Fallen God, shining bright,
Two eyes glowing silver-white.
Twin blades like a pair of wings,
Destroying Gods, cities, slaying Kings.
Prince of the Nether, Master of the Night,
Eyes ablaze, silver-bright.
Gods hear their names from far away
He does too, no different from they.
Just pray to Notch you don't meet him one day,
Because if you're seen, you won't get away.
- Elenjorian Children's Poem
Chapter 3
Steve Troubles
A THUD! and a loud yelp reverberated around the palace. A deaf gardener woke up suddenly. A flock of pigeons took fright and ascended from the roof of the palace in a thunderous flurry. The dead stirred in their graves, lodged complaints, and went back to sleep.
A few moments later, I stumbled out off my room and proceeded to kidnap a nearby servant, demanding the location of my much-needed breakfast.
"Ah- meals will be delivered to your room, sir." The frazzled servant quickly made himself scarce.
Why is everyone in such a hurry here? I wondered idly. Then I shrugged. Thinking was a burden I was unwilling to take on before I was properly fed.
I did get my food. Eventually.
After my much needed breakfast, I reluctantly slogged off in the general direction of the throne room. I was not looking forward to it, owing to several reasons.
To be entirely honest with myself, I was the political equivalent of a rhinoceros. My vocabulary was depressingly sparse, and I'd been told on multiple occasions that I had the tact of a dead elephant. There was a reason why I never went back to the last Kingdom I was sent to check up on. Something to do with the restraining order the ruler put on me, which may have had something to do with the fact that the said kingdom was currently undergoing the process of cleaning up after a civil war, which may, but yet again may not, have something to do with the fact I said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, and then proceeded to clock said person over the head with a shovel for reasons I was still unclear about to this day. Which started a civil war.
I hoped I was not about to repeat that experience again.
I prepared myself for the worst when I entered the throne room. It was the same setup as the last night, with the king on his throne and the prince skulking beside him. And the ever-present cheaply bought smile, which was really starting to get on my nerves.
"Good morning, Steve. I trust you've had a good night's sleep?"
"Yessir," I said politely, trying studiously to scrub the events of the previous night from my memory.
The prince smirked in a way that made me wish for something truly unfortunate to happen to him. Apparently he had no intention of forgetting it, or letting me forget it, anytime soon.
I was caught off guard by my own anger. I was not by nature a violent and bloody-minded bastard, but right now, I would give all I had in the world for the satisfaction of wiping the smirk off Tevon's face with something like a well-aimed frying pan.
But I couldn't do it now. There wasn't a frying pan available.
The king cleared his throat loudly. I eyed him with concern. If he wasn't introduced to a lozenge within the week, I thought he might lose his throat entirely.
"Perhaps we should get on with the matter at hand?"
I blinked out of my stupor. "Oh, yes," I put myself on automatic. "Have you seen the White-Eyed One, the Destroyer, the Consumer of Souls, etc. etc around recently, or had any contact with a witness, or indeed, come into contact with a cult, perhaps, dedicated to him?"
The king opened his mouth to answer, but his son beat him to it. "Herobrine, you mean?" Tevon snorted. "Haven't been around for a few decades. Can we please get on with it?"
I winced at Tevon's careless use of The Name. I half expected Herobrine to smash through the roof and blast the prince into tiny bits immediately. However, there was such a thing as being too optimistic.
I inwardly groaned as the king started on a report of his kingdom for the past twenty years.
"And that's about it." The king concluded, apparently oblivious to my suffering.
It took all my self-control to stop myself from bolting for the door. I was thoroughly convinced there was a hole in the side of my head through which my remaining brain cells were evacuating through. But just as I turned to leave, the king stopped me again.
What is it this time?
"My son has been wondering when he will be chosen."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"The recruitment draft, you see," the king explained. "For the, ah, Rangers. We were curious as to when it will arrive. Tevon will have to get his affairs in order."
"Sorry?"
The king, having clearly been misled on something or another, hurriedly added: "We can wait for however long it takes, of course."
Uh. Well. It wasn't unusual. The job opportunity was to die for, no pun intended. Rangers where practically immortal, thanks to the respawn function, and you basically got to live among literal gods, even if it got really tiring after a while. But I couldn't imagine having to work with Tevon around. Forever.
Actually, I could. I just didn't want to think about it.
Fortunately, I couldn't remember seeing Tevon's name anywhere on Notch's extremely short recruitment list. So that was exactly what I told them.
"Are you quite certain?" the king asked doubtfully. Behind him, the Tevon's face was going through a range of contortions I would have called humorous if they did not look so homicidal.
"Notch only takes the ones he deems worthy," I said uncomfortably, subtly inching toward the door.
"But Tevon is a hero!" The king protested. "He slew the giant zombie that was around a year ago!"
Why is he arguing with me? I'm not the one who decides this sort of stuff. Then I changed my mind. No, I guess he had a point there. Arguing with Notch was like arguing with a deadbush once He had His mind set on something.
"True heroes live in their hearts, not just their deeds." I said automatically, almost quoting Notch word for word on one of his lectures, although I very pointedly left out the bit about houseplants. Notch was very attached to his houseplants.
