"Miner, what in the nether are you doing here?" the player asked as he hung over the side of the roof. The church was different from the last time he had seen it. It was slightly nicer now and resembled Melon Town's, but with greater detail. With the rest of the town looking like a mess of creeper holes and skeleton houses, he assumed that Morned had something to do with the church's design.

"I would say that it wasn't any of your business," Darnilk said to the sheep farmer," but that would be a lie. I'm on a mission from Carsi, an important mission, if you can believe that. She sent me to find you and Parner and bring you back to town." And Beyos too.

"Alright, but why're you here? There are like fifty others Carsi could have sent besides you. Enterlan, Hulding, any soldier, even the baker. Why'd she send the miner?"

Darnilk had not wanted to leave his mine. It was not a nice place, only a dark series of tunnels with only torches and different stones for decoration. But he felt the most comfortable there, the only people he would ever have to deal with were the higher ranking players in Melon Town, and he could do his job with little interference. Also, he enjoyed the simple tasks in Minecraft like mining.

But when Carsi came to him, he couldn't refuse her. It was Carsi after all, and the countess never groveled like she did then. Darnilk could tell how afraid she was, how truly fearful she was. And then she had made him a knight, the first knight Melon had ever known, he had to accept her quest.

Darnilk looked around at the town, the only building in sight that looked to be completely rebuilt was the church Morned was standing atop of. "I'm guessing you already know, but apparently there's a war going on. Yeah, a war. Count Binchent has gone all crazy or something and is attacking towns and settlements all over the county, probably what happened here."

"Yes, we are aware of that," said a girl standing on the ground in front of the church. Darnilk had not seen her when he walked up. "It was Eastip and the Icy Death that killed the people of this town and set their houses on fire."

Carsi had told him about Sir Jelfling, but hearing it from someone else who knew of it solidified its truth. "Right. So she couldn't really send out soldiers to find you guys, she needs them all in Melon Town for when Binchent's big army shows up. And she needs all the producers in town too, food will be important if they try to starve us out," Darnilk said. "I guess that's why she needs you back, Morned. But the captain is what Carsi is more worried about," he said, assuming it was true. He knew that sometimes Carsi and Parner quarreled, but she would not have promoted him to captain if she did not care about him. Though it was Beyos she really wanted brought back to Melon Town.

"So she sends the miner? Are you sure you didn't just run off the moment you heard an army was coming?" said the sheep farmer.

"Morned, I've not gotten anything substantial from my mine in years. I wouldn't be much use down there when the war comes, so the countess figured I would be more use finding her captain and sheep farmer. It's not like I wanted to come looking for you and Parner. I was just told to do it!"

"So Melon Town hasn't been attacked yet? We can still go there then. You said it has walls, didn't you?" the girl asked Morned.

"Yeah, it's got walls. But our army is pretty rubbish right now. The whole reason I went to Lazuline to sell my wool was to get gold to buy iron. But that plan went into the bin pretty quickly. No iron for Melon Town," Morned said and tossed a stack of blue wool down to Darnilk. It wasn't able to fit in his inventory due to being full of stone and dirt, and stayed spinning on the ground in front of him.

"And that's why we need Parner," Darnilk said. "We need to get the captain back to Melon Town as soon as possible. So get down from that stupid roof and go get him so we can leave!"

Morned looked down at his feet, and then slowly climbed down from the church's roof. "Yeah, about that," the sheep farmer said, looking to the girl and then back to him. "I don't know where Parner is exactly. You see, there was this attack in Lazuline City, and Amilite and I needed to escape, and-"

"Attack on Lazuline City?"

"Yes. Players in grey armor stormed the city. They were defeated, but we did not find out about that until we were away. Sir Jelfling was the one who told us, he was on his way to Lazuline as we were escaping. We didn't know what he had done until we reached Rind," said the girl, who he assumed was this Amilite Morned had mentioned.

"The Icy Death is in Lazuline then?" That was not good. Carsi had thought the most likely place Beyos would have ran too would have been Lazuline City. Darnilk had disagreed with her thought, but had not said anything. She had just made him a knight. But now, even if Beyos was in the city, there was no way he was going there. Sir Jelfling was a monster, and now he was on their enemies side. "Great, that's just great!"

"Jelfling is going to talk to Daggeff, hoping to convince him that Carsi provoked the whole war," Morned said. "He told the people here that our soldiers attacked first. We wouldn't have done that. Carsi wouldn't have ordered that, would she've?"

"No," said Darnilk. Countess Carsi was all business when it came to the server. Her every effort was to benefit Melon and Melon Town. The only time she ever took a break on the server was to play with her wolves. "Jelfling is a dirty liar!"

"Binchent is the liar," said Morned. "He's the one sending Sir Jelfling to do all this."

"Well, why didn't you to go Melon Town and tell Carsi about all this? Seems like a lot of stuff she would've liked to've known."

