Withering World [MCSM Fanfiction]

ENGULFMENT: Chapter 42

Lukas

With all the air knocked out of my lungs, I lay there for a second on the base of the Order's Temple.

Full of anguish, Petra groans, rolling on her sides and then resorting to sit up. "The pain's never enough, is it?"

If I'm being honest, the cushioning on my armor is almost useless when it comes to shielding my ribcage from getting winded. My lungs have turned to mush and my brain is running around in circles, making me see everything in double, triple, or even quadruple.

The sky tells me it's either early morning or late noon - my mind is still too fuzzy to make out if the sun is rising or setting.

"That's another wound in the heart for me," I say. I grunt as a result of the wrenching impact the portal and ground sided against us with. When I'm sat up, it's hard for me to decide whether to clutch my head or my stomach.

Like last time, I thought we'd be able to laugh off the pain from our awful landing, but glinting past Petra's helmet lies her repulsive expression that reads bad news all over it.

"Lukas. You're... you're- ghostly pale."

She exhales through her mouth, her bottom lip wobbling, and then making a stiff swallow. I watch the shape of the air and saliva wad slip down her throat. As much as I'd want to say her comment was uncalled for, it reminds me there's a strain on our deadline. My first cough spews and shatters the air accompanied by the taste of bloodily copper tang bursting in my mouth.

"We're almost there. QZ is only a few miles away from here, right?" I ask.

The warrior blunderingly shifts her balance from foot to foot, swaying left to right, left to right while relearning how to breathe. "Yeah, but we need to get another wither rose first, all the roots intact and stuff."

"Alrighty. I'll get my gloves on and take one. You protect me and then we head straight back afterwards?"

Petra gives it a thought, presumably about to scratch the back of her head when she instead dismembers her helmet, revealing her striped bandana putting up its own fight. "Actually, after we get that rose, we should spend the night here in the Order's Temple."

I flinch at her suggestion, her absurd, completely 'unPetra-like' suggestion. All she ever wanted was a quick, easy journey. But now-

"Are you sure? What about Jesse?"

She's already heading further out of the temple, in search of a rose. "If Jesse's dead, there's nothing more we can do, but if she's alive, let's hope she can spare one more day. She has healing potions, golden apples, and proper shelter. All we've been doing is speeding your sickness up. So let's try to get that WITHER cultivation in you back to normal."

We trample on grass once again, greener grass that seems to have reversed its shriveling effect.

"The trees-" Petra says, "they have leaves on them?"

If this area was untouched by the beacon's fallout, we wouldn't find a wither rose here. Although, what if it was? What if the forest surrounding the Order's temple also lost its proud manes of emerald leaves and freshness in the grass only for it to be restored again?

That could only mean... the beacon could have lost its power.

Oh my freaking gosh.

The beacon could be dead. The chaos is almost over. I might be able to live this one out.

Through the matured oaks, we spot a few roses and I assume they're impervious to the beacon's failure. A theory I have - the beacon could unfortunately still be alive, and it's just too far from the Order's Temple to dramatically affect the entire landscape, so it just left a minor imprint of wither roses. Theory number two: the beacon most definitely affected this entire area, transforming it into the same wasteland as the outskirts of QZ. Then, it could've gotten deactivated, reviving all the jade beauty in the forest yet couldn't despawn the roses.