The New Order (26 page)

Far off to the right of the fleet of boats a chain of small islands sat, surrounded by an expanse of ice blocks that extended into the ocean. The islands themselves were covered in snow and patches of spruce trees, matching the descriptions Stan had heard of the Taiga Archipelago. Standing on the expanse of ice around the island were five Noctem soldiers, all shooting arrows at the naval brigade, which was returning fire.

Stan saw that six of their ships now sat vacant, drifting in
the sea with the contents of their pilots' inventories scattered about them. However, they had fared no worse than the Noctem Alliance, whose icy shore was positively littered with items from their fallen combatants. As Stan looked around the islands, he could have sworn that the foremost of the Noctem soldiers looked him in the eye for a moment before raising his hand, signaling to his men to stop firing.

The lead soldier of the naval contingent raised his hand as well, and the Elementia troopers stopped firing. There was a moment of silence. Then . . .

“Leaders and soldiers of the Kingdom of Elementia,” the foremost soldier announced, his voice echoing across the empty stretch of sea. “What you have just experienced was absolute child's play compared to the terror that awaits you should you continue on your journey. The Noctem Alliance's Specialty Base is impregnable, and should you be foolish enough to attempt to attack it, we will unleash terror and destruction beyond comprehension upon you.”

“We're not gonna attack this base of yours!” cried Stan's lead soldier. For all the soldier knew, what he was saying was true. “We're escorting high-ranking members of the Council of Eight on a diplomatic mission.”

“Be that as it may, the Nation of the Noctem Alliance has seized many islands in the Northwestern Ocean during this time of warfare. If you should cross us again, we will
not hesitate to retaliate.”

And with that, the head of the Noctem troops waved his hand backward, and the remaining Noctem soldiers sprinted back over the ice and into the thick grove of spruce trees on the nearest island. As they did so, the head soldier of the Elementia convoy looked back at Stan. “Would you like to conduct a raid on the islands to capture those soldiers, President Stan?”

Stan looked around. Many of his soldiers looked beaten and were nursing arrow wounds, while those few empty boats drifted away through the volition of the sea. Charlie was stirring, regaining consciousness, and DZ looked exhausted. Stan himself still felt the effects of nearly drowning. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, still breathing heavily. “The faster we can get to the Sea Base, the better.”

The head soldier nodded. Five minutes and dozens of Potions of Healing later, all the soldiers, including Charlie, were recovered and ready to head out. As the ships began to steadily chug forward again, Stan turned to face DZ. “Hey, DZ?” he said, getting a turn of the head in response.

“I just want to thank you. You know, for saving my life down there.”

DZ waved his hand and shook his head humbly. “Aw, don't worry about it. It was actually pretty fun. It was trippy,
fighting underwater like that.”

Stan smirked. “Yeah,
la vida loca
is being lived,” he replied, which merited a weak laugh from DZ before they joined Charlie at the back of the convoy.

The day from that point onward was quite uneventful. Stan slowly recovered from the illness that accompanied his near-death experience, and he found the gentle back-and-forth sway of the boat to be quite relaxing. The same could not be said for Charlie, however. He looked almost as sick as the time he had accidentally eaten a piece of rotten flesh.

The day went by slowly. None of the players were in particularly good moods, and Stan and DZ didn't dare think about pranking Charlie again after the events of that morning. So, as it was, Stan had nothing to do for the remainder of the day but will himself forward, keeping pace with the others, and worrying about the Noctem Alliance. As the hours ticked away, the square of the sun traveled into the highest point of the sky, before sinking down into the west. The sky gradually shifted from a bright blue to a brilliant pink, before chromatically shifting further into oranges, reds, and violets.

Just after the sun had dipped under the horizon, bringing the majestic dark of night to the vast ocean, Stan heard a commotion in front of him and looked up. His eyes were immediately drawn to a large, glowing form in the distance, just appearing out of the render fog and sitting atop the water.

“Hey!” Stan yelled up to the soldier leading the crew, “You'd better cut a wide circle around that island. If the Noctem Alliance is in this area, we don't want to fight them now. It's getting late, they'd have the advantage at night.”

