"Sjin, we've been here for a while. I think it'll be daytime soon. Do you have any ideas? Any?"
Sjin thought hard. It was a really tough spot they were in. One false step, and that's the end. Everything ruined, and Strawfingers wins.
"Well… I lost everything when you whacked me on the head… so I do need to get into the storage room to get supplies… maybe I can sneak in a few things to help us…"
"Sjin, that's a great idea! You can craft some swords for us and just say that you're building stairs or signs. Maybe you can work really slowly to buy us some more time or something… maybe craft us some armor while you're at it…" Kim's voice grew more and more excited as she thought of more ideas.
"Yeah! That's something. Then we can probably get our gear on and escape when I come back and try to kill Strawfingers. I just wonder how risky this would be… but if we're still in the Nether, we should be fine." Sjin struggled against his bonds. The tight rope was rubbing against his wrists all night, and he could feel wet blood trickle through his fingers.
"Kim?"
"Yeah?"
"Are your wrists a bit raw and bloody from the rope?"
"… A bit. I can hear a faint dripping behind me."
"We should really tell Strawfingers to put us in cells or something… I can't work well with my hands like this…"
"Oh! Use that as an excuse to stall a bit more. We need more time to think." Kim jumped a little in surprise. "I can hear Strawfingers coming up!"
Sjin and Kim fell silent as the two of them listened to the rapidly approaching footfalls of the scarecrow.
"It's morning, farmer, and you know what that means," Strawfingers said as he untied Sjin. "Time to build."
Sjin stood up slowly once his hands were free. His muscles were sore after sitting in the chair for such a long time, especially his butt muscles. Strawfingers let him stretch for a minute before shoving him down the stairs.
"Hey! No pushing the master builder!" Sjin snapped at him. Strawfingers just snorted but let the farmer walk himself down the stairs.
Sjin smiled slightly as Strawfingers followed him closely to the Nether Portal that led to his farm. The scarecrow and the farmer jumped into the portal and warped back into real life.
xxXxxXxx
Kim watched Sjin and the scarecrow walk down the stairs until she couldn't hear their footsteps any more. Then she looked up and sent a silent prayer to Notch.
Please. Protect Sjin.
A thin line of blood dripped on the floor.
xxXxxXxx
Sjin tumbled out of the Nether Portal and threw his arms out to stop his fall just before he fell splat on the floor. Strawfingers strolled out without any problem.
"Come on, farmer. On your feet. Go to your little storage hut and get your materials."
"Uh yeah. Sorry about that."
Sjin got up and hightailed to the storage hut. Strawfingers watched him go and muttered to himself, "Pathetic."
Sjin hurried over into the storage room before Strawfingers could follow. He quickly rummaged through all the chests and grabbed a few stacks of food and diamonds and shoved them in his overall pockets before Strawfingers even started walking towards the storage shack. Then he calmly walked over to the chest that held all the building materials and shouldered several Grandidier's Baobab planks as Strawfingers caught up to him.
The scarecrow eyed Sjin suspiciously as the farmer flashed a cherry smile at him. What did the farmer and the girl talk about when he was gone? He smiled as he thought of a great, Strawfingers-like idea to get them to stop stalling.
"Farmer!"
"Um, yeah?"
"You have three days to finish the buildings."
"WHAT!?" Sjin dropped the planks in pure shock. They fell on his foot with clatter and the he yelped and fell to the floor, holding his foot and mumbling several curse words. Strawfingers rolled his eyes. "But… but I still need to do other things, like catalog food recipes, start my milk facility and my fish farm, and get my sequoia trees!"
"No excuses, farmer. You finish the buildings, then you have that Sjindig. You're going to have to make do with what you have, or else your little apprentice, and your farm, goes."
"Strawfingers, you son of a gun…" Sjin muttered. How the hell was he supposed to finish the buildings in three days!? Raising his voice he said, "Alright, alright. Three days is fine. Now, can I go?"
"Go, farmer. But I'll be watching." Strawfingers locked eyes with the farmer to tell him that he meant business.
Sjin gulped and quickly walked past Strawfingers and towards the Grandidier's Baobabs. He cleared an area for the stage, the dance floor, the docks, and the other buildings. He filled in the holes he made earlier for the bigger trees and leveled off the land. As he was working, worried thoughts wormed their way into his head. He angrily shoved them away.
I can't work well if I keep on worrying about Strawfingers and the limited amount of time that I have. Right now I just need to work on building for the Sjindig as fast as I can. Let's see… the docks should be first.
