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

Stan thought he could see the unclear form of a figure moving up and down in a rhythmic pattern, and the dragon was thrashing its head side-to-side, spitting in agony. Stan realized that DZ was straddling the dragon’s long neck, driving his sword again and again into the thick black hide. Stan then watched in disbelief as the figure atop the dragon ran along its neck and leaped off its head and into the air, spun around, and fired an arrow directly into the dragon’s face. The dragon froze in midair, and Stan noticed an Ender Pearl fall down to the ground next to him, followed in a burst of purple smoke by DZ.

Stan’s mouth opened to say one of ten thousand things on his mind to DZ, but DZ simply put his hand to Stan’s mouth, gestured to the sky, and said, “Just watch.”

And there was something to watch indeed. Rays of white light seemed to be breaking through the black hide of the dragon’s skin like sunrays through morning mist. The dragon seemed to be in suspended animation as it rose higher and higher in the sky, more and more rays of light breaking through the skin until, finally, the dragon exploded in a rapid series of bright starbursts. When the smoke cleared, the sky was a peaceful black once more, and the dragon had ceased to exist.

Kat, Charlie and Oob had all walked over to DZ by now. Their eyes simultaneously shifted from the place the dragon had been to DZ. All four of them were staring at DZ as if he was some king of the gods, descended from above with the sole purpose of ridding the world of the dragon.

“That,” Kat got out after nearly a full minute of stunned silence, “was literally the single most impressive thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“Very good job, DZ,” Oob added kindly.

“Yeah, no words to describe how awesome that was,” agreed Charlie, while Stan still stood there stunned.

“Thanks, guys,” said DZ, brushing himself off and projecting an air of humility suggesting that what he had just done was about as common and unimpressive as killing a single Zombie. “By the way, I grabbed this for you, Charlie.” DZ pulled an item from his inventory and handed it to him.

“My pickaxe!” exclaimed Charlie as he took his weapon back from DZ. Then he took a closer look, and he shoved the pickaxe away from his body. “Oh God! What is that purple … slimy … stuff on the end?”

“Oh, that,” replied DZ. He looked a little sheepish as Charlie examined the noxious purple slime now coating the diamond ends of the pickaxe. “I … uh … kinda mighta snatched it out of … you know … the dragon’s nose …”

There was a moment of silence as they all examined the slime-covered pickaxe. Then, they all burst out laughing. Perhaps the relief of finally defeating the dragon had gone to their heads and made them see the slimy weapon as more amusing than it really was. Perhaps it was that they had all just simultaneously realized that the inevitable next step on their journey was to confront the King. For whatever reason, though, the players laughed for minutes on end, only stopping when DZ sensed a presence behind him and was forced to spin around and decapitate the Enderman lurking there.

The mob seemed to snap the players back to their senses. Charlie looked at the others.

“OK, so now we’ve got to find the King’s treasure,” he said, wiping his pickaxe on his pant leg, cleaning it of snot. “Everybody spread out and look for anything that seems indicative of a hiding spot. If you find anything, call me over, and I’ll mine it out.”

The group spread out in a web, scanning every block of the moon-rock surface of the island that was the End. They took care to not raise their eyes from the ground, the better to not provoke any Endermen. It was quite hard to look around this way, and so it was not altogether surprising that Oob was the first one to call out.

“Charlie! I think that I may have discovered something!” Within minutes, all four of the players had gathered around a small indent in the ground around the base of one of the obsidian pillars. Charlie took this inconsistency in the otherwise very flat ground to be a clue, and he started mining the area out. As he did, Stan noticed that he seemed to be swinging the diamond tool with a decided effort, and more than once Stan noticed Charlie’s hand rush to his stomach for an instant. Charlie might have dismissed the injury the dragon had given him as trivial, but Stan knew that they would be better off hurrying to get Charlie out of the End.

It was about ten blocks underground that Charlie’s pickaxe finally broke through a block behind which light shone through. He enlarged the hole enough so that the players could climb through, and they all looked around in awe. The room was medium in size, lit with torches, and there were chests around all the corners. Each player ran to a different chest and threw it open. Stan was seized with elation when he saw that his was full of golden apples and various potions. He looked around and saw that Charlie was pulling sets of enchanted diamond armour out of the chest he had opened, while Kat was pulling out Fire Charges and dozens of blocks of inactive TNT. DZ’s arms were spilling over with hundreds of uncrafted diamonds.

The more chests they opened, the more valuable materials appeared. Stan was beside himself. The King’s secret stash had surpassed even his wildest expectations. He was sure beyond any measure of doubt that, provided that the Apothecary had indeed secured the manpower in the Adorian Village, they would have more than enough materials to launch a full-scale invasion of the King’s castle.

As he thought this, Stan remembered what the Apothecary had told him to do when he found the secret stash. For the first time in the weeks since he had received it from the Apothecary, Stan pulled the Ender Chest out of his inventory and set it on the ground. Immediately, the Eye of Ender that acted as a lock on the chest glowed purple, and particles of smoke began to rise off the chest. With trembling hands, Stan grasped the black lid of the chest and swung it open. What he saw made him gasp.

Inside the chest was a purple mist, swirling about in the chest’s centre like a vapour. Through the mist, Stan saw the smiling face of the Apothecary looking back at him. Stan was seized with an immense joy to see that his friend was still alive and well.

“Stan!” cried the Apothecary. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Likewise,” replied Stan, who didn’t think that he could have stopped grinning if he had tried. “You would not believe what we’ve been through in the past few weeks.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t,” replied the Apothecary with a wise smile. “I’m assuming that, because you’ve activated the chest, you’ve found the King’s secret stash?”

“Yes, we have!” replied Stan, picking up a glowing diamond sword that Charlie had thrown on the ground while looting the chest. “Although,” Stan added, thrilled to see that the Apothecary had given a hearty laugh of joy, “the King’s secret stash actually wasn’t under the Ender Desert. Believe it or not, we’re in the End right now!”

The old player’s eyes widened. He looked shocked. “The End? The End dimension? What is it doing there?”

Stan gave the Apothecary the brief summary of what they had found in Avery’s underground base, not omitting all the encounters they'd had with Mr A over the past weeks. The Apothecary seemed quite upset that the Griefer was now dead.

“Well, I’m very sorry to hear that,” replied the Apothecary, looking downcast. “I always find it a shame when one player has to kill another. Mind you, I believe that you did what you had to do. He would have killed you had you not done the same to him, but he seemed like a very confused individual whose death was needless.”