Survivor: Definitely Not Minecraft

Raw chaos washed over us, and the transfer between worlds seemed to go on and on. That had happened sometimes when I would go to the Nether playing on my laptop, and I began to worry that we had gotten stuck on a loading screen with no computer to reboot. We couldn’t hear each other speak, but Esmelda’s hand remained firmly in mine, and we finally emerged on the other side of the portal.

Kevin had built himself a house of glass.

From the portal chamber, you could view every room in the structure. It was mostly bare. A bedroom, some storage, a brewing stand. He hadn’t made himself comfortable here. The exterior was what got my attention.

It was the brightest island I’d ever seen in Bedlam on account of all the lava. His house rested on bedlamite, and the surrounding area was dotted with radiant pools of molten rock. Smoke rose from pits and cracks in the stone.

Esmelda let go of my hand, stepping away from me to double over and retch. Nothing came up, but she didn’t look like she was having fun.

“Are you okay?” Obviously, she wasn’t perfectly fine, but I needed to know if this was simply a reaction to the discomfort of our passage or something deeper.

She straightened, taking a steadying breath. “What was that?”

“The space between worlds,” I said. “It kind of sucks.”

“I never imagined it could be so awful,” she looked around, taking in the scene outside. “This is inhospitable, but I expected Bedlam to be inhospitable, that was so much worse.”

“I guess that’s Discord,” I said, “or something like it. Bedlam is bad, but it’s still a relatively stable plane of existence. It persists. We aren’t made to live between worlds.”

“We most certainly are not,” she turned in a circle. The portal was situated at the rear base of the building, so there was nothing behind it but the outside. Esmelda frowned at what she saw. “This seems to be a fragile stronghold.”

“Glass was an odd choice, for sure.” It would prevent spawns, but he could have done that by increasing the light levels. “Maybe he was paranoid about being unable to see what was going on outside.”

“How did he defend this place?”

As if in answer to her question, a blob of magma rose from a pool beside the building and flung itself at the wall to our right. It was the size of a compact car, shapeless, burning, with two points of flame near the front suggestive of eyes.

The blob didn’t reach the wall, instead impacting on a shimmering barrier that had been invisible before, part of its body splashing off. Kevin had surrounded his base with a forcefield, and after a few more failed attempts to breach the barrier, the blob slunk back into its pool.

“Well,” I said, as long as we stay inside, “we should be safe to explore.”

“Mhm.” Esmelda didn’t sound convinced.

There wasn’t much to find. Kevin hadn’t used this place much or kept large quantities of excess resources here. We looked through all the chests, under the bed, and around the other furniture, and the translucent walls made it abundantly clear that there were no hidden chambers or trap doors to be discovered. The one positive note was his alchemy lab.

It netted me a second brewing stand, plenty of Bedlam Wart, and a new ingredient.

<<<>>>

Magma Cream

Similar to sunscreen, though it should not be applied directly to the skin. When brewed with a base elixir, Magma Cream will produce a Potion of Fire Resistance. When brewed with water, it will result in an Inferior Elixir.

<<<>>>

“No maps,” Esmelda reported, having given the bedroom another search while I was in the lab. “How do you think he navigated?”

“He may not have,” I shrugged, adding the last coins to my collection. “Orobas always said Kevin hated coming to Bedlam. I’m surprised he kept his brewing stand here instead of on the mountain.

“There may be something outside,” she said. “I don’t see another building, but there has to be something else here.”

“As long as we stay within the barrier, we can check it out.” I reached out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “But please put your helmet on.”

“If I must,” Esmelda sighed dramatically, taking the steel cap from where it was hanging on her hip and planting it firmly on her head.

The source of the barrier was obvious once we got outside. Kevin had surrounded his base with a ring of warpstone, its surface marked by runes. On the inner side of the ring, flush with the bedlamite, redstone tubing hummed with latent energy, its interior alight with crimson plasma.

“It must be powering the barrier,” I said, though I didn’t remember the runes in the ruins under Eastmine requiring any redstone, these defenses had much more work to do. The air was hot and dry, unsurprisingly. It mostly smelled like burning rock, which made sense, but there was also a hint of cinnamon in the air, which didn’t.

We walked the perimeter, our presence prompting another blob to tire itself out attacking the barrier. The light blue field flashed as it was assaulted, showing no sign of weakening, and the mob slopped off after a couple of minutes.

