Act I – Chapter 2
(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)
Jesse reached the mine and looked around.
"Petra?"
She saw miners doing their jobs, and a few minecarts, but Petra was nowhere in sight.
"Huh, I swear she said to meet right here," she whispered. "Petra! Where are you…"
A groaning sound was the response. Spinning around, Jesse saw a hoard of zombies approaching her from the darkness.
"Ah! Stupid zombie!"
She unsheathed her iron sword.
"Ahh, I missed this," Jesse said, taking deep breath and immediately coughing, feeling the urge to puke at the smell. "Ugh! Smell… not so much!"
She attacked the two zombies, who stood no chance against her. As she plunged her sword into the last zombie, she finally heard Petra's voice.
"Well… you're late, but at least you still remember how to fight," she said.
"Oh, hey!" Jesse greeted, sheathing her sword. There, stood Petra, wearing a cyan bandana, half broken blue armor with golden gems, a fingerless glove on her right hand, and a sleeve on her left arm. She had auburn hair. In her right hand, she was holding an iron sword. Wait, an iron sword? Where's her gold one with the enchantments?
"Hey. I was worried you'd gotten rusty," Petra continued, walking towards Jesse. "I can't even imagine that life. Managing people, signing papers, bleh."
Jesse widened her eyes. "Whoa, whoa. I am not rusty!"
Petra laughed. "Oh yeah? Says the scrub wearing IRON armor."
"I didn't want to dent the good stuff! So what?" reasoned Jesse. "And look who's talking with an iron sword. Where's your fancy gold one with all the enchantments? Can't remember the last time I saw you without it."
"I, uh…" Petra trailed off.
Jesse raised an eyebrow, but her attention was caught again by another hoard of zombies.
"Ha, time to find out just how rusty you aren't!" Petra teased with a smirk. Jesse dodged an attack, while Petra did a roll underneath a zombie. "Haha! Too slow, zombies! Typical."
Jesse dispatched a hoard of four zombies with ease.
"Ha! Haven't lost my step yet!" She said.
"Well, you sure showed me," responded Petra. "Glad you finally made it. Sometimes I worry you don't even have time for me—your friends anymore. I mean I get that you like your job and everything, but jeez."
"Hey! I'm here now, aren't I?" Jesse responded. "I'll always make time for you."
Petra gave a sheepish grin.
"Yeah, I guess. But now that you mention it…"
Petra looked towards the minecarts. "Can't help but notice that we're missing… one, two, three?"
"Axel has Boom Town duties, Olivia's grading something or another in Redstonia and Lukas—"
"—is writing," groaned Petra. "I figured. Man, our friends have gotten lame. I swear, if our old fans saw what we're doing now. I'm just sayin', I don't care how good Lukas' next book is, it's not exactly slaying a Wither-Storm, y'know?"
"You're right, it is lame," agreed Jesse. "It just isn't the same without them."
Petra gave Jesse's armor another tap, making a clanking sound. "See? I knew you'd get it! We'll worry about them later, I guess. We gotta hurry."
"What exactly are we looking for down here?" Jesse asked.
"I'll… tell you when we find it. Just trust me, it's important," Petra said.
A noise in the distance grabbed Jesse's attention along with some of the workers.
"Whaaat was that?"
"Come on! Let's race!" Petra challenged before speeding off, leaving a dumbfounded Jesse behind.
"Wait, what?"
"It's monster huntin' time!"
Jesse shook her head with a grin before taking off, in pursuit.
"Hey, it's Jesse!" A worker called out as Jesse jumped over the pit he was working in.
"What's up? Good to see ya!"
A minecart rolled out, a worker sitting in it holding cake.
"Oh perfect, I'm starving," said Jesse as she snatched the cake out of the worker's hand and ate it.
"Hey! I was gonna eat that! Obviously," growled the worker.
Jesse, not paying attention just barely dodged a minecart that had come rolling out right in-front of her. She continued her pursuit.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN! IT'S GONNA BLOW!" screamed a worker, running away from a flashing set of TNT. Jesse leapt over it just as it exploded, giving her a slight boost. Jesse caught up to Petra, who had stopped and was now looking around.
"Alright, where'd you go?" whispered Petra.
"Where'd what go-"
"Ha! Look down there!"
Jesse saw the direction where Petra had pointed, to see a shadow disappear into the cave. It was so fast that she couldn't make out what it was.
"So, you're really not gonna tell me what we're chasing?" Jesse asked.
