Hola, me llama Pastrinator64 y tengo un capítulo nuevo para Reloj de Arena! ...Ah, sorry about that. Although we all want to deny it, school's coming up in less than a month and so I'm seeing how well my Spanish is. I'm kinda rusty, so for a couple words I was just like, "HOORAY FOR THE INTERNET!" Anyway, enough of my dorkfest. On with the reviews!
Replies To Reviews
badgerman: Well...hi! I guess. XD
Nwinds: 1. Oh, okay then.
2. Wait, so is it actually named "Wot Blight" or is that the author's name?
3. I haven't been giving it a lot of thought lately. I've mainly been trying to focus on getting our five main heroes out of the Aether.
4. Really? Well, I guess you learn something new every day. I'm not going to change it now that I've been doing it for two full books of the series. I don't think anyone notices the difference. Or maybe I just think that and they really do. And I'm just embarassing myself...nah! XD
5. Yup! Counted it myself.
6. Yeah, but that doesn't mean her secret tunnels are gone, does it?
7. (Answered in QAA)
8. Don't thank me! Thank yourself! You're the one who came up with the words ringing with truth. All I did was display them. I thank YOU, Nwinds.
9. (Answered in QAA)
10. That's what I use. My younger sister always insists on using Google Docs because it saves automatically, but seriously! Google Docs isn't the right program to use for lengthy writing. The time it takes to scroll down is so lagged that it's just not worth it. She won't listen to me, though.
badgerman: Okay, you may be right about the whole paradox thing. I was aware of the paradox that I made for The Glitch on purpose, but that's one I didn't notice that I accidently made. I'm thinking we should just ignore that for a while. It took a lot of effort to try and explain the first one I made, so I don't feel like trying to figure out a second. No offense.
badgerman: You're right, I am losing interest in writing this story. It's hard to keep this series running when you lose so many fans due to the amount of MC stories coming in these days. I remember the good ol' days back when this section had less than 2K. Still, I promised myself that I would persevere and finish this trilogy! I will not be stopped!
Mmtunlight: Wait, one what?
Guest: That confusing bit will be explained in the next chapter, actually.
There you go, badgerman and Nwinds and...badgerman twice more! As well as Mmtunlight and Guest! It's about time we continued the story, wouldn't you say?
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 11: Aetherian Creepypasta
Without any torches to light their path, the inside of the tunnel was pitch-black in a matter of half a minute. Soon, they'd dug far enough into the ground where none of the measly light left on the surface aided them. In other words, blind faith was literally their only option.
"Golly! No one's gotta torch around here?" commented Adrian, squinting hard to adjust to the lack of light.
In the dark, Astrid rolled her eyes at him and replied,
"Dude, do I look like a pyro to you?"
Norman and Liz held hands as they lead the three sorta-newbies deeper into the ground. One, they couldn't get separated that way, and two, both of them felt less safe now that they had been converted back to their teenage forms, especially considering they were back to their EARLY teenage years.
"Why couldn't Farixz just make us be seventeen again? We'd still be adolescents, but at least we'd be in better shape." muttered Norman.
"Good point!" Liz declared, realizing the exact same thing.
They were all able to keep moving at a reasonable pace for a while considering they just had to go straight. Unfortunately, they were also greeted by several odd block placements, many of which were run into by Norman and/or Liz.
"Oof! Oh, my stomach!" cried Norman, clutching his sickened belly with his free hand as he walked around the block.
SMACK! A block from above connected with Norman's forehead about a second later, sending him flat on his back, taking Liz with him. The three following from behind, unable to see in the dark, tripped over their two leaders, who lay on the ground in a daze.
"Ouch! Gerrof!"
"Me?! You pushed me into her!"
"ACK! Adrian, did you just kick me in the throat?!"
"I didn't see you, okay?!"
"EVERYONE BE QUIET!"
"..."
They all shut up for a moment, taking some time to get themselves untangled. Norman stood up and rubbed dirt off his pants, then groaned a little as he rubbed his forehead.
"Ugh. I hate this tunnel." he muttered, still pretty hazy from the duo headache and stomachache.
