Chapter Sixteen: Let's Go To Hell (Yay!)
"Teach me a healing spell." I said.
Horus didn't look up from the rune circle he was drawing. His blindness wore off some time ago.
"I want to help. You're injured." I pressed on.
The scritch, scritch sound of chalk on stone slowed to a stop.
"No." he said finally. The scratching started up again.
I scowled. "Why? There won't be any damage done to your pride, if that's what you're thinking." I'd met a few people like that, who'd rather go through the respawn process than ask for help. No accounting for taste. The respawning process was nasty. You basically got forcibly put back together atom by atom, and you were awake and conscious the whole time. Honestly, I reckon they'd died so many times their brain cells must have forgotten to respawn themselves.
No answer.
"Why?" I asked again, resisting the urge to raise my voice any louder. I really had no idea what the ghosts could or could not do, but I didn't want to agitate them more than I should.
He looked up, dark eyes narrow and face utterly devoid of anything at all. "A healing spell takes more than a killing one." he replied, chalk disappearing back into his Inventory. "A lot more than you have, even with all the sorcerous residue in this place."
Creation and destruction. The ghosts sang. It is an easy thing to kill, but a hard thing to heal. We have learnt...
We have learnt...
Creepy bastards.
I crossed my arms. "Fine. Teach me something else, then."
He touched the circle with his left hand and blue-white light flared up from every mark the chalk made. It travelled up his arm and turned his hand into a white glowing apparition. Tendrils of light snaked up his neck from under his collar and stopped, pulsing. After a while, the light faded back into shadows.
I peered at the ground to see no trace of chalk. "Huh." I prodded at the place where the circle was. "Neat."
Horus stood, shrugging his coat back on. I looked up and tried to form a glare (Note the word 'tried').
"You shouldn't be walking around right now." I said.
"You should not try to patronise people." He replied calmly. "We need to keep moving. Get obsidian for the Nether portal. I have plans to cross the Wall before the second coming of Notch."
I gaped, jaws flapping like a stranded fish. "Did you just... did you just make a joke?"
The stare I received in return was so flat it could've shamed a pancake. "No." Horus answered in an equally flat tone. He paused for a moment and the light from my sword (Which I had left lying on the ground) flickered and faded.
"Hey!" I yelped. "What'd you just do to my sword?"
"Since your sword has now unfortunately stopped providing light," He drawled, completely ignoring my question, "You must make your own."
I snapped my fingers while at the same time demanding light from my surroundings as I had done before. An orb of luminescence immediately materialised above my right hand and I smiled in satisfaction. "How about that?" I said smugly.
He'd already walked off into the darkness of a grove of stone trees. "Now try and keep it that way" He said, waving a hand casually in my direction without looking at me once.
I scowled as hard as my face would allow and set off in pursuit.
The houses, the layout, were still the same. Even the trees were mostly intact, petrified as they were.
The Evetsors' underwater mansion was evidently undamaged. The Altem, with its hallowed grounds and statues and tall iron spire, all the brilliant silver and gold paints long faded into the forgetful darkness.
And the little house with the yard filled with glass shards. Petrified, of course, but everything -down to the minutest details- were all still recognizable. The broken shafts of now-ancient arrows sticking out of the spiky mass here and there, silently mocking.
You can't forget, you silly boy. You should know by now.
Fickle fate had a habit of playing with him. He really shouldn't have been surprised.
He turned his back on the house with the yard full of glass shards, and walked away into the silent, stony grove.
He can't forget, but he could damn well leave it to rot.
"I give up." I collapsed to the cool stone floor and determined to never get up again.
As soon as we passed the invisible line that marked the end of the weird place, maintaining the light became a Herculean effort. Maybe this place was a magical dead spot or something. Or maybe magic didn't work close to lava. Or maybe it was because I was hungry.
Nah, can't be it. I'm always hungry.
"No." Horus said blandly, as if reading my thoughts. Maybe he was. "This is simply how strong you are."
Where's a convenient hole when you need one? More importantly, where's a convenient hole when you don't need one?
"And I am not reading your thoughts. Your face is like a signpost."
Great.
I groaned unenthusiastically.
"Why did we come here again?" I complained.
"To get obsidian for a Nether Portal."
