The Obsidian Blade

Chapter 36: Whatever It Takes II

S

I can't stop it. Any of it. I'm suspended in midair, completely trapped, and to top it all off I'm watching myself, or my colossus Master-self body-thingie stomp open the ground and crack the Minecrafters base right down the center, opening ravines and cracks in all directions. And the worst part is that I have no idea who's inside the base, and I have no idea if my body has just murdered one of my friends. All I can do is sit here and hope while I hunt down the people who saved my life.

Ay

"JERRT!" My mouth cries, but no sound comes out. I find myself on the ground next to the ravine, staring helplessly into its core. Sunlight pours into the ravine, but suddenly it's extinguished, overshadowed by the gigantic head of the Colossus. I want to kill it, to destroy it, to stop it from ever hurting anybody again. But inside the horrible monster is my best friend, so I can't really do anything.

"Ay! Come on!" I hear Warden's voice from across the ravine in the elevator, "We have to get out, did you send Jerrt up?" He asks urgently. In response tears spill down my face. Even though I didn't know him very well, I know what kind of person he was. And I know the kind of death he suffered. And I couldn't get to him on time.

I answer Warden the only way I can, I gesture to the lava waiting at the bottom of the crack and watch his face fall and eyes mist over. Then he grabs some dirt blocks from his inventory and stumbles, nearly falling into the ravine as the giant stomps again and we hear another crack and the earth split somewhere not far away. 

Warden quickly builds a small bridge for me to cross over and yanks me across and into the elevator, firmly jarring the door shut and we begin the jerky ascent. 

"We have a secret way out, a passageway that starts in my office, we just have to- HURK!" Warden cuts of as we feel the elevator shake, fall a few blocks, and begin ascending again making an odd moaning and screeching and going much slower. "We need to get off now!" Warden interrupts his thoughts.

He jams the breaks and mines the block above us in the roof of the elevator, pulling out a flint and steel and lighting himself off to propel him onto the elevator roof. I follow, pillaring instead. Above the elevator is an exposed redstone circuit, which I tread on carefully to make sure I don't break anything. 

"We have a maintenance ladder on the left side of the wall," Warden says once we're inside the dark shaft. "Be careful not to fall it's at least a hundred block drop until the strong room," Warden warns, jumping over an apparently very far drop on the left-hand side. I hear him latch on to something invisible and begin climbing.

I take a deep breath and launch myself through the air and over the gap, terrified. I've always had an intense fear of heights, but now I don't have time to dwell on the fear. In an instant, my hands close around the rungs of a wooden ladder and I exhale, beginning the climb as soon as I can.

"Here we go! I found the door!" Warden stops the ascent when we see dim lights illuminating the broad elevator doors of Warden's office. Warden stops suddenly and jumps across the shaft, narrowly making the jump onto the trapdoor above the air shaft and taking out a diamond pickaxe to mine through the thick metal doors.

He finished opening a hole and sidles into the office. I get ready to jump positioning myself just right on the ladder. Then suddenly just as I'm kicking off another tremor rocks the shaft back and forth sending me flying through the air and falling down, down, down...

Then I feel a hand, and I see Warden clinging to an impossibly long weeping vine from the Nether with one hand, and holding onto my hand with the other. He pulls me up onto the vine and we both clamber shakily up the vine and into the door, this time bracing for the large tremor that hits when we're almost fully up the vine.