Sean Wolfe - The Complete Elementia Chronicles - Quest for Justice; The New Order; The Dusk of Hope; Herobrine’s Message

Stan and Kat pulled out their bows and began shooting at the Ghast. The monster’s eyes were punctured by the dozens of arrows protruding from them, and its fireballs seemed to be shooting in a more confused pattern. One of the fireballs flew towards Kat, and she whipped out her sword and deflected it, just as Ben had been doing.

“OK you three, let up!” cried Bill, pulling back hard on the fishing pole.

Bob lowered his bow and got back against the wall, but Kat and Stan looked at Bill, confused.

“But it’s still alive!” yelled Stan.

“Yeah, why should we let up?” asked Kat.

“Because Ben loves this part!” bellowed Bill, laughing like a maniac, as he threw his full weight back against the fishing rod. The damaged Ghast lurched back down towards the ledge. It was very close to them now. Stan flinched as he felt the heat of the desperate Ghast spamming out yet another fireball.

Ben, a glint in his eyes, deflected the fireball off into the distance and ran towards the Ghast, which was now almost level with the ledge. He took a flying leap at the Ghast, his sword in his right hand, and he drove his weapon into the forehead of the giant monster. It screamed in anguish as Ben grabbed the Ghast’s face with his left hand while repeatedly thrusting his sword into the Ghast’s head. The giant mob stopped launching fireballs and started to fall apart from the repeated sword slices.

Ben pushed off the monster’s face with a white item in his hand. His sword spiralled down and landed on the ledge. He landed next to the weapon and pocketed the white item. Ben’s companions stood next to him, looking on with satisfaction as the hacked-up corpse of the Ghast fell into the lava sea below. Bob turned around.

“And that, gentlemen and lady, is how we amazing people kill Ghasts.”

And with that, the three fighters bumped their fists together in midair and yelled in unison, “YEAH!”

“OK, that was officially really impressive,” remarked Kat, still sweating from the battle with the Ghast.

“Well, we’ve had practice,” said Bob, slinging his bow over his back. “You kids have got to be more careful. Ghast fighting can be a rather unpleasant experience if you’re not good at it. It’s really easy to get blasted sky-high in this place.”

“You guys seem like you have a lot of experience here,” said Charlie. “How many times have you three been to the Nether?”

“Are you kidding? We live here, man!” Bill laughed. “And that’s not an exaggeration either. We’ve lived here ever since that backstabbing jerk King Kev banished us here.”

“And by the way,” said Ben as Stan opened his mouth in surprise. “We don’t care what you think about the King. If you have a problem with our opinion we’d be more than happy to fight you, too.” Bill and Bob nodded in agreement.

“Oh trust me,” Kat said, smirking, “I’d use a considerably more vile word to describe the King.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “I agree with that, and I’m sure Stan does, too. After all, he was the one who tried to kill that terrible King.”

“Wait, what?” Bob did a double take. “You tried to kill the King? Man, you got guts, noob!”

“How could you possibly still be alive?” asked Bill, amazed.

“Did you come to the Nether to hide from the King’s forces? ’Cause there’s no way that you would still be alive if you were in the Overworld,” commented Ben.

Stan looked up. “No. As a matter of fact, we’re trying to overthrow—” but he was cut off when Kat punched him in the arm.

“Shut up, you idiot!” hissed Kat. “Don’t give away too much—”

“You’re overthrowing the King?” interrupted Bob in a hushed, awed voice.

There was a moment of silence. The look on Kat’s and Charlie’s faces confirmed that Stan’s outburst was indeed true. Kat slapped her head, sure that these three players were about to reveal that they were really secret agents of the King. But then—

“Man, that is wicked awesome!” cried Bill. “It’s about time someone stood up to that pile of pig crap.”

“If we weren’t banished to this dimension with no way to get out,” said Ben, “we would have done it sooner or later.”

“Wait a minute … do you guys have a portal out of here?” asked Bob. This got the others’ ears perked up.

“Yeah! It’d be great to finally get out of this awful dimension. We’ve been here for so long …”

“Yeah … maybe the Apothecary is still around …”

“Wait, you know the Apothecary?” said Stan. “We met him back in the jungle! He’s helping us organize a rebellion with the people in the Adorian Village. How do you know him?”

“We used to work with him on the Council of Operators back in Element City,” said Ben. “We were the Chiefs of Exploration before the King associated us with some fake rebellion and threw us into this place.”

“Oh yeah! He mentioned you guys!” said Charlie, remembering their lengthy conversation with the old player. “You guys must be Bill33, Bob33 and Ben33.”

“Testify,” said Bill, raising his fishing rod and then lowering it. “Although nowadays, we go by the title of the Nether Boys.”

“Anyway, do you guys really have a portal out of here?” asked Bob. “We’ve been marooned in this blistering wasteland forever. I’d kill just to see a sheep or a cow or a tree again!”

“Well, we do have a portal,” said Kat. “But it’s broken right now. We need one obsidian block to fix it. We have the means to fix it – I have a water bucket and Charlie has his diamond pickaxe.” Charlie raised it in confirmation. “But we can’t leave here until we get some Blaze Rods. If we’re gonna pull this rebellion off, we’re going to need access to the King’s secret stash of supplies in the End, and we can’t get there without the rods.”

“Also,” added Charlie, “we can’t fix the portal until we’re ready to leave, or else the King’s forces will be able to get in to follow us and we’ll all be screwed.”

“Well, it ain’t gonna matter one way or another,” said Bill. “You’re in the Nether now, kids. Water will evaporate the instant it leaves the bucket, so there’s no way to make obsidian here.”

Stan’s heart sunk. How were they going to get out now?

“Still, I think that we may be able to help you out. It just so happens that we have one block of obsidian back at our house,” said Ben. “We’ll make a deal with you. We’ll give you the obsidian block so you can fix the portal. You let us use your portal to get out of the Nether, and in exchange, we’ll help you get your Blaze Rods.”

“Sounds good,” said Stan, and he looked at Charlie and Kat for confirmation.

Both nodded and smiled, and Kat said, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“So where exactly are we supposed to find these … Blazes?” said Charlie, remembering that Blaze Rods were dropped by this type of enemy.

“We’ll talk about getting your Blaze Rods when we get back to our house,” said Ben.

He jumped into the hole that he and the other two had made in the wall, and the six players followed the tunnel. It went down for a good while, and when they came out they were at the level of the lava sea. They began walking across the open plain of red-and-black speckled stone, which Bob told Stan was called Netherrack. At the edge of the plain was a small rise, and before they crossed over it, Bill raised a hand.

“Hold up. We should check to see if there are any monsters on the edge of this rise. Bob, Stan, you two go and check. Shoot down any hostile mobs that you see, and then we’ll go on. The house is just over this plain.”

Stan pulled out his bow and walked with Bob over to the rise. Bob poked his head over and looked at the plain. His eyes widened.