Chapter 22: Brickston, City of Knowledge
Winter was an interesting time of year, and the sudden change in scenery was beginning to demonstrate that well.
The not-so-distant sight of pure white captivated Steve's gaze, but the unforgiving chill of the land captivated the rest of his body, prompting him to pull out his blankets and jacket from within his pack and begin to utilize them, keeping him relatively warm as he rode forward upon Squash. Though they were still treading upon grass, the way that the ground was clearly somewhat frosted made Steve groan mentally as he realized that he'd possibly have to spend even more time drying out his shoes properly once he began to walk himself, as he unfortunately had to do so after braving through Maemond Pond. It wasn't that he hated winter; actually, given his occupation, he didn't have to worry about cold winds all too much, except for the times when they entered the caves. It was just that sometimes, the cold was too much for his poor body to handle. Given where he lived, he didn't really have to worry about snow at all, and even if it were to snow, it would only fall in relatively light layers, which posed no threat to him whatsoever.
This was obviously going to be different. The weather currently was appearing to be an ominous precursor to the winter winds they'd have to face soon as the season shifted further along.
Looking around at the others, Steve's gaze particularly fell upon Constiere, who walked with a bit of hesitation as he too seemed fixated upon the distant snowy wonderland. If the miner had to guess though, Constiere was most likely staring at the place with either uneasiness or annoyance.
Moving Squash closer to the boy, Steve let out a small "Psst" as he tried to get the other's attention, succeeding after a couple of missed attempts. As Constiere looked up at him, Steve gave him a small smile as he lifted up one of the blankets draped over his own shoulders, his grasp settling on the red one.
"I know it's probably gonna get worse when we actually hit the snow, but do you want to warm yourself up before we get there?" Steve asked gently, nodding his head over to the fabric he was holding up slightly.
Constiere's crimson gaze lit up with excitement and appreciation at his offer.
"Wait, are you serious?" He asked, a bit carefully.
Steve nodded eagerly.
"Well, yeah. After Maemond, I think you could use a break from all this cold, y'know?"
Pulling the red blanket from his own shoulders, Steve gave it to the other carefully, only letting go once it was clear that Constiere would be able to catch it. As the boy slowly wrapped the blanket around himself, holding it tightly to prevent it from dragging on the ground, Constiere thought to himself for a moment, looking off to the side. After a few seconds, he looked back up at the miner with a bit of a grin.
"We're getting soft with the mobs, now aren't we?" He said in an almost teasing manner.
Steve rose a brow at him with a bit of a grin in return.
"You accepted the blanket, though. If anything, you're enabling me here."
With a tch and a chuckle, Constiere directed his attention back forward.
"...Touché, touché."
Leaning more toward the miner despite the height difference, Constiere lowered his voice to a whisper.
"I dunno about you, but...the atmosphere in this group is getting...weird, I think."
Steve looked at the other with confusion.
"...What do you mean by that?" He whispered back.
"I mean...I dunno. While you and master were checking out that weird village, I think some of their weirdness transferred to us. Malgun's been acting...more open? To me?" Constiere gave the other a conflicted shrug, which prompted Steve to let out a small chuckle.
"Hey, hey. He's on our side, alright?"
Now it was time for Constiere to raise a brow at him.
"...What do you...wait, don't tell me." His gaze narrowed as he slowly put pieces together.
"Malgun wants to help us with...you-know-what."
Constiere let out a small groan, tightening the blanket around his body a bit more.
"...At least tell me that you're confident he won't snitch, please."
Steve gave him a hesitant shrug.
"I...think he will?..."
Constiere raised another brow at him.
Steve held up his hands defensively.
"If anything, he's a part of this now, and we're giving him a nickname. C'mon, you're dirt boy, and I'm bright-eyes, we can do this."
Nodding in defeat, Constiere stared over toward the skeleton's back.
"...How about bone-meal, then?"
With a small laugh, Steve looked up at the skeleton ahead as well.
"Sounds great, actually!"
Laughing a bit himself, Constiere looked back at Steve.
"So, we have bone-meal, bright-eyes, and dirt boy. What's the plan?"
Steve leaned in a bit closer to him again.
"...Since you-know-who is getting...better, so to say, we need to pick better times to talk, I think. That's what Malgun said, at least."
Constiere glanced around a bit between the others before them in confusion before his gaze landed on Herobrine, leading to him nodding slowly in understanding.
"I got it, I got it. But can't we speak in like, code, or whatever? Just so we can keep things going?"
Steve raised a brow.
"...What kind of code?"
Constiere shrugged.
"Y'know...code! Like, what if we make uh...you-know-who…"
The boy thought deeply to himself for a moment before letting out a small sigh of defeat.
"...I can't even think of a nickname for him without feeling disrespectful. You're better at that, you do it!"
Steve glanced over at Herobrine as well, a small chuckle escaping his lips.
"The nickname part, or the being disrespectful part?"
Constiere glared at him.
"Whichever one has the lesser chance of getting you killed. Now think of something quick!"
Steve thought to himself for a moment as he stared at Herobrine's back, watching the demigod's hair sway back and forth just above his shoulders, only half paying attention to the movement.
What could he even call the other as a secret nickname? He himself was "bright-eyes" because of his weird eye color. Constiere was "dirt boy," because he was well...covered in dirt. Blood too, but mostly dirt. Malgun was now "bone-meal" because...he was a skeleton? And sometimes, bone meal makes decent fertilizer, or something? He'd heard about the process briefly before while talking to a farmer in the past, but he didn't exactly remember most of the details.
Herobrine looked like him. Sure, he technically had even brighter eyes, but the name was already taken. It seemed as if he was relatively clean, save for a bit of blood around the demigod's midsection, so something along the lines of Constiere's nickname was out of the question, as well. Though his clothes were black and it was impossible to really tell if there were any stains there, Steve was certain that he saw nothing else but that section of the other's body dirtied with anything. He was sure that the being had a skeleton somewhere, if he was able to walk fine enough, but even to him, it felt a bit weird naming the demigod something along those lines.
The other's personality didn't really give him much to work with, either. All he knew at this point was that the other had the tendency to flip-flop between different personas. At times, he was uncaring and strict, at others he was childish and rash, and in very brief moments, he was surprisingly gentle and caring, despite his attempts to seem otherwise. Though these personas were beginning to blend, there was more to the other that hadn't been exposed, yet. There was something hidden beneath the hard exterior of his personality that revealed something genuinely intriguing, and Steve couldn't exactly place it. The one thing he could possibly compare the other to was a rose hidden within its own briar. Though the rose itself held promise and some kind of appeal beyond the surface, the thorns and vines that wrapped around it prevented any actual attempt at reaching for it without getting pricked or stabbed.
With a bit of a chuckle at his own comparison, Steve looked back at the boy beside him with a smirk.
"How about...rosebud?"
Constiere raised a brow at him.
"...Why?"
Steve shrugged.
"Dunno. He reminds me of a rose bush, kinda. The flowers are pretty, but if you're not careful, the thorns hurt you when you try to pick them. He's kinda like a rosebud to me, y'know? Like...there's definitely something worth attempting to reach for, there, but it's not quite in sight yet."
Constiere nodded slowly in understanding.
"Ahhhh. Rosebud it is, I guess!"
Shifting the blanket around his body a bit, Constiere looked more determined as he continued staring at the demigod from behind.
"So, our goal here is to...make the rosebud bloom. We have dirt boy, that's me, to lay the stage out, bright-eyes, you, to plant the seeds, and bone-meal, General Malgun, to help make the conditions right. That's right, bright-eyes?"
Looking at the other with a bit of surprise, Steve nodded slowly.
"...I didn't even realize we had a gardening theme, kinda."
"Well, now we do, so what do we do ne-"
Constiere was interrupted by his own foot stepping into a small dip of fresh snow, causing him to sink a bit unexpectedly. With a surprised yelp, he quickly stepped back before he could find himself suddenly completely knee-deep in the snow. As the two looked up, they found themselves within the snowy biome that they had spotted in the distance before. Though the skies were thankfully clear at the moment with no signs of oncoming snowfall, it was still rather chilly as they moved along.
"...Ah great. I guess we're getting pretty close to Brickston, huh?" The boy said out loud with a tiny smirk upon his face, beginning to glance around as Herobrine, up ahead, let out a small chuckle in response.
