The Shadows of Mianite (Currently Writing: Book 2)

Book 1.5: Leave Them Behind (Syndicate's POV)

The Shadows of Mianite Book 1.5
A Step Away (Syndicate POV)

    Syndicate dashed through the woods at full speed. He could feel his health level start to go down, but he really didn’t care. All he wanted to do was wake up from this nightmare wrecking the land of Mianite. Syndicate’s breath came in shorter bursts as he stumbled out of the mess of trees near Nadeshot’s house. He saw Jeriicho running ahead of him. “Jeriicho!” Syndicate shouted at him. “Yo!”
    Jeriicho paused and turned to stare at him. “Syndi — ” His voice was cut off as a fireball streaked through the air and slammed into his side. Jeriicho yelled as he was thrown to the left, his body flashing red as he lost HP. Syndicate narrowed his eyes as hot rage boiled up in him, and he sprinted to the side of his friend and whirled around to glare at the monster that had attacked. It was a ghast. A Nether mob. Something that didn’t belong in the Overworld. Syndicate stepped in front of Jeriicho, strung his enchanted bow, and shot arrow after arrow at the ghast. His hands moved with furiousness and experience, and within a minute the ghast fell, dead.
    Breathing even harder, Syndicate turned around and offered Jeriicho a hand. Gratefully Jeriicho accepted it and pulled himself up. “Thanks. What’s up with this, anyway? Who let the Nether in?” asked Jeriicho.
    Syndicate crossed his arms and shook his head. “I have no idea. Maybe the portal isn’t working in the priest’s house. Have you checked?”
    Jeriicho bit his lip. “I went into the Nether earlier, but that was when everything was still working. Maybe Sparklez will know. Anyway, why were you running so fast out of the woods?”
    Syndicate spun around and pointed at the flood of wither skeletons surging out of the trees, their stone swords all raised. “Them.”
    Jeriicho let out a strangled gasp. “The priest’s house. I’m heading there. FireFoxx is there, too — I’m out of here!” he exclaimed, instantly sprinting away.
    Syndicate didn’t follow him immediately. Instead he narrowed his eyes and started to shoot arrows into the huge group of wither skeletons, slowly drawing them back. He wanted to buy Jeriicho and FireFoxx as much time as possible. He had no idea where CaptainSparklez was. Syndicate finished off two more wither skeletons before whirling around and running towards the priest’s house. At that moment, in his mind, he heard a surprised CaptainSparklez exclaim, “What’s going on?”
    Syndicate guessed that Sparkly Pants was getting attacked by Nether mobs. Because of the group connection that Syndicate, Jeriicho, FireFoxx, and CaptainSparklez shared, Syndicate heard Jeriicho respond urgently, “There’s something you really need to see, Sparklez. Come here, quickly.”
    A moment later FireFoxx added, “Yes, we need your help. Badly.”
    Syndicate shivered at the tone in FireFoxx’s voice. She sounded exhausted. He jumped when Sparklez addressed him: “Syndicate!” Sparklez called out to him. “Where are you?”
    Syndicate quickly estimated the distance between him and the priest’s house and responded briskly, “On my way to help Jeriicho and FireFoxx. So get your butt of your bed and get over here — along with your armor and weapons.”
    Syndicate assumed that Sparklez was in his vault, possibly just waking up, and he realized that he hadn’t told Sparklez where they were, even. Oh, well. Thankfully Sparklez replied, “Okay. I’ll be down there in a mo’.”
    Syndicate nodded and shut off his connection. He kept running to the priest’s house, hoping that he would get there in time to help FireFoxx and Jeriicho. Syndicate glanced towards Sparklez’s house, but no one was running out of it. Hurry up, Sparklez! he growled in his head, but Syndicate didn’t share the thought with his friend. He didn’t want to pressure Sparklez.
    He got closer to the priest’s house and saw Jeriicho vanish inside. A horde of regular Overworld zombies were flooding inside after him. Syndicate snapped to them, “Don’t lay a bloody hand of yours on Jeriicho!” and sprinted after them. As he did, he heard Sparklez ask, “Where are you guys?”