“It’s almost cozy,” Esmelda said, her face perfectly blank, “this could be our vacation home.”

“Are you serious?”

Her mouth twitched. “I am not.”

The barrier ring was only five paces from the house, so there wasn’t exactly a yard. Around back, I found a section of runes with extra tubing and a switch that I assumed gave him a way to step out of the protected area. While I was checking it out, Esmelda spotted a pressure plate in the bedlamite beside the glass wall.

I pressed it after she backed off to a safe distance, and the ground opened up, pulled aside by pistons, revealing a cellar lined with torches. It wasn’t much of a basement, barely large enough to risk spawns, and as bare as the rest of the house. The floor was glass, though the walls were stone, and a single chest rested in the center of the space.

Inside was a small collection of medallions and a pouch full of coins. The coins were all gunpowder, but the medallions were a mix of fireworks and something I’d never seen before. The symbol etched into their surface looked like a rough sketch of a beetle.

I activated one to see what it was.

Elytron

Soar like a beetle!

The Elytron is a device modeled after the wings of nature’s most beloved flying species, the noble beetle. Wearing a pair of these will allow you to glide safely from the greatest heights, and with the proper propellant, even ascend to the skies. The duration of your flight is limited only by the quantity of gunpowder you can stuff into a rocket.

Keep a close eye on the condition of your Eytron, it will degrade from extended use. As always, use appropriate caution when handling explosives.

The Elytron was a thin pair of gray, triangular wings connected by a bar and a channel where a cylinder the size of one of my fireworks could be secured. It came with a leather harness, and the wings were made of an unfamiliar material that maybe had come from the carapace of a giant beetle. Esmelda released a small breath as she read the entry from the System screen.

“We must not tell Leto of this,” she said.

While there were no maps, I had found paper and ink, so I took the time to copy the runes that made up the barrier. There was a repeating pattern, each block acting as a link in the magical chain. Nothing special happened as a result of sketching the symbols, and my version was imperfect. I made a couple more copies, each a little closer to the original, and Esmelda did one as well.

“That’s pretty good,” I said. “Do your skills help you draw?”

“Drawing is a skill,” she sniffed, “but it isn’t magic. Sketchwork is a hobby.”

“Well it’s at least as good as mine, and I have Artisan to help me.”

She shrugged. “Systems aren’t everything.”

We agreed that exploring Bedlam without a map wasn’t on our docket for the day, and any Elytron testing was going to happen at home. We gave the base another once over and crossed back through the portal. It was as unpleasant as ever, but Esmelda was better prepared for it this time, and it didn’t make her feel like she was going to throw up.

I’d been nervous about going back to Bedlam, but the trip had been as uneventful as I could have hoped, and we’d returned with some interesting loot, so I felt better about the prospect of taking advantage of the portal again in the future. Leto and Gastard were participating in a training exercise with the garrison, so Esmelda followed me up to a plateau on the far side of the fortress to try out an Elytron.

“Don’t use an illuminator,” she said as I strapped myself in to a pair of metallic beetle wings.

“Please, I would never.” The fireworks that Kevin had kept in the chest with the Elytron were almost identical to the ones I’d crafted from Fladnag’s ingredients. The only difference was a stamp near the base of each cylinder, Roman numerals for one, two, and three. “These are rockets.”

In Minecraft, Elytrons were called Elytra, a name so similar it made me wonder why the System had bothered using a different word at all. The rocket slotted easily in between the wings, and I was briefly at a loss as to how to light the fuse until I noticed a switch on the right shoulder of the harness. When I flicked it down, I heard a spark, accompanied by a yelp from Esmelda.

“You could have tried gliding first!”

“I’m sure it's not that pow—”

Flames spurted at my back, making me glad for my armor, and my stomach dropped as the rocket propelled me upward. The plateau, and Esmelda, fell away as the acceleration increased. I had no idea how fast I was going, but it was fast. It was also difficult to hold in a steady direction.

The slightest shift in my posture veered my trajectory to the left, nearly slamming me into the peak of Mount Doom. I corrected at the last instant, overcorrected, and ended up flying straight out with my face turned toward the sky. I had to stay in an unsupported plank position to keep the balance from going crazy, which was murder on my core. Still, the sun was out, and it was a lovely day.