The soldier turned around and looked Stan squarely in the eye.

“That's no island,” he replied. “It's the Sea Base.”

CHAPTER 24
THE ELEMENTIA SEA BASE

E
ven in the fading daylight, Stan was blown away by the Elementia Sea Base. Much like Brimstone Prison and the Diamond Bay Naval Harbor, Stan was just now becoming aware that while he and his friends were stuck in their council room deciding what to do with Elementia, their minions had been building some pretty awesome things.

The Sea Base itself was a pretty standard complex. It was a square platform on top of the ocean, which supported dozens of gray buildings and a series of docks stretching into the sea. Glowstone blocks lit up the complex, making it shimmer in the night, but it was the water that really caught Stan's eye. Light came beaming up from beneath the surface, and Stan realized that glowstone blocks were actually levitating under the water surrounding the base. From their light, he could see that there was no land underneath the Sea Base itself.

The entire base was floating on an artificial cobblestone island on the ocean. Stan knew what this meant. The builders would have had to make pillars that stretched from the bottom of the ocean to the surface, building the glowstone blocks underwater and the complex on top of them, and then going back to the seafloor and destroying them. It must have taken a
marvelous feat of engineering to pull that off.

As the fleet of ships drew closer and closer to the Sea Base, Stan grew more and more fascinated. The buildings were made of stone brick blocks, the same material that his castle was made of. Troops marched around the complex, bows flung over their backs. Stan wasn't sure who the commander of this particular base was, but he was clearly preparing for war.

Stan followed the other ships in his fleet to the docks, and when he had safely steered his ship to his space next to the dock, he disembarked. Stan reached up and cracked his back. It felt good to finally be standing on solid ground again after a day at sea. He saw Charlie and DZ a little farther down the dock, and walked over to join them.

“Hey, Stan, old buddy old pal!” exclaimed DZ, turning to look at Stan.

“Hey, DZ,” replied Stan, smiling as he rotated his arm in a circle. “Man, it feels good to be out of that boat.”

“Sure does,” said DZ, rolling his neck. “And check this place out! Did you guys notice that it's floating on the top of the ocean? And those glowstone blocks down there are gnarly!”

“From what I understand,” said Charlie wisely, “those glowstone blocks illuminate the water underneath the base so that if anybody tries to attack them from below, they'll see
it coming. They've got lookouts positioned in rooms made of glass under the water, watching for enemies attacking them from below.”

“That's a pretty smart design choice,” said Stan, impressed by this ingenuity. “You know, we always just tell people to build stuff and let them do their own thing with it, but we should really check some more of this stuff out sometime! I mean, this is really sick!”

“Yes, we're quite proud of it,” replied a soldier with a corporal badge, walking up to them. “And we'll be happy to give you a full tour of it once your visit to the Mushroom Islands is complete. However, as of now, it's time for curfew. Please follow me to your quarters, and we will wake you up tomorrow morning to escort you to your meeting with the commander.”

As he said this, Stan realized just how tired he was. Whether it stemmed from the fight earlier that day or the sailing under the hot sun that had preceded it, Stan felt totally burned out. One look at his comrades told him that they felt the same, and so they nodded in assent as they followed the corporal into the complex and toward their bedrooms.

The next morning, Stan was on edge as he followed another soldier toward the briefing room where the commander was meeting them. It wasn't that Stan hadn't gotten any sleep.
Quite the contrary—he now felt refreshed, alert, and on full guard.

However, Stan's dreams last night had been filled with horrible nightmares. Stan could vividly remember reliving horrible scenes from his past all throughout the night. Over and over, he watched in anguish as Archie was blown apart in the courthouse explosion, as a throng of players scrambled desperately to outrun the wave of lava coursing down the seats of the Spleef arena, and as Oob's chest was punctured by the teeth of his mutated kin.

And it wasn't just his fights with the Alliance that had plagued Stan's dreams. He'd relived the tragic events from months before throughout the night as well. He was helpless to stop the Adorian Village from burning to the ground. He was defenseless as Jayden's brother, Crazy Steve, was felled before him. He was powerless to stop King Kev from landing an arrow in Avery's head. And this was the emotion that was the most pronounced throughout the night: helplessness. He had realized, the instant he woke up, that being helpless against the Noctem Alliance was what he was most terrified of.

