The villagers were less chatty than either Aodh or jlott and this made Shroud sigh in relief as he sat in the bed the villagers let him rest in while his leg healed. He didn't think he could handle more rambling of words, but when he asked about the former of the two talkative people the Father of the little girl shook his head.
"We don't get many visitors around our remote village, so we don't often get news until it's perhaps three months old at the earliest." Shroud frowned at that news and decided to change the subject so the awkward silence didn't cling to the air again because although Shroud liked silence, he didn't enjoy it when it was awkward.
"Sooo what's around and about this village then?" Shroud asked boredly, having nothing else to do until the priest gives him the clear to leave the house. 'Daughter' spoke up first. (Shroud had found out quickly that the Villagers didn't have true names after the three introduced themselves and they usually call themselves Son, Neighbor, Farmer,etc.)
"Well... ummm... the mobs are coming more often and..." the little girl started before losing her confidence and quieting down. Her father picked up where she left off.
"As my daughter was saying, more mobs have been spotted around the village and we've been trying to get enough iron to make an iron golem to protect us. Because of the situation and the fact our village doesn't see much trade coming in, my son has begun taking dangerous risks in the mines." It was at this point that the door swung open and a mini version of the adult blacksmith came in holding an stone pickaxe.
"I'm back! And I bring 20 iron blocks with me!" The young blacksmith yelled with pride and a bit of cockiness seeping out with it.
"And I've told the same amount of blocks to stay out of the mines! you're too young to go mining alone!" Father quickly replied back at his son who's look of pride vanish with a deep scowl replacing it.
"Really? Even if I WAS old enough you wouldn't let me go down into those mines old man. Besides just a few more blocks of iron and we can have a golem up and running in no time! Then we don't have to worry about those evil mobs ever again." The Blacksmith's son retorted back.
"Did you get the coal needed to smelt the iron?" The father asked blankly. the son's face paused in a poker face.
"... nope..." Was the answer after a few seconds ticked by. Father sighed and shook his head.
"You need to think about these things or you'll end up dead one of these days." The father said with pity leeking out. Shroud on the other hand was feeling uncomfortable being stuck in the middle of a family argument and really just wanted to dash out the door and run.
The boy began to open his mouth again to continue the argument when the priest came inside holding a strange object.
"You two fighting over something again?" The priest calmly said as if she expected this which probably was the case. The two in disagreement both nodded their heads and looked away from each other.
"And you do realize you have a guest in the house right?" At this the older blacksmith winced because he forgot and his son, the younger blacksmith seemed to snap out of a trace and whipped his head around to seemingly finally seeing Shroud for the first time. Shroud's face scrunched up at being stared at again.
"Oh yes of course, I kinda forgot about that Priest. Son, this is Shroud, we found him-" Father apologized sheepishly before trying to introduce Shroud to his son.
" I found him!" The daughter put in quickly with satisfaction. Father sighed and continued.
"-Your sister found him injured and so he's staying in our home until he heals back up." Father finished and his son just stared back at him.
"Well, he might not be here for long. I managed to find a glistering melon in the storage and it should heal his leg back up faster. I would've made an instant health potion but i ran out of nether wart treating the Butcher from the attack last week." The priest began happily before dropping off towards the end about the attack. Either way, she tossed the glistering melon to Shroud who fumbled a bit since he wasn't on guard at the moment.
"Just eat that Shroud and your leg should be fine within a day or two." The priest smiled kindly before exiting the house saying something about getting some milk to help with a case of accidental poisoning with a potato.
"Kids I'm going out for a walk. If you need me just come get me." the father tiredly spoke before leaving as well. This left Shroud with the two kids who looked at him with... eagerness? Still, Shroud thought it strange that their father would leave his kids with a person they JUST met. He also felt his anger rise because the kids kept staring at him.
"So you're a real Minecraftian?" The young blacksmith spoke out of nowhere catching Shroud by surprise a little.
"um..what?" Shroud asked confused.
"You know, Minecraftians? Those blessed by Notch to created so many things! The brave adventurers who travel across the lands and defeat the evil mobs without fear?" the youngster said with enthusiasm. A new light sparkle lit up in both the kids eyes, even the quiet girl.
" hmm...," Shroud sat in thought. He wasn't quite sure if he was a Minecraftian or not, but deep inside he knew he was, that and he didn't want to disappoint the gleeful looking kids.
"Yes I am and I guess you can say I have been on an adventure for a bit of time recently." Shroud replied and soon both the kids eyes went wide with awe.
" Can you tell us what your adventure is mister Shroud?" The young girl asked innocently and Shroud winced on the inside because he didn't think he would have to tell a story, that's more Aodh's thing.
"Yeah I'm kinda curious to know, too! Like how you ended up here." The boy questioned leaving Shroud to sigh as he knew he wasn't going to get out of story-telling time- he was going to hate it. he decided he might as well tell them, problem was that Shroud didn't really know where to begin at first- though the death of the young pigman was definitely out, since Shroud regretted that now. After a bit of time, Shroud decided to start off with his meeting with Aodh and continued from there.
All the way through, the two kids listened and watched with fascination as Shroud told his story and at some parts they looked shocked. The little girl constantly asked questions about everything in the Nether since most villagers never visited the awful place before and Shroud told her that that was a good thing. Evening started to roll in once Shroud finished his story- and glistering melon- but Shroud felt uneasy by one fact.
