Council of the Heir

Chapter Fourteen - hm

"In here, my dear." Null beckoned her through the door, and Lydia gave him a flat look before she obeyed. The room beyond was some sort of library or study, with bookshelves along one wall and a desk in the far right corner. There were also several magical items displayed about the room- and, she noticed, a pedestal that was empty. As she watched, Null crossed the room and set Herobrine's pickaxe down atop it.

Null had taken her from the mines to some kind of residence of his, a building built into the rock deep underground. It was just the two of them, as Notch and some of his guards had taken Steven and Valor away to lock them up. Null was unarmed, but Lydia was very very aware of how powerful he was.

"Nice cave base," she commented.

"Sit down." Null ignored her, gesturing to a chair before the desk, and Lydia reluctantly obeyed. This was obviously moving towards questioning, so she needed to figure out real quick what she was going to reveal to this guy. "Now," he began conversationally as he sat down at the desk. "You and the boy are cousins, correct?"

"Well, actually, no." Lydia crossed her legs. "Valor and I aren't related. It's just less weird for us to be traveling together if we claim to be cousins." Null's brow arched.

"I see."

"Valor is Herobrine's son," Lydia went on. He was supposed to know that at this point anyway, having both Steven and Valor prisoner. "And Herobrine is dead."

"Dead," Null echoed. He sat back in his chair, processing this. "Is he, now."

"Yup." Lydia plucked at a loose thread in her shirt. "Been dead for... iunno, a couple months or somethin'."

"So I have been following his son."

"That is correct."

"What a shame." Null sighed, lacing his fingers together on his desk. "I was dearly hoping that I would be able to be the one to deal the final blow. But I suppose we cannot have it all." He met Lydia's eyes again, searching. "What is your connection with them, then? If you are not related, what stake do you have in this? How did you come to be here, with Herobrine's successor?"

Lydia pursed her lips. That was a pretty good question, and she was pretty sure that 'because I wrote this book and I wanted to hang out with the main characters' wasn't an acceptable answer.

"Well," she started. "Uh. I know the future." Null tilted his head.

"Do go on."

"I know about you," she continued. "How you were trying to summon a demon when Herobrine interrupted, and you were possessed. I know about your grudge against Herobrine, and I knew about your plans to hunt him down, and how Valor got caught up in it. Soooo..." she shrugged. "I decided to step in and try to help, because you're getting innocent people hurt and I wanted you to stop that."

"I see." Null was quiet for a few moments. "And yet you did not warn them that they would fail to kill me."

"Yeah, well." Lydia coughed. "I haven't told them that I know the future, and I've been trying to play it cool."

Null scoffed. "What purpose have you in interfering, then, if you only intend to lead yourself and both of them to your deaths?"

"Yeah." Lydia tilted her head. "Makes you think, doesn't it? Why would I do that?" Null's brow furrowed, and she went on. "See, I know how this story ends, and you're going to lose."

"Am I?" Null scoffed. "And how might that come to be? Both of my foes are imprisoned, as is their source of information. I have already won."