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triple-a-enderdragon · 5 years ago

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How many times can you say the clock is ticking? Because now it’s

TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

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Biffa was living. The rush of battle was one he'd missed, even if he had felt it not that long ago. It was too long, in his opinion. He never thought it was fair that Python and especially Iskall got to face world hoppers. But at the same time, he trusted False's judgment enough to follow her direction. The thrill of the fights she did leave to him were well worth it.

In his anticipation for the next skirmish, he almost missed False's signal, pointing him to where their target was.

Landing in the torch-lit clearing, Biffa took in two things: Grian was alive, if a bit worse for wear; and his assailant had their back exposed. Swiftly crossing the clearing, he laid into the intruder, leaving a deep rent in their back. Biffa was a bit surprised they didn't drop, and followed through with a vicious blow to the head. That did the trick.

"Grian." False had also crossed the clearing to check on the builder. "Are you badly hurt?"

"Nothing that's too serious. I'd managed to avoid most of it," Grian said, checking himself over. Sure enough, he had a cut on his left arm and a nasty bruise developing on one cheek.

False gingerly brushed the bruise. "You took a head blow," she said. "A visit to Joe, if he's still awake, would be a good idea. When you're done with that, Impulse wants you to go to Tango's base."

"Tango's base? Did he say why?"

"He did not. I'm sure you'll find out when you get there."

Biffa interrupted them. "It's gotten dark. Mobs will start spawning, and I don't want to be here when they do."

False looked at him, amused. "You had no problem fighting just now."

"Yes, against a limited foe." Biffa looked her in the eye. "I remember the dangers of a hardcore world, mobs being the biggest one." He knew she did too. She nodded and wordlessly took to the skies, leaving Grian and Biffa to follow.

~~~

"Well, I would advise you from doing anything too ridiculous, but I've heard what you have to do tomorrow. Ridiculous definitely, even a bit cliché." Joe looked at Grian, then at Cub. "Then again, we can't have Concorp at half capacity, can we? Besides, I do want to see this for myself, seems delightfully absurd."

Grian looked a little confused, though it may have been the head injury. "What about Xisuma?"

Joe raised one eyebrow. Confused enough to say X's name more-or-less right. "Right! Can't forget about him. Anyway, I'm sure you're needed elsewhere to restore balance to the scales," he said as he herded Grian out of the Ministry. "Thanks for stopping by, Grian. It can get lonely with only the undead and the actual dead as company."

"Is Cleo the only one visiting? Shouldn't you get out more?"

"I understand your concern, but— while I'm no Scar— I'm no stranger to death. I'd rather stay in relative safety until I can risk being surprised by a creeper again."

Watching Grian go, Joe's thoughts wandered to a certain person intimately linked to death. He would have to see if Cleo was interested in watching what would unfold. And, Joe admitted, he would be too scared to do so alone.

~~~

There was only so much of the Nether that Python was willing to take at one time, and he felt he was getting mighty close to that limit. He'd already spent quite a bit of time gathering quartz for his ambitious builds in Tower Bay over the last few months.

Gathering quartz turned out to be the distraction he and Iskall set out for themselves. Keeping a watch on the temperature, they were able to ignore the frustration and unease with their situation. A careful trip to the gold farm kept their gear and tools in top shape. Food was not yet a concern, water was managed through the careful melting of ice.

The pigmen turned out to be less of a threat than the two thought; the hostiles still swarmed on sight, but always seemed to get distracted long enough for Iskall and Python to make a hasty escape.

So they mined quartz. Hours passed, with rests intermittent, before they found another problem.

Iskall was in front of the array of double chests, laden with quartz, trying to find space for the latest haul. He wasn't finding any. Rubbing his left eye, he walked to his ender chest and started looking for some wood. Which he didn't find. He looked at Python, also rummaging around his ender chest. "Python?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"You have any wood, by chance? I'm all out, and I need some for more chests."

Python's rummaging increased, shulker boxes opening and closing, before he said, "No, sorry man. I'm out as well."

"Dang it! I guess I'll be carrying around a bunch of quartz."

"You don't have any empty shulker boxes, or any empty spaces, at least?"

Iskall scanned his ender chest again. "Well, there's a bit of space, but still not enough. Ah, that's fine, at least I have some inventory space now," he said as he put the now full shulker box into his ender chest.

"If you're up for it, we should take one last trip to the gold farm," Python said. "Some of my gear's running low."

Iskall, feeling a headache coming on, said the wrong thing. "Yeah, I'm up for it."

~~~

Tango spent almost an hour, pacing his base, listening for the rockets that would signal Grian's approach. Since he and Impulse learned where the winged man was, they were on edge; even more than they already were. It wasn't until Grian landed in front of him with nary a whisper, startling him to the high heavens, that Tango remembered.

"Grian! You can't do that to me, man! Give a hoot or something, you about gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry about that; I forget how silently I fly now," Grian said sheepishly.

"It certainly woke me up." Tango was about to brief Grian, but he saw the colorful bruise Grian was sporting. "Oh, ow. That looks like it hurts. Didn't get out of the skirmish unscathed, huh?"

Grian poked at the bruise, wincing. "No, but frankly, I'm lucky it's not worse. By the way, what are we doing? It has something to do with the Nether, I hope?"

At this, Tango was all business. "Yes. The thing we need is at X's base, coincidentally. Stress and TFC are already there."

"What's going to happen?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. I'm just going with the flow here, man." Tango was very unsure of himself, but continued, "When it gets down to it, I'll know."

As they look to the skies, Grian looked unconvinced.