"Nope," said Petra, jumping off the edge. "The mystery's what makes it fun! C'mon!"
Jesse rolled her eyes and proceeded to follow. Reaching the bottom, she saw Petra point behind her. Turning around, Jesse saw another hoard of zombies. Not wanting to fight any more of those, Jesse took off after Petra once again. But she heard spider noises echoing ahead.
"Look out! Wall spiders!" Petra warned.
Looking up, Jesse saw spiders crawling along the wall and on the ceiling.
"I see 'em!"
Jesse saw a spider move to attack her, with a quick draw of her sword, she slashed it at the spider, killing it. She looked behind her to see spiders giving chase. She slashed her sword behind her, killing a few of them.
"Ha! Take that! And that!"
Jesse jumped over a small lake of lava, and to her delight, she saw that the spiders were lazy and didn't attempt to cross. One spider even fell in.
"There! It went into that cave!" Petra pointed, before jumping down onto lower ground. "Annnd Petra's in the home stretch!"
Only to be blocked by another bunch of spiders of course. Jesse considered her options. She could continue on and win the race, or she could be a good friend and help Petra out. She chose the latter. Jumping down, she engaged the spiders.
"My turn to save you, Petra!"
With a few more slashes of her sword, the spiders were history, but more kept coming.
"Argh! It's gonna take forever to get through these stupid webheads!" groaned Petra.
"Maybe we can seal them off somehow?" Jesse suggested.
"Like, maybe a little lava?" Petra said, seeing a lavafall blocked by a block of gravel. Jesse destroyed it with her sword, allowing the lava to flow free, separating them from the spiders.
"Woo! That totally did the trick-"
"Ha! See ya!" Petra said, leaving Jesse behind.
"Hey! No fair!" Jesse complained.
Jumping down the bottom of the pit, Petra started gloating.
"Awwwww yeahhhhhh! In your face!" She bragged. "Petra! Petra! You're number one! You're number one!"
"Uh, cheater much? I totally saved you back there!" Jesse retorted, out of breath.
"Oh! Oh, yeah. You're right," Petra agreed. "Sorry. I shouldn't be gloating. I was just excited."
"Okay, this mystery better live up to all the hype."
In the cave, Jesse heard some creature sounds.
"Here I come, mystery monster..." she said, unsheathing her sword.
She slowly sneaked through the cave, making sure not to make a sound. She was ready to engage whatever this monster was, just to find…
"A llama? A LLAMA?!" Jesse exclaimed, dumbfounded.
"Awesome, we found it!" Petra celebrated. "Oh, your owner is going to be so happy to see you."
"Wait, lemme get this straight. This quest was just to track down a stupid llama?" Jesse questioned, irritated. She left her paperwork for this? The llama took offense and gave Jesse's sword a headbutt.
"It's not just a stupid llama!" Petra reasoned. "It's, uh, it's important okay?"
Petra was definitely hiding something, that's for sure.
"It's apparently, like, a treasure-sniffing llama or… ugh. It's important, okay?"
Treasure-sniffing llama? Really?
"Please, just trust me," begged Petra. "We just need to bring her back to her owner. It doesn't need to be, like, a thing."
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," apologized Jesse. "If you say it's important… then I trust you."
Petra raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Now, how about we get you outta here, huh?" Petra said, approaching the llama.
Jesse began to sneak towards the llama.
"Come here, llama..." coaxed Jesse, making noises.
Just as Jesse reached the back of the llama to grab it, the llama kicked Jesse in the stomach with it's back legs, knocking Jesse back significantly. Her iron armor poofed into smoke.
"Haha, that's what you get for wearing that dork armor," Petra said matter-of-factly, helping Jesse to her feet.
"Yeah yeah yeah," Jesse retorted, rolling her eyes. "I'll have to craft a new set. Dang. Let's get this thing."
"Don't let it get away!"
Jesse and Petra jumped on-top of the llama, but it wasn't going down without a fight. It started to squirm heavily, before kicking Petra and Jesse off of it. Jesse looked up, to see the llama standing over her. It spat in Jesse's face.
"Ugh! Gross!" she groaned. She saw the llama take off into a dark cave. "C'mon. Let's get after that armor-wrecking thing."
"Hang on, it's super dark down there. We should make a torch," Petra suggested, giving Jesse some coal and a stick. Jesse placed them down on the crafting table, making herself a torch.
"Heeere llama, llama, llama," Jesse called out.
"Where'd you go?" Petra asked. "After you, Mayor Jesse."
