Quest for Justice (21 page)

By the time the sixty seconds were up, there was not a soul left on the side of the warehouse. Every single miner had abandoned the building containing the materials that the
government had claimed for its own. They now stood at the train station, ready to partake in Stan's quest to overthrow the King.

The mayor walked up through the crowd to talk to Stan. “Thank you, Stan,” said the mayor, tears in his eyes. “You've inspired these people to fight back, and you've inspired me to lead my people to join in your army. Tell me what to do. I am at your service.” And the mayor bowed his head in respect to Stan.

The two talked for a few minutes, and they worked out a plan. The mayor would lead the miners of Blackstone down the railroad tracks, which they would follow until they reached the Adorian Village. There, they would tell the Apothecary and the survivors that they had met up with Stan2012 in the Ender Desert and had now come to join the militia. The mayor was convinced that the miners could put their skills to use in the Adorian Village's mine, gathering blocks for use in the war effort. Also, the miners were apparently very good pickaxe fighters. Stan, meanwhile, was given a powered mine cart and some coal that would get him back to his friends, where he could continue his quest to enter the End.

Stan and the mayor shook hands, and Stan was about to leave when he thought of something else. He walked down the main street, where the miners were preparing for departure
by emptying their houses of their meager possessions. He passed the warehouse, which was now being looted for supplies by several of the miners. At last he came to the shared house of the mayor and the Mechanist. He opened the door, and the Mechanist was sitting in the chair, no bottles in hand, apparently waiting for Stan.

“Well, congratulations, kid,” said the Mechanist. He was not smiling. “You just convinced twenty-two more people to go on a suicide mission. Well done.”

Stan controlled his anger, and he looked at the Mechanist with a face of determined calm. “You know,” he said, “we could sure use an expert of redstone mechanics in the war effort. And if we win, you could reclaim your position as Elementia's chief redstone inventor. What do you say, Mechanist? Are you coming?”

The Mechanist looked down at the ground for a few moments, his eyebrows scrunched up, clearly trying to decide. Then he looked up at Stan, looked him in the eye, and gave him a solid shake of the head.

Stan, resigning himself to the fact that this player would not join him, turned to walk out the door. He was just walking down the steps when something hit him in the back of the head, knocking him to the street. He spun around, axe in hand, ready to confront the Mechanist who had attacked him, but instead he noticed a book that had landed next to
him. He picked it up, and in the dim light from the setting sun he read the title.

It said
Full Schematics of Element Castle's Redstone Defenses
, and the author was Mecha11.

Stan, amazed, looked up at the Mechanist, who was standing in the doorway, looking down at Stan with a sad expression on his face. “It's your funeral, kid,” he grunted, and he slowly walked back into the house, pulling the wooden door shut behind him.

Stan looked in awe at the book, which would allow them to safely predict the locations of all the King's hidden automated traps in his courtyard while they attacked. He only allowed himself a minute to admire the Mechanist's gift, however, for the sun had just disappeared behind the desert skyline, and he could already see Zombies and Skeletons roaming around in the vast sandy expanse.

Stan ran back to the train station, where the miners were gathered in a huddle, preparing for their journey down the rail line. Stan shouted a hasty goodbye to the mayor, who waved back in reply, and he hopped into the mine cart and inserted some coal into the furnace of the engine behind him. The effect was instantaneous. The furnace ignited, and the train took off at a terrific pace.

Stan watched as the dim lights of the town of Blackstone disappeared in the distance behind him. He was rushing
down the rails at high speed, and he was just finishing a pork chop that one of the miners had given him when an arrow glanced off his iron chestplate, nearly knocking him off the mine cart. He looked ahead and saw a Skeleton standing in the middle of the track, drawing back another arrow. He deflected this arrow with his sword and, thinking quickly, stuffed his second and third pieces of coal into the engine. The engine gave a puff of black smoke, and the train picked up speed. Before the Skeleton was able to fire its third arrow, the train slammed into it and the monster exploded into thousands of white fragments.

Stan sighed in relief, but he would have repealed that sigh if it were possible after seeing that the track in front of him was packed with the biggest swarm of Zombies he had ever encountered. There must have been at least twenty of them. And what's more, he could see the sinkhole about twenty blocks behind them. He could only run over a few Zombies before he would have to jump out of the vehicle and face the rest on foot.

