I'll explain in juuuust a sec.
Chapter 57: On the Edge
Norman expected, simply based on the natural formation of mountains, that the base of the volcano would at least a bit more forgiving. Unfortunately, he noticed that it was steep in its entirety, so when he craned his neck to see the tip of Glowstone Caldera he was met with quite the painful-looking climb. While he was the first to notice, he wasn't the first to vocalize his pain:
"Oh my Notch…now that right there looks like agony!"
Auconi barely nudged the southerner with his arm and replied,
"You said it, Adrian!"
He took a couple steps forward and caught Norman's attention, quickly adding,
"How the hell are we supposed to get all the way up this volcano in one day? We'd have to dig to get up there, it's so steep! And since not everyone here is an expert with their Block powers, it's not like we can use the jump-up pillar method; it'd be stupid to waste our energy on block summoning right before fighting the Unforgiven Spawn anyway…"
Norman paused, legitimately taking a moment to think. He was usually pretty good at using his surroundings to his advantage—even when they looked like a total obstacle—and it took him about five seconds to think of something; all he did was think back to his very first adventure and how he got himself to the Blood Vessel.
Y'know, the squid experiment.
He smiled very lightly in response to Auconi's complaint and said,
"I have an idea, but some of you might not like it! Particularly those of you who are afraid of heights."
Astrid raised her sword with a sharp swish, grinning from ear to ear.
"One, I'm actually a big fan of heights! And two, we're in a huge hurry, so might as well volunteer first! If it's anything like what I'm imagining, I'm all in."
Norman nodded, confirming both statements and then walking forward to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face the mountain.
"Y'know what? You look like a pretty sturdy-set kid, so how about you be the repeller?" he lifted her up a tiny bit to get her to stand with better posture and then walked away, adding, "Stay riiiiight there."
Astrid raised an eyebrow slowly as he was making his way to the rest of their group, saying a couple seconds later,
"Uh…sturdy?"
Adrian lightly pointed his frying pan at her from the side and said,
"He don't mean fat, Astrid. You're jus' fine!"
Astrid went a little red and crossed her arms, retorting,
"That's not what I was thinking, dang it!"
Norman shushed them both, turning back to the rest of the group. He held out the hand that wasn't holding Shatter and said,
"Does anyone want to be my guinea pig for the next thirty seconds?"
Bailey was always pretty trusting and supportive of Norman's plans—she knew just how smart he was, too; she took several steps forward and nodded, looking down at him with a smile.
"I guess I can!"
He smiled in return and said,
"Alright!"
He led her in front of Astrid, where the two ladies exchanged a curious glance. Norman held out Shatter with both hands, shaking it once for her to take it from him. She raised an eyebrow, placing the diamond-studded Silence in her hotbar. Once she had her bow put away, she accepted the magnetic diamond shovel and held it up with one hand; unlike Norman, she still had her fully-grown adult body and could hold it with very little strain.
"Remember the story I told you after we met up in the forest? In the aftermath of the battle with Skull and Crossbows? …as in, way back in our days of adventuring."
Bailey quickly realized what he was talking about and replied,
"Oh! You mean the one about the squid?"
"Yes!" Norman replied, jabbing a finger at her. "We're going to be reenacting it, except with…well, with Astrid."
It took less than two seconds for Bailey to realize what was about to happen. When she did, she laughed with her mouth open wide, a great big smile on her face. She was baffled!
"You're crazy!"
Norman chuckled a bit in reply, but shook his head and pushed her into place jokingly, saying,
"I know, it's a terrible, awful plan, but it's all I have! And like Astrid said, we have basically no time! So just get to it!"
Bailey took a breath through closed teeth, looking a tiny bit unsure.
"Wellll…alright, alright, whatever! I got it, I'll go for it."
Norman took a couple steps back, gesturing at her with both hands as a signal to go whenever she was ready. Bailey squared up, clearing her throat and overall preparing herself. When she was ready, she looked Astrid in the eye and said,
"Clench up, girl."
Astrid blinked, lip curling up into quite the awkward smile; she wasn't exactly what to think of that. Without warning, Bailey put one foot behind herself and whipped the diamond shovel out in front of her, causing Astrid to tense up instinctually. She didn't have even a second to question what was happening before a beam of magnetic charge flew out of the Magnomatic at Shatter's tip and connected with Astrid, lighting her up with a silver glow; on Bailey's end, the push was great enough to shoot her up into the air at an incredible velocity, and very quickly she was a small dot in their vision.
"Holy shit!" cried Carol, who was caught totally off-guard by this. "Alright, there's no way she's not dead."
The fuzzy grey glow dissipated in under a second and Shatter dropped to the ground, thumping heavily in the grass. Astrid gave a massive shudder and made a sound, but almost immediately felt a grin spread across her face.