"I told you, I'm not the mayor," grumbled Jesse. "I'm the-"
"Leader and Hero in Residence. I know, I know. It's just that… you do a lot of paperwork and, like, town running things. Call a shovel a shovel, am I right?"
They reached the end of the cave, where they saw the llama on top of a pile of gravel, casting a huge shadow behind it.
"How the heck did you get up there?" Petra questioned, astounded.
"Who knows, but it's coming down now," said Jesse, putting her torch down and punching the gravel. The llama fell down to the ground, but Jesse wasn't paying attention to it. She was more focused on what appeared to be a purple glow up ahead. "What the-?"
She couldn't see much of it from where she was, but she could see that it seemed to be coming from a block with a strange logo on it. She and Petra walked towards it. The llama appeared in-front of it, blocking their view.
"Ugh, get out of the way! I was looking at that!" snapped Jesse, kicking the llama aside.
"What's that?" Petra asked.
"Only one way to find out," Jesse said, before approaching the mysterious block. It was placed on what appeared to be a 5×5 grid of gravel. As she approached it, she could have sword she could hear a high-pitched female laughter echoing.
"Whaaat was that creepy laugh?" Jesse asked nervously.
"Uh, yeah. I heard that too!" Petra responded. "That sounded really creepy."
Jesse approached the block, feeling irresistibly drawn to it and crouched down next to it. The llama made a nervous noise.
"Whoa girl," Petra said, calming the llama down. "What is it?"
On each side of the block, sported the same logo. It was of a weird glowing purple square, with what appeared to be a wrench/tool in the middle of it. (1)
The llama made a nervous noise.
"Whoa girl! What is it?" asked Petra.
"Looks like some kind of powerful block? No idea what it's supposed to be made out of," Jesse said. "Something out of the End perhaps?"
"The end? I've never seen anything like that before!" remarked Petra.
Thinking about the end made Jesse think about Soren, and she wondered if perhaps he might have any inkling of what it was supposed to be. Jesse reached to touch the block, and that turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life.
As soon as her fingers made contact with the block, a whole bunch of images began flashing through her mind, making her forget where she was. The images flashed so quickly that she never got to make out much detail from them. The little details she could make out were flashes of what appeared to be a yellow glowing figure with magenta hair and glowing pink eyes.
The last thing Jesse remembered was shrill, ear-piercing laughter before everything went black.
A huge clang echoed throughout the cell block as the door to a certain prisoner's cell opened up, before the prisoner that the cell belonged to was shoved roughly inside, followed by another clang as the iron door was once again locked shut.
The prisoner lay on the floor, his arms bound around his body by a straight-jacket, and his mouth bound shut by a muzzle. After a few seconds, during which the pain of headbutting the ground eased slightly, he shifted himself into a sitting position on the far wall of the cell, next to the bed. His shoulder-length hair, which long ago shined a bright blood red, was faded, dirty and matted. His untidy goatee, which was covered by the muzzle, was the same faded color.
He growled in anger over his recently failed escape attempt. He had long lost track of how long he was here, but in that time, he could count the number of escape attempts on one hand and that was three, including this one. He didn't try to escape often, but when he did, he did his damn best to make them count.
The first time, a riot had broken out, and he had used the chaos to escape. And he would've been successful too, if it weren't for that damn maze. He had gotten trapped in a circle of mobs, which infuriated him because she had the audacity to turn his creations against him like that?
The second time went pear-shaped almost instantly. One of his only prisoner friends, Gordon, had ratted him out, which got him promoted to being one of the guards, and eventually to one of the higher ups of the prison, before becoming the Warden himself. The red-head was proud to say that he actually tore out Gordon's right eye for that; serves the traitor right. That was when he realized that he could trust nobody in this place.
This time, he had gotten so deep into the maze that he had thought the guards had given up, but how stupid of him to get his hopes up like that. She would stop at nothing to stop him from getting his long overdue vengeance.
And now, he had gotten stuffed into this stupid straight-jacket, which was going to make any future attempts at escaping this shit-hole next to impossible. Fan-fucking-tastic.
But if you think that he was going to let that stop him, you'd be sorely mistaken. Even if it kills him, he will find a way to escape, and when he does, he'll make her wish that she had never heard the name 'Romeo Blanc'. But for now, he drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep.
Author's Note: Well, we're definitely getting somewhere here. Updates from now on should hopefully be once a week, on Friday.
(1) For clarification, this is the symbol seen on the purple banner, and in the Oasis during Episode 4 of Season Two.
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