Howard Answers:

Guest: Well, thanks, I guess? It's interesting how people can think of something that I find horrible as incredible. I'm glad you're enjoying it, though.

AntoinetteEva: To be honest, I thought this crap was a stupid mod at first. That would make sense, right? I actually asked Garth and Ed about mods a little bit to see if I had done something wrong. I guess not, though. Thanks for your response, though. No mod could be that horrible, I think.

AngelW01F1: I understood that reference.

Chapter XIV: The Place Where We Surrender

Since I was still pretty new to The Debuggers, I thought it would be the nice thing to drop by The Place in respect for Gage. It's not like he died in real life, though. Everyone acted like it. Everyone seemed to think he was actually dead. How absurd. Either way, it was the right thing to do. Plus, I wanted to make sure Solstice was alright. She seemed a bit broken about what happened. The question still remained, though. How had Gage gotten ahead of us so quickly? What was he planning to do?

When Wednesday rolled around, I did all my homework and hopped right onto Minecraft. I went to The Place and saw that only Blackfield and Solstice were there. They were mining that hole in the wall and talking about something. I approached them slowly and began to help them without any consent.

"Oh, Howie," Blackfield looked over to me and stopped mining, "I wanted to apologize again for my bad behavior in Forbidden. You knew what you were doing and I didn't want to think that. You'll make a great addition to the team when the time comes around."

Well, that felt great. Getting praise from the leader of our own group? Astounding. Getting praise from your higher ups was always a pleasure. It was even more so here because he seemed to dislike me early on. To get his respect was something else. It was wild.

"Thank you, but I was only part of the solution." I said. I didn't want to be stingy.

"You saved the rest of us from that vile creature." Blackfield continued to praise me.

Now it was becoming unsettling. I felt like he was setting me up just to tear me down, or something like that. I wanted to change the conversation to a different subject, "Who was that creature, though?"

Blackfield began mining again, "No one knows. We saw him only for a few minutes before you killed him."

Now I felt bad. I could've at least asked him some questions first. Did I? I dunno. I didn't remember.

"My bad. There are still things to work out, though. We don't wanna waste too much time." I said. I sounded like a leader to myself.

"Pace yourself. Don't push yourself too hard. Mourn when the time comes, Howie." Blackfield advised me. Sure, he said he wasn't a leader, but he definitely sounded like it. He raised a good point, though. It was a time to mourn over one of our losses, not a time to work our asses off. I continued digging.

As we continued waiting for the others to show, I expected Solstice to begin talking at any minute. I would look over and just see her mindlessly whacking at the stone in front of us. She seemed out of it completely. She seemed totally lifeless.

Lyle has signed on.

Octane has signed on.

Blackfield and I turned to greet the two others who showed up. We began chatting a bit on what happened at Forbidden. Every now and then I would turn to see Solstice just still mining into the wall. Was she back in some sort of funk again? I hoped she wasn't. She wasn't very nice in those. She wasn't herself in those little phases of hers.

"So how did Gage get killed?" Lyle asked bluntly.

Blackfield looked over to me. I guess he wanted me to explain. Made sense since I watched it all unfold.

"A man appeared and killed him," I began, creating suspense, "a CPU came in and killed him. He called himself an NPC, but they're basically the same."

"An NPC? Those things are harmless, though." Octane was puzzled.

"This wasn't an ordinary NPC, though. This guy looked different. He looked like a monster. He seemed like just another goddamn user." I spoke. Lyle looked terrified by what I was saying.

The conversation stopped there. We all just looked at each other and then to Solstice, who just kept digging.

"So," Lyle began thinking, "what now?"

That was exactly what I had been wondering ever since we finished Forbidden. We didn't have anywhere else to go yet except... except the place that NPC spoke of. A server called "Xanadu". We had no information on it, though. All we had to work off of was our horrible memories left over from that fight. Really, it was only Blackfield, Solstice, and I who witnessed it all happen. And Gage, I guess, but he doesn't really matter anymore. Does he? Even in death, does a person matter? I mean, when Abraham Lincoln died, he wasn't forgotten. He didn't fade away with time. He is still as important as ever. I guess it really is just about how important somebody ends up being in everyone's lives.

"I received an email," Blackfield began speaking again, "an email from an anonymous source."

"Anonymous?" I echoed, "As in Anon?"

Blackfield looked at me, "You know Anon?"

"I've been in contact with him for some time now. He helped me out in Forbidden. He told me about the golden keys in the creepers." I explained.

"Fascinating. We'll have to look more into that, but at another time," Blackfield turned to Solstice, who was just standing there now, "Anon emailed me with the coordinates to our next destination called Xanadu. We'll speak more about this next meeting. We all deserve this coming weekend off."

Everyone looked at Solstice as she just stood there. I could've sworn I heard her cry a bit.

Just a bit.

The ceremony to honor Gage began once the rest of the team showed up. We all gathered around the pedestal where a sign marked with his name was placed. We were humming and chanting, feeling more like a cult again. Blackfield would even stand up by the sign and recite some poetry. It was some incredibly powerful poetry, too. He would speak that even though he was no longer present with us in The Place, he was still with us wherever we went.

He was still alive, though! That's the freaking thing. These guys sounded like they thought Gage had actually died. This whole thing felt like it was blown out of proportion. Was this really necessary? Sure, he would no longer be with us in Ancient Minecraft, but at least he was being kept out of the rest of the whole thing. Honestly, though, I never got to know him too well. He seemed arrogant, ignorant, and completely mindless. After he was finally gone, though, I wanted to know him. I wanted to see what went on in his mind. What he actually thought. Why he thought that The Debuggers would fall apart soon.

Ultimately, it boiled down to what he was trying to do. I asked this once before and I'll ask it again, what the hell was he doing so far ahead of us? He said that he wouldn't be joining us, but then we find him as he was about to get killed. It was confusing. He made no sense. I was worried there was a side to him we didn't know. A side to him we didn't want to know. A side to him we would never know now because he was gone.

Slowly, though, did another thought come to mind. What if Gage didn't mean The Debuggers would fall apart literally?

What if he meant emotionally? Or mentally?

That's sort of what happened to me. I was breaking down because of all of this. Did he get ahead because he wanted to get away from it all while showing us something? I would never know. Instead, I was stuck in this mountain with people I barely knew. I was beginning to slip away from the reality around me. This whole thing was emotionally and mentally degrading. I didn't feel safe knowing that if I ever died her then I would still live on in life - I began to forget life was even there. I was now in fear of dying altogether. I was stuck in this place where we would probably end up surrendering to what Minecraft holds in the end.

I wasn't ready for anything.