"Do you hurt?"
They all froze at the sound of the echoing voice. Kelsey was frozen too, but only she recognized the voice.
"Oh no..." she murmured, quieter than anyone could hear.
"Can I cheer you up?"
From out of nowhere, a vine flew into view and wrapped painfully around Norman, taking him back into the darkness ahead. They all unfroze at the situation and hurried after him, weapons at the ready.
"Guys! It's Lalita!" screamed Kelsey, a tone of urgency in her voice.
While running, Adrian said back,
"What?! That thang's still alive up 'ere?!"
"Apparently!" replied Kelsey, a very bad feeling inside of her.
Liz piped up to Kelsey's left, her voice sounding suddenly demanding.
"What's she going to do to him?!"
Kelsey pondered that for a moment, making sure her legs were still moving as she thought.
"She'll either tickle him, rape him, or...throw him out of the Aether!"
Liz groaned almost angrily, gripping Shine tightly around its handle.
"Let's hope it's the first; the less threatening, the better!"
As they were running deeper and deeper into ground due to the tunnel's slope, Astrid just happened to realize a severe plothole in their idea.
"Wait a second! These are all a bunch of floating islands! Shouldn't we have fallen to our deaths already?"
Right on cue, another hidden trap opened up beneath them and they dropped like stones into open air, screaming as they went. With the thick clouds of the Overworld not too far below them, they all knew that this was the end. The moment they passed through those clouds, they hit the interdimensional barrier of code separating the earthly and heavenly dimensions. The result: a group black-out.
Auconi was extremely pissed at Darcy for two reasons. A. he embarrassed him horribly in front of that hot Morgan girl. B. he made Morgan run away because of his stupidity. Auconi's chances with her disappeared as suddenly as they had come. Now he and Darcy just sat there on the bridge to their mansion, both of them angry with each other as well as bored out of their minds.
Darcy sat with one leg bent up to his chest, the other leg lying out on the wood. Auconi sat cross-legged with his chin resting in his hands. Neither of them were looking at each other.
"It's your fault, you know. Your jerkiness TOTALLY paid off." Auconi finally muttered, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Darcy glared sideways at him and retorted,
"You nagging me, bloke? You're such a whacker, you know that? You always have been."
A slightly awkward silence followed. They were both still steaming, but at the moment not much in the way of insults came to their minds. Maybe a minute later, Darcy stood up suddenly, sighing and staring out at the ocean.
"Either way, now I'm bored shitless." he said, then proceeded to kick the wood beneath his feet in frustration. "Lordy! She could'a been one helluva girl! Rare opportunities don't just fall out of the sky, mate!"
Without warning, they both heard a massive splatter to their right and whirled around. They saw a ton of water going up into the air about twenty blocks offshore, only it was all over the place rather than one gigantic splash. Once the water died down over there, Auconi stood up and looked over at Darcy, who still had a surprised look on his face.
"What in the Overworld was that?" Auconi wondered aloud.
Darcy responded by grinning at him and taking a few moments to whip a boat out of his Blockpack. He placed it in the water and hopped right in.
"There's a bloody good chance something interesting's over there. I'm giving it a burl and checking it out."
Darcy started to boat off towards the rippling water thirty blocks away when Auconi raised his fist and blurted,
"Wait! Let me get my boat first, dude!"
Darcy shook his head and kept on boating.
"Sorry, mate. I ain't waiting around for you so a bunch of mozzies can make me into a blood-buffet. You'll have to swim."
"DARCY!"
"Hooroo, Auconi!"
Without thinking at all, Auconi sprinted towards the edge of the bridge and took a leap, landing on the back of Darcy's boat. While Darcy was steering up front, hogging most of the boat and laughing like an idiot, Auconi just tried to grip the wood of the boat and keep as much of his butt out of the water as possible even though he had maybe 15% of the boat. Darcy grinned and stepped on it, making them go as fast as Minecraft logic would let them.