Building up the supports with scaffolding, Sjin filled in the area with the lime green Baobab planks. The dock was about done.
Wasting no time to look at his handiwork, Sjin quickly set up the foundations for the stage with cobblestone. Then he created a wooden stage and made a small overhang to make it look better. Then he set down stairs to reach the stage and set up a stand-up mike for announcements and the singing.
After finishing the stage, Sjin walked back and looked at it from a distance. Then he went back and fixed a few things and moved on to the dance floor.
Sjin went back to the storage house and retrieved several stacks of colored lamps, along with several strings of alloy wires, redstone, and redstone torches. He quickly made his way back to the site of the Sjindig. Using his hands, Sjin scooped dirt out from the ground and replaced it with wires and lamps, changing different colors each time to give the illusion of a flashing disco floor. Sjin was nearly done when he scooped up the last mounds of dirt to reveal a gaping hole in the ground.
"What? What's this?" Sjin thought quickly. Strawfingers was watching somewhere, so he couldn't just go down there and investigate. He decided to play dumb and cover up the hole until he and Kim could get free and check it out. "Whoa! A big hole! Um… I should cover it up. Don't want anyone to fall into it."
Sjin covered up the hole with dirt again, set down the wires and lamps and continued building, but this time, he was thinking up of a plan. Sjin was positive that that was the entrance Strawfingers was using to bring down all the TNT and God-knows-what-else. He hooked up the wires to a lever and flipped it. The different colored lamps flashed on as the redstone signal traveled through the wires.
"Aw man, that's pretty cool!" Sjin smiled. He wiped a few streaks of sweat off his forehead and looked west. The sun was setting slowly in the crimson sky, casting long shadows off the trees Sjin worked so hard to breed. "Oh, it's getting dark…"
Sjin jumped fifty feet in the air when he felt a clawed finger tap him on the shoulder. He turned around and raised his fists to defend himself, but his shoulders sagged when he realized that it was just Strawfingers, wearing a smug smirk that made Sjin want to slap it right off.
"Time to go, farmer. Go back to that storehouse and dump all your things back into the chest."
"Uh, yeah."
Sjin walked back to the storage room with Strawfingers following closely behind. He dumped the scaffolding and wood into the proper chests, but decided to sneak some back in his pocket when Strawfingers was looking in his other chests, along with the food, diamonds, some redstone and stone.
"Okay, I'm done."
"Really?" Sjin felt a cold chill run down his spine as the scarecrow looked him over with cold, black, calculating eyes. "Show me your hands," Strawfingers snapped. Sjin held out his two empty hands. Strawfingers narrowed his eyes. "Pockets," he demanded.
Sjin uncertainly pulled out his two front pockets. Both were empty, which was no surprise since Sjin usually uses those pockets to hold equipment, not supplies or materials. He kept all of that in his back pockets, and counted himself as extremely lucky when the scarecrow didn't check those.
"Alright, back to the Nether."
xxXxxXxx
Kim's feet hurt so much. She was standing up, chained to the stupid fencepost, for several hours while Sjin got to go out and stretch his limbs. She had to endure attacks from the stupid Ghasts and endure snide comments from the Zombie Pigmen, who were obviously laughing at her imprisonment. She missed the beautiful blue sky, the trees and the grass and flowers. She missed the sun that would come out to play during the day and slept at night. She missed the pigs, the cows, and all that sheep 'n stuff… Basically, she was just about done with the Nether.
Kim was overjoyed when she saw Sjin walk up the stairs; however she was a lot less overjoyed when she saw Strawfingers following close after. Sjin flashed Kim an encouraging smile and sat down in the chair again and let Strawfingers tie the rope around his hands. Then Strawfingers left without a word.
"Hm… that was odd. Usually he would say something rude or something along those lines…. But what happened today Sjin? Did you figure out anything?"
Sjin was still deep in thought for several minutes. The he smiled and replied, "Kim. I think I've got ourselves a plan. I think I've found the entrance to Strawfinger's little TNT base underground, and once we have the necessary supplies, we can go down there and disable the explosives before he has a chance to detonate them!"
Kim felt a weight lifted off her shoulders, and sighed in relief. "That's great! So… what are we going to do?"
"Okay…" Sjin whispered. "This is the plan…"
A/N: Please review please! I'm a bit more satisfied with this chapter, but still please tell me what I could do better! Thanks! Next chapter coming soon, I hope.
Havs, out!