    All at once, Syndicate, Jeriicho, and FireFoxx all answered, “In the priest’s house.” Desperately Syndicate added, “You coming?”
    “Just hang on.”
    Syndicate didn’t know if that meant he was on his way or a few more minutes. As Syndicate started to tear through the zombies, he protested, “We’re trying, Sparklez!” He hoped that his friend could hear the desperation in his voice. Syndicate ran halfway through the hallway that led to the courtyard in front of the priest’s house and gasped as he saw at least eighty mobs roaming freely around in the yard. Two zombies lumbered towards him, and Syndicate gasped as he swung at them. Slowly he backed towards the entrance again, and he stumbled forward as something extremely hot slammed into his back and burned him, diminishing some of his HP. Syndicate snarled, kicked the zombies backward, and whirled around to see a blaze hovering in the entrance. He shot an arrow at it swiftly, ducking as it shot another fireball at him. Syndicate turned to finish off the two zombies, only to hear someone yell at the blaze, “Oh, no, you don’t!”
    Syndicate glanced toward the entrance and grinned as he watched CaptainSparklez fall on the blaze angrily. Sparklez’s sword flashed as he killed the blaze, and Syndicate felt a rush of thanks aimed towards him as he stabbed his sword through the chest of one of the zombies. As Syndicate turned to the second, he waved at Sparklez and drove his sword through the zombie’s heart, killing it. “That was helpful!” chuckled Syndicate at Sparklez. “Come on. Jeriicho and FireFoxx are in the house.”
    Sparklez nodded and asked, “What about Community and Champwan? Where are they?”
    Syndicate bit his lip. The two priests had gone to the Nether earlier…they still hadn’t come back. “In the Nether. And I don’t think they’re doing well,” he added.
    Sparklez’s eyes glimmered with worry. “Well, why don’t you go help them?”
    Syndicate put his bow away and drew his sword while saying, “Calm down, Sparklez. Have more faith in them. Meanwhile, we have our problems. Follow me. This is just the beginning.”
    Syndicate heard Sparklez grumble something behind him, but he didn’t ask what he said. They emerged into the courtyard, and Syndicate narrowed his eyes at the huge amount of Nether and Overworld mobs crowding in the the yard. He felt his heart jump, and he tried to hide his shock and horror. The portal was humming loudly, and he heard Sparklez gasp, “How is that possible? Mobs — at least, that huge amount of mobs — can’t travel through portals!”
    “They can now,” Syndicate told Sparklez as he turned around. “I don’t know what’s going on. There are Overworld mobs in the Nether, too, and I haven’t gotten any explanation from Dianite. You seen the Mianite temple?” Sparklez nodded, and Syndicate continued, “I took a quick trip into the Nether with Nadeshot a few hours ago. The Dianite temple is hidden. All I can see is a huge wall of smoke in front of it. The lava is all that seems left of it.”
    Sparklez murmured, “Mianite is in chaos.”
    “Yes…and I don’t know what’s happened.”
    The pair ran inside, and Syndicate saw Jeriicho shooting arrows up the stairs angrily. Behind him, Sparklez yelled out, “Jeriicho!”
    Syndicate didn’t bother telling Sparklez that he probably shouldn’t distract Jeriicho during his fight — that had already been done. Instead he stepped aside as CaptainSparklez dashed towards his friend after an arrow came streaking down and hit Jeriicho in the chest. Then he followed close behind. Jeriicho turned and smiled, “Thanks for coming!”
    Syndicate nodded as Sparklez answered, “Glad to be of service. Hold on a sec.” Sparklez stepped beside Jeriicho and fired his own arrow at what Syndicate realized were skeletons. Judging from the multiple clatters that echoed throughout the house as Sparklez hit his target, Syndicate decided that there were multiple in the stairs.
    Jeriicho reddened and chuckled, “I feel bad, now, having to be saved by two of Mianite’s best fighters.”