Then, when they reached where the splashes were, Darcy put on the...brakes. Auconi went flying right over Darcy and into the water due to the fact that he could hardly hold on in the first place. Underwater because of Darcy for the second time that day, Auconi was about to swim up beneath the boat and capsize it for revenge, only he stopped and noticed something right underneath his feet.
He swam down for only a few blocks and reached down to grab the unusually-shaped object. It felt like leather in his hands, almost like the strap of his Blockpack. He tried lifting it, but soon he realized why he couldn't. There was a person wearing it!
With all his strength, Auconi reached in with both arms underneath the drowning victim's shoulders and pushed off of the ground, getting them to float up to the surface. He and the person broke the water's surface and mildly startled Darcy.
"What the...?"
"No time, Darcy! Just get him in the boat with you!"
Darcy grumbled and took the dude from Auconi, who glanced down for a moment to realize that there were other people down there.
"I'm going back down! There are others!" he said quickly, taking a huge breath and diving under.
There was hardly any room in the boat to begin with, so this dude's size didn't help the matter. This guy looked like he was the same age as him, so fifteen. He was muscular, but not like a beefcake bodybuilder. Oddly enough, he was wearing the clothes of a country singer. The only thing missing was a cowboy hat.
While he was observing, the guy's eyelids scrunched and he coughed out a ton of water into Darcy's face. After sputtering like fish for a few seconds, he took a breath and muttered,
"Oh...Notch..."
"Just keep still, mate." he said, a little disappointed that he wasn't holding a girl, but still serious.
Darcy looked over the side of the boat into the water. He could see Auconi coming up with another person, this one much smaller than the country boy. When he broke the surface, it turned out that it was a girl this time. A really, really, REALLY pretty one, at that. As Auconi was trying to get the girl into the boat, he shouted right in Darcy's face, his voice filled with urgency.
"Dude, there's two more down there! Get out of the boat and help me before they drown!"
Darcy rubbed his forehead in frustration. As long as they weren't a bunch of fat, hairy dudes, he supposed he would be fine. Darcy jumped out of the boat and into the water, swimming down with Auconi by his side. They both grabbed one of them, bringing them up with all their strength. As Darcy was going up through the water, he couldn't see what the person he was carrying looked like, so instead he just felt underneath their shirt.
"Another girl! The flat stomach doesn't lie."
As they came back above the water, Auconi took a single glance over at Darcy with his hand up the girl's shirt and gave him the most appalled look he could make.
"Darcy, you disgust me, you know that?" he said, making the effort to reach over and punch him in the arm.
With a lot of effort and slow success, they managed to pile the bodies awkwardly in the boat. Once they were all in, Darcy and Auconi went around back of the boat and started to push towards shore.
"Three chickies, one bloke? I like the odds, mate." Darcy said with a smile, winking at Auconi. "You can have that wide-waist up there. I got the two yummy tummies."
"DARCY! Seriously?! You're going to make me barf!"
Darcy just laughed and then sighed, obviously satisfied with himself.
"Your reactions are ripper! Honestly, you need to have a sense of humor, mate! I would say that I don't mean to rubbish, but I kinda do; your humor's as dry as a nun's nasty."
Auconi gritted his teeth and tried to ignore Darcy as best he could. The guy just couldn't stop annoying the crap out of him, but why?!
Meanwhile, back up in the Aether, Norman awoke to a pain in his head and his stomach. He groaned, blinking a couple times and muttering,
"Stupid assorted aches...still there?"
He could feel that he was pinned up against a wall by some tendrils, but it was far too dark to see anything. A few seconds later, he heard that voice from before and shivered.
"Wakey wakey! Wanna play now?"
"...what are you?" he muttered, now pretty frightened, still kind of disoriented from all that had happened last he remembered.
The fear in his voice took its toll; his voice cracked horribly upon him saying it. The speaker was directly in front of him, but he still couldn't see well enough. He could make out, however, a huge spherical-ish shape in front of him.
"I'm Lalita and I like to cuddle! We can cuddle now that it's just us!"
Norman's blood ran cold.
"W-what?" he murmured, his voice cracking again.
Without warning, the tendrils covering his body began to shift, slithering underneath his shirt and starting to inch towards his pants.