"Seems so. We'll have to do a bit of searching, but this is the place where it's been hidden away. Keep your eyes peeled."
With a nod, Constiere moved around the dip in the ground before quickly stumbling into another one, leading to a groan leaving his lips as Steve approached him with an outstretched hand.
"So, what's Brickston like, anyways? You said that you're familiar with it, right?" Steve asked as he helped pull the mob general up onto his saddle right behind him.
"I...my memory of the place isn't that great, but as far as I remember being told, I was born there, actually. Didn't stay long though. The place is actually this college, or whatever." Constiere explained with a shrug.
Steve looked at the other with excitement in his eyes.
"Wait, you were born there? Really?"
Constiere nodded with a laugh, suddenly finding himself the focus of everybody's attention as he spoke.
"Yup! Aside from my mom telling me I was born there, back when I was a soldier, there was a part of our training period where we had to choose between two places to be sent to in order to test ourselves. One of those places was a part of the training program that the college sponsored. You were supposed to head into the mountains around the place and basically live off the land for a bit while also dealing with the harsh weather and the mobs. Rumour has it that it was the most brutal thing ever, and a lot of folks who went ended up either chickening out, or never coming back at all, so I chose not to go there, actually." Constiere finished with a laugh, slightly shivering to himself as he thought about the place.
With a hum, Herobrine looked at the boy with intrigue.
"So...if we're going to be looking for it, we should look for mountains, yes?"
Constiere nodded.
"Yes, sir. It's partially surrounded by a few hills and mountains, and that's where people were being sent. It's so the college could at least monitor them from afar, I think."
As Herobrine nodded in response, Steve looked around briefly, finding no such mountains anywhere in sight.
"...None of those are here, I think." The miner said with a small, disappointed laugh.
"Meaning that it's probably more inland, so we need to move. Ideally, we should at least aim to find it before the weather shifts in any way." Herobrine added onto the other's words, leading to the rest of the group nodding in response.
"It's gonna snow, y'know. I heard that it snows in Brickston almost constantly." Constiere said.
"Then we should get there before it starts snowing more out here. Either way, we don't want to get caught out in the snow."
Looking around at the ground, Constiere nodded eagerly as the others verbally agreed.
Steve, expression curious, continued to survey the area as they continued moving forward. There really seemed to be nothing in the area for miles ahead except for snow, and some patches of iced-over ponds that they were surely going to avoid.
Just how exactly could a city hide amongst flattened lands?
Surprisingly, the area was larger than any of them had been expecting.
There were a couple of points within their journey when Herobrine had to take out their borrowed map, scan it, and look around to pinpoint their location, only for them to become rather confused as a few of the notable landmarks on the paper were nowhere near them at all. They only came across more flattened, snow-covered land as they went deeper into the biome, which raised an air of concern amongst them all as the sky became somewhat clouded, and the area became a bit hazier as a result. It was already rather difficult to see thanks to the darkened sky, but it was made worse by the fact that the moon was being blocked out by the storm clouds, forming a dark omen as the threat of being caught in some kind of snowstorm became very much real.
Once they spotted a faint light in the distance however, they essentially made a cautious beeline to the place, stumbling upon a humble little village in the snowy tundra. Though most of the buildings were cozy little cabins, there were quite a few igloos present as well, intriguing Steve as his curious gaze focused primarily upon them. It wasn't until he felt a hand grab his shoulder and begin to shake him a bit violently that he broke out of his focus to find Herobrine staring at him as Constiere let go of him with a laugh.
"I hate to ask, but would you, at the very least, ask these villagers for proper directions? I'm starting to distrust the map you were given." The demigod asked quietly.
With a hesitant nod, Steve dismounted from Squash and began to make his way to the village.
"I'll try."
As his feet sank into the snow with a loud crunch, Steve tested his stability for a moment before walking forward, finding his boots sinking deeper as he moved along. The resistance was not appreciated all that much, but the exciting feeling of being in a new area overshadowed his annoyance at the snow, leading him forward as he found himself next to a cabin.
Though it was night, and relatively dangerous for normal humans to be outside, Steve was shocked to find a couple of villagers walking about as if the monsters of the evening didn't even exist. The longer he thought about it though, the more he realized that they were somewhat justified in their behavior, as he came to the sudden realization that, to his confusion, the mobs were nowhere to be seen, save for the mob generals that were keeping their distance.
The feeling that usually accompanied that certain silence hadn't overcome him, but now he had the confirmation that there was an actual source for this occurrence, and that source's name was Herobrine. What could you even call that ability? It felt like the air was being knocked out of your lungs as your stomach felt like a sack of rocks was dropped in it, with a dash of pure fear coming in to overwhelm you as you were driven to avoid the general area. It didn't fade, and it certainly didn't weaken on its own, making him feel quite bad for the mobs that had to go through feeling it all of the time. It was strong enough to flood the body and drive mobs away, and all that seemed to imply was that Herobrine was able to do something else that involved control over another creature's functions. If the other could hear his heartbeat, how much could he feel when he sent his magic out to directly influence others? Could he feel it?
Whatever Herobrine could really do, he'd figure out later, though hopefully he wouldn't be on the receiving end of it.
Moving closer to the streets, Steve walked along, building up the nerve to talk to any villager he was able to encounter. There were only a few villagers out and about, but he managed to find a couple of friendly-enough looking faces for him to approach.
Upon stepping in front of a couple making their way down the street, Steve waved a hand to greet them a bit nervously.
"Hello, uh, do you two have a moment?"
Slightly surprised by his sudden appearance, the two looked at each other for a brief moment before nodding.
"Sure, what do you need?" One of the two strangers asked, pulling down their woven scarf in order to do so.
Briefly feeling a bit of jealousy at the other's warm accessory, Steve cleared his throat a bit as he messed around with his hands.
"Do you guys have any idea where Brickston is? I've been traveling for a bit, and it's the next location that I need to get to…"
They both nodded. The same stranger that had offered him assistance gave him a smile.
"Yes! It's actually just over there!" They said, pointing over to a distant area that Steve didn't exactly see for himself.
All the miner saw was a hazy cloud that his eyes couldn't tear through.
"...Where?" He asked quietly as the snow began to fall ever-gently around them. They'd need to clarify soon.
Laughing, the stranger continued.
"There! Behind the hills and past the river! The ice there is weak, so I wouldn't recommend walking on it, but Brickston is hidden away, just over there. There are quite a few pillars of smoke coming from it, so you shouldn't miss-"
The stranger interrupted themselves as they looked over to where their finger was pointing, letting out an embarrassed laugh shortly afterward as they slowly realized their error.
"Sorry about that. It's storm season, and it gets pretty hard to navigate at night. It slipped my mind that the mountains practically disappear here!"
Keeping their arm extended, the stranger proudly directed Steve back over to where the mountains supposedly were.
"Keep walking in that direction, and you'll get there. It's pretty noticeable, so there's no way to miss the place."
Steve laughed a bit in response.
"Well, if there's anything I have to say about it, there's definitely a way for me to somehow miss it. I'll try not to get myself lost, though. Thanks for the directions."
With a small wave goodbye, Steve departed from the two as he went to rejoin the others, noting how the snowfall was getting slightly stronger by the second. Upon reaching them, he excitedly began to direct them in the direction of the city.
"Okay, so, we're actually closer than we think! It's right over there, I was told."
After a round of confused looks, Steve let out a small chuckle.
"They said that it's storm season, so it's naturally harder to navigate at night. But the place is there!"
Moving to hop onto Squash, Steve settled himself and wrapped his remaining blanket over his shoulders once again before moving to direct the beast toward the hidden city.
"They also said there was a river there we shouldn't walk on, so...be wary of that, I guess."
"It was just up ahead? Really?" Constiere asked with a small laugh.
"Pretty much. Though, wouldn't a city show some lights or stuff by now?"
Hearing a bit of laughter from up ahead, the two directed their attention toward Andvari, who looked back at the rest of the group with a bit of an amused grin.
"In a growing blizzard? It depends."
Herobrine began to walk forward as the others slowly came to the realization that he was doing so, watching as the demigod moved on ahead.
With a quick look back, he stared at them with a bit of a glare.