"We understand," the king sighed. "Perhaps there will be a chance for Tevon to prove himself in the future. Please," he waved a hand. "Explore the city. You have the rest of the day to yourself, after all."
Well. That was very clearly a dismissal. I made good my escape with no small amount of relief before the gracious prince could escape daddy dear and come after me with something deadlier than a frying pan, which, judging by his facial expression, he desperately wanted to do.
A little while later, I found myself in the royal library with no recollection of how I'd got there.
Sylder's royal library was surprisingly well kept, considering how little it was used. There was no one in sight when I arrived.
I was impressed. My own house in the Aether usually resembled the Aether Labs after Jeb decided to blow it up with a failed experiment. Notch wasn't much better. His study looked like a place where creepers had frequent late-night parties. Supercharged creepers. Some of the debris floating around in there had quite literal explosive potential, owing to the surplus creational energy and whatnot Notch gave off. I had fond recollections of the time I almost lost an eye to a mouldy watercress sandwich.
Fun times. Fun times.
I found a random aisle with just enough space for me to place my bed, and picked up the first book I saw. I wasn't what you'd call an avid reader (Being way too restless to stay in the same place for more than five minutes), but I figured that I might as well as use the library since I was here, and I was bored out of my mind and had nothing else to do. Besides, I figured letting the prince so much as catch a glimpse of my face would result in something deeply unpleasant happening to one of us.
I opened the book to a random page:
Crafters and Humans
Crafters and humans may look alike, but it is easy to differentiate between the two. The defining aspect of a Crafter is their ability to apply what is called the "Minecraft Laws" which allow them to break off cubes of matter simply by hitting it with either a tool or sometimes just their hands, and then "Crafting" it into something else. All Crafters have a personal "pocket" called an Inventory, which are inaccessible to anyone else but the Crafter him/herself. Some Crafters have larger Inventories than others. Crafters will also sometimes Respawn when they are killed, and age at a much slower rate compared to humans. All demigods are Crafters.
Humans
Humans are-
Speciology 101. I put the book down. It was the last thing you got taught in the Aether, because there was a lot of politicking involved and Notch found politics absolutely revolting.
I reached for another book.
Elenjorian Myths
Should be familiar. We had to do essays on these things, which, again, was not great, but I will eternally thank the day my studies paid off when I was stranded in a drowned temple and somehow didn't get eaten, shot dead, mutilated, or a horrible combination of all three.
Again, fun times.
I opened the book in the middle.
Herobrine:
Everyone knows him. Even the little children are taught a rhyme to remind them to not speak His name out loud, for calling a powerful entity's name will sometimes bring you to their attention. He is the White-Eyed terror of our nightmares. But no one know exactly who, or rather, what He actually is.
There is a story of how He is the ghost of a miner who dug too far and fell into the Void. There is another story of how he was a mighty hero who turned evil, hence His name. There is also a story of Herobrine being the son of the unknown Nether God, hence His title, Prince of the Nether.
There are also a small amount of people who believe that He is the twin brother of Notch, and created the world along with Him.
Whoever, or whatever He is, He is undoubtably dangerous, and painfully real.
Whatever he was, Notch didn't talk about him too often. I'd heard people ask, of course, but Notch, despite all appearances, was a master of conversation and always changed the subject before it went too far. For some reason, it seemed to embarrass Him.
It wasn't important. If it was, I'd have heard about it. I turned the page.
Types of Magic and Magicians
There are two main categories of magic: Elementary magic, and Mob Affinity magic.
While all magicians can do the usual stuff (i.e: cast spells, levitate, read undefended minds), the sort of magic that they are best at, the sort of magic that comes so naturally to them that they can do it without thinking almost, is the type of magic that they are born with.
Elementary magic: There are lots of types of Elements. Fire, water, air, earth, metal, ice, lightning, light, shadow, rock, nature, and maybe even a few undiscovered ones.
Mob Affinity: Mob Affinity is where you can do some of the things the a certain type of Mob does (i.e, an Ender Mage might teleport, and an Ocelot Mage will have a sharp sense of smell and always land on their feet). Some Mobmages can speak to Mobs. In the case of domestic or "animal" Mobs, though, that may be a bit useless. Hostile Mob Mages are despised and are banned from most Kingdoms simply because they represent a hostile Mob. Some Kingdoms welcome Mobmages in hopes that they can keep hostile Mobs away or tame Peaceful Mobs.
'Banned from most Kingdoms' sounded like a description of my life. I guessed that part was true. I had a bit of Ender magic, you see. Probably had something to do with my upbringing, which was a bit of a joke itself. Not a lot of magic. I couldn't even control it. I made the mistake of telling people once. It was a testament to what happened afterwards that I never said anything about it again.
All of a sudden, I wanted to be outside.
I stood to pick the books up, but of course, since Lady Luck seemed to hate my guts, I immediately tripped on something. I fell into the bookcase. Which fell into another bookcase.
Noise happened.
"What the Nether is going on there?!" shouted a voice from the back of the library. It was not a voice that sounded happy. It was a voice that sounded like it was a dozen lattes away from functionality, and was feeling very vindictive indeed about this fact.
Uh-oh, I think that's the librarian.
And for the second time that day, I ran for my life.