~~~

If anyone was near the stock exchange, they would have heard shouting. A lot of it. As it happened, "anyone" turned out to be Mumbo, heading to the shopping district for some last-minute supplies.

He stuck his head into the station and, in between the bursts of surprisingly expletive-free fury, said, "Doc? You ok in here?"

A pause, a concerning crash, and Doc huffed his way into view. "Everything's fine."

Mumbo didn't take his hint and came closer, hopping the turnstile easily. "It doesn't sound like it. Besides, I asked if you were ok, and you didn't answer."

If looks could kill, the redstone contraption in the corner would have exploded. Mumbo briefly wondered if, with a few tweaks, Doc's eye could produce that effect. Or something similar. But it didn't, and the redstone build stayed in one piece. Doc sighed and walked over to an overturned shulker box spilling comparators, droppers, and other redstone bits and bobs over the floor.

As he shoved all the items back in the shulker box, he said, "Something is going on. Something's happening to me." He pointed at the build in the corner. "You know what that's supposed to be?"

Mumbo walked over to it and inspected the innards of it. Not even half a minute had passed before he answered, "I would think it would produce a sort of vending machine effect. Is that what you were going for?"

"Yes! It's supposed to dispense one stack of ender pearls or cookies when a diamond is deposited, but something is always wrong. Either the wrong item is dispensed, the wrong amount is, nothing happens; I know what's wrong each time. I fix it each time. But something else always pops up!" After a pause, Doc said, "I don't know what to do, and I'm at my wit's end here."

Now that Mumbo knew what Doc was trying to achieve, it took him all of a minute to find and fix the problem. He went back in front and said, "Try it now."

Doc put a diamond in the input chest and pressed the ender pearl button. He then stared at Mumbo in resignation as sixteen ender pearls hit him in the chest one by one.

"I guess it works now."

Doc kept staring at him. "What was it?"

"The timing of one repeater was off, giving only a partial stack," Mumbo answered, a bit concerned.

Doc placed a hand on the vending machine, lights flickering on his cybernetics. "I don't understand. Every time I fixed the timings..."

"Well, it's all working now. Really neat design, by the way."

"Heh. Thanks. Are you going to the event happening soon?"

"Yeah," Mumbo said, "I have to really see this stuff to believe it; this whole Elemental thing. I would say it's exciting, but..." He stopped. "Anyway, are you going?"

"No. I've got a bad feeling about it. Besides, I have," Doc looked down the tunnel, "other things to do."

"Well, good luck with those. Hopefully, they're not as stubborn as the vending machine," Mumbo said as he prepared to leave. "I'll see you around, mate."

As he left, he saw a curious scene: Doc, standing in the middle of the rail line, didn't seem to hear him. Staring down the tunnel, he was muttering and scratching his right arm. Mumbo didn't know what to make of it, and so took his leave.

Shopping driven from his mind, he had somewhere to be.

"Something's happening to me."

~~~

Getting to the gold farm was never as bad as getting back from it. Every hermit had forgotten to reequip their elytra at least once, some more than others.

Knowing this, Iskall and Python took extra care to double and triple check, to cross-verify, that both had their elytra equipt.

However, every time Iskall went to descend, something stopped him. He couldn't really explain it, like some internal force keeping him rooted to one spot. And the fear. There was nothing to be afraid of, he knew. He could hear the distant sound of Python, next to him, trying to get his attention. But it wasn't as loud as the voice.

Do not jump.

Iskall never saw the ghast.

~~~

Impulse was waiting; if you could call it that. Grian and Tango had arrived about an hour ago, and the latter said he needed to wait for the sun's zenith before he could continue. Impulse had asked what the zenith had to do with anything, Tango couldn't answer him. Said it was a 'gut feeling'. And since Impulse couldn't speed up the sun, he waited.

Various hermits had filtered in over the past hour. Zedaph was there, giving much-needed moral support to Impulse and Tango. False and Wels were ready to jump into X's Nether portal as soon as they were able. Mumbo had given Impulse a thumbs up when he arrived, too anxious to speak.

A few hermits weren't there. Joe, Cleo, and Scar were at the Ministry watching over Cub. Biffa, Jevin, Doc, and Ren all said they weren't coming, and Impulse didn't blame them. If he didn't have to be here, he most likely wouldn't be here.

Impulse heard movement; Tango was showing the other three 'avatars' to their corresponding spots around the altar. Stress to the North, Grian to the East, TFC to the West, and Tango himself to the South. They were interrupted by a buzz from their comms–

iskall85 fell from a high place

–and the world exploded into brilliant diamond blue light.

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