Sean Wolfe - The New Order

One thing Stan gave Blackraven credit for was that, although Stan may not agree with them all, Blackraven was firm in his beliefs, and he made that plain. Respectable a quality as that may be, Stan still did not feel that Blackraven should have run for president. Blackraven had had to give up his seat on the Council of Eight to do so, and he almost certainly would lose, as very few players agreed with his ideas.

For example, Blackraven believed that investing resources in diamond mining was of supreme importance, even if that meant less effort went into looking for King Kev’s remaining followers. He also believed that people with similar views should band together into political parties. This was unsettling, as the shady Noctem Alliance wanted to become a political party. Perhaps the view that Stan most disagreed with was that since the NPC villagers lived on the Elementia server, they should pay taxes the same as the players.

After Blackraven finished answering his questions, he walked over to sit next to Stan as the polite applause died down. Stan turned to wish Blackraven luck, but a pensive look had crossed the old player’s yellow-and-black-feathered face, so Stan looked away. Instead, he looked out the window of the tower at the voting machine.

The machine was an ingenious contraption of the Mechanist’s design. One by one, the citizens of Elementia lined up and walked into a room, inside of which there were two buttons: one to vote for Stan, and one to vote for Blackraven. Press a button, and pistons ejected you gently from the room, and the door opened for the next voter.

By the time the sun was setting, the last voter had entered the booth. As the door swung shut for the last time, there was a moment of silence as one of the officials checked the records of the voting within the machine. Then, a frizz of white hair appeared on a platform atop the machine as the Mechanist climbed up and read the redstone circuitry that sat before him. Stan saw him give a slight nod and a tiny smile before turning to address the crowd.

“The votes are all in,” the Mechanist announced, his Texan accent deep and pronounced. “The winner of the election for president of the Grand Republic of Elementia is Stan2012, for his second term!”

Stan tried to look dignified, but he couldn’t stop the uncontrollable grin that had spread over his face. Blackraven didn’t seem to mind, though. He offered Stan congratulations, which Stan returned, shaking Blackraven’s hand for good measure. As Blackraven headed down the stairs to leave the castle, Stan looked over the bridge to tumultuous applause.

“Thank you, citizens of Elementia! Together, we will make this server the best place that it can be! Thank you for giving me the chance to continue to prove myself to you! It is my job to serve you, so I hope that you find yourselves happy, healthy and safe under my leadership. Good night, and thank you again!”

The applause shook the ground beneath his feet as Stan walked back into the tower. He was quite content that he was president once again, but he felt exhausted, and was eager to finally get some sleep.

Stan could not deny that he was very happy he had been re-elected, but right now, he could not hide his annoyance. He had explicitly told the guards of the castle that he would talk to anybody who needed him the next day, but not tonight. Yet he had still been woken up four times, by DZ, Kat, Charlie, and DZ again. His friends only wanted to congratulate him, but Stan was far too tired to appreciate it. Stan ordered the guard firmly to tell everybody to leave him be for the rest of the night, and slammed the door irritably.

Stan got back into bed, glad that the campaign was over and that he could now get some real sleep for the first time in days. He pulled the covers up, closed his eyes, and was about to fall asleep when a faint voice caught his ear.

“Stan … hey, Stan, are you awake?”

“Whoever you are, GO AWAY!” barked Stan, hiding his head under his pillow in his angst.

“Oh, OK then. I thought that you’d be rather happy to hear my voice again, noob, but if you’d rather sleep, I get it …”

Suddenly, Stan was wide awake. He glanced wildly around the room, daring to hope that it could really be true, that the voice could really be that of …

“Sally?” Stan asked tentatively.

“Yeeeees?” came the sarcastic, smirky voice.

“Oh my God. It’s you!” cried Stan, his eyes brightening in delight. “You’re alive! But how … where are …”

“No, you idiot! I’m not alive , Minotaurus cut me open with an axe, remember?”

“But … wait a second …” said Stan, his elation suddenly shifting to a sudden-onset headache. “If you’re … but then … Sal, how are you talking to me if you’re dead?”

“Well,” came Sally’s voice, the source of which Stan still could not distinguish, “ever since I died, I’ve been trying to find ways to get back onto the server. I’ve gotta hand it to King Kev, he really did his research. I’ve tried every method of rejoining, of hacking my way in, of bypassing the blacklist … you know, the list of people who have been banned from Elementia. But what you hear now is the closest I’ve been able to get.”

“So … can you see me?” asked Stan.

“Yeah, I see you,” she replied. “It’s weird, my view of you keeps shifting around the room, though, and I have to really focus on you to keep my sight there. Frankly, you’re not too much to look at, so I think you owe me an apology there.”

Stan chuckled. “Well, death hasn’t changed you much, Sally. Is this the first time that you’ve managed to do this … this … well, whatever this is?”

“No,” Sally said. “I’ve been able to do this for about the past week or so, and it’s so strange, I really don’t have that much control over where I get to see. It’s like I see flashes of things that are happening all over Elementia. Sometimes I see trees in the forest, or pigs in the plains, or buildings in the city. Anyway, if I don’t focus on what I’m seeing really hard, I lose the connection.”

“That is weird,” said Stan, thinking about what might cause this but drawing a blank. “So, have you talked to anybody else?”

“No, frankly, most people are too boring to focus on,” replied Sally, and Stan could almost see the sarcastic simper on her face. “I just happened to have the luck of teleporting directly into your bedroom. By the way, it was cute when DZ tried to come in twice to congratulate you. And also, congrats, Mr Two-Term President. Not bad for a noob who can’t even flop down onto a pillow correctly.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Stan whined, but he was laughing. Even though he couldn’t see Sally, this was as close to old times as he could possibly get.

“No,” replied Sally simply, and Stan chuckled some more, but when Sally spoke again, her voice was as serious as Stan had ever heard it. “Actually, there is something important I have to tell you. I saw Caesar and Leonidas.”

Stan’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, you saw those two? Leonidas is alive?” he asked in shock.

Sally grimly continued. “Yeah. One time, I tried to join, and I went to this place I didn’t recognize. It was really dark, and I could barely see anything, but Caesar and Leonidas were there. They were saying something I couldn’t hear to a big group of guys that seemed to be listening to them. I tried to focus in, but I lost the connection.”

“So they had people with them? How many, Sally?” asked Stan, panic creeping into his voice as he began to contemplate the possibilities of what this development could mean.

“There were probably about twenty-five, total. I couldn’t tell, but it looked like Caesar was giving some sort of speech, and they were cheering for him.”