The straight-up fighting was easy. Well, not easy, but Stan knew what he had to do, and how he would have to do it. But the Noctem Alliance's true strength was that they made him feel powerless. And that, thought Stan, was why it was
so crucial that this mission succeeded. They finally knew, for sure, where the Alliance was. They were the ones with the element of surprise now, and they had the ability to catch the Alliance off guard. The importance of getting this assault right could not be overstated.

At last, the soldier led the three players to a door, which he gestured them through. Stan walked in and found a room very similar to the council room back in Element City. It was a featureless stone brick room with a square conference table in the middle. A player sat at the farthest end of the square table. Though he was wearing an army uniform, he had long, unkempt black hair and a similar beard. His face had clearly been cut up and scarred many times, and he wore a black eye patch over his left eye. When he saw the three players, he leaped to his feet.

“Blimey! Be it that time already? Well, good mornin', Cap'n Stan. 'N' ahoy, Councilmen Charlie 'n' DZ,” the player said. It was impossible to tell what accent this player spoke with, although it sounded vaguely Irish.

“Hello . . . ,” said DZ slowly. He was, like the others, a little put off by this player's speech pattern.

“Dismissed, Private!” he bellowed, and the soldier escort left the room, closing the wooden door behind him. The player walked over to Stan with what could only be described as a spastic, energetic swagger. He grasped Stan's hand,
shaking it up and down vigorously as he said, “Me name be Commander Crunch o' th' Grand Elementia Navy. How're ye doin' on this fine day?”

“I'm pretty good,” replied Stan, and he glanced at Charlie, catching an incredulous look.
This
was the brilliant commander of the Elementia Sea Base?

“Wonderful! I be glad t' hear it!” Commander Crunch exclaimed, a giant smile breaking across his face. “'N' how about ye, Councilman Charlie? Councilman DZ?”

Charlie opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, DZ cut in and said, “Okay, I have to ask. Where did you get that accent from?” Stan sighed in exasperation. Leave it to DZ to pose the question that everybody wanted to ask but wouldn't.

However, far from being insulted, the commander gave a jolly chortle.

“Oh, Lord! Ye're a spitfire, aren't ye! Well, t' be truthful, I don't natter like this by choice. One day, I was messin' around wit' th' settin's o' Minecraft, 'n' I accidentally changed me language t' th' Pirate settin'. Since then, I haven't been able t' get it back t' English. T' be honest though, 'tis kind o' grown on me. Especially given me name 'n' all.”

“So let me get this straight,” said DZ as Stan and Charlie pieced together what he had just said. “Your name is Crunch? And you're commander?”

“Aye,” Commander Crunch replied.

“Well then,” replied DZ with a snicker, “I guess you miss the good old days when you were a captain, eh?”

“I 'ave no idea wha' ye're talkin' about,” replied the commander straightly.

“So wait, you can change your language settings to Pirate?” asked Stan, amazed. “Why would they program something like that in?”

“It beats me. Same reason they programmed the giant flyin' firebreathin' Jellyfish, I suppose,” the commander replied, shrugging.

“Anyway, that's nah wha' we be here t' natter about. I received a message a while back from th' council in Element City. So ye wants t' look fer soldiers o' th' Noctem Alliance hidin' on th' Mushroom Islands, do ye? 'N' ye wants t' disguise th' operation as jus' a normal visit from President Stan?”

“That's correct,” replied Charlie. “And I know that you know why it's essential that we keep up that facade.”

“Excuse me,” interjected Stan in an irritated fashion. “But could somebody please explain to me why it is we can't just put the island on lockdown? You know, just have soldiers search in every nook and cranny? I mean, we have the entire force of the military at our fingertips. Why can't we do that?”

Commander Crunch looked at Stan incredulously, then
turned to face Charlie and DZ.

“How in th' name o' Davy Jones' locker does he nah know about th' Mushroom Islands Doctrine?” Crunch asked.

“We wrote that part of the constitution,” replied DZ. “He sat out for it.”

