Who Lies in the End?

Ch 19: 9 "The Void..."

Clay pressed himself against the stone wall of the stronghold while he waited for the zombie to pass down the hall. There were creatures all around him, but he was safe for the moment. His white mask peaked around the corner to see if the coast was clear. When it was, he booked it for the open library.

Shelves of rotten books were clad with dust and spider webs. The ceiling dripped with water and created puddles on the crumbling stone floor. Clay released a sigh of relief as he took out a lantern and lit the oil. The warm glow was a welcoming contrast to the dark underground.

"Come on, what am I looking for," he mumbled to himself as he set down his bag to riffle through it.

His diamond light armor clacked quietly as his fingers found the old leather he was looking for. He pulled out the worn book and flipped through the pages with practiced ease. Most of the book was filled with his journey notes. Tidbits he learned as he traveled and rumors he had caught wind of as he hopped from town to town. Other entries were a journal of sorts. It was easy to reflect on his day by writing his thoughts down and logging his adventures. The last bits of the pages were filled with crazed scribbles and frustrated scratches of his greatest mystery: the End.

He had heard distant rumors and faint stories about the End. Most of them were hogwash or were used to scare children into doing the right thing, but Clay knew they held merit. Especially with what he stole from the Illagers, he knew that the End had to be real.

And it had to be accessible.

"What am I missing," Clay hissed as he flipped through the pages, recounting his hastily written words.

Eventually, his eyes found their target, "Right, so somewhere in here there's a portal room. Find the room, find the portal."

Clay closed the book and stashed it away before slinging his bag back over his shoulder. It took a moment to adjust the strap so it wouldn't dig into his shoulder, but once he was happy, he rose the hood of his green cloak over his head and snuck out of the library.

More halls, more monsters, and more darkness. The stronghold was a dangerous maze, but Clay felt right at home in this environment. The hiss of Creepers? Relaxing. The sting of a skeleton's arrow? Normal. The threat of the unknown? Invigorating. There was nothing in the world that he would trade this feeling for.

Light pooled at the end of the hallway, leading into a room Clay had yet to see before. Adrenaline mingled with excitement and his fingers twitched at the idea that he had found it. Still, he moved cautiously with his shield poised and axe at the ready. Closer he drew to the room until he could make out what was inside.

The room was sparse aside from some stray pools of lava, but there were stone slab stairs that held a monster spawner at the top. At the top of the stairs was a structure that Clay had never seen before made out of new material.

Switching to his pickaxe, Clay made quick work of the spawner. Only a few silverfish had popped out of the floor and attacked before the spawner was no more. After a few swings of his axe, the only reminder of the Silversifh was the faint pain on his ankles.

"Well, the Illagers got that wrong," Clay smirked to himself as he pulled out his journal and opened to his semi-recent notes. He had drawn down what the Illagers thought the portal looked like, and it was very off, "Horizontal, not vertical," he mumbled as he began sketching the proper portal, "three by three formation, blocks made out of End Stone?" he ran his fingers over the foreign stone and the block was so cold it burned, "fucking freezing even though there is lava below it."

He walked up the steps to gaze at the top of the portal, "The blocks look like they can hold something," his eyes flickered over to a lonesome Eye of Ender that sat happily in its place, "More Eyes..."