My head snapped up almost immediately. "Wha-" I spluttered loudly. "You're still bent on suicide? You know what, we could just jump into this convenient pool of lava here and save ourselves some trouble."
He lifted an eyebrow. "You are under no obligation to follow me around like a dog. If you prefer, you can simply go back and turn yourself in."
I sat back down and folded my arms, but otherwise stayed silent.
"No?" Horus cast a cool glance my way. "Then I have, ah, suicide to get back to."
I watched with some measure of reluctant fascination as he leaned as far as he could towards the lava pool and traced a blue symbol onto the stone. It sorta looked like a straight line with a downwards hook at the top.
I can't place a finger on it, but it somehow looked really familiar. The feeling was like seeing a picture of a friend you knew as a kid but kinda forgot about until you saw it.
"That's-" I started to say, and then stopped, surprised I'd spoken at all.
He tapped lightly on it. "Laukr." Horus finished for me.
A jet of water erupted from the mark and doused the entire pool of lava, making a lot of Insta-Obsidian.
"Huh." I scratched my head a little. "That's pretty neat."
"It is." Horus agreed easily. "And do you know what will also be neat? You mining that obsidian while I supervise from a distance."
"I-" I started to protest.
"Surely you wouldn't want to force an invalid to work?" He said innocently.
I sighed through my nose. Trust him to make use of everything for his own gain. "Fine." I said. "But I don't have a pickaxe. I lost it when I fell."
A flash of silver instantly set me on high alert. "Relax." He drawled. "I can't kill you yet." He flipped the scythe so he was gripping it by the blade and offered it to me, handle-first.
I took it warily, keeping an eye peeled for anything strange. When I didn't die, I cautiously edged up to the obsidian and tapped it with the pick.
Still not dead.
I took that as a sign that it was safe-ish and promptly spent the next few minutes mining any obsidian I could reach provided it didn't include me falling into into the lava. There were a few close calls-
"Hold on a sec." I gaped at Horus. "What are you doing?"
He blinked at me innocently over the rim of his teacup. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He deadpanned.
"Uh... Never mind." I muttered. I really should stop being so surprised now. By the way things were currently going, a squid will fall out of the cave ceiling in five minutes and explode, and I would not be surprised.
I set up the Nether Portal as best as I could (There were a few hasty adjustments with the pickaxe due to clumsy placement - Whoops).
Horus tossed me a piece of chalk, which I managed to roughly sort-of catch after a great deal of fumbling.
"Draw a K. On the obsidian. Doesn't matter which block" I did that. "Now rub out the line that tilts downwards."
I studied the final result. Again, like with the rune before, it looked familiar, like I knew it but just forgot (I made a habit of forgetting things).
"That rune is called Kaun. It stands for unpredictability, wildfire and mortality. Don't use it unless I'm around. It has a nasty little habit of backfiring on amateurs. Quite literally. It has, in the past, reduced many a promising young magician to a smouldering pile of charcoal."
I looked at it suspiciously. It didn't look like it was capable of crisping me like a prawn on a barbecue, but then again, Notch didn't look like he could create a closet without getting completely lost after the first two minutes, much less the universe.
"I'm sure the cave floor is very interesting, Steve, but we really must hold off on the contemplation of the universe for the moment." Horus said placidly.
"I wasn't studying the cave floor... Never mind." I gave up. Giving up seemed to come naturally to me these days. I touched my finger to the little mark the way Horus does, and silently commanded it to work or face the wrath of a sponge.
The symbol flashed green, and a tongue of flame burst from the obsidian. I suddenly felt like someone had taken a saucepan to my head (I wonder who... not the girl with the carrot coloured hair, surely?).
When my vision cleared again, I was staring at the cave ceiling with a dull throb complaining at the back of my head.
"I may have forgotten to mention something." Horus said casually. "There's a toll to be paid for the use of magic, and first timers may experience some nausea."
"Forgotten?! Tell that to the bruise on the back of my head!" I exclaimed loudly while still lying on my back. The echoes of my shout bounced of the cave walls and I immediately covered my mouth. If there were Mobs nearby...
Well, we were screwed anyway. Either way, the Nether waited around the next corner with a creepy grin and a megasized club...
Best not to think about it.
"Oh. My." Alex poked the idiot with a stick. "Still alive? You're awfully stubborn."
