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

It was just as well, thought Stan as he became aware of Charlie leaving the house. His thinking time was officially over. He stood up and walked over to Charlie, meeting him in the middle of the gravel path.

“You’ve got them?” asked Stan in a whisper, though he was not sure why he spoke in this manner.

“Yeah,” replied Charlie, and he held up one of the Eyes of Ender. It was the same size and shape of the Ender Pearl from which it was crafted, but it looked like a green cat’s eye with a constricted pupil. Even as Charlie held it inactive in his hand, Stan felt a sense of electricity, as if the Eye itself was emitting energy into the air. Upon closer inspection, Stan noticed tiny wisps of purple smoke rising from the eye.

Charlie pulled the other eleven Eyes of Ender from his inventory, and he grinned. “Awesome, aren’t they? We are officially all set to go into the End.”

Stan was glad to see Charlie in such a good mood. What with Lemon’s death and Kat’s injury, their time in the NPC village had seen Charlie grimmer than Stan would have believed possible of him. Besides being worried about the state of his friend, Stan knew that Charlie would need to be confident and in high spirits for their epic foray into the End.

Stan and Charlie were still admiring the Eyes of Ender when DZ walked over to them, Oob and Ohsow in tow.

“So a horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, ‘why the long face?’” said DZ, and the two villagers burst into hysterical fits of laughter. DZ walked over to talk to Stan and Charlie as Oob and Ohsow inquired as to what horses and bartenders were.

“So, we’ve got the Eyes, then? Excellent!” he exclaimed as his question was answered by the grins on both of their faces and the green orbs in Charlie’s hands. “So we’re going to leave tomorrow?”

“I guess so,” replied Stan, “providing that Kat is feeling up to it.”

At that exact moment, the door to Oob’s house flew open, and out of the doorway burst Kat. She wasn’t wearing any armour, and there was a leather band across her chest where Geno had cut her, but besides that, she seemed back to her normal self. She literally ran out of the house and took a flying leap, landing right next to the boys.

“Hey, Kat! You’re awfully energetic for someone who almost got herself cut open,” said Charlie with a smirk.

“Are you kidding? I feel awesome!” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Blerge and Mella made a bunch of bread, and Moganga added some stuff called glowstone dust to it, and that stuff made me feel so much better!” She turned to Stan. “I owe you a huge thanks though, Stan. Without that potion, Moganga said that I would have died.”

“Ah, it’s no big deal,” said Stan, shrugging but giving a humble grin all the same. “You would have done the same for me.”

“Very true,” replied Kat.

“So, Kat, I take it by the fact that you’re more energetic than we are that you’re gonna be able to go into the End tomorrow?” Charlie asked.

“Are you kidding? If you guys weren’t tired, I’d be willing to go right now!”

“Well, I just finished a nap earlier. I’m not tired at all,” said Charlie.

“Yeah, same here,” said DZ.

“Me, too,” said Stan, his face lighting up with excitement. “So … are you guys ready? You want to go into the End right now?”

There was no hesitation. Kat, Charlie and DZ all nodded at the same time.

“OK,” said Stan, his eyes blazing. “Let’s get ready.”

The NPC villagers were all disappointed to hear that the players were leaving the village. According to DZ, they had all become very fond of the players, and of DZ and Charlie in particular. Nonetheless, the villagers all rose magnificently to the challenge of supplying the players with the supplies that they would need to conquer the End. While the villagers were usually unwilling to give anything up unless in exchange for emeralds, which they saw as a form of currency, the villagers gave the players everything that they could.

The farmers, including Oob and his family, supplied the villagers with a generous amount of bread so that they would be well fed on their expedition. The players also received a copious restocking of arrows from the farmers, and Charlie was given flint and steel from a villager named Vella. Leol, the village blacksmith who lived in the forge, was probably the most helpful of all. He replaced Stan’s and Kat’s weapons with a diamond axe and a diamond sword, respectively. He also gave each player a diamond helmet and chestplate. Moganga helped in her own way. She took the players’ diamond gear, and after fifteen minutes, she emerged from the church with the gear glowing with enchantments of Protection for the armour and Sharpness for the swords.

In return for all these commodities, the villagers only asked for them to do anything possible to take down King Kev.

The sun was high in the sky when the four players, suited up and equipped with weapons, lined up facing the villagers. Stan looked out onto the faces of the villagers, particularly those of Stull and Sequi, who were seated on the shoulders of the Iron Golem, and of Blerge and Mella, who were holding hands as tears rolled down their cheeks. Though it would have been normal, none of the villagers were wandering.

Oob stepped forwards from the villagers and the Iron Golem. He was speaking for the entirety of the village’s population of ten.

“Brave players, we would like to thank you for the services that you have done us personally in killing the Spider Jockey that had plagued our village. We would also like to thank you for the work you are doing to make life on this server the best possible, not just for the people of our village, but for the citizens of this server as a whole. You are welcome back to our village at any time that you would like, and you will be welcomed with open arms. Goodbye, and good luck.”

The entire village simultaneously nodded in unison. Stan was more touched by this simple gesture from these simple people than he had been from anything he had seen in Minecraft so far. Even if it hadn’t been for the Adorian Village or the deaths of Blackraven and Crazy Steve and the like, he would have been very keen to defeat the King for the sole purpose of making life better for these NPCs.

Stan didn’t hear what Charlie said in response to this. He was too busy reaffirming the image of King Kev in his mind as public enemy number one for abusing these people and all other people in Elementia. As the four players gave an about-face and headed away from the village, Stan was surer than ever that there was nothing in the End that was unsurpassable if they kept in mind the image of an Elementia free of King Kev.

The trek through the desert was long and drawn out, as Stan had expected. He knew that the Ender Desert was large, but he hadn’t realized just how expansive the biome really was. Stan had been to forests, plains and jungles since he had been in Minecraft, but this desert biome was by far the largest that he had encountered, and it all looked the same. There were small knolls of sand blocks scattered here and there, and cacti dotted the landscape, punctuated by an occasional pool of lava or water.

Stan didn’t understand how Charlie, who was navigating, didn’t get lost in the endless dune sea. He walked up to ask him about it at one point, but he didn’t need to, because he saw. Charlie had an Eye of Ender in his hand, and every so often he would toss it into the air. In a burst of purple particles, the eye would float forward a few blocks in a certain direction and then fall back into Charlie’s outstretched hand. Charlie seemed focused, so he didn’t ask, but Stan believed that the Eyes were most likely floating towards the entrance to the End.