The Arrow & The Blade | A Minecraft Story

Chp 5 | The Mole & The Marauder I

TF007 Headquaters | 2100 Hours | Andre's POV

It's been almost 24 hours since I last slept. My only source of sustenance being the bread I keep beside me. Ever since we returned from our search and seize, I've been looking through everything we grabbed, looking for connections between them, trying to figure out he's planning. No dice. Maybe I just need some rest, but I've had too much coffee to try and sleep now. "Dude you're still up?" Ronin says groggily, "I'm starting to think you're obsessed with this guy." he continues, looking up towards me with weary eyes. "Maybe I am, but only with seeing him burn in the eternal flames of Hell." I say in a raspy, and slightly sleepy voice. Ronin stares at me, long enough to make it creepy, or well, creepier. "It'll happen, that I can promise you. However, without sleep you're in no shape to figure out his plans, let alone take him in when the time comes. Go to sleep." he says, hopping back into his bed and falling asleep once more.

He's right, and I know it. So with that, I turn off the light, and lay down in my bed. For awhile I stare at the ceiling, think of all the negative possibilities. 'What if we're too late?', 'What if Ronin dies?', 'What if Erebus wins this time?'. These thoughts I'd normally let overtake me and get me to do whatever I can to ensure such "what if's" don't become a reality, but this time, I dismiss them, as my eyes slowly close, and I fall into a deep, much needed sleep.
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As soon as the sun rises I'm back at it again, working through all the evidence we found at the compound. However, it's different this time, I've had something to eat other than bread and something to drink, thus, I feel rejuvenated. It's pretty evident too.

There's a sketch of a command block on one of these pieces of paper, and on another, a black tentacle monster with several heads and eyes. Said eyes also glow purple, but the lightbulb in my head doesn't glow at all as I have no clue what to make of such sketch, I toss it to the floor below. I begin reading the notes again, but I once again I've hit a dead end. So I'm going to enlist the help of Jackson, he is an analyst after all. 'Let's see what he makes of this' I thought, jumping down from the balcony and running out the room.

"Oi, Jackson, what do you make of this?" I say, entering his office, and startling him just a bit. He peers at the sketch and the random words, with a special interest to the commands. After reading it all, his facial expression changes to one of fear, however I don't know why. "Yeah, sorry, I'm not sure what those are either. Just looks like a bunch of words to me." he says looking up at me. "Hmm, fine, thanks." I say, disappointed that my attempt to seek help was to no avail. I begin to walk away as I hear him scrambling for something, so I stay behind for a bit, just out of sight. He begins making a call, and gets an answer. "Do you come with a good report?" the voice says. "Not this time, you're about to be made!" Jackson whisper yells as he looks around. "This guy named IceBolt is analyzing your notes, and even came to me for some answers, but I didn't give him any."

'You have now' I think to myself, sneaking out the room while he's still on the phone. I don't need to hear the rest of their conversation, I already know where it's going, and now I can put a face to the word "Mole". That voice, it's unmistakably Erebus', which means they're working together. Explains why he panicked and acted ignorant to the words I showed him. Can't let him know I'm on to him though, not yet.

I race back to the room, where I find Ronin staring at the one sketch I couldn't understand. "Erebus drew this?" he asks in a fearful whisper voice. "Yeah, why?" I asked, utterly confused. "This is the wither storm, the most powerful monster known to man. It consumes all it sees until nothing remains. It's part of the reason why the command block is in a vault on base." he says. "It all makes sense now." I say. "What does?" Ronin responds, a bit taken aback at how dismissive I seemed to what he said. I close the door, and begin to explain.

"Ronin, Jackson is the mole mentioned in the paper. I asked him for some help analyzing this stuff and he acted like he knew nothing. As I left he begin making a phone call to Erebus, tell him that we stole his stuff and that he was about to be found out. I didn't catch the rest of the conversation because I ran back to tell you. Ronin we've figured out Erebus's plan. He's going to summon the wither storm and have it destroy everything in sight, chiefly, this city!" I tell him.

R: "And Jackson's going to tell him just where the command block is, or even try to get it himself."

IB: "Explains why there's code looking shit below the rest of the words."

R: "So you knew that was code?"

IB: "I said "code looking", I'm no computer man, so I wasn't entirely sure."

R: "Hmm. Well there is one question I have. What's the point of adding "wither skulls" if he's just going to summon it?"

IB: "I think at one point he planned to handcraft it, but when he realized he could just summon it, he dismissed those words completely."

"Motherfucker. Well shit, what do we do now?" Ronin asks. "Lay low, pretend we're still working on it. That gives us the element of surprise. We can catch him in the act, get him to roll in Erebus, and stop this before we end up having to deal with a much bigger fish." I say. "What if it's too late for that? We can't just let him or anyone else make off with the command block." he responds. "Damn it, this can go either of two ways, we can only move to stop one. If we're too late, Erebus summons the wither storm. If we're too early, Erebus is going to have to change the plans." I say in a slightly angry tone. "And even with those altered plans, he'll probably still screw us over." Ronin adds with a sigh.

While Ronin sits on his bed, I pace back and forth thinking about next steps. Just then, I hear some bells and explosions coming from a lower floor. The mansion shakes a bit. "THATS THE VAULTS ALARM, WE WERE TOO LATE!" he yells. My eyes narrow, and my fist clenches for a second, but they unclench and I let out a sigh. "No time to regret what we didn't do. Suit up, we're putting a stop to this." another explosion shakes the mansion again. "NOW!"