"If this blizzard gets too hard to walk in, we'll be compromised. At the very least, can we get closer to the city before we freeze to death?"
As the mob generals that were currently on their own two feet nodded and began to walk, Steve gave a shrug as he motioned for Squash to begin moving once again.
"I dunno, maybe freezing to death won't be too bad, y'know?" The miner said with a sarcastic tone, though his voice was only loud enough for Constiere to hear, much to the boy's amusement.
Completely forgetting who he was talking to, Steve flinched pretty badly when Herobrine turned back toward him with a bit of a smirk.
"Noted."
Steve found himself unwilling to even think about what the other meant, or what horrible thing he was implying. He was just hoping that Herobrine was finally comfortable enough to start openly joking around with him more often. Keyword there being joking.
As Constiere laughed a bit harder at his fearful expression, Steve felt a rush of embarrassment dust his features as he tried to place his focus on anything else except the people he was traveling with. He could only hope that the city would show up sooner rather than later, so he could run in and hopefully find some witnesses to his own potential murder under the ice.
Stumbling (and nearly falling straight into) the river that passed between the village and the distant mountains, the group found themselves with a bit of a conundrum.
"...You said that you were told that the ice was weak, correct?" Herobrine asked Steve.
Steve nodded.
"Yeah, meaning I don't know how we're going to get Squash to cross it without falling in, or even if Squash can go at all."
A loud groan came from behind them.
"Aww...I was looking forward to not freezing my limbs off, here!" Constiere complained loudly, leading to Herobrine rolling his eyes at the other's behavior.
"We can't afford a babysitter, so…" Herobrine's words trailed off as he looked at the frozen river before them, eyes careful as he looked over the various cracks of ice present. Approaching the ice, he took a few more seconds to look over the surface before he went to stomp his foot against the ice once, finding a good portion of the river to break upon impact. Quite a lot of ice fell away into the freezing depths below, but where his foot landed, the ice remained firm, forming a decently-sized pathway to the other side.
With a small, pleased grin, Herobrine looked back at the others.
"Looks like we have some strong ice here."
As the demigod moved to walk across the river, Steve watched with bated breath as he treaded the ice, acting as if it was a normal path and not a potentially dangerous route. Once the other was properly on the other side of the river, Steve let out the breath he was only barely aware that he'd been holding, hopping off of the ravager beneath him as he went to lead her on foot. With more physical bravery than what his mind was producing, Steve forced himself to walk slowly onto the ice, testing his weight momentarily before taking another step, pulling Squash a bit forward as he moved along. Finding confidence in his first few steps, Steve kept his gaze upon Squash as he resorted to side-stepping his way across the lake, keeping her focus as she slipped a bit here and there.
Almost finished with the short journey, Steve gave the ravager a proud grin before his feet went out from under him as he slipped on the ice, struggling to keep himself upright before simply accepting his fate as he fell upon the solid surface with a quick yelp, followed by an annoyed groan as he found himself flat on his back. Hearing laughter from up above, Steve cast a glare up to a highly amused Constiere before looking over at the demigod who was watching him as well, thankful that the other's expression had remained neutral as he gazed upon his misfortune. Continuing to slip as he slowly got back up, Steve took a minute to make sure he wouldn't fully collapse again before continuing to lead Squash over the ice as they finally crossed the river, joining the demigod as Andvari and Malgun did so as well.
Choosing to continue with guiding Squash on foot, Steve wrapped his remaining blanket a bit tighter around his body as he tried to walk off his embarrassment, only barely remembering to continue searching for their next location as his eyes attempted to look past the snowy barrier around them as it fell even harder than before. Hoping that the city wasn't completely hidden amongst the mountains, Steve continued to search for distant hills, only managing to find some relatively close ones that had no sign of a city behind them whatsoever. He was beginning to question the advice they were given before he heard a small gasp escape Constiere's lips, soon followed by the other pointing at the sight of a decently-sized aura of light hiding within the shadows of some relatively decent-sized mountains.
"There! That has to be it! See? There's even some of the wall sticking out!"
Wall?
Even as Steve tried to look closer from where they currently were, he failed to see what the other was talking about. As they moved more quickly toward the mountains however, he was surprised to find a large, brick wall surrounding a small ring of buildings built of mostly bricks (the regular melted clay kind he was used to seeing, as well as stone ones), which in turn surrounded an absolutely massive building in the middle, made from the same materials. Steve found himself captivated by the sight as he froze in his tracks, taking the sight of the city in all at once as the others moved ahead of him, only stopping as they realized that the miner wasn't following and Herobrine had to go and drag him forward.
Finding himself being pulled by the arm, Steve looked over to the other curiously.
"So, is my job supposed to be to find the portal here, too?"
Herobrine nodded.
"Yes. There should be one somewhere, but I'm quite unsure where exactly. The pulse here is almost completely faint, meaning that the portal was certainly built, but possibly never once used. Or maybe it was used, but hasn't been in a while. I'm not entirely certain of the circumstances." He explained, letting go of the miner once they reached a small cave just outside of the city, leading him in before moving to cross his arms over his chest.
"...I just hope the city isn't like Litefall or Maemond, and we have to go through a bunch of buildings here just to find it." Steve said with a laugh.
Hearing Constiere dismount Squash right behind him, Steve turned to watch the other, only to look at him with a bit of surprise as the other's expression was uncharacteristically determined and serious. The boy moved right past him without even a glance as he went to approach Herobrine. Standing right in front of the demigod, he began to speak.
"Sir, if I may, is it possible for me to travel alongside Steve, here?" Constiere asked with a bit of a shaky tone.
As the other was about to open his mouth to respond, the boy held up his hands in defense, interrupting him.
"N-now before you say anything, I...I'm at least knowledgeable about the layout of the place a bit, for a start. Also, I know what it has in a general sense, and he's gonna get lost and distracted pretty quickly if he goes alone, so...can I keep an eye on him, at least? Please?" Folding his hands in front of him in a pleading manner, Constiere worked up his best puppy-dog gaze as he waited for the demigod's response, remaining firm as Herobrine silently judged him.
After a few moments of silence, Herobrine began to speak.
"...You do look convincingly human enough to fool the people in there, but, pray tell, what are you going to do about that?"
Herobrine pointed down to the other's leg, where bits of green fur were sticking out from a couple of tears within the fabric.
"And that?" He then gestured to the other's cloak, which was covered in its previous filth.
Without even thinking twice, Steve raised a quick hand as he approached the two in conversation.
"I can lend him one of my pants to hide it. It's no problem, really." The miner said with a bit of a nervous smile, looking over to Constiere to find a brief look of surprise flash over his face.
"And I can just take this off, too! " Constiere said as he began to remove his cloak, revealing more of the light armour and black undershirt that was hidden beneath. "I don't think anybody's gonna ask about the blast damage, if I just keep walking fast enough. The bandage hides stuff still, I think."
Constiere lightly pressed his fingers against his protective bandage, moving some of his hair over it to hide its edges a bit more.
After a few more moments of silence, Herobrine let out a sigh as he nodded in agreement.
"...That will at least keep the villagers from discovering your true nature. Your eye might cause some alarm, but since you're traveling with Steven, so will his, and all of yours combined will be seen as abnormally normal." Herobrine said, watching as Steve quickly dove into his backpack for the proper change of clothes that Constiere could utilize.
After the miner found a pair of pants for Constiere, he handed them over to the boy, who held them up in front of him as he looked them over briefly. Turning over to Herobrine again, Constiere let out a small chuckle.
"...Next time I explode, master, can you please make me taller?"
Herobrine shook his head as the boy went to remove his shoes and pull the new pair of pants over his current ones.
"I don't know how that'll change you further, so to speak. For your safety, I'm going to have to decline your request."
With a groan of disappointment, Constiere threw a shoe off to the side. Steve followed its path with his eyes briefly before looking back to stare at the other's left foot, which, disturbingly enough, resembled that of a creeper's. Though it was rather too long to be considered completely such, the foot was still pretty fur-covered, with only a patch or two of what appeared to be slightly decayed human flesh upon it. Averting his eyes as a slight feeling of nausea arose within him, Steve looked out to the snowy biome outside of their current location, finding them now properly situated within a decent snowstorm. With Constiere finishing his change of clothes by tucking the ends of the pant legs into his shoes, he dusted his clothes off before looking himself over, looking rather pleased at the result.