"Ohhhh, God..." thought Norman, overwhelmingly uncomfortable.
All of a sudden, the vines stopped moving all together.
"What's this?" wondered Lalita, confusion in her voice.
The tendrils crawled all around Norman's chest, making him half giggle, fear bubbling up inside of him.
"What?! Not a girl?! ...never mind, you're no fun. Boys are never fun."
The vines around him uncurled from his body, letting him fall to his knees. Norman stood up quickly and backed up against a wall.
"What the heck are you?!"
There came no answer—only a slithering sound as the creature slithered deeper into the darkness beyond. Norman thought it was all over for a moment and tried taking a couple deep breaths. He couldn't hear that thing anymore, so it must've been gone. The worst was over...
Or at least he thought that for about three and a half seconds. From out of the dark, a whip-like vine lashed out at him, smacking him up against a wall. After a few moments' dizziness, Norman recovered and heard a vine coming in from his left. He jumped out of its path, rolling on his side and quickly gaining his stance. Another vine whipped at him from below, but he jumped up to dodge and landed with the stab of Shatter.
Some watery sap came spilling out of the vine as it was pinned to the ground by the spade, mucking up his weapon. With a grunt, Norman wrenched Shatter out of the stickiness and just barely had enough time to dodge an oncoming swipe. His natural senses would only keep him alive for so long; he needed a plan of action...
"Dig straight down! Good idea!" he thought immediately, shoving his shovel into the dirt beneath him; thank the Lord he wasn't in the middle of a holystone layer.
With a shovel of diamond in his hand, he knocked back a couple vines at the same time of digging. In a matter of seconds, he was able to get himself deep enough to easily stab away the green whips of terror. A few tiring minutes of this later, the whipping finally subsided. Norman leaned up against the wall and sighed out of relief. Now he could finally get out of here alive.
He looked and started doing the jump-block trick until he reached the cave again. Then he kept going until he reached the ceiling and started tunneling upward. There was no lava to worry about here. He started digging up throw the uppermost layer of Aether dirt and knew he was getting close to the surface. Finally, he broke the last block and...fell to his doom?
Yes, that's right, that entire island seemed to have glitched out for a moment there, because Norman found himself hurtling down out of the top of the floating formation, the clouds below coming up dangerously fast. Just as the others, Norman's last thought before he hit the code barrier and blacked out was this: this is the end.
Morgan was definitely relieved to have her own leg back, but she was still pretty pissed at the old witch lady.
"It's going to take a lot of time for me to get over this trauma I just endured, Ms. Matilda!" she said, very snappish and paranoid all of a sudden.
Matilda laughed and then hobbled up to one of the many furnaces in the room, putting in some raw porkchops. While she was shoving in a couple coals, she muttered,
"Oh, the whippersnappers today and their drama! Why, back in MY day, people actually dealt with problems instead of dying over them!"
In the corner of the room stood Jeff, waiting almost impatiently for them to get going again. He wanted to get out of that stuffy little hut for some fresh air, but Matilda insisted they at least stay for some chicken pot pie—whatever THAT was. As the three of them—JB, Jeff and Morgan—awkwardly sat there eating the slightly burnt pies, each of them wondered how the heck they'd ended up in this crazy lady's house in the first place. Some knew more than others.
In the middle of their meal, it was Morgan who finally cracked. She just had to ask the woman some questions about her origin. She was a psychic sorta witch kinda person, so she must be able to help her somehow. She pushed away her plate of food as she was swallowing her last bite and leaned forward on the table. Matilda instantly noticed this and snapped her fingers, pointing at Morgan's arms.
"For Notch's sake, child! Elbows off the table! Goodness! Young'uns don't have any manners today, do they?"
Morgan rolled her eyes on the inside and was about to ask Matilda a question when she was stopped again.
"I felt that, Ms. Ironbars. Don't you roll your eyes at me."
Morgan threw up her hands and just said,
"How did you even...?"
"Trade secret. Now then, you have some questions for me?" replied Matilda, an amused gleam in her eyes.
