" He said.
"Come with us! We can give you so much more than any of the Beginnermen can!"
That did it. I ran for it. "Lukas run!" I shouted. I kept moving until I saw a small river. I stopped, there was nowhere to go. Why is there a river underground?! I wondered angrily. I turned around to see if there were any more escape routes. I was surrounded by Endermen.
One of the Endermen teleported in front of me. "You're fighting for the wrong side." It said, stretching out a hand. I backed away slowly. My foot met air instead of stone and I fell backwards into the freezing river, where I was swept downstream. "Where are you going? Come back! You must fulfill your destiny!" The Endermen cried angrily.
"Lukas?!" I shouted, hoping that he hadn't been eaten by one of the Endermen. I floated quickly downstream.
"Ahhhh!" I heard Lukas scream as he jumped in the stream with me to escape the Endermen.
"There you are! I thought you were eaten!" I told him.
"Not yet!" He replied.
I heard rumbling nearby. "Uh... Do you hear that? It sounds like-"
Lukas pointed behind me. "Waterfall!" We plummeted of the edge of the waterfall and into the underground lake below. When I surfaced I saw the rest of the group on a stretch of land farther off. As I drew closer I heard voices:
"Magnus, if an artist painted the inside of your head, he'd end up with the most desert scape paintings-" Ellegaard said. As I drew closer she shouted, "That's it! I'm going! Once again it falls to me to do all the hard work. I'll just go find this super TNT myself!" Ellegaard stomped moodily down a tunnel.
Magnus glared after her. "Oh no! You do not get to be the one that walks away!"
Ellegaard kept walking.
"That's it! I'm going too! See? I'm walking away too now! Super TNT, here I come!" Magnus shouted, walking down the other tunnel.
"Man. It's hard to pick 'glass half full' when they keep knocking the glass over!" Olivia said.
"They definitely have issues they need to work through." Jesse agreed, looking from Ellegaard's tunnel to Magnus's tunnel, trying to decide who to follow.
I wandered around the room, looking at the statues of the Order.
Axel saw me looking at the statues and walked up to me. "If someone made a statue of me, I wouldn't pick that pose. I'd look more like this!" He said. Putting his hands above his head in a heroic pose. Axel and I started making random poses and Olivia smiled and shook her head.
Jesse decided to go down Ellegaard's path and I followed him. Petra caught us outside the entrance. "Petra? What's wrong?" Jesse asked.
"I would like to speak to you and Kathy in private." Petra answered. So, we split up. Me Jesse, Reuben and Petra went down Ellegaard's tunnel while Olivia, Axel and Lukas went down Magnus's tunnel. "I'm sorry we had to split from the rest of the group, but this I something I wanted to discuss with you two in private." Petra said.
"Hey, whatever it is, we believe you. You can tell us." Jesse told her reassuringly.
"Thanks for being so understanding." She said. They went down a bend in the tunnel and Petra spoke. "Do you two know what wither is?" She asked.
"Of course! That's what we've been-" Jesse started.
"No. I mean just 'wither'. Or Wither Sickness to be more clear." She said, pulling up her sleeve. She had the same purple mark I did, except Petra's was bigger. "It showed up not long after you saved me. But this kind of Wither Sickness is more deadly." She told us.
I suddenly felt sick. Did that mean I had Wither Sickness too?
"Uh... Kathy? Are you alright? You look like you just saw a ghost. Even Jesse doesn't look as terrified as you." Petra pointed out.
"I don't know… Is this the same Wither Sickness that you have?" I asked worriedly, pulling up my sleeve to reveal my Wither Sickness mark.
"We have to get help!" Jesse said, looking concerned for his friends.
"No! It would just cause too much panic! We can't afford that right now." Petra argued.
"Petra's right. I don't want everybody to worry about me instead of the Wither Storm. Your first order of business is to defeat the Wither Storm. Petra and I can wait." I told Jesse.
Petra looked behind us. "Creeper!" She shouted.
I whipped around, drawing my sword, but I wasn't fast enough. The creeper blew up and Jesse and I fell down the hole it created. I accidentally landed on top of Jesse.
"Ow..." He said from underneath me.
"Oh my gosh, Jesse I am so sorry!" I said, getting up and helping Jesse up as well.
"Grab my hand! I'll help you up!" Petra said from the top of the hole. Jesse grabbed her hand, but it was her withered hand and Petra was too weak to maintain her hold. Jesse fell on top of me this time.
"Guess I deserved that..." I grunted. Jesse rolled off me.
"Jesse! I just couldn't... I'm so sorry!" Petra said guilty.