    Syndicate grinned and held his chin up higher playfully while Sparklez blushed, “I’m not that good…”
    Jeriicho said something to Sparklez in return, but Syndicate zoned them out until he heard Jeriicho say, “FireFoxx is upstairs. I…I had to leave her when those skeletons attacked me. Not to mention a large magma cube was coming after me.”
    Syndicate was halfway up the stairs when Jeriicho began to talk about the magma cube. His sword was drawn at his side, and he saw the fiery orange hair of FireFoxx as she fought a group of wither skeletons and zombie pigmen. Her blows were getting weaker and weaker each time, though. Syndicate quickly leapt into the fray, and FireFoxx sighed in relief. “Thank Mianite you’re here, Syndicate. A wither skeleton hit me, and…”
    Syndicate nodded and agreed, “That makes sense. You look tired.” He blocked a blow from a gold sword of a zombie pigman. He knocked it against the wall and thrust his sword through its chest, quickly killing it. “How long has the wither effect been going on?”
    “I don’t know,” FireFoxx mumbled, her breath coming in shorter bursts. “It hit me like three seconds before you came up…it’s been going on longer than it normally should, that’s all I know.”
    “We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.”
    Just at that moment, Sparklez and Jeriicho emerged from the stairs, their swords drawn at the ready. Syndicate hid a smile as Jeriicho yelled, “FireFoxx!” Then, angrier, he roared, “Get away from her!” as he fell on the mobs.
    Syndicate chuckled quietly as FireFoxx protested, “H-hey, I’m okay, Jeriicho. Really.”
    “If you call slowly dying ‘okay’,” Jeriicho snapped affectionately, “then yes, yes you are.”
    Syndicate couldn’t help himself. He laughed, “FireFoxx, I don’t think Jeriicho is letting you off like that.”
    “You don’t say.”
    Syndicate left CaptainSparklez to tend to FireFoxx and assisted Jeriicho. He was fighting a group of furious zombie pigmen, their golden swords glinting as they raised them. Syndicate heard a wither skeleton behind him, and he whirled around and blocked the stone sword with the flat of his own diamond sword. Then he twisted himself so that his back was facing the skeleton, grabbed the handle of the sword, wrenched it out of the skeleton’s grasp, and hurled it with deadly aim at a pigman that was about to attempt to impale Jeriicho against the wall. The pigman stiffened as the stone sword hit it and disappeared with a grunt. Jeriicho pulled out another sword and swept his arms in an arc in front of him, cutting off two wither skeletons’ heads simultaneously. Within about five minutes, all the mobs were dead. Breathing hard, Syndicate stood over a golden sword, the last remnant of a zombie pigman, feeling the loss of much of his HP.
    He walked over to where CaptainSparklez and FireFoxx were, and apparently they were talking about where the priests were. Sparklez was saying, “…what I want to know is how.”
    “Sparkly Pants, this isn’t the best place to discuss this,” Syndicate told him, interrupting his flow of speech. “We should head down to your vault.” Sparklez had made some changes to it, and Syndicate wanted to check it out.
    Sparklez protested, “Why are we going to my vault? Why not yours?”
    Syndicate held up his hands in innocence. He only wanted to see it; but he knew that Sparklez would make a big deal about it. That was just how his friend was. “Hey, I swear that I won’t take a thing. But, you know, I just want to…check it out.”
    “You blew it up,” muttered Sparklez.
    Syndicate was slightly surprised when he realized that Sparklez was still holding onto something so far back in the past. “Creepers blew it up,” he corrected nervously. “And that was a long time ago.”
    “Sure, but they blew up with your help!”
    Syndicate opened his mouth for another retort when Jeriicho stepped between them and sighed, “You know, Sparklez, usually you’re the peacekeeper, but right now, I think that we should just head down to your vault and discuss what in the heck we’re supposed to do about this.”
    Sparklez glared at Syndicate and agreed, “Fine, but if Syndicate takes so much as a piece of string, I will personally make sure that he dies.”
    Jeriicho grinned, “Sounds good to me.”
    Syndicate drew in a breath and complained, “Hey!” while FireFoxx burst into laughter.