A
s the train sped toward the Zombies, they turned their attention toward it and started mindlessly lumbering toward Stan. Stan stood up in the train car, his axe raised, ready to fight off any Zombies that tried to immediately attack him. The train hit the Zombie horde, and it plowed through the center, automatically disintegrating about five of the twenty fiends. Stan jumped out of the car and ran back toward the sinkhole.

He slid down the sandy cliff with the Zombies in hot pursuit, and as he did, he saw Charlie, Kat, and Rex outside engaged in a battle with two Spiders and a Skeleton. The Spiders were engaged and dying fast, but the Skeleton was far out of Stan's friends' range. He raised his axe and threw it at the Skeleton, clobbering it with one blow. At the same time, Kat stabbed the Spider's eyes out and Charlie cut open the arachnid's stomach with his pickaxe, tossing the corpse aside. Stan snatched up his axe from the dead Skeleton and joined his friends.

“Hey, he lives! Good to see you, Stan!” exclaimed Charlie, smiling.

Rex jumped up to lick him, Lemon rubbed up against his leg and purred, and Kat asked him where he'd been.

“Boy, guys, do I have a ton to tell you, but we've got other problems at the moment!” Stan yelled. The wave of Zombies had started to pour into the sinkhole. Stan and Kat stared at the rotten green wave with dropped jaws of horror.

“What did you do?” screamed Kat.

“I don't know. They just spawned! We're gonna have to fight them!” Stan yelled over the moaning.

“We can't possibly take down a Zombie horde that size, and we can't go back inside either. The monsters already broke the door down!” exclaimed Charlie, panicking.

“We'll have to try,” yelled Stan, and he killed the first undead mob with three swift axe blows to the chest. Kat, Charlie, and Rex all rushed in to fight as well.

It was mayhem. Every Zombie they killed was replaced by what appeared to be two more flooding in from above the sinkhole. Stan gritted his teeth, and as he hacked and slashed his way through the horde, all he could think was,
where are they all coming from?

In time, despite the rapid hacking, slashing, stabbing, and biting of the three players and dog, the unending swarm of undead pushed them back against the wall of the sinkhole. Stan was starting to think about giving up from exhaustion and the sheer overwhelming number of Zombies when he heard a scream from above.

“Yaaaaaa-hoooooo!” the player yelled as he landed in
front of the players. There was a metallic clang from his boots as he yelled, which was odd because they were made of leather and were glowing. Stan guessed that they had been enchanted to absorb fall damage. The player whipped out a diamond sword that was also glowing. As the Zombies closed in on him, he swung his sword back behind his head with his right hand and then swung it around him, cutting every Zombie in the front row of the onslaught.

Stan felt a powerful wave of energy emit from the glowing blade, and he could tell that it was no ordinary sword. Indeed, all the Zombies in the front row were knocked back by the invisible shockwave emitted by the sword, falling into the ones behind them and reducing the entire Zombie attack to a squirming pile of disorientation.

The player turned to face Stan and the others. He was dressed exactly the same as Stan, the standard look for Minecraft, but he had dark shades that covered his eyes. “Hey, guys!” he exclaimed. He had a heavy New York accent. “I thought you guys could use some help, so I'm gonna help you fight these stupid mobs off. Just FYI, there was on old dungeon caved in next to the train tracks with a Zombie spawner inside. Don't worry though—I destroyed it. The Zombies'll stop coming. All that we have to do is fight off the rest of these Zombies down here, and we're home free. Don't say anything. Just fight, and then we'll talk.”

The player turned around, sheathed his diamond sword, and drew another one from the other side of his belt, this one made of iron but with a distinct red glow to it. Stan was too amazed by this savior who had descended from nowhere to question him, at least until he and his friends were out of immediate danger. The Zombie horde was back on its feet by now, and Stan rushed in to greet the Zombies, exhilarated by the fact that there would be no more of them coming.