"Where's your Father? Didn't he say he was going out for a walk?" Shroud question about the older blacksmith location. The girl shrugged her shoulders in her quiet way while her brother spoke up.
"I dunno. He always takes these walks and comes back just as night comes. So he should be back soon." The young smith calmly said before going on to ask a fury of questions, mostly about the Player and the Follower. Let's just say Shroud got a bit frustrated with the kid AND with jlott since the player was trying to explain at the same time as the young smith ran his mouth almost non-stop. Night had official came once Shroud quieted the two down.
'FINALLY.' Shroud thought while pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
'sorry...' jlott quietly spoke making Shroud pause quickly in revelation.
'Since WHEN could you HEAR my thoughts?!' Shroud asked after his pausing.
'Since forever... yeah I guess i should of told you earlier... ignore me and my forgetfulness!' jlott explained with a shout at the end. Shroud was going to mentally yell at her when the little girl interrupted.
"Mister Shroud? Why are you making weird faces? and ummm... Father hasn't come back yet..." The girl said in a quiet tone that Shroud almost didn't hear her.
"Oh what? Sorry, just thinking about something and hold on I'll peek out the door to see if he's coming." Shroud blurted out quickly before getting up to check for the adult blacksmith. He opened the door slowly and scanned the surrounding area, but seeing no sign of the Smith. He closed the door before going to pick up Old Faithful.
"What are you doing? Ms. Priest told you to stay inside!" The little girl squeaked out worriedly.
"Well I'm not seeing your dad so I'm just going to check the other houses to see if he ran into one of them instead. I'll only be gone for a bit then I'm coming right back." Shroud explained and got ready to move outside when the young smith grabbed the back of his torn tunic.
"I'm coming with you! I wanna help because although my dad is a old fart I wanna know if he's okay." The young smith said with determination and a surprised Shroud blinked before recovering from the shock.
"I'm sure he's fine kid and if I do find him I'll tell you if he's alright, okay?" Shroud said calmly but to no avail as the determined look was still on the young smith's face.
"No way, I'm coming and that's final! This is like an adventure and I wanna be on board for it!" The young smith pouted at Shroud who huffed in annoyance. He was only checking houses for the dad and the kid thought he was going on an adventure, It made Shroud wonder how boring this village was.
"Fine, But you're staying close to me kid. I-" Shroud started but got interrupted by the young smith.
"I don't wanna be called 'kid' I wanna awesome name like you Minecraftians! Not the boring names of our tradition." The young smith continued to pout and whine making Shroud's short patience run out.
"You can think about that on the way, for all we know is that your father could be in danger and every second you waste could end him!" Shroud snapped at the kid who recoiled a bit. "Now come on and let's find your dad."
And so the two walked out into the night and began searching all the houses of the rather large village. Some houses were vacant and others contained villagers most of whom were farmers. A good amount of them ran away from Shroud when they first saw him, thinking he was some new mob out to kill them, but their nerves were eased quickly when they spotted the young smith standing confidently next to Shroud.
Although still slightly on edge, the villagers did answer Shroud's questions about the older blacksmith's whereabouts, mostly with a 'no we haven't seen him all day' or 'check next door'.
By the time the two searched most of the houses, dawn started to break on the east horizon with no luck what-so-ever. Even the young smith's confident outer shell began to see cracks as the two started to get to the last houses. Finally the two came to the church, the last building to check. The only person inside was the Priest who smacked Shroud across the head and scowled at him for leaving the house without her permission.
Soon though, she stopped nagging Shroud and listened about their problem.
"No, I haven't seen him go into any buildings, but I did see him go into the mines a little passed the time a gave you the glistering melon." The Priest told Shroud who nodded in understanding.
"Okay, Can you show us to the mines? I want to know if he's fine down there." Shroud asked only to get another nag session from the Priest telling him to stay out of the mines until he's healed completely. Then she promptly show them out the door and pointed back towards the young smith's house.
"I want you two to go back to the house and stay there. Blacksmith may have even come back by now and is worrying about you two! And you-" She pointed her finger at the young smith. "How could you leave your sister in the house all by herself? You know how scared she is to be by herself!" At this the young smith winced under the Priest's angry gaze. Said Priest then turned around and shut the door behind her.
The two stood there for a bit looking at the door before Shroud began to moved back towards the house.
"Hey! what about my dad?! We should go into the mines and search for him!" The young smith blurted out quickly and stumbled slightly trying to catch up to Shroud.
"We are going to, but first we're going to the house to see if your sister's alright and also to see if your dad came back." Shroud calmly explained to the worried kid who nodded slightly in guilt since he wanted to go the mines more than he wanted to check up on his easily scared sister.
neither knew what would happen next.
A/N: Hey guys! just posting a few messages down here so read them if you like, they could hold interesting updates!
I'm kinda planning to do a AU comic series about my misadventures in Minecraft which will be upload to my deviantart account (hayley-the-hedgehog) These will mostly feature my brother and I; Me looking like Shroud and my brother looking like Aodh (since those ARE our skins *cough*) tell me if I should do this or not either through your reviews or through a PM. :P
To Pantsman1: type 'hayley-the-hedgehogDOTdeviantartDOTcom' and it'll take you to my DeviantArt account where you can find my Minecraft pictures of the characters easily. just replace the 'DOT's with a "."
To Dennis51000: Sorry, but I'm no longer accepting OCs. You came just a bit too late.