The sun had risen after Shroud and the player had decided to go out and find a plains biome and hope that they would find a village. As Shroud walked out, the player insisted again to get some wood.
Shroud had asked why and in turn got a long list of things he could use wood for. He face-palmed and tune out the player's voice who talked even more than Aodh ever did... if that was even possible.
Still he went to the nearest tree and collected all the wood it had. Once that was done he turned around and wondered which way to go. The player had just told him 'pick a direction' and so he did at a sprint not wanting to be in the snowy biome any longer.
For a long time he sprinted past the spruce trees and seemingly endless snow covered ground with a pleasant silence from the player. But soon enough he was starting to get hungry and slowed down to eat under a tree.
Shroud had in his pockets three pork-chops that Aodh had given him and some mushrooms. He picked one of the pork-chops and ate it quickly before continuing his run. So far Shroud hated the snow-covered landscape and even though he ran mostly, he couldn't warm up and his feet had become numb a while ago.
Another night was coming on before he saw a different looking biome up ahead.
The biome looked like it didn't contain a speck of snow on the ground much to Shroud's delight and he sped towards it faster. He wasn't sure what type of biome it was, but he soon found out it was the biome he was looking for thanks to jlott's know-it-all blabber.
On one side, Shroud was sorta glad on the inside to have someone who could show him how to survive in the Overworld. But on the other-hand he wished jlott would just shut-up and keep their chatter short.
Anyway, he when he stepped onto the newly discovered plains biome, Shroud slowed down and began scanning the now dark horizon for any sort of buildings that the player described in unnecessarily great detail. He didn't immediately see any buildings and then started to walk to what he believed to be more towards the center of the biome.
All around him every thing was quiet in the night even the player. But although he liked the silence from the player, he could still sense their emotions and they were uneasy and tense.
He knew he was later going to hate his next action, but he wanted to know what was up. But quickly he closed his mouth when he remembered his run-in with the skeletons last night and realized that the player might be keeping silent in order to listen to their surroundings.
Shroud paused for a second to look around him in case any mobs were near-by before pulling out another pork-chop since his running earlier made him hungry again. He finished eating when he felt the player start to panic and made a sound like 'Cree'
But the player reacted a second too late when the dreadful sound of hissing came from behind Shroud. Even with the sudden adrenaline in his vines, Shroud made it only two steps away when the infamous creeper Aodh had told him about exploded, sending Shroud flying several blocks.
The explosion created enough force that it rocked Shroud's very core with massive amount of pain. When he hit the ground again, Shroud landed on his injured leg wrong nearly making him cry out, but he held his tongue.
Unfortunately, the bad landing re-opened his somewhat heal wound and the make-shift bandages leaked red once again. Shroud made it to his feet, but stumbled quickly as his leg couldn't support his weight any more.
Shroud winced and inwardly cursed at his turn of luck and attempted to get up again and fail, but then he felt the player's panic rise again before he/she spoke.
"u-ummm...?! fffffffffffff- uhhhh... hold on I'm going to try to get you into creative mode!" jlott told Shroud rapidly, but he became confused at the mention of 'creative mode'. So he waited to see what would happen since Shroud felt too much pain to trust his voice to not show weakness.
Soon enough he felt something and it happened to be jlott's emotions, but something was wrong.
"Shroud! I can't get into creative! that follower dude is preventing me!" The player suddenly shouted out and the mere mention of the Follower caused Shroud's mind to reel back. If he disable whatever thing the player wanted to use to help him, then Shroud might bleed-out or have to feebly fight off any mobs near by.
All of a sudden, Shroud felt a hard pull in his core and could no longer feel jlott's presents. Shroud didn't like that no matter how annoying they got, better than being tormented by the other person.
"well well well...? Were you having a nice chat with an inferior? Tsk. I thought you better than that, 'Shroud'." The Follower's voice leaked with sarcasm as Shroud's adrenalin pumped up to maximum.
Shroud's hand went over his heart in an attempt to not show how scared he felt for he didn't want the Follower to pick up on it.
"Just look at you now... What happened to that strength of yours? Oh that's right! It left you when you decided to not heed my orders and help that Minecrafian scum. what a shame." Shroud grounded his teeth together trying to hold back his rage that he knew wouldn't help him, but rather give the Follower more fuel to taunt him. But Shroud's pride couldn't take being taunted that he was weak.
