Freeze or Fall

Chapter 22: Hints

Sam threw his arms around Grian. "Aww! I missed you Taurtis! We're gonna have so much fun!"

Grian laughed nervously. "Y-yeah. Fun."

"Well, c'mon then!" Sam grabbed Grian's hand and dashed off, Taurtis staying behind like he'd promised.

The two had gone over a few things before beginning the mission. One, Taurtis had to stay behind and keep a fair distance. Two, Taurtis was not to interfere unless it was an emergency. And three, the goal was to find out what Sam knew about the current situation, whatever it took.

Grian stopped to catch his breath as Sam stopped outside his apartment. Sam unlocked the door before typing something on his phone.

When Grian saw the message, he paled. Since when was Sam able to use admin commands?

"O-oh you're an um... Admin?" He stuttered.

Sam grinned. "Yep! This nice guy rewarded me with it after I gave him a hand."

Grian followed Sam into the building. "So this guy... What did he want from you?"

"Hacking, convincing, a few different things. He had this great idea to slip a hacking crystal into the HC server, letting me communicate and convince our victim to do our dirty work."

Grian flinched, but continued. "What about after that?"

Sam laughed. "He did need a small hand with the metamorphosis, as well as some information I was able to easily get."

"Metamorphosis?"

"Yep! Forcefully activating stagnant DNA is never easy, especially when you're doing it in your own code." Sam opened a cabinet and handed Grian a bag. "Here, you're hungry."

Not a question, just "you're hungry." Grian understood what Sam was hinting at and opened the bag, wrinkling his nose at the contents. "Stagnant DNA?"

"Yep! Fairy or something, I forgot. You gonna eat those?"

Grian quickly shoved some in his mouth and nodded. The Tauritos tasted as yucky as ever, though Grian realized it didn't taste half as bad as dried kelp. In fact, eating dried kelp had helped him get used to the taste if anything.

Pushing the thoughts aside, Grian contemplated what he'd just learned. So ET, and consequently Taurtis, had Fae DNA. Stagnant Dna, to be exact. Like... like his. So ET didn't know how to activate it, so he resorted to messing with his code. But why, and how did he find out? Had he been... watching him? No, then ET would've known how to activate it, right?

"So... How did the guy find out he had that Dna?"

"I dunno, but I can say he always was talking to himself. Always things about his purpose and something about player souls." Sam shrugged.

Grian kept a mental note of what Sam was telling him. This stuff had to be important.

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"Are you sure it'll work?" Ex asked.

Npg nodded, holding out his hand. "One way to find out."

Ex too a deep breath and grabbed Npg's hand.

And promptly crumpled to the ground, limp as a ragdoll.

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Four knocks. No more, no less.

"Oh thank herobrine." False opened the door. "Come in, quickly. That's everyone, right? We're all here?"

"Yes." Xisuma confirmed.

"Impy! Tango!" Zed ran over. "Thank goodness you guys are okay! What happened?"

Iskall set down Impulse, as Stress ran over and checked him over. "Ouch, that's a bad concussion love. Falsey, can you get me the first aid kit?"

False nodded, retrieving it. Joe helped Tango sit down. "Us three got cornered by Hels, and Joe managed to convince Cleo to escape. I tried to make an iron golem but Helsknight got to me and trapped me under some rubble. He had Impulse cornered when Joe grabbed the shears I'd dropped and sheared the pumpkin last-second. It was awesome."

"It's wasn't that heroic." Joe shrugged. "Anyways, I'm going back out. I've got a bunch of pups at Jurassic Bark that will come in handy."

"Are you sure? That's a good idea but-"

"I'll be fine! Jurassic Bark isn't that far away if you have enough enderpearls." Joe insisted. "I'll be back before sundown."

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Joe took a deep breath as he shot one last ender pearl, landing on the beach at Jurassic Bark. He wasn't lying, the dogs were important, but he had to do something first.

Joe kneeled down next to the waves, and placed his hands in the water with a small sigh of relief. The cold ocean soothed the pain, Joe removing his hands from to water to see the damage. No more than a few mild burns, a couple blisters on his left palm already beginning to heal.

Shaking his head, Joe stood up and walked over to the pups who greeted him happily. He smiled as they rubbed against him, snarling at any nearby mobs.

Joe chuckled. "Y'all ready for an adventure?"