A Minecraft Endeavour

Chapter 9: Ancient Powers and Abominable Promises

The walls shook. The ceilings cracked. The ground shivered. The redstone lamps went out and in their stead came on low-lighting redstone torches.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!?!" yelled Jake in terror. Putting up his hands, Jake crouched down with Notch and the rest of their entourage of villagers.
After the shaking stopped, the group stood up. "Indeed... Could..." whispered Notch in a voice so quiet, Jake was almost unable to hear. In a louder voice, he continued, "FANTASTIC!!!" This scared the pixels right out of Jake and the villagers.
"What do you mean fantastic???" asked Jake, becoming more and more impatient by the minute.
"Let us move forward!" commanded Notch, ignoring the comment. After what seemed like ages of walking down the corridor, the group finally approached a door. Notch, with a happy grin, stepped forward to open the door. Before he could get his hand on the door, right in front of his nose appeared a stumbling wide-eyed villager soldier.
"WHAT IN..." began Notch, but before Notch could say anything more, the soldier vanished with a single step.
The group of villagers began buzzing with chatter, each wearing a grave expression. Finally, one of the villagers decided to pipe up. "Sir, we're running out of time... the space here is..."
"I KNOW!!" interrupted a furious Notch. "Do not take me as an imbecile Dr. Splash." And with that, the villagers ceased their chatter.
Notch put his hand on the giant Nether Quartz door. As if it could recognize a friend, the door began to light up in a multitude of colours. In addition to that, the walls began to vibrate. But not only that, a buzzing sound could be heard, escalating to a high-pitched screech. As the sound climaxed, Jake noticed the door began to move. Putting his hands to his ears, Jake fell to his knees. The sound was excruciating. It was as if someone was scratching their finger nails down a chalkboard while ten thousand cars got into train wrecks with the Number 8 Express Train to Blockatia. All of a sudden, the sound stopped, and the door was finally wide open.
Jake opened his mouth to ask what the sound was but Notch beat him to the answer. "I installed that siren a while ago. Interestingly, the sound is only unresponsive to me. And I now see to you as well. Very interesting... Well, as you can see, our fellow entourage has been reduced to smithereens. I couldn't let them see what's behind this door now, am I right? "
It seemed like Notch's definition of not being affected was not being blasted to smithereens. "So what was the whole point of bringing them along in the first place?!??" screamed Jake. He was not accustomed to the idea of killing. Even if indirectly. Jake couldn't believe Notch would kill. Ever. But, Jake understood that with the deterioration of Minecraftia and now Herobrine's visit, times were probably tough for Notch. Jake hoped he had a very good reason for this outrageous act.
"Well, we'll get to the reason later..." Notch said, in a cryptic manner.
Indeed what Notch said was true. Beside the duo lay piles of brown ash. With the flick of Notch's wrist, the ash dissolved into numerous pixels before fading away.
"Now that we have gotten the unpleasantries out of the way," said Notch, "I welcome you to the Administrator Room!"

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To say that Emily's head was throbbing would be an understatement. Big time. Her head felt like as if a billion silverfish decided to smack Emily's head too many times.
"Hallo?" Emily said into the darkness. She was not sure where she was. As she walked further into the darkness, Emily was able to discern a few things. For one, she realized that what Emily had mistaken for darkness was actually just really really low lighting. Another thing was that the walls seemed to be the things emitting the light.
"Strange..." muttered Emily, mostly to herself. Using her finger, she rubbed it against the wall. Surprised, she snatched her hand back close to her. The walls were warm. It dawned to Emily that this wall could only be made up of only one kind of material. Emily must have been standing inside a giant hallway of energized redstone!
Getting up, the walls around her began to emit a faint glow. Moving forward, with every step, the floor around her started to light up. By the time she reached the end of the hallway, the light around her was too bright for her to keep her eyes open.
Emily opened the door and stepped into another room. This room was much more particular. Frames of different materials were everywhere! In different shapes and sizes were arches, tunnels, circles and many other strange shapes made out of numerous materials such as obsidian, nether quarts, dirt and stone brick. But the most impressive thing in the room was in the middle. Surrounded by the odd shapes stood a Giant. Cube. A simple giant cube fashioned out of... Emily wasn't sure if she was seeing right. The Cube seemed to be made out of pure bedrock. But bedrock was impossible to obtain in Minecraftia. Even the most skilled, and legendary miners were never able to mine such a material. Then, to Emily's surprise, the cube seemed to change material. It now seemed to be made out of pure... wool? Who made cubes of wool?!? Again, it changed material. This time, Emily's eyes were looking at... a cube of clouds? That just didn't make sense. As Emily stepped forward to touch the cube, all of a sudden she felt a curious sensation. It felt as if she were being twisted and folded. Emily felt like someone was making a paper book out of her. Then, her vision went black.
A shadow in the room shifted.