"GO AWAY.", Shroud growled deeply," I don't need you or your filthy 'advice' so GET AWAY FROM ME." Course the Follower ignored Shroud's demand and continued.
"aww... is that the way you treat an old friend? What about all those fun times we had in the Nether? We don't have to be enemies you know so how about-? WAIT WHA-?!" The Follower started to say when something strange cut off his mental link with Shroud who sat where he stood in confusion.
"FIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRREEEEEEEWAA AALLLLL GOOOOOO!" A certain player screamed out like a battle-cry. The shout made Shroud cheer inside as the sound of jlott's voice showed he hadn't been abandoned, that he still had someone to rely on even if he didn't like to rely on others.
Moments pass and all Shroud can feel from the player was sheer mountains of determination rolling off him/her. Just as Shroud started to open his mouth to ask what the player was doing a 'poof' sounded and in Shroud's hand was a bottle of ...something.
"What is this...? Where did it come from?" Shroud inquired out-loud and soon he got his answer.
"It's a potion of invisibility, it conceals the user to any mobs or other minecraftians. It was the only object i could nabbed from creative mode before i got kicked out of it. Ffff-ing Follower messing up my computer..." The player spoke with annoyance directed at said Follower who no longer had complete control.
Shroud nodded in understanding and quickly drank the potion. When he finished, Shroud noted that he could no longer see his hands or the rest of him. Still, he couldn't get up because of his injured leg and so he started to crawl in hopes of what might be the direction of a village.
It was slow going and several times Shroud found himself freezing every time he saw a mob even though he didn't need to worry about them spotting him. But because of the potion's effect, Shroud could get a closer look when he paused to get a closer look at what he needed to look out for so he could avoid the mobs easier.
Dawn soon began to approach when jlott warned Shroud that the effects would wear off soon. After the player said that, it exclaimed cheerfully that it saw a village just over the horizon.
Shroud grinned before grimacing as he forced himself to keep moving. In a few minutes, he made it to the outskirts of the village when the potion's effect finally gave out. Now that he was visible again, Shroud shouted hoping to catch someone's attention.
And he did, A little village girl in an apprentice priest's tunic peeked out of a door of one of the buildings close to Shroud. She closed the door again and came out a second later with another villager who wore a brown tunic with a black apron tied around his mid-section.
The adult villager walked over to Shroud and lifted him off the ground and carried him over to the house which the little girl continued to peek out of. Shroud was placed down on a bed in the corner of the medium sized house and the blacksmith villager quickly looked him over before nodding to the little girl.
"Daughter, could you get your mentor from the church and fix this man up?", The little girl nodded before dashing to the door when her father stopped her again," And please tell your brother to come back to our house?" Again the girl nodded and soon continued her dash out the door.
This left Shroud alone with the blacksmith villager and soon an awkward silence filled the air as Shroud started to fidget uncomfortably. It didn't last long because the little girl came back in a minute with the person from the church.
"Well hello mister!", The little girl's mentor greeted," What happens to need my attention?" Shroud simply pointed at his still slightly bleeding leg in response. The Priest (as jlott now informed him) began unwrapping the make-shift bandage and cleaning the wound with a wet piece of cloth.
After that the Priest got out a needle with some spider string and stitch up Shroud's wound expertly. The priest then re-wrapped the injury in a new clean gauze before checking Shroud for further injuries.
Shroud was soon given the all-clear when his wrist was wrapped up, too.
"Now rest up and don't stress yourself too much, I don't want to fix you up again because you moved the wrong way." The priest calmly and sternly said before exiting the house, leaving the three remaining occupants to themselves. The little girl was the first to break the ice between them.
"Sooo, what's your name mister?" She smiled innocently and Shroud couldn't help but smile back.
A/N and that concludes this chapter :P And I have some important announcements to make:
1.) I'm NO LONGER accepting OC's soo yeah
2.) I'm posting pictures based on this fic on my DeviantArt account, hayley-the-hedgehog. My first two pics have all the OC's that have been submitted previously (Rosetta, Tyler, Damon AND Rick) and the three major characters who have showed up before this chapter (Shroud, Aodh, The Follower)
3.) Message to Pantsman1: Your character has been accepted, I just didn't reply in the last chapter because I was busy trying to fit him into the story somehow. My only problem is the gun part of your character since guns aren't in the default minecraft ( i want the story to be as close to the real minecraft as possible), but I might add mods in to the mix of this story. :P
see ya next chapter readers! :D