Dead Weight {MCSM}

Plan of Attack

Everything was moving in reverse.

The walls of the hallway as the string of minecarts rushed past, the cool evening air pushing in from outside, everything sinking past as my field of view pushed forward. The past few hours had been nothing but a bygone blur of rapid movement, fueled by a looming sense of urgency and near-lethal amounts of adrenaline from both escaping the End in one piece and subsequently being launched down a seemingly endless hallway at a breakneck speed.

All of that experience was foggy and surreal even to me now. It had gotten weird from the moment we were all locked in that library, and things only got stranger after leaving the grinder. Don't even get me started on where we found Soren. The combined experience of walking amongst hundreds of angry Endermen, a hard punch to the face, and wool as far as the eye could see made it one of many experiences in recent times that I'd like to forget as soon as humanly possible.

When the carts crossed onto the tracks laid across the ground outside, the aforementioned speeding feeling didn't stop for even a second. The wind blowing past my face, the rushing of figures past us. It did stop for a moment, however, when I came back to my senses and realized we were hurtling right into a flock of angry mobs loitering on the minecart tracks. The rushing feeling slowed to a crawl, as one creeper from the bunch ran right in front of us, hissing and flashing.

"INCOMING!"

Nothing could have been done to steer out of the way of the incoming blast, no matter how much I tried to wiggle and move the minecart. One explosion to the cart at the front of the line, and all the rest came tumbling down with it, launching us all out onto the bare stone whereupon the track came to a convenient stop. In mere seconds, we were all spread across the ground, surrounded by remnants of dirt, stone, and minecart shrapnel.

Miraculously, no one seemed to be hurt. Just disorientated. Myself even more so when I hauled myself off of the ground, dusted myself off, and took in my surroundings.

Dozens upon dozens of hostile mobs were about, all running, stampeding in different directions: this way, that way, some even running towards the hall of Soren's fortress that we had just come barreling out of. Strangely enough, no matter how close they came to us, they didn't bother to pay us any mind, when any other time they would have gone straight for the kill upon first glance.

"What's going on here?" I wheezed, still winded after being suddenly ejected from the minecarts.

The chaotic cries of the mobs were broken up by a pair of rapid footsteps, belonging to Magnus and Ellegaard, running up to our group with swords in their hands and smiles on their faces.

"THERE you are!" Ellie chirped between breaths.

Magnus grit his teeth. "About time you all showed up here! Where the hell have y'all been?"

"Says the two who split up and completely vanished on us out of nowhere!" I barked, as I fumbled around for my sword and stormed over to the two of them. "Where have YOU been?!"

They were silent for a brief moment, their eyes straying towards each other before snapping back to me. "That doesn't matter," Magnus retorted. "What matters NOW is that we had spent hours looking for you guys after we ran into each other, and now we're all conveniently here and together again at the perfect time!"

"If I had to guess, you've been missing since sunrise," Ellie added on. "Where in the world were you all?"

By now the rest of the group had joined up with us, thankfully all unharmed by both the sudden crash and the onslaught of terrified monsters parading past them. Glancing over my shoulder, my eyes met with Soren's for a fleeting moment, before he swiftly ducked behind Axel shamefully to avoid the piercing gaze of his former colleagues.