Morgan paused for a moment to stare at Matilda, but decided against retorting anymore. Okay, so she was a psychic for sure. There was no other way she could be doing this. Instead, Morgan took a deep breath and let it out; then she started talking.
"Do you know any other witches living in the world of Minecraft? I don't mean generic witch mobs."
Matilda rubbed her eyes as though it pained her to discuss this. Nevertheless, she stared thoughtfully into Morgan's eyes to lock their gazes.
"I knew only one other. She was my twin sister, Maria, and in a sense she was the...well, the evil twin, I suppose. Her beliefs were far more irrational than mine, so she decided to become a necromancer out of all things! Good Notch, it makes my knees act up whenever I think about her!"
Morgan was now leaning forward in increased interest. She liked where this was going.
"Where is she now?"
This question seemed to make Matilda think even harder than before.
"I haven't the foggiest idea, m'dear."
Morgan practically fell over and onto the ground. When she finally got herself together, she stood up and sighed, then started walking towards the door. Jeff and JB watched her as she went, hopeful that this meant dinner was over.
"Well, thanks for wasting my time, but I've got a witch to find!" she said irritably, opening the door.
Matilda raised a hand and screamed right at Morgan,
"ARE YOU SLOW AS MOLASSES?!"
Morgan froze for a second and then turned around.
"What are you even talking about? You just said you didn't have the foggiest idea."
Matilda glared at her with those brilliant golden eyes, piercing right into her soul.
"No, I said I had the foggiest idea! HAD! Not HAVEN'T!"
She put her hands on her hips and grinned, knowing she was right and that this was just some old widow with hearing problems.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you said "I haven't the foggiest idea," so thank you for your time. I'll be going!"
Matilda almost let her leave the hut, but then she sighed and muttered this,
"Do you want the information or what, ragamuffin?"
This was enough to at least get Morgan to consider her offer. Finally, she gave in and walked back to the center of the room to sit down. On the other side of the room, both Jeff and JB sighed out of disappointment. Matilda folded her fingers together and locked eyes with Morgan a second time before continuing.
"As I said before, though you weren't listening in the slightest, I have the foggiest idea where she is. The other day, I was just taking a bath in the pond outside as I usually do every night when I sensed a faraway danger appear. I knew it must have been something very powerful, because it had just come out of nowhere and its code readings were very, very interesting.
"I concentrated extremely hard on the source of the power spike and found my long-lost twin sister in the middle of a forest about 1,553 blocks from my little sanctuary here. She had just created a weapon of some sort, only it didn't feel like any undead creation. It was quite unusual in the fact that she'd put its settings to the freest capabilities and locked them under her administrative name. She created her own creative mode Minecraftian."
Wait, so Morgan's stuck permanently in creative mode? How come she hasn't noticed this before? Why did Maria make her weapon as a normal, everyday girl? These questions and more will be answered soon enough, but now it's time for...
QAA!
To Arren: You are alive! You beat up a silverfish during Blockbusting Week in Void! Whoops, I think I just broke the fourth. How did you survive?
Arren: Okay, you got me! I'm in hiding, alright?
To Mayor Mushroom: At the end of The Glitch you were at the final battle in the Aether. How were you at two places at once?
Mayor Mushroom: All will be explained in the upcoming chapter, my dear boy!
To Astrid: How the hell do you know who Hitler is?
Astrid: You think I don't read, don't you? Everyone's read about the Nazi Germany mod, even me! It's one of the nastiest out there.
To Morgan: How do you know what an American or Australian is?
Morgan: Don't you already know that all the people who played the game of Minecraft in the 3rd Dimension die and keep their Minecraftian souls? That's why we've got all kinds of nationalities here in the Minecraft Dimension.
To everyone: So, do ya think the Glitch is angry with us mortals yet?
Norman: I think it's kind of feeling half and half on that one. It's bitter because we've been resisting it in the form of earthly means and MC's progression, but it's thankful because we're the ones who created the thing in the first place.
Liz: Eh, probably. I don't see what it could like us for except for what Norman said.
Kelsey: So far, the Glitch has only destroyed and corrupted, so I think that's a yes.