“Don't worry, Stan,” said Charlie kindly. “I'll explain it for you.”

And with that, Charlie began to explain the situation to Stan, as DZ and Commander Crunch grouped together and began to discuss the logistics of the attack.

“Back when King Kev controlled Elementia, the Greater Mushroom Island, the bigger of the two of them, was settled by people who wanted to escape King Kev's oppression. They called themselves the Mushroom Tribe, and they vowed to survive there without ever interacting with the modern world. They could do this because of the Mooshrooms, mushroom-cow hybrids that lived on the islands and provided an infinite source of mushroom stew for the people to eat.

“When the people in Elementia learned about the Mooshrooms, they realized that they were valuable, and tried to steal them from the Mushroom Islands for years. They were never able to, though. The tribesmen defended the Mooshrooms with their lives, and developed a hatred of Element City and the modern world. This kept going on until Adoria sent Jayden out to the island, and he managed to trade a
few modern materials to the tribesmen in exchange for two Mooshrooms, which the village could breed and sell.

“However, as soon as they got their hands on the modern materials, some of the tribesmen decided they were sick of living a simple life and that their home would be a great place to open a resort. This started a civil war in the Mushroom Tribe, which went on at around the same time as our rebellion against King Kev. In the end, the Mushroom Tribe divided into the Greater Tribesmen on the Greater Mushroom Island, and the Lesser Tribesmen, who moved to the smaller Lesser Mushroom Island and opened a resort.

“The Lesser Tribesmen love us because the people of Element City come to the resorts. The Greater Tribesmen hate us for the years of stealing from them, and for supporting the Lesser Tribesmen with our tourists. When we were putting the constitution together, we realized we had to keep tensions between the two islands as low as possible, so that's why we put a law into the constitution about the Mushroom Islands. The law says we're not allowed to have any sort of military on either Mushroom Island unless one of them attacks our citizens. That's why we can't bring soldiers there.”

Charlie finished his explanation, and there was a moment of silence as Stan processed everything. As he did, a few questions came to his mind.

“So . . . no military operations are allowed on the islands
because of that law? And we're getting around the law by saying I'm just visiting, and that I have a right to bring bodyguards with me?”

“Yes,” replied Charlie, nodding.

“Okay,” replied Stan. “So here are my questions. First, why don't we just rewrite that law? It seems stupid to keep it intact, especially now that the Noctem Alliance is there!”

Charlie snorted. “Stan, do you have any idea how people would react if they found out that we changed more of our own laws just for the sake of advancing this war? They'd go crazy, they'd say we don't care about the constitution, and they'd start protesting again! And even if we tried to keep it secret, it would just get released by the leaker.”

“Okay, okay,” said Stan hastily. “So have we done any investigations on either of the Mushroom Islands yet?”

“Yeah,” said Charlie, nodding. “The ambassador of the Lesser Mushroom Island has used their local police force to comb the entire Lesser Island. They haven't found anything. Regardless, we're still going to do our own investigation. The team that the Mechanist put together for your bodyguards are skilled in detective work as well as fighting.”

“Yeah, I knew that,” Stan replied. He had been aware that the assault team was composed of specialty forces, the best of the best in all areas of the military.

“One last question. Why would the Noctem Alliance pick
these islands to set up their base on? I know the ‘no-military' law would be a perk for them, but Lord Tenebris probably guessed that we'd find a way around it. And when you take that law out of the picture, then the Lesser Mushroom Island is pretty much controlled by Elementia, and the Greater Mushroom Island is filled with people who hate outsiders. I don't think either of those places would be a very easy place to make a base.”

“Well,” replied Charlie. “I'm going to assume that they're on the Greater Mushroom Island for now, since it isn't civilized and there are a lot more hiding places because it's so much bigger. I think the Noctem Alliance probably set up the base in secret, probably underground somewhere. And if they used Invisibility Potions, then it would be really hard for the Greater Tribesmen to see them. The Greater Mushroom Island is going to be really hard for us to search, though, not only because of that law, but the fact that we're going to have to deal with the Greater Tribesmen ourselves while we look for them.”