Said idiot groaned through a mouthful of dirt. He was quite multicoloured at this point, and not because of a paint accident.
"Get up." Alex prodded him again. She added a little poke with her boot for good measure.
"Unnggfff." The fool moaned. He made no move to get up, or put himself in danger in any other way.
Alex planted her stick in the ground and frowned at the boy. "On three. If you're not up by then..." She let the silence do the rest of the talking.
The moron didn't move.
Alex shrugged. "Your choice. Last warning, boy."
"Guh."
Alex smiled a dangerous smile that could clear out a bustling street in seconds on a clear day. "I'm going to start counting..."
"Three."
The idiot jumped to his feet as if struck by a dead slug, just in time to get hit in the face by a saucepan.
"WAAAH!" He shrieked as he flew backwards by about five feet and landed on his butt miserably.
"No-" He clamped his mouth shut before the word 'fair' slipped through. One time was enough, thank you.
"Now pick up your stick."
The idiot took one look at Alex's face and immediately did as he was told.
Alex smiled. "Good boy. Let's try again, shall we?"
The halfwit wondered if he should scream in pain in advance.
I stood one step away from the swirling purple light cast by the portal and had enough second thoughts to fill up the rest of my (possibly very short) life.
"We're gonna die." I stated. "Just so you know."
Horus raised an eyebrow. "Speak for yourself. Living is a favourite pastime of mine that I am not keen to give up on any time soon."
"When I die I want to be buried in the Overworld. In a place looking out towards the sea."
"I'll try. Now get in the portal."
"And say goodbye to Alex for me. Though I'm sure she'd be happy to see me goAAAHH-"
My left foot suddenly slipped out from under me. While falling face-first into the purple mist of doom, I caught a glimpse of something pale and shiny, just like... ice.
Gee, thanks. What a good friend I have.
I was in a grey space... floating?
Wait a moment... I was almost positive that this wasn't what the Nether looked like.
"Oh. You're back."
The red-eyed girl stood a few feet away, peering at me with curious crimson eyes.
"I... Who are you?" I croaked out the first thing that came to mind.
The girl tilted her head. "Just another traveller at a crossroads." She smiled as if it was an inside joke. It did nothing to answer my question, but I got a feeling that she was being vague on purpose.
It was then I remembered the last time I saw her. "Wait- what happened? The last time I saw you, you-"
Two small fingers were suddenly pinching my lips shut, preventing the rest of the sentence from escaping my mouth. The girl put a finger to her lips.
"Shh. I don't need to know anything." She grinned. "It is best to let time flow as it will. Little distractions can have big consequences."
I nodded mutely, and the girl stepped back. 'What do you mean?" I asked as soon as my mouth was functional again.
"Let's just say... Time doesn't only flow one way for me. It's more like a pool. I can dive in and out of it whenever I want to."
I nodded like I understood.
"Where are we?" I asked instead.
"Where do you think we are?" The girl questioned.
"A grey void filled with absolutely nothing." I deadpanned.
The girl tilted her head again. "Oh? Is that what you see?"
Suddenly, the world-, no, a world came rushing in around my ears. Strange tall building-like structures soared towards a clouded sky and metallic things sped on grey roads. More people than I'd ever seen in one place bustled around in one crowded street.
"WHA-" I yelled, falling off the stool I was sitting on. I didn't even realise I was sitting on a stool. More importantly, I didn't even realise I was sitting in the first place.
"We are in a dream." The girl looked amused. "Dreams look like how one wants them to look like. They just don't last long."
"Ugh." I picked myself up. "Why am I here?"
She had a blocky cube thing with many colours in her hands and was twisting it this way and that. And no, I had no idea where it came from. She turned her crimson eyes back to me. "Because you wanted to be here. You have a question for me, no?"
I shook my head. "I don't recall wanting to ask you a question... Wait, you asked me to pass on a message, though you were pretty vague about who to."
"I will ask you to pass on a message... I'll have to remember that. Don't tell me what the message says, but maybe I can help you with the identity of the receiver."
"You said 'the one who calls upon the Void'." I recited.
The girl put a hand under her chin. "No gender specifications?" When I shook my head, she continued: "That could apply to quite a few individuals. Which multiverse do you live in?"