Adrian: Well a'course it is! It's been eating away at all the dimensions like it's a Texan style all you can eat buffet! Don't you think that means it's steamed like broccoli?
Astrid: Pfft, nah. I think the "vicious virus" just wants to ruin everyone's lives like hell so that it can enjoy itself.
Morgan: Listen, I hardly know anything about the Glitch, but what I do know is that it's been making everything in the world glitch out. It must be mad at us!
Auconi: I don't always think about the Glitch, but when I do, I immediately ignore that thought. The less I think about its plotting the better. Darcy's enough of a problem for me to handle, but a gigantic viral terrorist? No thank you.
Darcy: Like Auconi, I try to ignore the bugger. Enjoy life while ya can, mate!
Jeff: Angry isn't a good enough word to describe how the Glitch feels. If it's decided to cause all this trouble, all these hearts in this world to tear and all these bodies to be sacrificed for the delight of the world's new puppet master, the thing isn't just angry. It's mad! Mad as in insane!
JB: I don't really like thinking about the Glitch. So far it hasn't caused me any problems, so maybe if I don't hate on it I'll remain unaffected. It's worked so far, actually.
Matilda: Honestly, I'd have to agree with Astrid up there. If its intentions were to destroy all universes, it would have already done it. The Glitch wants to make the experience an enjoyable one. This is its addiction.
The Glitch: I'm not saying anything at this, point! You'll have to figure out my true intentions on your own! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
To Phil: Mate, is this what it is like in all of his stories? If not, try and hold out for the rest of the book and then it should quiet down again.
Phil: *nearly ready to hang himself* Fine. Fine, fine, fine. I'll hold out 'til this thing's over, but I'm never going to forgive them for making me go senile before I even turned fifty!
Phew! Man, that's a lot of QAA! It's harder to answer the "to everyone" ones, but I do it anyway.
Now then! Here's the Sugar Lords snippet that was supposed to be for the last chapter but got deleted for some reason. I rewrote this bit and made it better than the last, so here you go! Please enjoy!
Everyone watched in anticipation as Nwinds held the alien's gray matter up to his eyelevel. He stared at it for a long moment before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. All of a sudden, Nwinds's body began to flicker like a bad image on a TV. He was in.
Literally, Nwinds had transported himself inside of the stronghold-like memory space inside the brain. He found himself walking down a seemingly endless hallway of gray, his feet splurching in the brain matter beneath his feet. He was observing every crack and wrinkle as though they were all vital to his study.
Finally, he reached the end of the hallway and entered a massive room full of complicated machinery all crafted from brain matter itself. It was quite the creation, though Nwinds didn't get caught up in the beauty of how this mind processed and stored information. He reminded himself that this was all just a figurative representation of how well the brain worked. It was like a well-oiled machine, essentially.
He sat down at the main supercomputer in the center of the room. He fingers immediately flew over the keyboard, typing in certain commands that eventually led him to the password box. Using his superior intellect, it only took Nwinds about ten seconds to figure out the password, which he entered into the box instantly. He was now truly inside.
Nwinds scanned through files quickly, his eyes moving at the speed of a passing jet to read all the information. He was an expert at super speed reading, so this allowed him to run through a file a second. Eventually, he reached the important ones, folders containing files on armies, secret projects, etc. When he opened the largest of them all, his eyes widened in shock.
It couldn't be! Not her! Nwinds hastily double clicked on the video link inside the text. It brought up a computer animation of what would be to come. There were exactly one million of those alien creatures, each identical and in straight lines, flying offscreen. Floating above them all was their leader. It was the woman they'd tried so hard those many years ago to seal away. They thought they had succeeded, but apparently they hadn't.
The sorceress Axel had returned.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN! Axel has returned for vengeance?! Can it be?! ...Well, it can, but I'm just trying to be dramatic...and failing. XD
Well, that's all for now! I hope you enjoyed chapter number eleven, and I'll see you all LATER!
This is Pastrinator64, your fellow writer and reader, signing out!
*throws sugar bomb and disappears behind its cloud of fine white sugar*
...Goodbye for now...
~Pastrinator64 [~]