"I kinda got distracted. Rind needed help with the rebuilding after Jelfling's attack here, so," Morned said. "But we can go now, I guess. Thought I'm not going back to Lazuline to find Parner, if that's your plan. If he's still there, he's just a head most like. Let's just hope he left before the Icy Death got there, if he even survived the initial attack at all."

Darnilk stared at Morned for a moment. Carsi had sent him to retrieve two soldiers, two players that would be useful in defending the town. All he was going to return with now was the sheep farmer, though for some reason she had insisted on searching for him more so than the captain.

He sighed, and turned back towards Melon Town. "Fine, let's get moving then."

"Right now? We're leaving right now? Can't we get things settled first? Get supplies, say our goodbyes, that sort of thing?"

"No," said Darnilk. "We need to leave now. Since we don't have any soldiers with us we need to hurry home. So come on!"

Morned and the girl took their time leaving anyway, and before he knew it, it was dark out. But he was not about to wait through the night to leave, so they left Rind with the moon high in the sky. It would take several days to get to Melon Town, so they would need to walk through the night several more times anyway, so he did not see the need in waiting until the morning.

Darnilk took the lead of the group, with Morned and the girl walking behind him, side-by-side. They did not talk to him much, instead talking to each other, but he did not mind that. He was a knight doing his duty, he wasn't there for social time. But it was annoying listening to Morned try to suck up to the girl. Back in Melon Town he would always try to woo the female residents. Carsi found it ineffective yet charming; Darnilk found it sickening.

Their first day on the road back to Melon Town was just as dull as most of his walk to Rind, only now he had the annoyance of Morned and the girl Amilite talking behind him. The plains of Sedweest were wide and barren and boring. To his north was the Blue River, which he wanted to walk by simply for the sake of having something to look at other than grass, but Amilite would not let him, saying it was a bad idea as their enemies could be using it as fast transport into Lapis.

Their second day was the same as the first, but the third day was dampened by rain. Then not only was their nothing to see, but the skies were grey and monsters still spawned. The rain carried over to the fourth day as well, but broke before noon.

"Maybe the admins took pity on us," Darnilk joked.

"The admins wouldn't mess with the weather for the sake of three travellers, Darnilk," said Morned, obviously not getting the knight's humor. "But I'm glad it's gone. I could hardly hear Amilite over all that rain." Darnilk had been able to hear her over the droning pitter-patter, but he did his best to ignore it.

"We should be close to Melon Town by now, no?" asked the girl.

"No, we've still got a way to go. Though there was a town-ish place in-between Melon Town and Rind, or there was when Parner and I passed through. But that was almost a year ago now, well, maybe not that long, but a long time."

"It's still there, I passed by on my way to Rind. Not a town, but it's something. They didn't have an inn though, so we won't be able to rest there," said Darnilk, though even if they did have an inn he would want to keep moving. He might've reprovisioned, but that would've been all.

Just as a wood and stone structure rendered into Darnilk's view, the sheep farmer raced ahead shouting "Not again!", followed by the girl. When Darnilk arrived at the scene it looked very much the same as what he had found in Rind. "No! No! No! Why don't the admins do anything?"

The hamlet had only been a collection of five buildings, all of which were crude oak log and plank and cobblestone. Carsi had not given the players permission to settle along the road, or at all, but she had not asked them to leave either. Darnilk would have. But now there was no need as there was nothing left of the settlement other than cobblestone skeletons and a few heads.

"The Icy Death's work?" asked Amilite.

"Can't be," said the sheep farmer as he paced around the shells of buildings, picking up the heads. "Darnilk said that this place was still here when he last went through, didn't you?" he asked and Darnilk nodded. "Jelfling is thousands of blocks away from here, and this must've just happened recently. Like days recently."

"Admins," said Amilite.

"Not days," said a player hidden in one of the burned out buildings. He had been hiding underneath a stone staircase behind some bookshelves, the shelves burst into books as he broke his way out. "It was just today, a few minutes ago." Darnilk instantly recognized the player as one of the two he had met on the road to Rind.

"Just now?" asked Darnilk, but his two companions pushed passed him before the player could answer.

"Turfden!" Amilite cried as she ran up to him.

"Mate! What happened? Where's Unfrenden?" asked Morned.

The player pulled a head out of his inventory and presented it to Amilite and Morned. "No!" Amilite screeched. "We should have all travelled together! You two shouldn't have went on without us!"

"Unfrenden… darn it! I shouldn't have volunteered to rebuild the church. I… I'm so sorry," cried Morned. "Are you okay, Turfden? Do you need food or anything?"

"No, I think I'm okay on all of that," the player said, pulling out a loaf of bread and munching on it. "But I don't know what to do now. Do I keep on to Melon Town, or what? I'm worried that I'll run into more of those cyan guys. Now that you guys are here, I'll just follow whatever you do, I guess."

"It happened just now?" Darnilk asked again.

"Yeah, we have to go to Melon Town. It's the only place for us," Morned said, ignoring Darnilk. "Carsi will be there with all of Melon's forces. It'll be the safest place in the county. It's not much farther anyway. You were both so close," he said sadly.

