Dying to Live

The Tower

Chapter 14

Deadlox's P.O.V.

When I woke up, the sun was still in the sky. I estimated it would probably be another hour before it would be safe for us to leave Seto's place. We had decided that after a few days staying with Seto, we would leave. Unfortunatly that time was up. We had all come to like Seto like family, and he seemed to enjoy our company.

There were going to be no sad faces though. Since Seto was a sorcerer, we were going to bring him to our cave and he would make a magical transport link or something like that so we could just hop back and forth between this tower and our cave.

I had packed up my stuff before I fell asleep this morning, so I decided to see if Seto was up and about. Over the week I would usually wake up before the others, so I would go find Seto and we'd talk and I'd assist him with his magic. Apparently zombies have a sort of special magic of our own, so Jess was all over learning more about that. My magic wasn't like the others' though, It was unstable and came in random bursts whenever I tried to use it. I shook my head and peeked into Seto's potion room.

Sure enough the sorcerer was in there. A golden carrot was in his hand as he held carefully above one of the brewing stands, about to put it in. A pile of redstone dust lay on the desk next to him, so if I remember that correctly he is going to use that to lengthen whatever potion he was making. There was also some gunpowder on the desk, but I had no idea what that was for.

Dropping the golden carrot, Seto turned to look around the room. I smiled from leaning against the doorway as he caught sight of me. "Hey. You're up first again, huh?"

"Yeah. Those weirdos can sleep forever." I paused. "You know, the evening I first met Sky, I was the first one up then too. I was dancing and didn't notice him till after the song had finished." I rubbed the back of my head kind of embarrassed that I hadn't noticed Sky sooner. I have no clue how long he stood there and watched me dance.

Chuckling, Seto checked back on his potion. "It's almost done with this ingredient." He mumbled to himself.

"Could I try to help?" I asked.

Seto smiled. "Sure."

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I let out a grunt as Seto tackled me. "That's too much gunpowder!" He was wide eyed with fear. "If you had added even a grain more that might have blown up!"

"Oops." Was all I could reply as I rolled over to get him off of me. "Though it might be fun to see something go boom."

"Yeah, that would either be the potion or myself with that much gunpowder. Not fun." Seto looked at me with a very factual sort of face - at least that's how I'm gonna explain that look he gave me.

"Alright fine. Not fun." Seto helped me up as I replied. "Could we blow something else up though?" Seto just sighed, shaking his head as he grabbed the potions and walked out of the room with them. "I'll take that as a maybe?!" He never gave me a response to that.

I dashed out of the room to go find something else to do until we left. My first instinct was to go and check on the others. I hadn't seen them yet, but that didn't mean that they weren't up yet.

Sure enough, Terra and Claire were up and about. Both were standing over a sleeping Jess before Claire suddenly made a sound like she was super frustrated. "What's up?" I asked. Terra jumped and squealed in surprise as if she didn't expect me to come in asking questions.

"Jess won't wake up no matter what we do." Claire looked up at me and gritted her teeth. I grinned and walked over. "If you are able to wake him up I swear..."

I looked down at Jess. He was curled up while hugging something. I let out a small chuckle at the sight, in his grasp was a book. It was held tightly to his chest. "Jess, wake up or I take the book."

After letting out a small snort, Jess looked up at me with blurry eyes. "Deadlox? What's everybody doing crowding around me?" I laughed victoriously as Claire stormed off and pouted in the corner and Terra giggled at the bleary eyed look Jess had.

"How?" Claire whined. "Why?"

Seto chose that moment to peak his head into the room. He gave us a strange look as he saw Claire sulking in the corner and the rest of us over at Jess' bed. We were doing our best to teach Seto some of the zombie dialect we spoke so easily and he was a fast learner compared to what I'm sure most humans would be, so I'm sure he could understand bits and pieces of what we said. "Hey you, pyromaniac and friends, how much longer until it'll be safe for you to leave?"

I glanced out the window and saw that we'd be able to leave any minute now. "Not too much longer. If we grab our stuff now, by the time we get to the door we should be good." Seto nodded at my response.

"I'll grab my stuff then. Meet you four at the door after you finish up whatever you were doing before I interrupted."

We all burst out laughing before grabbing our stuff. These three are my family, not matter what, and Seto was like an honorary member of said family now.

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Jerome's P.O.V.

I followed the faint scent trail through the jungle. Lucky for me it hadn't rained, otherwise it would probably be gone by now with the damp environment of the jungle itself. The team may not believe me, but I will prove them wrong. I will find Ty and bring him back with me.

I was so focused on the scent trail that I didn't notice anything around me. No sounds reached my ears, and I was only aware of any obstacles in front of me. Probably a bad idea since it was dark out not long after I reached the edge of the jungle and started into the next biome the scent trail entered.

Eventually I pulled out of that focused state as I nearly ran into the front door of an old tower. Blinking a few times I realized that I recognized the building. It was Seto's old tower! The scent was as if the zombies had been in and around here for a few days, and I had to focus to find Seto's scent which was beginning to blend with the smell of zombies. Did they zombify him?

I burst through the door and began searching the building. Seto's scent was still strong in his room as if he had been sleeping there for a while, and the combined scent of the zombies that were in what I remembered to be his guest room. Both Seto's and Ty's scents where fresh in the potion room, they were last here around sundown. Yet no matter how hard I searched, I could find no trace of life... or non-life? What is it called when you're referring to zombies?

Just as I ran up to the front door of the tower to see if they had possibly left and if I could find out where they went, I noticed movement in some nearby bushes. My first reaction was to crouch down low in the doorway and growl. I didn't even bother with trying to identify the creature by scent because I doubted anyone I know would follow me  here.

To my surprise however, as I bounded forward to attack, a person I knew exited the bushes. I had come face to face with Jason. I guess you could call it muzzle to space helmet though...

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AN

Will be posting a second chapter later to make up for my awful updating habits. It's a Christmas miracle! :P