After nightfall which was not too much later, Idra and the veiled swordsman stopped at a hole in the ground, a raided dungeon, and set up camp. They shared a meal in relative silence, eating their own rations before the swordsman suggested she take first watch. She agreed to it and climbed back up the mossy cobblestone walls of the dungeon and perched herself atop a tall oak tree nearby. They were in a plains biome so there was no way she could miss anyone approaching. They switched halfway through the night and admittedly, Idra slept with one eye open.
The next morning when Idra fully woke, she found the swordsman with his armor off, polishing their smooth surfaces. Despite the fact he had his armor removed, she still could not see his face. He had a black, skin tight suit on which admittedly looked really comfortable for combat and had a wide brimmed black hat on that covered his face with that strange darkness once more. Idra found herself looking at his chest and arms. He was…in very good shape.
"You are finally up." He said calmly, snapping Idra from her stare. She felt embarrassed. "Slept with your armor on, did you?" He asked as he looked at her. "Is it that you do not trust me?"
"No!" Idra said with a bit of maliciousness. She stood up and brushed herself off. "It's just how I was trained. When on the move, you must be ready for an attack at any time." She looked back at his face…or well…darkness. "You can't afford to be caught off guard."
He nodded as he lowered his head to continue polishing his armor. "I see." His four diamond swords and bow were each leaning neatly against the wall behind him. Her stomach growled. She should get an apple she thought. They may fight later, don't want to fill up too much. She turned toward the wall to climb up and grab an apple from her saddle bag.
Suddenly Idra perked up. Wait! Who's keeping….
She spun around "Hey! You are supposed to be keeping watch!"
He didn't stop his polishing with his white rag. "I am." Idra stared at him, wondering if he was joking. "Idra, how far away can your hacks detect people?"
She saw where this was going. "About fifty blocks. Why?"
He looked up at her as he placed his helmet on a clean white rag on the ground. "You make seventy-six, Idra."
"Seventy-six what?"
"You are the seventy-sixth person in a row who I've met whose detection hacks are not as strong as mine."
Idra's eyes widened. "How far can you go?"
"I have been training to get it higher, but as of now, one-thousand-fifty."
Idra gawked at the number he just uttered. She had never heard of anyone so skilled with detection.
"So, you can trust me when I say I was keeping watch." He said as he stood up and stretched. "The sun will be fully up soon. We leave in five minutes of the Valley of Wheat. We have a long day of riding ahead of us." With that he faced away from Idra and began doing squat jumps.
Weird dude. Idra thought as she turned away, glancing at him for as long as she could before climbing up the wall. She met Zar who was tied to the tree. He met her with a happy bray and stomped his hoof. The swordsman's black steed stared at her intensely as she approached. He wasn't even tied to anything, his owner trained and trusted him enough to stay.
After she ate the apple and stretched, her partner seemed to bound out of the cobblestone hole in the ground, fully geared.
They mounted their horses and continued to ride east toward the legendary monument that she only knew from old memories. Endless hills of golden wheat and marvelous architecture, an oasis of food and beautiful buildings in the desert of famine and destruction. The pair rode past a single straggly sheep looking for a new patch of grass. It looked to be on its last limbs. Idra watched as her partner drew his bow, knocked it with an arrow from his saddle quiver and shot a flaming arrow at the animal as they passed. It didn't even squeal. It was dead in an instant. Idra passed its body which began to be consumed by the intense flames.
The swordsman repeatedly threw speed potions onto their horses, making the landscape fly by. Idra's face got chapped before long as the air became cold with the onsets of rain.
It was about two hours before nightfall when the Valley of Wheat first came into view. The first thing she saw over a distant hill, past a withered forest was the peak of a pyramid. She couldn't see any details and at this distance, it just looked like part of the horizon. Idra's partner pulled back on the reins of his horse and came to a sudden halt and jus stared in the direction of the Valley. Idra came to a skidding halt next to him, Zar panting from exhaustion. You can rest soon, buddy. His horse seemed fine.
She looked at him, waiting for him to do something.
"I detect three people in the valley. They are moving in a group. Idra, how are your speed hacks?" She gritted her teeth. This is embarrassing.
"I don't have speed hacks." She said defensively.
"I see." He responded. She detected no malice or annoyance in his voice. "How about combat hacks?"
Idra grinned. "That I've trained up quite a bit. On top of my natural skill, I've been graded a class A- fighter. I really have no weaknesses when it comes to combat."
"Except for enemies with four swords." The swordsman chided with a hint of humor in his voice as he turned his horse away and galloped towards a small but thick grove of dead trees.
Idra gritter her teeth again at the thought of her horrible loss. Then, she gave off a slight smile. Look at that. Mister badass has a sense of humor.
