"Building starts..."
Jesse and his group raced over and prepared their inventory, ready to win, no matter how hard they'd have to work for it.
"Now!"
They started building the fireworks machine, working faster than my eyes could handle. It was odd, the sun began moving faster as well. When they finished setting that up, they dropped down to build in front of it. Me being me, a perfect stranger that apparently follows random people around, stayed on the ground to watch. I wanted to build with them, I really did, but I knew that I definitely needed to leave it up to them, seeing as they were a group. A group that I was not a part of.
-Like that ever stopped you.-
'Rude.'
-It's not rude if it's true.-
'Yes it is!'
-I know, I just decided to say that anyway.-
Jesse and his group finally finished, towering above the world atop their glorious creation, a wither. Everyone was cheering, except Aiden of course. Aiden, the guy who was such a sore loser that he was about to break the only thing keeping some person's lava from going everywhere. Suddenly he paused.
'Maybe I underestimated him?'
-Definitely not.-
He immediately broke the block. In mere seconds, the lava had spread everywhere. Just like usual, Reuben caught fire and ran off. The sight of it reminded me of how attached I had gotten to him the first time I played. Before I knew it, I was sprinting after him.
The sun had already set, the building competition having taken up a large amount of the day. It didn't take long for the world around me to be cast in shadows, making the world more intimidating than I ever thought it could be. Of course, that didn't stop me. I continued running, only now, I was running for my life. Who knew how long it'd take for the monsters to find me. Running off had been a terrible idea, the worst idea I've ever had. It may possibly be the worst decision I'll ever make, especially if I don't make it out alive. I stumbled through the woods until I literally had to stop, muscles aching as I collapsed. I was freezing and sore, an unpleasant combination. Everything slowly faded to black- again.
An image of a woman appeared, her eyes were a deep violet and her pale skin had a purple glow to it. She held a necklace. It had a giant emerald that glistened in the dull lighting, and the string of leather that held it was white and, oddly enough, sparkly. There was a smile on her face as she stood as still as a statue. Was she holding it out to me? She couldn't have been. After all, as I said, it was an image. She never moved, never spoke, never blinked. Despite all that, I reached my hand out and clasped the necklace.
My eyes flew open and I staggered to my feet. I looked around, but all I saw were the woods that surrounded me when I had fallen asleep. The moon was still rising, continuing from where it was when I lost consciousness as if I hadn't been out at all. I scrambled to get up, but stopped when I realized I was holding onto something. The necklace from my dream was in the palm of the hand I grabbed it with. So, that was freaky.
I heard a sound, the sound of a stick snapping. The sound was followed by the loud thumps of shoes. Long story short, someone was coming, and that person happened to be Petra. I threw the necklace over my head, hiding the necklace under my leather jacket. Petra walked through the bushes and over to me.
"Oh, hey Petra," I said.
She looked like she was going to say something, but she was cut off by a scream, Jesse's scream. Somehow, I had forgotten about him. Petra sprinted ahead and I followed close behind. As soon as we got there, Petra pulled out her sword and flung the spider that was attacking Jesse off of him. She then proceeded to stab it a heck ton more than she needed to. We heard some groaning and turned to see a horde of monsters coming. We were quick to rush into Petra's cave, killing monsters on our way. Petra slid down the latter, Jesse climbed down it. I was stupid, though, and jumped down without using the latter.
"I want to show you something," Petra said, obviously talking to Jesse.
"Not that this isn't a really cool, dimly-lit tunnel, but… how far is this thing you want to show me?"
"Careful, Jesse. You don't want to get a reputation as a wimp."
"This isn't my first time in a cave, Petra."
"Yeah, but have you ever seen- A wither skull?"
At this point, Jesse gaped at Petra as if what she'd done was. "Whoah!" I looked at it unamused, stone faced. I've seen this scene one too many times for it to interest me any longer.
"Fresh from the Nether. You're the first person I've shown this to-" I cut her off.
"People." I say. "We're the first people."
"That's insane, Petra. You could have gotten yourself killed."
After that, I stopped listening. It was getting boring just being a third wheel and stuff.
I looked down at my necklace, studying every crack and crevice- an expression. Surprisingly, there weren't any. The gem was spotless. No marks, chips, nothing. Not even fingerprints from holding it.
"You know… you could come with me." Petra said.
"Can I come too?"
"Sure, I guess you can come. Just keep quiet and let me do the talking, okay?"