"That was weeeee-eird! But I LIKE it! Heck, let's do it again!"
Norman picked Shatter up from the ground and held it out to the others, raising an eyebrow.
"Who's next?"
"Y'know, when you said we should get to higher ground…well, I didn't think you were planning on going this far!"
Just as JB finished his sentence, he accidentally lost his footing for a moment and teetered over the rough, stony edge where he sidled. Behind him, Evan put out a hand and steadied him, crying,
"Whoa-hoa, watch it! I saved you once, I don't wanna have to do it again…er, no offense!"
Once JB had pressed himself safely up against the rock wall behind him and caught his breath, he sighed and nodded lightly in Evan's direction.
"None taken. I just forgot to crouch, is all."
In front of him, Amya glanced back at JB with a massive grin on her face and took the opportunity to make fun of him.
"C'mon, JB! You just forgot to crouch? That's Minecraft 101, kid."
JB chuckled out of embarrassment, then froze in place and muttered,
"I'm…older than you—"
"Alright, you three, let's keep focus!" Jeff called out in the very front.
The four of them crept along the steep edge of Glowstone Caldera, almost two-hundred blocks in the air. They were on their way to the very top and as such, Jeff felt inclined to answer JB's question.
"And JB, we're getting as high as we are so we can be better out of reach of the plasma! You saw just how fast it moved, it's likely it'll show up around here in a day or two if we're honest. The least we can do is make sure we're at least sort of out of reach."
"Right, right, so delaying the inevitable?" Amya heckled, following it up with a laugh.
Evan gulped and stuck his head out to stare at her across JB.
"Well, don't say it like that! We've still got at least…a mildly good chance of making it out of this alive, right?" he said, then looked over at Jeff. "Right?"
Jeff glanced back at him, nodding in response and saying,
"Right."
He had barely finished his sentence when Amya jabbed a hand out past his face, bumping his nose in the process and making him recoil into the stone wall behind him.
"Gyah, what?!"
"Look, did you see that?!" Amya shouted, feverishly waggling her finger up at the sky.
Jeff turned his head to where she was pointing and, shockingly, didn't see a thing. He had just shook his head in response when Amya continued with,
"Please tell me someone else saw that woman just shoot up through the air in a cloud of…smoke? I dunno, it was big and grey and crackly!"
Evan moved his head this way and that, extending it as far as he could to make sure he wasn't missing anything, but quickly realized this wouldn't help him whatsoever; he'd missed it.
"Uhhh, nope! I don't see anything either. And I was facing the same way as you, Amya."
She rolled her eyes and replied,
"Thanks for your help, dude. Whatever, I know what I saw!"
Big, deadly, black tidal waves still imminent in his mind, Jeff didn't stop to argue with Amya and just kept moving along the rocky seam, eager to get to higher ground. She had a pretty overactive imagination, he was almost positive it was nothing.
…
It couldn't be anything, could it?
"Hey, is that the top?!" Amya suddenly declared, startling him yet again. "Aw yeah, we're almost there! And I thought we were gonna have to climb for all eternity, ha!"
Jeff craned his neck to see directly above them and swiftly confirmed that she was right; he could see the slope start to decrease surprisingly fast eight or so blocks above them. Finally, he could stop to stretch without fearing a 200-block fall to his death.
Ahhh, the small things in life!
Norman watched in cynical hilarity as Carol climbed tenderly up onto the plateau that he, Bailey, Adrian, Astrid, Auconi, and even Sabrina had all managed to land on after launch. She was still crackling with traces of the magnetic energy, which made her hands shake as she gripped the rocks in front of her.
"I…huff…regret everything…I've ever done…this was a stupid idea…" she breathed, hoisting herself up over the last block and flopping onto the ground like a forlorn fish. "I lost like half my hearts from that, thanks a lot."
Norman walked forward and put out a hand, which she begrudgingly took, and helped her up; the contact sent an electric wave through him, but he'd been using Shatter for so long he barely felt it. When she was standing again, she brushed off her armor and took a second to remove her helmet, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She pushed back the solid strands of pale blonde hair that had stuck to her noggin and groaned.
"Please tell me we're nearly there…" she mumbled, scrunching her eyes shut to calm a mild headache.
Norman turned in place and glanced upward just barely.
"More than that, Carol."
When Carol reopened her eyes, she saw what everyone else could see. Standing less than twenty blocks away was the leviathan entrance to an even MORE leviathan cave, which glowed at its end with a soft, pulsating red light. Various blocks stuck out from the ceiling and walls, creating quite the jagged entrance and casting long shadows that almost reached the group. From where they stood, they couldn't see anything except this red glow: yet another blind step into danger for the crew. Norman let out a puff of air through his nose and without a moment of hesitation, stepped towards the mouth of the cave. It took a moment for everyone to register his sudden movement, but soon the other six were at his heels. Bailey walked up next to him with a curious and apprehensive look on her face and unearthed Silence from her hotbar.