Though he was busy bringing down Zombie after Zombie with his axe, Stan couldn't help but be amazed by the capacity for fighting that this mysterious player displayed. It was soon apparent what the glowing red enchantment on the iron sword was. The first time the player slashed a Zombie across the chest, the Zombie burst into flames, as if the night were over and the sun had come back up. This sword with the Fire Aspect enchantment cut through the Zombies with a level of sword-fighting expertise that Stan had never seen before, leaving the unfortunate victims as lifeless, flaming corpses on the ground.

By the time they were down to the last five Zombies, Stan, Kat, Charlie, and even Rex had stopped fighting and simply stood out of the player's way. They watched in awe as the player stabbed through one Zombie, threw it into two more and then rolled over to the three Zombies and killed them all with one downward thrust. He spun around and parried
another Zombie's attacking arm to the side, cutting the Zombie in two at the waist as he ducked under the monster's armpit. Finally, he swung his arm backward and decapitated the last Zombie, which was right behind him, without even looking to see where it was. With that, the player sheathed his iron sword and gave a sigh of relief.

The most impressive thing, however, was that though Stan and Charlie had dents in their iron chestplates and Kat had dents all over her full iron body armor from being repeatedly hit by the Zombies, as the sun rose Stan could not see one scratch on the mysterious player with shades. He did not wear any armor. He had pulled off the leather boots after landing in the sinkhole. This player had fought the entire battle completely unprotected, and he had not taken a single bit of damage.

Whoever this player is
, thought Stan,
I'm glad he's on our side.

“That was amazing!” said Charlie, coming over and shaking the player's hand. “My name is Charlie, and these are my friends, Kat and Stan.” They both nodded, distinguishing themselves. “What's your name?”

“They call me DieZombie97,” said the player, wiping some sweat off his brow. “Former head of the Brotherhood of Elite Hunters, three-time champion of the Grand Elementia Spleef League world tourney, and self-proclaimed King of
the Desert. However, you may call me DZ,” he added with a smile. “May I ask what you three are doing out here? Very few people choose to camp alone out here with all the monsters and nomads that roam this sandy wasteland.”

“Well, we're kind of on a mission right now, and there are certain people we'd like to avoid,” said Stan, presently wary about giving away too much information to this stranger, even if he had just saved their lives. “What about you? I assume you live out here, Mr. King of the Desert, and you don't even have armor!”

“Excellent point, my young friend,” said DZ, leaning against the sandstone at the bottom of the sinkhole wall. “Well, the reason I live out here by myself is that I have found it to be a very pleasant life, detaching myself from the insanity of the modern world. I used to be very successful back in my day—you'll forgive me for bragging—but I have found that it is quite nice to live alone out here, beating the living crap out of the night folks, and occasionally getting to ward off the nomads. As for the no armor, eh, it's an old habit from my days playing Spleef.”

“What exactly is Spleef?” asked Stan. He had wondered about this a few times before, but he hadn't had a chance to ask yet.

“Sheesh!” cried DZ, taking them all by surprise. “You people've never heard of Spleef? What levels are ya?”

“Why does it matter?” asked Stan defensively. He would not tolerate any more of this bias against lower-levels.

“Oh, I'm not prejudiced, don't worry!” DZ laughed. “No, no, prejudice against the lower-levels was the reason I left Element City. I was just wondering because if you'd been on here for long, you'd have heard of Spleef.”

“Oh, well in that case, we're all in the thirties,” replied Stan, which was true, what with all the monsters and animals they'd killed around the Nether and the Overworld. Kat, Charlie, and Stan were now levels thirty-four, thirty-three, and thirty-one, respectively. Indeed, it occurred to Stan as he said this that the three of them wouldn't even be considered lower-level players anymore. Then he realized that DZ had also said something else. “Wait,” said Stan, “why'd you leave Element City again?”

“Because I hate the King,” replied DZ offhandedly. “Anyway, Spleef is a game where any number of people . . . well in the league rules the official numbers are—”

“Hold up,” interjected Kat. “Why do you hate the King so much?”

“Because he backstabbed a bunch of his friends because he's a paranoid jerkface. Anyway, in league Spleef two teams of three players each go into an—”

“And so you hate the King? You'd like to see him overthrown?”