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"Now Jake, since we are in this room, I can speak more freely," Notch began. "I have long suspected that Herobrine has had a multitude of spies in my palace. I could not let anyone into this room except for me and the person I were to... test. Now, to answer some of your questions. This place," gestured Notch, "is a place only where an administrator has access. Hence the security. In addition, this place is one of the limited places in Minecraftia where we can activate the ancient powers."
"Ancient powers?" asked a skeptical Jake. "When were there ancient powers in Minecraftia??"
"Well, the admins before me and I have sworn an oath to keep the secret of the powers a hidden truth. If anyone dangerous were to harness these powers..." Here Notch took a little pause, as if the next words would hurt. "Well, Minecraftia wouldn't be standing anymore." Notches features shifted to a more positive reflection. "NOW!!! Since we are here, it is time to activate your powers, dear Jake."
"What are my powers exactly?" asked Jake again. He really really wanted to know what he could do.
"Well, from what we could tell from your tests, it seems that you have some sort of power over the darker array of pixels. In other words, you can summon darkness and possibly leach the colour of pixels, destroying them."
Jake didn't exactly like the sound of leaching the life out of things, but Jake liked the idea of summoning darkness. Perhaps one day, Jake would be a renowned prince, ruling alongside Notch. He could be called... The Prince of Darkness!! Perhaps too cheesy. Maybe the Prince of Pain!!! Uh maybe too horrific. Jake would have to work on the name.
"That's very interesting. How do we activate my powers?!??" demanded an enthusiastic Jake.
"Just stand in the middle of the room," gestured Notch to the middle of the room. There on the ground lay a circular pattern that seemed to continuously weave in and out of other smaller circles. "But Jake. Be warned. You will be faced with a test. To activate your full strength, you will need to demonstrate your strength and willpower to Minecraftia before you are donned your powers. And perhaps even Administratorship as well."
Jake could hardly wait for the fun to begin. He rushed toward the centre of the room. The second he reached the middle, Jake was surprised with a feeling of Vertigo and a tingling sensation. As if this were some medieval ritual, Notch began to walk around Jake, chanting strange words and... was it Jake, or did he hear numbers as well? As time progressed, the tingling sensation grew; a headache started to set in. With the growing feelings came louder and faster chanting from Notch. Eventually, Jake felt as if his head was going to explode, as if his headache, now searing into his skull, wasn't enough, Notch's chanting was now belching out of him in grand shouts and screams. As the two neared a climax, the room began to shake. If Jake's eyes were working properly at that moment, then he was probably seeing the floor light up in various colours. Flashing, the floor's patterns started to converge into images. The pictures showed scenes of Cake from Grandma, Jake and Emily setting off on their adventure, Roasted Chicken... Then the room went dark. Darker than dark. It was as if the darkness wished to consume the world. Notch flickered in and out of existence before disappearing completely. Then, in a whisper someone started to say something. Another whisper joined in. Soon a chorus of whispers were chiming in. The room became so loud... and so dark... Jake just... he wanted... What did he want?
The whispers answered his question. All the voices went quiet except for one. This eerily discomforting voice said three words:
Leach... Herobrine's... Life...
And with that, the darkness swallowed Jake completely, both mind and body.