I nodded and made a gesture, supposedly zipping shut my lips. It seemed to amuse her, which amused me. She looked over to Jesse.
"Jesse?" She asked.
"You want ME? To come with YOU." Jesse shouted eagerly.
"Consider it my charitable act for the day."
"I'll consider it whatever you want me to consider it- so long as I get to come"
I noticed the crafting table and moved over to it. I quickly crafted a bow with some mob drops I got on the way while Jesse and Petra talked about why the heck she keeps a crafting table in a cave. After I finished, Jesse made his stone sword. We finally stepped out onto the bridge. While they were talking, I was looking out for monsters. Just as I expected, zombies and creepers came out from the shadows. Even better, on both sides of the bridge. We all started fighting- or, Jesse and Petra did. I instead jumped off the bridge, heading for the water below.
-'If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too?'-
'Oh shush, this is nothing like that.'
When the water got close, I went into a diving position. The water hit me immediately, and it was cold. I quickly swam up to the top, scrambling towards shore as fast as I could to escape this icy prison. Petra dove in like I had, but Jesse flopped onto the water, causing him to yell in pain.
"It burns!" He shrieked.
"Don't you know, you dive INTO the water- you don't land on top of it," Petra grumbled. "Pull yourself together and follow me."
We jumped out of the water the second we grasped land and headed to Endercon. Of course, when we got there I zoned out once more. Like usual, I didn't hear a word they said. Even when Axel and Olivia arrived, I did not pay attention. This must have been why I had such terrible grades. Well, it was probably for the best. Me, Jesse, and Petra walked out into the alley. When I finally realized I'd zoned out, Petra and Jesse were gone.
-While you were daydreaming, Petra and Jesse went off to see if Ivor was somewhere else in the alley. They asked you to stay here just in case this IS the spot they were going to meet at, the whole time YOU just stood around and absentmindedly nodded.-
'Oops. I probably should have paid more attention.'
-You think?-
All of a sudden, Ivor appeared out of nowhere.
"And just who are YOU?" Ivor spat.
I gaped at him, practically speechless.
"Well? I'm waiting!" He grumbled.
"Petra will be here soon." I finally said.
Everything was quiet for a while. Luckily, Petra and Jesse came to save me from the awkwardness of this situation. It was especially uncomfortable, since I knew what Ivor eventually did.
"Ivor."
They walk out of the shadows, being awfully dramatic for no reason. While they talked, I saw a green light flashing under my jacket-
'Wait, jacket? When the heck did I get a jacket?'
-I honestly don't know, it just morphed itself onto you at some point.-
'I- whatever, it doesn't matter right now.'
I unzipped the jacket and looked at the necklace, which was glowing, for some reason.
-Well, that's definitely not normal.-
Apparently, while I was doing my own thing Ivor took the skull and ran off to do whatever. Me, Petra and Jesse attempted to chase after him, but we eventually lost him to the crowd. We all split up, trying to find him by taking up as much space as possible. I eventually saw Jesse trying to talk the butcher out of killing Ruben. I moved closer- just in case he was having trouble. Fortunately, Jesse seemed to be fine on his own.
"All right you little maniac, fine. Take him, he's yours." I put the bow away. I watched as Jesse walked up to the slimeball booth. Me and the others all came over so we could get some slime for a slime block. Sadly, they ran out of slimeballs before we could get nine, which meant we'd have to talk to Lukas.
Jesse walked over to Lukas and they talked. Surprisingly, the conversation went nicely. Soon after, Lukas gave Jesse his slimeball. Jesse took the token of friendship and crafted the slime block. Olivia immediately grabbed the slime block and placed it down. Of course, Jesse accidentally belly-flopped onto the slime block, thus making him head-butt the glass. The Usher named Rueben freaked out because he's afraid of chickens, and we ran past him so we could catch Ivor.
"What do we do once we catch him?" Asked Lukas.
Jesse started to say something, but I had already raced down the stairs to the basement, eager to see Ivor's treasures for real. By the time we got down there, he was already gone. We searched the place, Axel looking for stuff to steal, me looking for books, and the rest of them looking for the wither skull. Jesse found a lever and flipped it, uncovering a chest. Oh, and there was also, of course, the wither that was going to destroy the world.
"Soul sand, plus three wither skulls… that's the recipe for a wither!" Lukas stated.
"But… a wither, thats-" Petra started.
"One of the worst monsters there is." Lukas finished.
