Sean Wolfe - The New Order

Stan gulped, sweat breaking out. “So … does that mean … that Caesar and Leonidas are gathering followers? What about Minotaurus, was he there? Did they have weapons?” Stan was talking very fast now, panic rising in his throat. “What were they doing there, Sally? Can you tell me anything else?”

“I don’t … oh, wait … oh, no …” Sally’s response was suddenly punctuated by static, like a radio signal was being jammed. “I’m … losing the con … the connection, Stan … I’ve got … got to go …”

“No, Sally! Don’t go!” Stan was on edge now. With his fatigue, the knowledge of an organization headed by Caesar, and finding out that Sally could still speak to him, Stan was in a very unstable state. He was desperate to find solace in the now fading voice of Sally.

“Go … go to sleep now … Stan, you’re exhausted … be careful … I promise, I’ll contact … contact you again … again very soon …”

And then there was a static crackle, and the voice ceased. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and despair, Stan gave a moan of dejection and passed out on his bed.

“I’m telling you, it was the weirdest thing!” said Stan, pulling back the ceremonial presidential gold helmet to wipe away the sweat accumulating on his brow. All the councilmen and the president were required to wear them around the town, and they were the only ones by law allowed to do so. They were also each equipped with a golden weapon of their choice, for the sake of ceremony as well as self-defence. Stan had a golden axe strapped across his back, and Charlie, who was walking next to him, had a golden pickaxe latched to his waist.

“Stan, listen, I get that you really miss Sally,” said Charlie. “But there is no way that she telepathically contacted you or something. Trust me, I’ve read pretty much every book in the library about this game and the stuff in it, and there’s no way that it’s possible. I’m sorry, Stan, but Sally’s dead.”

Stan sighed, his tolerance wearing thin. “Charlie, I am positive of what I heard. Sally was speaking to me, and she told me that she had seen Caesar and Leonidas talking to a whole group. And personally, I think it’s very possible that the remnants of King Kev’s army have banded together.”

“Stan, stop!” Charlie butted in. Having lost his cat, Lemon, in the Ender Desert during their quest to take down King Kev, Charlie understood what Stan was going through. However, he felt Stan’s grieving had reached a point of crazy obsession. That Stan was having this kind of hallucination three months after the fact made Charlie seriously question Stan’s mental state.

“Stan, listen to me very carefully. You were dreaming. Sally is dead and she is not coming back. You miss Sally very much and I get that. But do me a favour, and don’t talk until we get to the arena. On the way there, I want you to ask yourself if you really heard Sally talking to you last night, or if you were just hearing things because you were very tired after a long campaign.”

Stan followed his friend’s instructions. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Charlie was probably right. Stan certainly had done his fair share of grieving over Sally, but he realized that his exhaustion after the campaign may very well have caused him to hear voices. By the time Stan, Charlie and the throng of players around them had crossed the grassy courtyard and entered the Element City Spleef Arena, Stan had dismissed his late-night conversation with Sally as nothing more than a delusion.

There could be nothing better said about the Element City Spleef Arena than that it was the crown jewel of the metropolis. It was expertly constructed with elegant patterns of blocks of diamond, gold, lapis lazuli and brick. The large building was ringed by the ornate courtyard, which was more often than not packed with fans, hoping to hear anything to indicate what was happening inside.

When Stan defeated King Kev in battle and became president of the Grand Republic of Elementia, it was less than three days before an enormous petition surfaced, requesting the reinstatement of Spleef in Elementia. After consulting briefly with the Council of Eight, and particularly with DZ (who was an experienced Spleef player from back in the day), Stan had decreed that the sport of Spleef be allowed back into Elementia. He had ordered the construction of a new Spleef arena equidistant from the upper-level and lower-level districts of Element City, so that citizens of all levels could easily come and watch the Spleef matches.

Under the new mandate, a new schedule of Spleef games was carefully set up. There were also variation to the game put in place to make the sport more interesting. All these changes made Stan very excited to see what today’s quarterfinal match would hold. He was even more excited, though, to see how DZ, Kat and Ben, as the three members of the competing Zombies Spleef team, would handle it.

Kat pulled the green leather helmet onto her head and fastened the strap under her chin. She grumbled to herself, not liking this new feature. Although leather armour had become much more lightweight in the last update of Minecraft, it now also required additional straps. Kat personally would have preferred the heavier but simpler leather cap, tunic, trousers, and boots that she was used to.

She was sitting in a cobblestone room with a chest, three chairs, and an iron door on both sides. Two chairs were occupied by Kat’s teammates, DZ and Ben (who, alongside his brothers Bill and Bob, was now a chief of police in Element City). The chest contained their gear, which they were now putting on. While one iron door led to the corridor through which they had entered the room, the other led to the Element City Spleef Arena. On this square field, the three players were expected to battle another team of three for the amusement of six hundred spectators.

“I still can’t believe that Stan makes us wear this stupid armour,” complained DZ in his heavy New York accent as he struggled into his green leather trousers. DZ had played Spleef back before King Kev had banned it, when no armour was required. He was so used to playing without armour that, to this day, he refused to wear it, even in combat.

“Ah, be quiet, DZ,” retorted Ben, who was already suited up and pulling his diamond shovel out of the chest. “He only added it so that we can whack each other with shovels now!”

“Oh, please, don’t you remember the old days? People used to hit each other with shovels all the time! They weren’t supposed to, but the refs didn’t stop it. The crowd liked it, and it was freaking awesome!” DZ replied as he finally managed to tie the straps of the leather trousers.

“As a matter of fact, I never did see any of the old Spleef matches, because my brothers and I—”

“Come on, guys!” exclaimed Kat, standing up. “We’ve got to focus, OK? We almost lost to the Ghasts during that last round!”

“We did not almost lose, I had that match the entire time!” retorted DZ, snatching up his diamond shovel.

“DZ, you taking out one guy while the other guy gets knocked into a pit by a snowball is not ‘having the match’!” said Kat. “I get that you’re probably the best Spleef player in the league, but if the dispensers hadn’t started to fire snowballs, you would have gotten destroyed by those two!”

“How do you know that?” DZ snapped. “As I recall, you and Ben were floating in a lake twenty blocks below the arena when this happened!”

“Ah, lay off her, DZ,” said Ben, reaching into the chest and tossing the last diamond shovel over to Kat. “It doesn’t matter, OK, guys? That was the last match. What matters is that we’re still the best team, and those Blazes aren’t gonna know what hit them!”