She followed him over to see him dismounting his ride in the thicket and pat it on the cheek.
"This far away?" Idra questioned. She didn't have any speed hacks, so she wouldn't be able to follow him quickly.
"Yes." Was all he said as he took his first few steps out of the thicket.
Idra sighed, hopped off Zar and reached for the lead in the saddle bag but she stopped. She glanced over at the muscular black horse right next to her, munching on a small tuft of grass. She looked back at Zar then put the lead back away. "I trust you, boy." She patted him on the head and ran after her partner.
They approached cautiously as they made their way through the forest. A few minutes later, they crested a hill and the full breadth of the Valley of Wheat opened before them. Idra's breath caught in her throat at the magnificence of the monument. Thirty block tall pyramids adorned with orange clay and netherack, topped with a blazing fire dominated the landscape. Scattered amongst them, sphynxes of the same aesthetic, fifteen blocks tall broke up the massive field of wheat which stretched nearly to the horizon. They rested amongst small grassy hills and the wheat filled in the spaces in-between like water. Millions of stalks of wheat wavered in the slight breeze, the tufts of fire on the pyramids, sphynxes, and other sandstone columns mimicked their movements. She had walked by the Valley of Wheat when she was a child soldier but was too far away from it to get a grasp of its significance. This…this was amazing. In this world she had mostly only seen disorder and destruction. This sight was new to her eyes.
"They are three-hundred-fifty blocks away. We go now." The swordsman slid down the hill and into the Valley of Wheat. The sun behind them, casted long shadows into the valley, the fire lighting up large sections of the shadows.
Idra slid down the hill and waded into the wheat. It was about waist high and she was careful not to trample much of it. He was about fifteen blocks ahead of her, scanning his head methodically left to right. They weren't there for even two minutes before some of the vandalism became visible. A large chunk of one of the bases of one of the sphinxes was mined away, leaving a part of it look very unstable. Nearby, a wide section of wheat had been stripped away without being replanted. The more they walked, the more of this there seemed to be.
"I estimate this to be the work of about thirty newsucks." The swordsman yelled back to her. "But if word of this places location becomes common knowledge, hundreds if not thousands will come here. This is the largest sanctuary nearby and being this close to spawn, this will attract a lot of newsucks looking for their next meal…or thirty. Some have replanted and moved on, but most don't."
Idra clenched her fist as she saw a toppled column they would have to hop over. Don't they know the importance of this place? How legendary it is? She could hear the lapping of waves from the ocean nearby. That's right, the ocean should be nearby.
Once they had rounded another sphynx, the swordsman held up his hand in a halt motion. He ran up to the next sphynx and peered around the corner. He urgently waved Idra over. She followed suit and heard voices up ahead.
"Ok." He said. "They don't seem to have any detection hacks so its safe to assume they do not have any. There are three of them. Two of them have iron helmets and chest plates. The third is fully clad. They have iron swords, also.
Laughter erupted from around the corner.
"They are eating bread." He continued. "They are not paying attention to their surroundings." Idra awaited her orders. She couldn't wait to punish them for their ignorance and disrespect. "What do you suggest we do, Idra?"
The question caught her off guard. "What?"
"What is your plan. We must act quick. We do not know when they will leave."
"O-okay." Idra looked around the corner. The trio was sitting under a cliffside about thirty blocks away. They had a fire raging in front of them. She pulled her head back. "Go up around this sphynx and get on top of the cliff behind them. I will run up and distract them, begin combat and after, you jump down and attack from behind."
"Sounds good." With that he backed up and sneaked up the hill. She envisioned him in her head, making his way up the hill. Once he reached the top, she took a deep breath and unsheathed her sword from her hip and walked around the corner.
One of the less armored newsucks spotted her first. His face twisted in fear. "S-s-savage!" He yelled as he fell off his sandstone slab seat. The others whipped around immediately. It was three men. They each drew their weapons and held them out in front of them with two hands.
Armatures.
"Stay away savage! We've killed four of you already!" The fully armored one yelled at her. He was about two meters tall and seemed relatively fit. He had pudgy features and was by no means attractive, but she couldn't discount him. After all, they got all the way here from spawn.
"Is that why you only have iron gear?" Idra smiled. "No one who survives here has anything but enchanted diamond." Idra stood contrapposto with her hand on her hip. "So which one wants me first?" She said with a devilish smile.