"It's okay! Just find the others!" Jesse called up to her.
Petra got up, a look of determination on her face. "Stay safe! I'll find a way down to you!" She said, running back down the tunnel with Reuben.
"Are you okay?" Jesse asked me.
"I'm fine. Just because I have a fatal sickness doesn't mean I'm gonna die! Oh... wait… I guess it does... Whatever! You get my point!" I told him and took a deep breath. "How about you?"
"Good… I just wish I was able to save Petra…" He sighed.
"You did the best you could" I put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
He chuckled wryly. "And now not only does Petra have Wither Sickness, but you have it too…"
"Hey, if I know you, then I know you will find a way to fix it."
"Thanks Katherine." Jesse went over to pick up the amulet, which had rolled away when they fell down the hole and started lighting the way. We appeared to be in some sort of secret tunnel. Jesse led the way with his amulet until we came across a large cavernous room. There were bookshelves everywhere!
"Oh my gosh..." I gasped, staring at all the books just waiting to be opened. "It's book heaven!"
"Come on! This way!" Jesse whispered, pointing to a secret door made of bookshelves. I padded after him, trying not to make any noise. We could hear someone talking in the room.
"Come on! It has to be here somewhere!" The mystery voice said.
"Soren?" Jesse asked the stranger once we entered. The man turned around, it was Ivor!
"You again? What are you doing here?" Ivor asked.
"I'm here with the Order to find Soren's super TNT! We're going to take down your Wither Storm!" Jesse said.
"The Order? Believe me, that plan will blow up in their faces in more ways than one!" Ivor said. "Now step aside please." He added, trying to walk past us.
"Wait! But I-" Jesse didn't get to finish his sentence because Ivor pushed past him.
"You're not going anywhere!" Petra said from in front of the door. She found us!
"Petra?! You're still alive?!" Ivor exclaimed in astonishment. Petra advanced toward Ivor, sword drawn. Ivor grabbed a golden sword from a nearby rack and the two fought. "Out of my way!" Ivor shouted.
"I'm not letting you go anywhere, creep!" Petra replied.
"We should let the Order decide! They'll know what to do!" Jesse said.
"No way!" Petra argued. She knocked Ivor to the ground.
"Don't tempt your fate!" He growled. He pulled a bottle from his pocket and drank it, then started running superfast. It was a Swiftness potion!
I drew my sword, luckily, I'm ambidextrous! I held my sword in my left hand, the un-withered hand.
"I'm like the wind!" Ivor shouted. He ran up to Jesse, his sword sticking out to the side as if he was going to chop of Jesse's head. Jesse ducked just in time and Ivor ran to Petra, knocking her over. She quickly got to her feet and started blocking Ivor's hasty blows with her sword.
Meanwhile, I crept up behind Ivor and smacked him with my sword, knocking him to the ground. He then proceeded to attack me, but I blocked his every move. Seriously? This guy is using a Swiftness potion and he still can't hit anything! Talk about horrible swordsmanship. I knocked him down easily.
He quickly sprang to his feet and ran to the edge of the room. "Now you see me! Now you-" he drank an Invisibility potion and turned invisible. Our eyes darted around the room, searching for any telltale sign as to where he could be. He chuckled darkly. Then he started throwing red Poison potions at us. We dodged the all of them. Then there was silence.
"Whatever you do, don't let him leave!" Jesse told us.
"This one's on you, you puffed-up fool!" Ivor said, tossing a potion at us. Jesse caught the potion and threw it back in the direction it came from, just as Ivor reappeared. The potion hit him, and he stumbled backwards. "There's no time for this!" Ivor said angrily.
"Guys!" I heard Lukas call, the rest of the group was here!
"There's more of you?! Will this parade of useless babblers never cease?!" Ivor shouted.
"There you guys are!" Lukas said in a relieved tone.
"We found Ivor. We stopped him." Jesse told the gang. Magnus and Ellegaard were not with them.
"False. You have stopped nothing! A query, have you ever seen the effects of a splash-potion of slowness?" He shouted, pulling out another potion.
"What-" With a crash, the potion hit the floor. "-are you talking about?" Jesse said in slow motion.
Ivor started walking past us without a care in the world as we all ran in slow motion to try and catch him.
"Come back here you big jerk!" Axel said in slow motion.
"Stop right there!" Shouted Lukas in slow motion.
"You won't get away with this!" Jesse shouted after him.
Ivor paused outside the door and turned to us. "You think Magnus and Ellegaard can help you? That you can destroy the Wither Storm?! But you are mistaken, and it will cost them their lives!" He said, and the door shut, trapping us inside.