"Alright Norman, what's the plan now?" she asked, loud enough for everyone behind them to hear. "We've only got one Spirit left!"
"Right, and one demon to pair with it." Norman responded curtly, glancing at her briefly. "Normally I'd have even a little plan to deal with just another Spirit, but…it seems like Sycallion isn't just another Spirit. Before we left for our quest, Serisdo would consistently change the subject or just…leave if I tried to bring up Sycallion. He's the only Spirit that I don't know about in terms of contribution to making the universe, too. And thse aren't exactly details any of the Spirits have hidden before…which makes me worried."
Bailey wasn't exactly sure what to say. She knew even less than he did, in reality. So for now, all she could do was shrug, give a light chuckle, and say the tiniest bit of encouragement.
"Well, Norman, we took down a giant lava horse-snake-lion thing with the ability to heal itself. And THEN we took down the world's scariest mob-blob, which was practically the size of a city block. And together, we've traveled across the Overworld and endured just…some of the most intense, grueling, painful ordeals Minecraftia has ever dealt us. We've only got one beast left to fight and, as long as we stick by each others' sides, how can we lose?"
Norman was close to giving a smile at how cheesy that was, nearly preparing a comment of his own, but was interrupted as he was reminded of the exact ordeals they had gone through—just who they'd lost along the way. That, and the image of last night's nightmare was still oh-so present in his mind, only making him feel sicker in his stomach when he looked at Bailey. She was the last one left from his original adventure, there was no way he could lose her…but if that dream had anything to say about it…
Suffice it to say, Norman's mind was racing. So instead, he pursed his lips tight and gave her an awkward look, muttering,
"Hm. Well, Bailey, the way I see it is this; we can't lose because this is our last shot at ending the Glitch's killing, conquering spree. We've been trying to stop it for so, so many years…it's about time we really do it. To me, there is no if anymore."
Bailey didn't take any offense to his lack of a smile, instead letting her own lip curl up slightly into a light smirk. She got what he meant, 100%.
"Just is."
Norman nodded in return.
"Exactly."
Vanessa let out a grunt as she landed awkwardly on the small stone plateau behind Salutem and the Mastermind. The two of them were tall enough where they could see over the gravel mound just in front of them, though Vanessa had to jog up to them and hop up the few blocks to see over. From here, the three of them had an unobstructed view of the mouth of the cave.
"Do you sense that, Mastermind? I believe the Ultra Hero and his Great Heroes have all already entered the cave. They're still quite near at this time, so they must have just walked in as a group."
"Yyyyyes! You're absolutely right about that, Salutem! Now if only we could get closer…I want to join the party!"
Vanessa raised an eyebrow at him, pausing a second before saying,
"Why don't we get closer? With legs and, well, magic like yours, you're clearly able to jump the gap over there."
The Mastermind's torso spun around atop his frozen legs and he put his hands on his hips, leaning right in Vanessa face with a mocking smile on his face.
"Aw, Vanessa! I thought you prided yourself in paying attention to your teachers!"
Vanessa grimaced, retorting,
"Why yes, Master, I do! And I listened to you "plan" for way too long before suggesting one of my own; if YOU were paying any attention, I said we could stand just outside of the cave entrance and wait for my d…Norman, without alerting the Unforgiven Spawn. But we were talking for so long that we MISSED him already!" she jumped up to the top block of the mound and glared at both the Mastermind and Salutem. "So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head over there without wasting any more time and hope we can at least catch him on the way out! You can join me if you want to, or you both can just keep talking on about prophecy and mentality and other currently-useless philosophy."
With that, Vanessa used the tiniest magic burst possible to quietly jump across the following ten-block valley, landing much more confidently than the time before. The Mastermind and Salutem watched her for a handle of seconds in shocked silence before turning to each other.
"You know…it almost seems as if Vanessa is moreso following the path of Matilda. Don't you think? She's far more short-tempered than Rexum ever was."
The Mastermind giggled, briefly closing his eyes. He then let out a sigh.
"Heehee, now that would be a sight! I wonder what it would be like if those two got in an argument? The entire Overworld would implode, probably."
He stood up straight from his spot behind the gravel pile and let out a much bigger breath, grinning wide to show all his gleaming teeth.
"Welp! We'd better follow her before she accidentally drops a bookshelf on the Unforgiven Spawn's head!" he declared, leaping forward.
Joining him, Salutem added,
"Yes, that would be…bad. The tiniest bit humorous, but even so."
One more chapter coming...immediately.
Again.