"Uh..." What does she mean, multiverse? "The Overworld? Sandwiched between the Aether and the Nether?"
"Nope. Doesn't ring a bell. Sorry. I've probably been there, but in a different time when things had different names. What about your Creator Gods? You know, the pair of twin gods who made your worlds? They're usually the most worshipped, but one's always viewed as good and the other one as absolutely evil."
I racked my admittedly lacking brain. "Notch, definitely. And... um... Well, Jeb's the second oldest? Though he's not evil."
The girl shook her head. "In that case, it could probably apply to both Creator gods or any of the Primordial guardians. Sorry, I have no further information."
"Oh." I said disappointedly. Well, I hoped I wasn't supposed to pass Notch a message. I wouldn't survive the day.
The girl stood, and the sounds of the city started to fade. Along with the city itself.
'You're waking up. And I have to go."
The grey nothingness came back, and then it, too, started to fade away.
"Maybe we can meet again some other time... Steve." Her outline glowed softly, beginning to dissipate.
"Wait!" I yelled. "How do you know my name?!"
The little girl smiled angelically. "Why, you told me, of course. How else would I know it?"
Then I woke up to the sight of Hell.
Jeb had been feeling uneasy the whole day. Pyrien had left a while ago, saying that 'while certain people were content to laze around and allow their bodies to grow to grotesque proportions, he was going to get some exercise and save the world on the way if he could be bothered'. Naturally, the asshat left the Aether in a state of utter chaos, what with the anti-gravity cows, heat-seeking spitwads and animated talking coffee machine that happened to have the personality of one grumpy Inventor and thus refused to dispense any coffee at all (Jeb felt he had gone too far with that one. No one, no one, messes with the communal coffee machine. It was likely to bring the wrath of all forty-four gods in the Aether down on one's noggin).
Oh, and of course, he spiked Jeb's morning drink with vinegar again. A blind zombie could have seen that coming.
That irritating pea-sized pest...
The pyromanic annoyance...
The BRATFACE from HELL.
(Somewhere out there, Pyrien was sneezing. Hard)
Anyhow, Jeb was currently in his lab working on yet another contraption that was doubtlessly fated to bring misery to the cleaning crew.
A cold draft blew in. Jeb ignored that. Gods were weather-resistant (Mostly).
A door creaked creepily. Jeb ignored that. Gods were scare-proof (No they weren't).
Then the temperature dropped by around thirty degrees celsius and all the lights died simultaneously.
A malicious presence oozed into the lab. Ice formed on the walls.
Jeb froze. He turned slowly to face the door that was ajar, keeping his back firmly pressed against the wall.
A pair of white lights stared back at him coldly.
No... It can't be...
Then the figure spoke...
"APRIL FOOLS."
There was a K-chk noise that sounded suspiciously like a camera-
Pyrien ran away laughing his ass off.
Random Thoughts
Somewhere in between universes...
"So your name has the word 'Brine' in it."
Silence.
"Oh, c'mon! Don't be salty!"
Please shut this deranged thing up. Please.
"Do you mind if I call you the Almighty Sovereign of Salt? ASS for short?"
"I do mind."
"Ah! The silent one speaks! I have accomplished my task of ultimate annoyance!"
"Oh, he's gone saline -t on me again."
This is horrible.
"You know, the first thing that comes into mind when I think of your name is a marine creature called a brine shrimp. I think I'll make that my nickname for you."
"I'll take that as an OK. What's with that expression on your face? You look like you want to a-salt something."
Cue silent groan.
"Can you go away?"
"Ah! The seagoing menace speaks again! He must be tidally fed up! Going off the deep end, are we?"
"I must be going crazy."
"You mean to say... 'cray-sea'?"
Complete and utter silence.
"Ha! Alright, we are going to have a pun-off right now, mister salty. I see you have unlimited potential. You shall bay-come a master of the pun with the right education. Sailect your arsenal! Combrine your best sentences! I predict some choppy weather today!"
"Shut up. Please."
"...You're not shrimping out on me, are you?"
AAAARRRGGGHH!
(Silent screaming)
"...ahaha, I'm so punny."
Sorry for disappearing. I am now working on an actual book, so updates will be miserably slow...
Excuse me while I vanish for another few months.
-Nano