"Do you think we should bury his head? Like, make a grave for him or something?" asked Turfden.

"I think that would be best," said Amilite.

"People!" shouted Darnilk, and the three other players looked to him finally. "Turfden, I'm sorry about Unfriended or whatever, but did you say that the Eastip soldiers were just here, that this attack just happened? That's kind of an important thing for us to know right now, more important than a videogame funeral!"

"There's always time for a funeral," said Morned.

"It was five minutes ago, I think. Maybe ten, but maybe only five. There weren't really many people in this town, so they didn't really have anything to stand up to the soldiers. Unfrenden and I didn't have any weapons or anything, so we tried to hide. I guess I was just a better hider, or maybe I was just quieter, I don't know," the player said and Darnilk thought he was about to start crying. "How could they find him and not me? How was I the only one to survive all this?"

"It's a small place, Turfden. There weren't many places the soldiers needed to look to find everyone," said Amilite. "Unfrenden just got unlucky, no need to feel bad about that. You're alive, and we're all going to Melon Town."

"Which, if we actually want to get there on our own feet and not have our heads carried there by someone else's, we should leave now!" Darnilk shouted. "If this all just happened, those soldiers should be close by! We didn't pass them on the road, so they likely weren't heading to Rind. They might just be griefers set on Melon by Eastip, so they could come back at any moment!"

"Er, yeah. We should probably get moving," said Morned, just before an arrow landed in front of his feet. Then another arrow flew passed Amilite's head, and another struck Turfden in the shoulder. "Admins!"

"They're back! They're back!" screamed Turfden and Darnilk turned to see a squad of twenty-some players charging at them in blue and cyan armor. "Run!" he cried and ran in the opposite direction.

"No!" shouted Darnilk. "Not that way, that's toward-" he was interrupted by an arrow striking him as well. Morned and Amilite were already following Turfden, so there was no point in trying to turn them whilst they were being pursued. Darnilk ran after them as the sound of arrows striking the ground around him followed.

They sprinted across the plain, dodging arrows as they could, though an arrow would hit one of them every so often. Morned had been hit twice and Turfden had been hit at least three times, though Darnilk had been running backwards for some of their run so it could have been more. But he could not run backwards the entire time, as it was difficult to sprint and look behind him at the same time. He knew where they were heading anyway; north, towards the river, and beyond that, the Forest.

Soon enough the blue line of the river appeared in front of them and Morned began to jump as he ran, pushing him faster. Darnilk and the other two followed suit and jumped into the water. The server's rivers were not like the rivers in a normal Minecraft world, they were created by the server's owner, so they were much wider and had a current to them. The group pushed their way through the water, all the while the arrows rained down on them. And Turfden was hit again, and his body exploded into a puff of items.

"Turfden!" Amilite and Morned cried. But there was no time to swim to his remains, and they were forced to carry on across the river.

When they reached the other side of the fifty block gap, Darnilk stopped and looked back. The soldiers were stopped on the bank, still shooting arrows at them. With the cobble and dirt and random blocks he had collected on the way to Rind, he quickly began making a wall to block the arrows, and Morned joined him with wool after he realized what the miner was doing.

"They're not crossing," said Amilite from behind their terribly built wall. "I don't think they're even going to bother. They just killed Turfden and now they're not going to finish us." The sadness was evident in the girl's voice. "Turfden. Unfrenden. They weren't even from Melon, why'd they have to die?"

Darnilk watched the soldiers turn around and leave, and he sighed in relief. He looked down the river, Turfden's remains had likely been taken by the current; heads dropped in water rather than being placed like they were on land. There would be no funeral for either Turfden or Unfrenden now.

"Like the miner said, they were probably griefers. Griefers don't care who they're killing, they're just there for the fun of it," the sheep farmer said, tearing down his wool. "So, now what? Crossing back over the river would be a bad idea if you ask me. Do we follow it on this side until we get closer to Melon Town?"

"Morned, you've seen two squads of Eastip soldiers in Melon now. Two different squads. I'm going to guess from those that Binchent has many more all over to pillage and wreak havok. We need to get out of Melon," Darnilk said as he looked to the north. "The Forest King doesn't hate Melon at the moment, or at least he has been acting friendly for the past few years. It might be a good idea to run through the forest, then once we're north of the town, run down. We could also get a good amount of wood there, get some basic tools and weapons. There might even be iron in the ground under the forest, they never were an underground people."

Amilite agreed with him and then so did Morned, and they raced northward several days until they reached the dark green and brown wall that was the North Forest of Sedweest. And there, just at the edge of the forest, was a glowing purple and black portal to the nether.

"Great, a nether portal. I bet that's how they're all getting around!" said Morned. "That's how the grey-armored guys got into Lazuline, and if they're working with Eastip, then surely they'd be using the same techniques. The forest is probably crawling with Eastip by now!"

Darnilk studied the portal and looked deep into the forest behind it. "Yes, and that's why we're going into the nether."