"Hopefully you don't get these back with someone else's blood on them, bright-eyes!" Constiere said with a laugh, leading to Steve responding with a roll of his eyes.
"Yeah. If that's the case, you can just throw them out. I don't really want anyone's blood on my hands or my pants." He said with a shrug.
Constiere shrugged in response.
"Suit yourself. I think it tells a lot of history, actually, if you think about it?"
"And now I remember why I call you dirt boy."
Steve moved to place Squash deeper within the cave in order to protect her from the cold with a bit of a laugh, instructing her to lay down as he took the blankets they were previously using and draped them over her back, giving her a quick smile as he did so.
"I'll be back soon enough, okay?" He told her quietly, petting her head a bit before pulling away to move to the front of the cave, pulling his backpack against his shoulders.
Moving toward the entrance, Steve glanced at the falling snow before looking back at Herobrine a bit nervously.
"Uhh...do you mind if we stay for a couple of days? Like, at an inn, or whatever? If they have one?" He asked quietly, watching as the other's expression remained unchanged.
Herobrine shrugged.
"Not particularly, if you're doing such a thing to further our plans and not simply take a vacation."
Steve nodded.
"Got it."
Motioning for Constiere to follow after his lead, Steve began to slowly, but surely, force himself out from the cave, slightly shivering as the cold wind hit his face in full force once again. After a few seconds of waiting, Constiere finally joined him, and the two made their way to the giant brick wall that was not too far away, attempting to not let the cold stop them too much in their tracks.
With a curious expression, Steve looked down at Constiere.
"Okay, spill it. Why'd you want to tag along?" He asked with a grin in his tone.
Constiere rolled his eyes at the miner's words.
"Mostly for the reasons I said before. I know this place based on word of mouth, and I know you're gonna like it to the point that you'll get so distracted, we'll get stuck, so I'm here to drag you if you start doing that."
With a nod of understanding, Steve looked up as they found themselves in front of the entrance gate to the city.
"What's the deal with this place, anyway?" He asked, looking down from the city in front of them to find two snowmen placed at each side of the gate. He raised a brow at the peculiar sight.
Constiere smirked.
"This place is one of the most prestigious colleges that has ever existed, if not the most prestigious. You have to be insanely smart to even qualify to clean the bathrooms of this place."
With a slight "Woah…" escaping his lips, Steve directed his attention back to the building directly in the center of the city, which was staring right back at them.
"Thing is, apparently this place began with the college. It's more of a situation where the city was built around the college, rather than the college was built in the city. Brickston prides itself on knowledge, knowledge, and of course, finding more knowledge. It's basically Nerdtopia, if such a place existed."
Stepping up closer to the gate, Steve jumped as the two snowmen at the gates suddenly came to life and drew nearer to the two, getting rather close as they examined their bodies with their jack-o-lantern hidden eyes.
"What are-?!"
"You've never seen snow golems before, bright-eyes?" Constiere asked with a laugh, watching as Steve shifted rather uncomfortably as one of said "snow golems" began to tap against his leg rapidly with its twig arms. The other, however. looked at Constiere briefly before digging into its body momentarily, pulling out a ball of snow and launching it at Constiere, much to his disdain. It did nothing afterward as he didn't react further to it, though.
"No! I don't live in the snow!" Steve said with a rather confused tone as the snow golem continued its evaluation of his leg before stopping and backing away to return to its spot beside the gate, its companion doing the same as the gate to the city opened rather abruptly.
Still stunned by the experience, Steve began to hesitantly move forward as Constiere pushed a couple of fingers into his back in order to force him to do so. As they fully stepped foot within the city (college?) Steve found himself completely captivated by the sight of brick-focused architecture, extending high into the sky as the city gave off an aura of general homeyness. The buildings that lined the streets, closest to the outside walls, all had chimney stacks that rose up into the sky, puffs of smoke coming from them as people were apparently burning the midnight oil. Finding themselves going down a quick bit of stone stairs as they properly landed themselves on the actual street, Steve found that within the large building that was placed dead-center within the city, there seemed to be a large number of books inside of it, all neatly arranged in wooden shelves that were quite difficult for him to make out due to the storm. As he stared closer into the large, beautiful windows of the center building, Constiere watched him for a second or two before he himself, though hesitant in doing so, looked at the sight within with clearly restrained childlike wonder in his gaze.
With a small laugh, Constiere clapped a hand onto his shoulder.
"That's what I think is the city's pride and joy, the library! It's like, the only notable thing that the people at training told me about when I was debating where I wanted to go for the challenge." He explained, dragging Steve away slowly.
As the two walked along the city streets, Steve found himself unable to tear his gaze away from the library in question, staring at its magnificent architecture and massive windows until a pair of fingers snapped themselves in front of his face. As Constiere cleared his throat to get his attention, Steve looked down at him sheepishly.
"S-sorry, I-"
"-Was proving my exact point about the whole 'being easily distracted' part?"
Steve looked away with a slightly embarrassed grin on his face.
"Anyways...hey, bright-eyes. You wanna hear something interesting about the whole 'college' part of this place?" Constiere whispered to him, looking around briefly as he noticed a couple of people around them who were looking at them with clear interest.
"What?"
"...Rumour has it that like, in order to graduate from this place, you need to memorize the location, title, and basic summary of each and every book from that library there. For real."
Steve raised a brow at the information.
"Really? I doubt that this place would be that strict."
Constiere shrugged.
"Well, again, that's what I heard at least. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. In any case, It's no wonder like, everybody is up, right now. Look at all the windows!" Constiere finished by pointing at the various apartment-like buildings lining the streets, surprising Steve as he realized that, yes, all of them had lights on.
Maybe they were really studying all those book titles and such. He wasn't any the wiser, so he didn't really know. All he knew was that he already found respect for them for even trying.
As they walked along the streets together, passing by a couple of snow-covered iron golems at a reasonable distance, they looked around carefully, attempting to find any sign of an inn that was potentially present, whatsoever. With his gaze switching focus every few seconds to take in the sight of the city, Steve found himself briefly spotting quick flashes of movement out of the corner of his eye, leading to him turning around to search for the source, only to stumble upon nothing of note in his line of sight.
With a look of brief suspicion, Steve turned his attention directly forward, waiting for a moment or so before turning around quickly once again, this time managing to find the brief display of what appeared to be another stranger with brown hair staring at him with great intrigue, only to disappear behind a nearby decorative spruce tree. With a bit of a chuckle at the sight, Steve gave a smirk over to Constiere.
"Hey, I think we're being followed." He said, amusement obvious in his tone.
Constiere rolled his eyes.
"Unless they're stalking us to tell us that we're heading in the wrong direction, we can ignore them for now, I think. I just don't wanna freeze to death or fall apart, or fall apart as I freeze to death, so the sooner we get to the inn, the bet-wait, there it is!"
The boy interrupted himself as he moved to drag the miner by the arm to the supposed inn, which happened to be a longer building in terms of width compared to the other, more square-ish buildings in the city. It sat in front of another building that looked quite similar to it, though the white-dyed banners with giant red crosses on them plastered outside the door made it clear that if they were to need any medical attention while staying at the inn, they didn't really need to look any further.
Quickly entering the building, the two found themselves the sudden focus of the receptionist there, who looked at them with widened eyes as they shook off some of the snow that had clung to their bodies. With a bit of an embarrassed smile, Steve looked up and approached the desk the receptionist was sitting behind.
"H-how much for a room?"
After a moment of silence and staring, the stranger finally shook herself from her thoughts as she pulled out a book from underneath the desk.
"Roughly five emeralds. Unless you're a student here, then it's free."
Though Constiere cast the miner a mischievous glance that held nothing but bad ideas, Steve gave the woman a smile.
"Then I'll take two for a couple of days. Is that fine?"
Constiere's smile fell into a frown.
"Hey, don't you wanna stay with me? I'm pretty fun, y'know? Not a bad roomie at all!"
As Steve was about to open his mouth once again, the lady behind the desk let out a small laugh.
"The rooms are quite small, and are single-occupancy. Only one bed per room." She explained, pulling out a quill and some ink as Steve pulled out his money to pay.