A door opened and someone walked in. This, if it wasn't obvious enough, was not good.
"Scatter!" Petra whispered.
Reuben flipped the lever and the wall sealed back up. Everyone hid as fast as possible. I chose to hide on a bookshelf off to the side. Ivor started talking to himself, pretending to be speaking to Gabriel as he rummaged through his chest. While snooping, Olivia accidentally knocked over a potion. Sensing her mistake, she ducked back down and hid. Unfortunately, Ivor did not shake it off and continue being creepy, he did quite the opposite. He walked over to investigate, looking rightfully angry. Me being me, I jumped out to distract him.
"What are you doing here!? What did you see?" He shouted, backing away.
Everyone jumped out of hiding, making it thoroughly obvious that we were indeed a threat to his plans.
"You three! Did you follow me here?" Ivor questioned, voice low.
"No, we just happened to find your secret lair!" I joked.
"We know what you're doing down here! You're building a Wither!" Jesse shouted.
"Smarter than you look," Ivor stated.
He then sprinted off, confusing everyone as to where he had gone.
"If you won't leave of your own volition, I'll happily remove you myself!"
He slammed a pumpkin down onto iron blocks. In less than seconds, the statue came to life. A large intimidating soldier of iron, an iron golem. He had created an iron golem to deal with us so he didn't have to, wow. The iron golem swung his arms toward us and we all ducked. Our fight or flight senses had kicked in, but before I ran ahead with the others, I had to do something.
"Lukas!" I shouted.
Thankfully, he came out of his chest and ran to safety with the others. Unfortunately, now that there was no one else, the golem's main focus was me. It swung at me again, this time managing to get a hit on me. The force threw me to the wall, a very unpleasant experience. He swung at me once more and I put my hands up by pure habit. I closed my eyes as I prepared for it to kill me. Yet, when I opened my eyes, it was a shattered pile on the ground. In front of my arms, there was a transparent green shield/force-field thing. I put my hands down and it disappeared. I didn't have the time to question it though, running off to find the others as quickly as I could. I ran up the stairs only to find everyone fleeing at top speed as the Wither Storm destroyed everything.
'Thanks a lot, Jesse.'
I sprinted out of the dome and tried to catch up with the others. I had run about half a mile when I finally caught up to Jesse. I glare at him, rightfully angry. He tried to explain why he quite literally left me, but I eventually cut him off. We both started sprinting all over again. Petra got sucked into the Wither's beam, and Jesse and I grabbed onto her, having every intention to not let her get killed. However, the beam was too strong. The fence we were holding onto broke. Somehow, Gabriel caught us just in time. We got up and ran into the temple, Gabriel following close behind. He opened the door, revealing a Nether portal. Jesse ran over and lit the portal. Without a moment's notice, Axel, Reuben, and Olivia had run through the portal. Jesse was next, but he halted when Gabriel was grasped by the Wither Storm's beam.
We all ran to help. All of us, except for Lukas of course. Jesse grabbed Gabriel and pulled him free while me and Petra fought a tentacle. Gabriel gave a little speech and handed Jesse the Amulet, but then the wither crashed down a tentacle and tried to grab them once more. Thankfully, it missed, giving Jesse some time to help me and Petra. Meanwhile, Lukas stood in his spot and screamed.
"You three, go through the portal and meet up with the others. I'll stay here and do whatever I can." Petra shouted.
"We're coming with you!" Jesse cried.
"If anything happens, I'll meet you guys at the temple."
Petra stared at him longingly, before realizing Gabriel got sucked into a wither beam. We ran towards him, but Petra was sucked up into a second one.
"Zenna! Go get Gabriel, I'll get Petra!" Jesse ordered, running up to Petra and grabbing her once again.
I rushed over to Gabriel and pulled him out from the beam. We all ran to the portal, everyone making it in. Everyone, except me. Jesse had looked back, seeming startled. I had hoped he would come back for me, but Petra had pulled him through, not noticing my little issue. Of course I had gotten captured by the beast, of course.
3rd person POV
"Jesse, where's Zenna?" Asked
Lukas.
It all came back to him. He sputtered out something along the lines of "there was so much green!" which of course didn't make sense.
Then, while Petra helped him up, he shrieked, "Her eyes glowed!"
Thankfully, he eventually calmed down, blaming the whole 'glowing eyes' thing on the lighting and how disorienting Nether portals can be.
More rewriting! Yay?