The leader's face tightened. He showed his teeth. "Ok. Guys. Uh, surround her! Get behind her!" The two other hesitated and looked at each other hesitantly. "Argh. Just back me up you noobs." With that the leader stepped forward and swung his sword in a circle in his right hand before resuming his two-handed grip. Idra continued to stand there, contrapposto with her sword down at her side. He scrunched up his face before charging forward and jabbed straight at Idra's chest. She side-stepped his attack easily and pushed his back as he passed, making him fall over on his face behind her. Suddenly, one of the others appeared in the corner of her vision. He ran up and delivered a sideways slash from the left. Idra ducked under and brought her Sharpness four diamond sword up, stabbing it right through his iron chest plate, piercing the metal but not going more than a few centimeters in. The guy screamed as she pulled her sword out. She then swung her sword backward into the face of the leader who got up and was approaching behind her.
Not a moment later, the quad swordsman fell from the sky, slicing the back of the injured guy, killing him. Idra stood up, reading her sword for the third guy but when she looked at him, he was cowering on the ground, sword next to him, begging for mercy.
Her partner walked up to him, only his right hip sword drawn and kicked him in the face, making him fall backwards. He grabbed his face and yelled in pain. The swordsman went over to him and dropped his knee onto his chest, effectively pinning him down, and touched the tip of his sword to his neck, making a small bit of blood dribble down.
"L-let me live…" The newsuck said quietly, trying not to move his neck in fear of decapitation.
"Just answer our questions." The swordsman ordered with authority.
"Okay! Okay, I will." He said meekly with sadness in his voice. He just saw his friends get slaughtered.
"Who told you about this place?"
"One of the other Farchonians has a hidden camp nearby. He's directing us Farchonians to this place for food. We need to eat too ya' know! We're starving-" The swordsman cut him off by adding more weight to his chest. He was actually managing to dent the iron chesplate.
"What is this guy's name and where is his base?"
The newsuck gritted his teeth. He didn't want to say. Idra just stood by and watched.
"Listen, I do not have much patience for people like you. You grief monuments like this with no respect for its history and importance to its people." He had a hint of anger in his voice. "Now tell me, what is his name?" He placed his other hand on the guy's forehead and pushed harder with his sword, making his eyes widen in pain.
"Chigo!" He blurted out. The swordsman stopped pushing harder and pulled out a handkerchief from his side pack. He retracted his sword and pushed the handkerchief against his neck to stop the bleeding. The young man gasped in relief as sweat fell down his face. The half-set sun cast long, dark shadows on the landscape.
What is he doing?
"Good job." The swordsman said. "Now just tell me where he is and I will-" The swordsman paused and he tensed up. Suddenly he threw the handkerchief to the side and grabbed him by his shirt under his armor and pulled him up. "Where is the base!" He screamed at the shocked and confused capturee. "You have ten seconds, or I will kill you!"
What happened? Idra thought, alarmed. His whole demeanor just changed. He seemed almost…
The swordsman whipped around to her. "Run to the horses now, Idra!"
"What's the problem-"
"They are coming fast, Idra. Go. Now! I will meet you there."
Idra opened her mouth to ask a question. But shut it. Those were orders.
He tossed her a speed potion and she nearly dropped it. "Go Idra!" He yelled as he turned back to the iron guy and slammed him down onto the ground! "Where is it!"
"Thirty-thousand blocks south! Sixteen-thousand blocks west! They live deep underground in spawn! Now let me go!"
Getting what he wanted, the swordsman stood up and ran at Idra, grabbing the potion and threw it at their feet. "Go."
Not understanding what was happening, Idra followed him.
Someone's coming?
The swordsman wasn't using his speed hacks so that Idra could keep up with him, but she could tell he wanted to book it out of there.
"Shit." Idra heard him whisper under his breath as he placed his hand on her chest plate, telling her to stop. "Get ready."
It was then she sensed them. The came so fast she hardly had a moment to react before a dozen silhouettes appeared on the hill to their left. The near set sun obscured their features but Idra could tell that there were twelve of them and they all were on horses and were clad in diamond armor.
"Shit." The swordsman uttered again. Not good.
Almost in unison, all the riders hopped off their mounts who brayed in an almost aggressive manner. In the blink of an eye, they used speed hacks to surround the duo. Each of them stood about twenty blocks away from them. Shocked, Idra quickly scanned the circle for a route out of there. She clenched her fist as she couldn't find any opening. There was no escape.
They still stood amongst the endless field of wheat.
Idra threw her hand onto her sword hilt but almost immediately, her partner slapped her hand away. We're not fighting? We're just going to let us get slaughtered or captured? Everyone knows what happens to women who are captured in this world.
All of the aggressors seemed to be similar in appearance. All of them had enchanted diamond armor with diamond swords at their hips, except for one with two hip swords and another with a pair of elytra and an enchanted diamond axe. They were all men. Her partner just stood there, not in a readied pose but just like he was…concentrating hard. His head was slightly bowed. He knew exactly what was going on; when you get ambushed, there was only one reason…they want to kill you.