Looking over at Steve, Constiere placed his hands on his hips.
"You still don't want to room with me?"
Steve shook his head with a laugh.
"One of us would have to sleep on the floor, and I'm not about that, especially when we have better options available." Steve turned his attention back up to the lady at the desk. "If it's possible, can we have rooms right next to each other? Or across from each other? If it's not too much trouble, I mean."
The woman nodded, taking his emeralds as she began to write in the book in front of her.
"Yes. Rooms 204 and 205 are right next to each other, and they're currently available. They're located on the second floor, to your right once you climb either stairway." She said rather quickly, handing two keys over to Steve as she gestured to the wall behind her, smiling as the miner followed her directions.
Steve was slightly surprised to find two stairs leading up to the second floor hidden behind that wall, their entry points slightly visible from where they currently were.
With an appreciative smile, Steve waved a slight goodbye to the other.
"Thank you so much!"
"Have a nice stay!" The woman waved back, immediately moving to place her records book back underneath her desk.
Steve began to head upstairs, followed closely by Constiere as the boy gave one last look to the woman before going up. As the two found themselves on the second floor, it took Steve roughly a few seconds of glancing around before he found the two rooms that they were given, taking out one key as he went to unlock the one closest to the stairway, 204. Upon opening it, he was met with the sight of a rather small room, which held nothing within it except a bed, a chest for storage, and a small desk that had a light on top of it placed right next to the bed in question. There was a door right across from the entrance, but Steve didn't immediately move toward it to see where it led. Moving over to allow Constiere to see for himself, the miner went to unlock the other room as well, finding it nearly identical to the first one save for the window that was placed right above the desk, which led out to the sight of a small alleyway that laid between the inn and another brick building, which blocked the rest of the view outside. As he backed out of this one as well, he heard Constiere let out a small noise of excitement that had followed the sound of a doorknob unlocking.
"Hey, these rooms have balconies! Cool!" The boy exclaimed, causing Steve to rush over to where he was as he stepped out onto the small balcony that gave them a better view of their surroundings.
Being on the second floor, they were able to watch as the citizens down below made their way through the streets a bit in a frantic manner, most of them holding several books and papers in their hands as they rushed home. As Steve found himself captivated once again by the natural atmosphere of the place, Constiere leaned over the railing a bit, gripping it as he steadied himself.
"I don't think there's gonna be a lot of places to look, bright-eyes."
Steve broke from his focus as he turned to look at the other with curiosity.
"...What?"
Constiere lightly tapped the back of his hand against Steve's chest as the miner let out a small sound of surprise at the action.
"The portal, stupid! This place looks big once you're in it, but it really doesn't seem to have many places for a portal to be hidden in. Either it's somewhere here in the city, or somewhere in the mountains. Hopefully not the latter, though."
Steve nodded.
"Yeah."
Turning around to walk away, Steve went to sit on the bed within the small, rented room.
"So...which room are you taking? For your information, the only difference between this one and the other one is a window over the desk, really." The miner informed the other.
Constiere shrugged.
"...Considering my leg and all, I'm gonna take this one, then." The boy paused momentarily as Steve tossed the appropriate room key his way, effortlessly grabbing it mid-air as he did so. "If somebody were to snoop, it wouldn't be good. I'll stick around here, while you get the gorgeous view, I guess." He finished with a shrug and a chuckle, which Steve joined in with.
Standing up, Steve began to make his way back to the other room, with Constiere in tow.
"So, what's the plan now? We sleep, or…" He asked as they found themselves within the hallway once again.
Constiere shrugged.
"We search around, I guess. Can't be too hard to find a portal if it's in the city, right?"
Steve cast him a glare.
"You'd think that, but I beg to differ."
"It's a large black frame that's hopefully gonna be in one of the very few buildings that are in this place, how hard is it gonna be to find it?!" The boy exclaimed, causing Steve to laugh a bit.
"Should we go and look around a bit after the snow stops falling?"
Constiere thought to himself for a moment before moving to cross his arms in front of his chest.
"I guess the one place we can look through first is the library, actually. It looks big enough, at least."
Steve nodded his head.
"Got it. Hopefully the storm stops soon enough so we can actually check it out properly."
Separating from the other, Steve went to hide away in his room, letting out a sigh as he finally got to take off his backpack once again, laying it beside the bed as he went to flop down on it soon after.
He wasn't aware of the fact that he'd fallen asleep until he found himself waking up to a pillow being flung right into his face. It wasn't something he had been expecting, but nevertheless, Steve's eyes shot open as the pillow made full contact with his face, making him scramble to get up to face his assailant as quickly as he could. Looking at the open door of the room, Steve found Constiere staring at him with a satisfied grin on his face, another pillow in his hands ready to be thrown his way. Before the other could launch it however, the miner grabbed the pillow that had been thrown at him, threw it right back, and stood up in order to walk over and grab the other one that was currently in the boy's hand.
Dropping the remaining pillow as he held up his hands in defense, Constiere began to laugh.
"Wait! Wait! I'm done, really. I was just trying to wake you up! The snowstorm stopped being aggressive, and it's way better to walk in. C'mon, before we waste any time!" He let his hands fall as Steve went to pick up both pillows.
Throwing them onto his bed, Steve let out a small huff of annoyance.
"How long was I out for?"
Constiere shrugged.
"Dunno exactly, but it took like, an hour for the snow to stop falling hard, so I'm gonna say an hour."
Rubbing his hands over his face, Steve let out a groan of frustration as they began to leave the room and descend down the stairs.
"I swear I'm not trying to ruin my sleep schedule on purpose. I don't know what's gotten into me!"
"I dunno, riding a whole ravager sounds pretty tiring to me." Constiere said sarcastically, earning a quick elbow shove from the miner in response.
"Hey, like you probably didn't rest either. I've seen you sleeping before!"
Constiere held up a finger.
"Because my body has trouble keeping up with itself. When I feel like I have low energy, I either eat some sugar, or sleep. Can't have an animated corpse become an inanimate one mid-mission, so I need to sleep sometimes. But I didn't sleep for the past hour! I kept standing up and going out to the balcony to survey the area, like a useful person would! I only went out for a few minutes, but wouldn't anyone do that if a snowstorm was outside?"
Steve glared at him.
"That's a pretty long way of saying that you took a short power nap sometime after you went to look outside."
Receiving a quick elbow to the side as they reached the first floor, Steve let out a quick yelp as Constiere sped up a bit to outwalk him, leading the miner to do the same as they finally returned to the open streets of Brickston.
With the snowstorm gone, the streets were somehow slightly more populated than before, with various individuals walking about with bags and books in their hands. Despite it still being night, the activity present made it seem like it might as well have been daytime, and perhaps neither of the two were aware of it just yet. The various lights placed around the area made it almost as bright as day, though the intensity was not even comparable to the lights that had been within Litefall.
The two traveled along, making their way to where the library stood. Moving around to the front of the library, the two were a bit surprised to see a lack of a door underneath the large archway that led into the building, providing a somewhat welcoming environment as they stood underneath it, one more in sheer awe than the other as they ignored the slight snow on the ground inside the building. Upon stepping further into the building they were met with the overwhelming scent of knowledge and literature and the sight of a seemingly endless array of books, appearing in tons of different bookshelves that had no end in sight. On both the left and right sides of the room they were currently standing in was a large stairway that led to the second floor, and as they trailed the sight, both were eventually able to notice the partially brick, partially glass ceiling, which allowed a clear view of the overhead sky, much to their surprise given the fact that the city had just been through a particularly heavy snowstorm. Approaching a line of railing that circled around a massive hole in the center of the floor, Steve leaned over to find a spiral staircase leading all the way down to a particularly deep place in the earth, with bookshelves lining the walls all the way down. There were several floors on the way down to rest on and check the books out from.
Eyes filled with curiosity and wonder, Steve let out a quiet "Woah…" to himself as he pulled away from the railing, moving to follow Constiere as the other went to ascend the nearest stairway.
With a small chuckle, Steve attempted to start a conversation again.
"I feel really bad for everybody here if they really have to memorize all of...this." Steve gestured to the area around them, causing Constiere to laugh a bit as well.