“Well, yeah, if anyone had the guts to organize a rebellion, I'd join. So you've got these two teams in the arena, and they destroy the floor, which is made of snow, and try to knock the guys on the other team through the gaps—”

“We're doing that! We're organizing a rebellion against the King right now!” Charlie exclaimed.

“And the last team with a player standing is . . . wait, what?” DZ started to pay attention to them for the first time. He lowered his shades and looked down at them. “Hold up . . . from what I know, nobody allied with the King would even joke about overthrowing him . . . you're serious?”

Stan looked at Kat, and she looked at Charlie, and he looked back at Stan, and he knew they were all thinking the same thing. “Yes, we're serious!” Stan said. “If you want, you can join us. We're raising an army right now to try to overthrow the King. As soon as we get supplies, which we're on a journey to find right now, we're going to hook up with some players back in the Adorian Village and we're going to storm Element Castle!”

“So . . . hold up . . .” DZ sat down, trying to take in the enormity of what Stan was saying. “So you already have an army . . . and supplies? But how are you going to infiltrate the castle? Even assuming your army could stand a chance against the King's, isn't Element Castle rigged with those . . . automatic . . . uh . . . redstone booby trap, er, thingies, that
are meant to stop invading armies?”

Kat's and Charlie's faces fell, realizing that they had overlooked that particular part of their plan, but Stan reached into his inventory and pulled out the book that the Mechanist had given him. “I got this book from the guy who designed all those redstone traps for the King, and it tells what and where they are. We can use this to anticipate and avoid these traps.”

Stan's friends, as well as DZ, looked at him, and he briefly explained about his detour to Blackstone and his meeting with the mayor and the Mechanist. Kat and Charlie were elated to hear that twenty-two new fighters were now heading toward the Adorian Village to help the war effort. DZ, meanwhile, took to their plan with enthusiasm.

“Well, if you guys have an army and are going to overthrow the King, then I want in! The sooner that jerkface comes down, the better. What can I do to help?” His face was split into a smile of determination. This was the most earnestly positive reception of their plan Stan had seen yet.

“Well, you can make your way back to the Ado—” started Stan, but he was cut off by Kat pulling him backward. “What are you doing?” he asked as he was pulled into a huddle with Charlie.

“Okay, guys, look. We have to kill, like, twelve Endermen if we're going to get into the End, and who knows what we'll
find when we get there? They must have called it the End for a reason,” Kat said.

“Where are you going with this?” Stan asked.

“Well, how about instead of telling DZ to go back to the village with the others, we ask him to come with us? He seems to know what he's doing,” Kat said.

“That's a great idea, Kat!” exclaimed Charlie. “He seems to have a way with those swords.”

“Hold up, wait a second,” said Stan. “Are you sure we want to ask this guy we just met to come with us?” Stan, truthfully, had been a little put off by DZ's reaction—it had seemed a tad too sincere for him.

“Well, why not? It's worked so far, you know, with the Apothecary, the Nether Boys, and these people in this Blackstone you told us about,” Kat replied.

“Yeah, and with the Apothecary you were yelling at me for pushing our luck, and now you want to push it some more? Can we say hypocritical?”

“Oh, come on, Stan!” sighed Kat in exasperation. “I have a good feeling about this guy. Just trust me on this one.”

“Are you sure that it's not just because you think he's cute?” sneered Stan, and he regretted it an instant later.

Kat let out a hiss of rage as she flew at Stan and punched him squarely in the stomach. Both of them flew backward. Stan had the wind knocked out of him by the power of Kat's
fist, and Kat, in her anger, had forgotten that Stan was still wearing his iron chestplate. They were both on their feet again in seconds and were about to have another go at each other when something stopped them. Charlie's hand shoved Kat back down, while his foot did the same to Stan.

“Enough, both of you!” yelled Charlie. “You're acting like five-year-olds. Cut it out! Those are the people we're trying to get rid of, remember?” He turned to Kat. “Kat, there is nothing wrong with being cautious, so don't just completely blow him off.” He whipped around to face Stan. “Stan, that was just uncalled for, and besides, if he wanted us dead, he could've just let us be mauled to death by those zombies, okay?” He stepped back so he could talk to both of them at once. “I say that we invite DZ to come along with us, but we keep an eye on him until we're one hundred percent sure that he's trustworthy, okay?”