After a few moments of silence one of the aggressors stepped forward…the one with the axe. He was well muscled and had a handsome face. "We took care of that trash you left a few blocks back." He said with an authorative and confident voice.
The swordsman spoke. "I left him because I knew you would take care of him."
The axe wielder laughed lightly. "So you assumed we would catch you?" He took another step forward. "Based on how soon you started moving, I assume one of you two have some amazing detection hacks. Which one is it? Hah, regardless, we've got a member who still is better than you."
Better than one-thousand-fifty blocks?
"You have not killed us yet. What do you want from us?" The swordsman asked. It was a good question. A drop of stress-endused sweat dripped down Idra's forehead.
The smile instantly got wiped off the axe-wielder's face and he tilted his head to the side, inspecting Idra and the quad swordsman. "Sixty-nine." He uttered. "That's how many newsucks I have killed in this new invasion. Based on your actions back at that campsite, you're not a fan of them either." He looked at Idra. "How many of them have you killed, girl?"
Idra gritted her teeth. She hadn't killed that many. But she needed them to like her. "Seventeen." She lied.
He squinted at her for a second as if determining whether that was the truth. She must have passed his inspection because he turned to her partner. "And you Mr. Shadow?"
"One-hundred-thirty-seven." Idra caught a gasp in her throat. She also saw the axe-wielder's eyes widen before quickly resuming normal posture.
"So you are quite the fighter I suppose, four swords-man?" He asked.
"To be honest, they do not put up much of a fight."
"Ha ha! Isn't that the truth. I see that you are holding up your duty as a native to kill any newsucks you come across. Regardless of how poor of fighters they are, they still need to be kept under control."
"I agree."
"I still need to test you." The axe wielder said.
Not good.
"What is your name, swordsman?" The dual swordsman to their left asked. "I would expect to know the name of such a brutal warrior. But I don't."
Idra's partner's head slowly turned to the left followed by silence. No one spoke as the two multi-swordsmen stared at each other. All eleven of the others from the large group and Idra stared on in rising anticipation. This was their moment.
Moments felt like hours. Then the quad swordsman put his hands on the hilts of his swords. "Beat me and find out." Idra stepped back. They were about to duel it out. Herself along with everyone else around knew that this was their fight and to not intervene. Not a moment later, all of the eleven other natives sat down on their knees, honoring the fight. Not knowing what to do, Idra took a few more steps back.
The dual swordsman grinned profusely. "Ooh I like a bit of a challenge. In less than a minute, I will know your name, fellow warrior. Regardless, let me test you to see if you are worthy of being kept alive, we'll see if that number you spoke of is all fluff."
"This will be over quick." The axe user spoke softly as he grinned.
"What is your name?" Idra's partner spoke to his opponent.
"So rude to ask someone of his name when you won't even reveal your own." He laughed. "I am Razar."
Not a moment later, the dual-swordsman unsheathed his swords and dashed forward faster than the speed of sound at his opponent. A loud CLANG erupted from the fighters. It was almost too fast to see. Dust and wheat flew up from his rapid acceleration and clouded the area around them. They were blocked from view.
What powerful hacks! Idra thought, amazed. It was silent for a moment as the dust settled. Idra's gaze drew over to the leader. His grin had intensified, and he had his eyes closed, head bowed. Idra's breath caught in her throat. Did her partner lose?!
As the dust settled, a tangle of diamond armor and swords was revealed. Each of them was still standing and had a sword to the others throat. They had each stopped themselves from getting decapitated with their other sword, pressing hard against each other. A collective gasp went around the circle. They were locked in that position, pushing against each other. The quad-swordsman still had his back swords sheathed.
Idra's partner pushed hard on his swords and jumped back five blocks before quickly dashing around his opponent to the right, changing direction in an instant and shot his swords at his side. Razar turned on his heel and parried immediately with one sword, jabbing with the other but her partner was quicker, spinning out of the way, swinging up again at Razar who parried once more, taking step back. Their swords clanged a few more times before they each lunged ten blocks away from each other; all of that taking place in the span of two seconds.
Idra gawked at the level of swordplay. She had never seen anything like it. Her partner brushed off his shoulder as he stood there, unfazed as his opponent stood in a readied position.
The veiled warrior then pointed a sword at Razar. "Make me tell you my name, fellow warrior."
Razar's grin had been wiped off his face and it suddenly got very serious. "In fifty seconds, I will know your name." Razar lunged forward once more, swords trailing behind him as he sprinted low against the ground at his opponent. He slashed his swords up again as another cloud of dust erupted. Suddenly an object flew out of the sky and struck the ground next to the fight. Purple particles flew from the cloud and the quad swordsman coalesced where the object impacted.
What?!
He brought one of his swords back and threw it into the cloud of dust…directly at Razar…
Quad-swordsman v. Razar fight To Be Continued…