"Yeah. Seeing it all in person is just...well, breathtaking, I guess." The boy murmured as they finally reached the second floor, finding even more books and bookshelves placed throughout the area.
There was a space next to a few large windows with various tables and chairs placed throughout it, seemingly making up a small reading area. There were a couple of people sitting at these tables, all thoroughly engrossed within a book or two, most of them writing down frantic notes as they read. As they walked closer to the area, Steve found his gaze being caught by a particular individual that looked awfully familiar to him, with fluffy brown hair atop their head, large, rounded glasses that accented their dark green eyes, and fair skin. The stranger was wearing a large, red gingham blanket that draped around their body as they read through a book placed right in front of them, a warm cup of what appeared to be hot cocoa placed beside it.
Though he wanted to see if the stranger really was the same one that he had briefly spotted before, Steve simply continued to walk after Constiere as the boy led him to a table, sitting down promptly as the miner was left in confusion.
"Wait, weren't we going to look around, and whatever?" Steve asked quietly, hoping that he wasn't disturbing the others present in the room.
Constiere nodded.
"We are! I'm just thinking, you think that they'd have a history book or something with the story of this city in it? Like, from its conception up until now?" He responded, voice only slightly quieter than before, much to Steve's concern.
"I mean, maybe? I dunno how we're going to find it, though. Looking through this place is gonna take a couple of weeks, minimum, and I'm sure that we'd still miss it, somehow." Steve shrugged, confused about what the other wanted to do.
"Well, maybe if we start from the top and make it all the way down, you think we'd have a chance of finding it soon?"
As Constiere rolled his hand in a gesture for the miner to keep the conversation going, he stared at the boy with even more confusion than before, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Constiere, I really don't get what your plan is by wasting-"
He was interrupted by the boy raising a single finger to his lips, pointing behind them soon afterward toward the same stranger he had been eyeing before. The stranger was clearly struggling to keep silent, their eyes giving quick glances around here and there as they took a particularly longer time to flip the pages of their book than they had done so before. Catching onto Constiere's intentions only slightly, Steve let out a small laugh to himself as he went to sit down at the table as well.
"...I mean, it's gonna be tough enough, but hey, we need to do it, right?" He switched up his tone rather quickly, trying as best as he could to not look back at the stranger so that their little ruse could succeed.
"Yes, yes. Probably gonna mess up the organization a bit, but that's life, I gue-"
"-You needed help with finding a book, you said?"
The stranger's accented voice finally spoke out, drawing both Steve and Constiere's attention as they found the other looking at their book in an attempt to appear dismissive, though it failed as their obvious, quick glances over to them betrayed whatever initial intentions they could've possibly had in the first place.
Giving a proud smirk over to the miner, Constiere began to speak.
"Yup. Any knowledge about the history of this place?"
The stranger's eyes lit up as they quickly made their way over to their table, clearly excited at the opportunity they were given.
"Yes, actually! Though I'm a researcher and aspiring scientist, I've gotten a lot of time to look at the history of Brickston! I can recommend you a couple of my favorite pieces, some personal anecdotes, some knowledge handed down by the founder-"
"-Woah, woah, pause. Is the founder alive?" Constiere held up a hand as he interrupted the other, who nodded eagerly.
"Yes! Of course he is!"
Without even asking for an invitation, the stranger sat down at the table they were sitting at, eyes filled with pure joy.
"The city of Brickston was built from nothing but the founder's hands as he wanted to achieve and share knowledge that transcended multiple dimensions, so he began building right here, starting with the library! The founder came from a mysterious place to settle here in the mountains, building up his collection and conducting several studies until he finally gained the fame he has today for being all-knowing!" The other explained rather hastily, pulling something from their pocket that seemed to be a small, note-filled book.
"But that's beside the point. Our founder is something rather interesting, but I believe that you are even more so." The stranger said, turning over to Steve as they pulled out a writing utensil that neither of the two were familiar with whatsoever.
"Before you start with anything, what's your name? I don't think we got it." Steve asked gently, letting out a slightly nervous laugh as he found himself the center of the other's attention.
The stranger blinked before lightly knocking their head a bit in frustration.
"Oh, I always do that! I like to get information as quickly as I can...ugh. My name is Addley Courtenay. Now, what's your name?"
Steve nodded as Addley gave their name, raising a hand up to his chest as he introduced himself.
"My name is Steve, and this over here is Constiere." Steve gestured over to the mob general, who gave a quick wave.
"Ah, so Steve, yes?" The other began to write in their notebook frantically as the miner nodded.
"Yeah. It's not really a remarkable name, but it pretty much fits-"
"-And why have you come to the college? Are you looking to enroll?" The other stared at him with a determined expression as they tried to pull information out from him.
"Uh, n-no, actually. We came here in hopes of finding some info-"
"-Understandable. Say, where do you come from?"
Beginning to find the other's rapid questions a bit strange as they were seemingly writing every single word the miner spoke down, Steve let out a slightly nervous laugh.
"Highland Village. It's-"
"Down in the south forested area, just west of Litefall City and east of-"
"-Woah! Why do you have all of that memorized? Also, why the questions? The notebook?" Constiere held his hands up in order to interrupt the other and pointed his finger down at the notebook in question soon after, beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by the constant questions even though they weren't being directed at him.
Addley blinked.
"I thought I told you? I'm a researcher, so I'm researching him. Don't know how often we get cursed folks like yourselves around here, but I'm quite interested in the phenomena."
Constiere and Steve glanced over at each other for a quick moment of silent conversation, before looking right back at Addley.
"...What do you mean by 'cursed?'" Steve asked quietly.
"...You don't know?" Addley looked at him with a slightly confused expression.
"What curse exactly, he means." Constiere added on, leading to the other's confusion melting away.
"Oh. By cursed, I mean...well, it's only a hypothesis, but I'm referring to what novel scientists here are calling the 'champions' curse.' You are a champion, yes?"
Realizing that they were back to the questions and slightly surprised that the other had guessed his status so easily, Steve decided to entertain Addley a bit.
"Yes, actually! Champion of Beasts, in my village."
Addley nodded in acknowledgment.
"Right. We call it the 'champions' curse' because it's only been found in those who become champions. Typical signs include a vivid change in eye colour, which I'm assuming you've experienced."
Steve nodded in confirmation.
"Yup. Any other side effects I should be worried about?"
Addley shrugged as they looked back at their notebook, flipping rather quickly through the pages until they got to the one they were looking for.
"Well, the only pattern that we've noticed so far between all of the champions that were cursed was a certainty for death, but after multiple autopsies, we've found that the 'curse' seemingly has nothing to do with it, as far as we currently know. I'd recommend, however, you stay away from Lunarus for the time being. They're looking specifically for afflicted champions for reasons that haven't been made public, yet. I'm assuming it's for an experiment that hasn't been cleared publicly, yet."
A look of realization flashed in Steve's eyes as he quickly turned toward Constiere, who flinched at his abruptness.
"Hey, do you think that Lunarus is maybe-"
Holding a finger up to his lips in order to shush the other, Constiere let out a quick laugh as he turned back to smile innocently at Addley.
"We'll steer clear of it, I don't think we need to get involved in all that!" Folding his hands together, Constiere continued to smile in front of Addley, who was looking at them with a slightly raised brow.
As Addley's expression slowly changed from suspicious to somewhat neutral, Constiere let out another laugh as a smirk came upon his face.
"So, what version of the 'champion's curse' gives you red eyes, because I've been dying to figure that out." The boy asked, pointing to his own eyes.
Addley flipped through their notes momentarily before giving a shrug.
"Strangely enough, I'm not sure what your case is. Red eyes aren't common except in mobs and gods, so…" Addley thought to themselves for a moment before their eyes lit up in realization, excitement taking over their features as they abruptly turned toward Constiere. "...Would you perhaps be interested in participating in a case study?"
Eyes immediately filling up with fear, Constiere frantically shook his head.
"Nope! I...we're busy, and we can't afford to take too many breaks, actually!" He hastily explained.
Finding the other's sudden display of concern for his own wellbeing a bit amusing, Steve smirked at him.
"What? Wouldn't it be fun to be a part of that? Being a part of discovery and innovation?"
Constiere glared at him.