The firework lasted longer than I expected, several minutes, and though I still hadn’t gotten the hang of steering, I hadn’t crashed into anything. My fuel depleted in midair, but the wings of the Elytron extended further, rotating according to the angle of my body, and kept me from dropping like a stone. Getting back to the plateau was tricky, and the landing was a stumble.

“Are you satisfied?” Esmelda asked with a disapproving expression, her arms folded over her chest in the pose of ultimate judgment.

“Not even close.”

We borrowed a few hourglasses from Zareth, and Esmelda times me while I continued to practice with the Elytron. The three ratings on the rockets corresponded to two, four, and six minutes of fuel, and it wasn’t difficult for me to make more. Adding extra gunpowder to the firework formula at a work table produced longer lasting volatiles. The Elytron wouldn’t be good for traveling cross-country, but they were fast enough to make it a couple of miles before they ran out of gas, and if I was high enough, I could refuel in mid-flight.

It was getting late, so I put up my toys and went to check on Kevin. Garron had provided me with a handful of soldiers trustworthy enough to keep a twenty-four-seven watch on his cell. Gastard, Esmelda, and I would look in on him regularly, but I didn’t want to commit to having us stuck in endless observation shifts, at least not during the day. Gastard and I were going to take turns spending nights in the cube. With the cloud cover finally broken, that was the only time there was a serious risk of a demon sneaking into the mountain and making a move on the former Dark Lord.

“It’s Hurin, right?” I hadn’t seen his face during the battle in the throne room, Garron had told me who was taking part in the watches and this man was tall enough to be the officer I remembered.

“Yes, my lord.” He was tall, fair, and probably close to my age. There were some wrinkles under his eyes, but he had a full head of honey-colored hair, and he looked like he never skipped a run.

“How’s the prisoner?”

Hurin was standing opposite the desk, there was a chair there, and I doubted he had even considered using it. He turned to regard the diamond cell, its walls gleaming in a cage of torchlight.

“He paces and sleeps. I don’t know what to report. Is that truly the man who held the throne before you?”

“That’s the guy.” Bojack’s journal was still on the desk. I picked it up. “I’m going to be here tonight,” I said. “You can go.”

Hurin saluted and exited the hall. Esmelda and Gastard would soon be settling in to their rooms. I’d spawn-proofed that part of the fortress, but now that they were heroes, they had to be as careful as I was about wandering around at night.

Bojack’s journal was nearly full. Mostly snippets of poetry interspersed with abstract charcoal drawings. The drawings didn’t look like anything in particular, shape and form and shadings, but they still managed to be unsettling, reminding me of the existential rawness that dwelled between worlds. Maybe that was what demons saw in their dreams.

It took about an hour to read through the whole thing. He hadn’t been wordy with his entries, and most of what he had written was almost as hard to understand as the drawings. I kept coming back to one of the more recent sections, a passage that stood out to me.

The Shadow speaks, and I obey

Insistence from the dark

A world unbalanced by a gift

Of mercy to a newborn

A champion unbound by ties

A moth drawn to a flame

So many schemes abandoned on

The altar of eternity

The Shadow he was referring to had to be The One Who Knocks, there was no one else Bojack would have taken orders from. I had a feeling that I was the newborn he was referring to, as the entry could have been written around the time I reached level thirty and the System assigned me an entity rank. That might have been too much of an assumption, who knew what was going on in the mind of a demon while he wrote poems in his free time? But if it was me, that made me wonder about the mercy part.

Did he mean letting me out of the valley to usurp Kevin? It was a viable interpretation. If the champion was unbound by ties, that wouldn’t have applied to me until the oath was broken.

Why had Bojack made it so easy for me to kill him? Well, it hadn’t been easy, exactly, but it could have been a lot worse. He could have filled the great hall with monsters if he had wanted to, more than we could have handled while I was weakened. Instead, things had worked out to be a pretty even match-up.

Gremory had excused herself from the fight as well, and I still wasn’t sure why. Before she followed my order to wait on the wall, it had seemed like she was listening to someone. Even if they could communicate at a distance, the demons didn’t have full-blown telepathic conversations.

What if their god had told them to let me win?

That was crazy. I was making too much out of a snippet without context. Fortunately, I hadn’t been planning on sleeping anyway.