Encore: The Amnesiac and the Deceiver

17: Choosing sides (Riley)

Well, I almost forgot to put this out today.

"Guys, I think that's it!"

I looked up and shaded my eyes from the setting sun. In the distance, I could see the tips of turrets rising to greet the sky. They were black against the bright orange and pink of the sunset. Glancing down at my interactive banner map, I saw that Entity's castle was in that direction.

"I think you're right Sub," I said. "It's in the right place."

"So now we can start thinking of a plan, right?" Sky asked as we resumed walking.

"Simple. Get in, get Herobrine out," Jerome said.

"And if we see Entity?"

"Don't attract attention."

"And what if Herobrine decides not to come with us?" I asked. "What if he tells Entity that we're there? It was hard enough to fight Entity and Null the first time, can you imagine what it's like to fight Entity and Herobrine?"

"Alright, do you have another plan?" Bajan asked.

I thought for a moment. "We need to prove to Herobrine that Entity is evil. If we confronted Entity, if he thought it was just us, maybe he would say things that would convince Herobrine of the truth."

"Or maybe he would kill us before we could react," Sky pointed out.

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"What if we just sent him away?" Sub suggested.

We all turned to him, confused. He explained further.

"Steve said that he hacked his way into the game. When you hack your way into something, you leave something called a 'rip' behind. It's literally a rip in the game. If we push Entity through the rip, we can seal it and he'll be trapped out of the game."

"How do you know about that Sub?" Bajan asked.

"I'm a hacker, duh. How do you think we got into Minecraft in the first place?"

"So we get there, close the rip, then what?" I asked. "Herobrine's going to think we just got rid of his friend. We'll be dead before we leave the castle."

"Then we find him first and tell him what we're going to do," Jerome said.

"And how do you expect that conversation to go?" Sky asked.

"Let's just play this by ear," Bajan said. "If we see Herobrine, we'll tell him what we're going to do. If we don't, we'll do it anyway."

"And do you think we can take down Entity alone?" I asked.

"Riley, you handled Entity and Null on your own."

"I barely survived! And I didn't even get close to killing him!"

"We're not going to kill him," Jerome pointed out. "We're just going to push him into this rip and close it."

"What's stopping him from getting back after we close the rip?" Sky asked.

"When a rip closes, the game sort of strengthens. You have to find a new weak spot, and for a game like Minecraft that's constantly changing, it's not an easy thing to do," Sub explained.

"And Entity's on his own. I know he's powerful, but there's five of us and one of him. And we have awesome weapons and stuff. We'll be able to handle him," Bajan said. "We'll tunnel into the castle again, like last time."

Sky nodded, and I had no choice but to go along. I rolled up my banner and we kept walking, grabbing some materials as we went to make pickaxes for each of us. Using my map again, we tunneled into the castle, coming up in the dungeon.