"You know that I'm not gonna do well under the microscope, Steve." The boy spat out his name as he nodded over to Addley briefly while the other's attention was placed solely on Steve.
He didn't previously think that hearing Constiere actually use his real name would've shocked him particularly in any way, but nevertheless, it did, and the miner suddenly found himself in a slightly uncomfortable position. Constiere, however, didn't catch the uncomfortable air as he stood up abruptly, went over to Steve, and attempted to pull the other up, only succeeding when the miner decided to stand up by himself. As Addley looked up at them, somewhat confused, Constiere gave them a forced smile.
"I think we're going to start looking around, y'know? Get to really experience the place, right?"
Addley blinked at them, standing up as well.
"Then I'll accompany you, since you aren't familiar with the place."
Steve gave the other a genuine smile.
"If you can, would you at least point us in the right direction?"
Constiere glared up at him.
"And where is that?" He harshly whispered to the miner, who shrugged.
Addley smiled at him.
"Sure! If it's the history of Brickston that you want, I'd be more than happy to provide, but if you're looking for something in particular, all you need to do is ask. Is there a book that you want?"
Looking around momentarily at the various bookshelves placed throughout the room, Steve thought quietly to himself for a bit before he finally came up with an idea.
"Is there a construction history of the place? Like, of what was built when? Architecture-type stuff?" Steve asked as innocently as he could.
Addley thought to themself for a moment, before, surprisingly enough, shrugging.
"For that, I'm not sure. The founder built this place himself, so...only he'd have that information. He hasn't finished his draft about the construction details of the college, so that'd be something you'd have to ask him yourself."
Steve let out a small disappointed sigh as he looked off to the side, looking back up to Addley soon after.
"Ah, okay! Where is he right now? Do you know?"
Addley shook their head.
"The founder is always busy around the campus, so you never really know where he is at any given point." The student chuckled.
Both Steve and Constiere looked at them with disappointed expressions, though they were met with a small smile in return.
"Don't worry, I'm sure that you'll see him around sometime soon." Addley added, with a kind tone in their voice.
Nodding, Steve began to fully allow Constiere to drag him away as Addley slowly followed. Exiting the study space and traveling down the stairway, the three slowly made their way out of the library, out onto the main street that laid between two other buildings just across from one another, right outside the library. As the miner and the mob general tried to move quickly, Addley continued to follow them, notebook in hand as questions continued to exit their mouth.
"So, are you staying in a dorm, or are you taking temporary residence at the inn?" They asked.
"We're staying at the inn, actually!" Steve paused, thinking to himself for a moment before posing a question to the other. "What did you mean by 'temporary residence'?"
Writing in their notebook while walking, Addley smiled.
"Students stay in the inn when there isn't enough space in the dorms. They have what we call more of a 'permanent residence' there."
Nodding in understanding, Steve turned to look around at the buildings around them, gaze curious.
"What are these-"
"-Lecture halls. They're quite compact for such a thing, but we don't have a massive amount of students, anyways." Addley answered rather quickly.
"O-oh. That's interesting, really."
Constiere eventually let go of the miner as he went to walk a bit further in front of him, gaze filled with something akin to silent rage or great annoyance as they went further on through the city, passing by quite a few gorgeous, quaint little brick buildings to their left. Steve looked up at them as well.
"Are these...the dorms?" He asked quietly, to which he heard an affirming hum not too soon after.
"Yes. All of which are at full capacity, at the moment, at least on this side. There's one or two on the other side of the city that are available, I believe." Addley explained.
Steve nodded as the group suddenly collectively realized that they had already gotten to the front of the inn, where Constiere stopped, turned to face Addley with a smile, and began to point his thumb over to the place.
"We appreciate your help Add, but I think that before we go looking around for things, I believe that we all need to get some sleep, y'know?"
The boy's words led the other two to come to a realization as they looked up toward the sky, and found that, indeed, it was still night. A look of surprise overcame Steve's features as a look of slight horror overcame Addley's as they found their gaze fixated upon the moon up above.
"I lost track of time and completely forgot that there's a huge test tomorrow!" They began with a panicked tone. "Thanks for the reminder, I would've ignored my duties entirely had you not said anything! I'll try to catch up with you tomorrow, alright?" Addley looked back down at them with an apologetic smile as the notebook they were carrying was placed away into a pocket.
Steve nodded as Constiere crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"If we can, alright? See you then!" Steve waved off to the other as they began to walk away quickly before breaking out into a full sprint back toward the library, waving as they left.
After allowing the wave to linger for longer than what was intended, Steve turned to look at Constiere, who was staring at him with a gaze that could kill.
After a few quiet, awkward moments, Steve let out a sigh of defeat.
"I...I wasn't the one that called-"
Constiere held up a hand to interrupt him.
"Don't volunteer me for any science experiments in the future, alright? I don't think people are gonna react well to finding somebody without a solid body temperature or whatever walking around."
The boy then smirked at him, seemingly amused by his somewhat nervous expression.
"You look like you were gonna die or something! Calm down, I'm more upset that you even thought about putting us in a situation like that than anything else, really." Constiere explained. "But regardless, we really need to find that founder to ask where he put that portal, I guess. If we can't, we just gotta keep searching."
Steve nodded, not managing to shake off the nervous feeling he had gotten before. After a few seconds of quiet thought, Steve looked at the other with a bit of worry in his gaze.
"Should we go back and tell Herobrine about what Lunarus is looking for, or what?"
Constiere thought to himself before shrugging.
"We already knew that they were getting champions or whatever, but knowing about that requirement might not really mean anything new. We can still tell him, though, just in case it implicates anything weirder."
Nodding, Steve went to open the door for the both of them, however, he was stopped in his place by Constiere, who now had a firm grip on his arm.
"We're not actually sleeping now, bright-eyes." He said with a small laugh.
As the miner joined in with him and stepped away from the door, a suddenly serious expression overtook Constiere's face as he pulled Steve in a bit closer in order to whisper to him.
"Just a fair reminder, we're here on a specific mission, for a specific purpose. I barely even noticed it in there, but at some point, your eyes got duller, so we can narrow down the location of the portal."
Constiere paused, looking around briefly once more before continuing.
"We need to keep ourselves on track and out of the eyes of the general public here as much as possible. Stop flirting around with the locals, and keep your eyes peeled for any signs of the portal! Only ask for guiding information, then leave!" Constiere harshly whispered to Steve, though his words caused a massive wave of embarrassment to overtake him.
The miner's face flushed.
"Being nice isn't flirting! You're the one who thought of the whole 'be loud and obnoxious in a library' thing, so I was just trying to work off of that!"
Moving to walk back down onto the dirt road, Constiere shrugged as he began to lead the other away from the inn.
"Whatever you say, bright-eyes. All we have to do is stay clear of anybody else, and hopefully, we'll be able to get through this place quickly enou-"
The boy's words were interrupted as he found himself running directly into a large, imposing figure. Backing away and looking up, Constiere was just as nervous as Steve was to find an iron golem right in front of them, looking down at the boy in particular with its judgemental gaze. After a few minutes of silent analysis, however, the iron golem began to raise its arms in a threatening manner, which prompted Constiere to turn around, grab Steve, and run in the other direction as quickly as they possibly could.
Without even thinking all too much, the boy glanced around quickly in fear before dragging Steve into a nearby alleyway that had somewhat of a narrow-enough entry point to discourage the golem from attempting to squeeze into the space should they be found.
With a somewhat confused, somewhat worried gaze, Steve looked down at Constiere.
"I thought...golems didn't really...bother with creepers too much? Like, they try not to target them if they have the opportunity?" He asked, a bit out-of-breath from the quick sprint they had just made.
Constiere looked up at him with a bit of a frantic gaze.
"Either that golem registered me bumping into it as a threat from a human, or that freak mistook me for being a zombie, or whatever! Either way, it's gonna bring attention!"
Steve hummed.
"I've bumped pretty hard into several of the golems back home, but they didn't really do anything back. Just stared at me for a bit, and moved on." He mused.
"Bright-eyes. We're in a city full of geniuses, and I don't think that it takes a genius to figure out that some freak with a deep red eye who hasn't hit a golem, yet gains all their attention anyways isn't exactly human!" He whispered the last part harshly to the other, which earned him a bit of a worried laugh in response.
Placing a hand onto the other's shoulder, Steve attempted to give him a reassuring smile.
"Hey, if I stick around you, the golem won't do anything to hurt you without having to work its way around me. Besides, I'm sure we can come up with an excuse if anybody asks why we're being followed by them!"
As Constiere registered the gentle touch slowly, he looked up into the miner's gaze, finding nothing less but warm assurance there. After a few seconds, the boy sighed, placing a hand onto Steve's for a moment before pushing it gently off, leaning against the alleyway wall as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"So, this is an interesting obstacle. What're we gonna do now, ya think?"
Steve, after looking at the other for a few silent seconds, shrugged, moving to lean against the brick wall as well, allowing the overhead shade it provided to hide them even better from the outside streets.
"Dunno. You think we should actually head back to the inn now to wait out the golem's wrath and whatever? Safer than walking around and getting the other golems to chase us and make a scene."
Constiere thought over his words before nodding slowly.
"...It would be less risky. Hurts our speed, but so does stopping here in general, right?" Constiere laughed, looking up at Steve in silence for a bit. "...How many weird-eyed guys do you think are really out there, anyway? Think that kingdom can find enough of them before we're finished here?"
Steve shrugged again.
"If I knew, we'd probably be fighting them right now, wouldn't we?" The miner let out a small sigh. "...I remember back when Brine came to me with the details of our agreement, he said that we'd absolutely have to fight the weird-eyed folks, for sure. I dunno if that meant searching them out in particular, or just...killing them as they came. Whatever the case, there's enough of them around to be some sort of threat. I just...don't know how many."
Constiere nodded slowly.
"...It's really gonna take me a minute to get more used to that nickname." He chuckled a bit, though his more worried expression returned soon after. "...I just want to get done with this, get done with destroying the portal at Merry Glade or whatever, and finally take down those idiots at...Lunarus, was it?"
"Yeah, Lunarus."
"That place. I don't want master to worry for too long, and I don't want us to feel so...stressed for much longer. Besides, I want to get away from Andvari again ASAP." Constiere finished.
Steve raised a brow at him.
"...You get time away from Andvari if we finish up here?"
"I'm not usually around him, so yeah."
Curious, Steve pressed forward.
"Wait, so what you're saying is that you don't usually travel in a group like this?"
Constiere shrugged.
"Not really. Actually, not at all. I'm not the only one that's not usually around, though. Malgun's usually somewhere else, too."
Intrigued by the information, Steve looked at the brick wall in front of him, nodding in acknowledgment.
"So...you and Malgun don't usually travel with Brine and Andvari?"
"I made that clear, yeah."
"Why now, then?"
Silence filled the space between them momentarily, as Constiere suddenly found his shoes rather entertaining as they swept away the bits of snow on the alleyway floor. With a sigh, Constiere broke the silence.
"...Can't tell you what I don't know, but master sent for us after a nasty encounter that happened shortly after his powers weakened pretty badly, and low and behold, the two dead guys appeared." Constiere finished with a small laugh.
Steve nodded slowly at the information.
Had Herobrine gotten spooked at the prospect of defeat? For a small group that seemed to have rather decent chemistry together, how did they not travel more frequently alongside each other? Quite a few different questions ran through his mind as he found himself lost in the silence once again, though he was able to break out from his distraction before finding himself completely lost within the appealing maze of inner thought.
"...Huh. The more you know." He mused, prompting Constiere to laugh a bit in response.
"Yeah, as much as it seems like we're inseparable and whatever, we're pretty separable, usually. Only Andi sticks around master 24/7 when we're not on mission duty. Has to do with his actual limit of control over the other endermen, I think."
With a shrug and a quick stretch, Constiere pushed himself off of the wall, moving to head toward the entrance of the alleyway. Peeking around momentarily from around the corner, Constiere let out a sigh of relief as he turned back toward Steve with a smirk on his face.
"Golem's gone! I think. Whatever, let's just get back in the inn and wait out the thing's rage before it comes back!"
Pushing himself off the wall, Steve nodded, moving to follow the other closely as he too briefly looked around before exiting the alleyway. Moving back toward the street they had escaped from, they found it to be empty, much to their relief as they quickly made their way into the inn. With a quick greeting to the front desk attendant, they ascended the stairs, and each made their individual ways to their respective rooms, with Steve letting out a sigh of relief as he got to his, leaning against the door as he closed it. Slowly, he made his way over to the bed, flopping down on it as a soft groan left his lips.
Out of all the things that were currently attempting to send him into a spiral, the deadline really was starting to get to him. Despite the information he had just received regarding the mob generals and his general excitement over it, the looming threat of Lunarus and its upcoming announcement made itself known to the miner, as Herobrine's own words echoed over and over again within his head the more he thought about the whole situation.
"I predict that we'll have to fight other purple-eyed wishfuls who are prepped for the worst, but not for the inevitable."
When the announcement was finally made, that idea would only become a reality. He wasn't looking forward to fighting other champions again, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to having to kill them. Would that alone make him a criminal? Would the kingdom put a bounty on his head for targeting their champions in particular? How long would a jail sentence even be, if they opted for that instead of immediate death as a punishment?
What would he even do, from now on? The portals were secondary concerns, what could he do against an army of champions who were, most likely, much better prepared and armed than he was? How would he know what to do in that situation?
Flipping over in his place to stare blankly at the ceiling, Steve felt frustration as he thought about the situation further. He knew that his life wouldn't exactly return to normal after the journey, but how far would it be from that in the end? How much of his life could he expect to be completely changed once it became publicly known of his connections, and who he was even traveling alongside to begin with?
With a sigh, he allowed his eyes to close as he counted silently to himself, attempting to shake away his troubling thoughts as best he could.
'Right now...I have to focus on the portal, one…The founder knows about the building history of the place, so maybe he's seen the portal, or at least was the one who built it, two...I have to convince him somehow to share with me the location of the portal without making it obvious that we want to destroy it, three...Oh who am I kidding, once it's gone, he'll immediately think it was me or something who did it, four…'
He continued to think like that until his thoughts became jumbled, and as he silently mouthed his thoughts, his breath reflected that sudden mumbling of words as well.
Constiere could manage to wake him up again, he didn't really care at this point.
Sorry about the slightly delayed chapter! Finals were this week, and my brain was like, not functioning lmao. Procrastination and a lack of motivation was hitting me like a truck. T_T Luckily, I managed to have a longer chapter for y'all to make up for that!
Brickston was honestly one of my fanfic ideas that I was like, DYING to get to for some reason, lol. We're doing the chapter split here as well, but I can't wait to introduce y'all to the president/founder of this place! Even though he's a minor character, I like him a lot, lol XD
Anyhoo, Fun Facts!
1.) Yes, an actual requirement for graduation from Brickston is a complete knowledge of every single book in the library. If the founder can do it, so can you. Helps to keep the population stable lmao
2.) The dorms were made slightly after the college to house people that wanted to attend who didn't really appreciate having to travel from the nearest village in order to participate in classes, lol. You have to be an active student to live in the city, actually. Travelers are welcome, but typically, people who can't get into the dorms are actually housed in the inn. The city is completely made up of students, professors, and of course, the founder.
3.) Constiere was born in Brickston, but because of the struggle of balancing raising a kid and getting an education, his mother had to leave the city with him. She always wanted to come back, though.
4.) Brickston is probably one of my favorite locations that I've built in Minecraft, lol. ESPECIALLY the library! It's a bit wonky, but like, it's my kind of wonky haha
5.) Addley is probably going to, one day, become a professor at Brickston, lol. Their dedication to knowledge and education is something that the founder appreciates a lot in potential professor candidates.
6.) Addley's educational focus has to do with a mixture of biology and chemistry, with a little dash of history in there lol.
7.) Snow golems are less aware than iron golems, lol. That's why the snow ones didn't really do much to Constiere.
Anyways, that's it for now! Heads up, I'll be away from a computer for a week, and while I have both a doc-writing app and the Fanfiction app on my phone, I can't guarantee that there will be a solid update next week. I could be entirely wrong, but I've never uploaded a chapter from my phone onto here (though I have updated chapters from the app, but those already had doc files set up and stuff), so there potentially might be a delay next week as well. Kicking off the summer just right lmao
See you eventually, though!
