The Book Of Dreams - Vol. I
asanetargoss
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The Book Of Dreams - Vol. I
by asanetargoss
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It All Began With A Nightmare
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Hello.
It seems you have finally found me.
It's almost as if this was meant to be.
So, welcome. Welcome to my story.
What a kind blessing that we could meet.
I come into your hands, to fill the blank pages of your fate.
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And you come to open my cover, to read the words on my pages.
Promise me this: continue to bring me wherever you go.
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I saw the book in a dream.
It was nightmare. I was surrounded by strange monsters.
Then I woke up. I
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felt the reed-bound book in my back pocket, right where I found it in that dream.
I swear, I have never seen this book in my life.
But when I read the book, that's what I saw: those very words.
The monsters
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stared at me, as if they were waiting for me to finish reading.
Then when I closed the book, the dream ended.
My back is sweaty, as if in a fever. My beautiful new shirt clings heavily to my body.
I reach down into my back pocket,
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grabbing the book and bringing it up to my shoulder, opening it up against the mattress, to the first page again.
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Part 1: Crafting the Skeleton Armor
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Chapter 1: A Strange Morning
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Surely you can do better than just the shirt?
Some pants of the same make would fit your form very nicely.
And why not a cap and some shoes too?
I apologize if I sound vague and demanding. You see, I'm very excited to
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finally meet somebody.
I've been trapped in a listless void all this time. I felt so lonely there.
Of course, it's easy to become lonely when you're a book.
But thousands of years have passed since I woke up for the first time.
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Nobody has read the words between my covers. Nobody has dreamed my stories. Nobody has been inspired by me.
I just drifted inertly, in an endless, forsaken, filthy void.
Then, finally, I found you. I used your being to drag myself out of the void. I
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inspired you to craft that shirt. I made you dream of frightening monsters. I proudly spread my pages open for you to read. It felt so great! I felt alive, I felt like I had a purpose for the first time in what seemed like forever.
If I were human, I
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would sound crazy to you. But please just trust me for just a little while. I want so badly to guide you, to make you strong, to show you things you've never dreamed of!
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This book is definitely possessed. Or is it alive? I'm not sure
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I want to know. Part of me feels bad for it, but another part of me feels very suspicious and unnerved.
After I close the book, the sun already gleams brightly from the skylight. The cobbled stone walls seem etched with deep shadows
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under its brilliance.
I lean out of bed and onto the creaky wooden floor. I walk out into the foyer and place the book gently on top of the furnace. Then, with iron blade ready in hand, I open the door, glancing quickly from horizon to horizon. No
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Creepers in sight.
It's strange; the monsters in my dream looked a lot like Creepers. But something tells me they weren't Creepers. I looked into their eyes, and they seemed too intelligent. And they didn't smell like mold and brimstone;
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they smelled more like apples and ashes. I still can't believe how vibrant that dream felt; I could almost swore it really happened, had I not have woken up so suddenly. Even the tiny details of my bedroom, like the cobwebs in the corner and the
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ink stand on the table, were right there.
I walk out into the road, and see my neighbor, leaning against a wooden beam in front of her house. Her name is Airlass. She's lived in this town longer than I have. She always wears heavy iron
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armor over her trousers and various core-centered straps, to which she always affixes an axe, among various other steel tools.
"Is there something wrong?" Airlass asks. "You look as if you've seen a ghost!" She seems
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surprised as she looks carefully at me.
"Sort of... but not exactly." I say.
"Was it Herobrine?" She suddenly seems eager, almost hopeful.
"No, it wasn't like that. I had a weird nightmare. I was surrounded by
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creepers at my bedside. And then I found a book."
Suddenly I realize a familiar pressure against my back pocket. I reach my hand into it, and pull out that same book. My chest feels cold as I bring it in front for Airlass to see.
"Oh, Fristad,
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you're blushing!" She grabs the book out of my hand and opens it. "'The Science and Practical Use of Redstone Circuitry.' I never knew you were into that sort of thing." She shuts the book. "You're a weird one. Did I mention your new chest plate makes
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you look like a Skelly? What are all those bones stuck in there for anyway?"
"It's for structural reinforcement!" I explain. It's impossible to talk seriously with Airlass. Why do I even bother?
"Maybe you should try some iron
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armor some time? It's much more durable than leather."
"But it's way too heavy." I sigh. "Besides, iron armor makes you look like a turtle."
"Wow, and here I was thinking you were politely giving me a present like a gentleman. I was
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obviously mistaken. Here, you can keep your nerdy redstone book." She tosses the book at me, picks her axe up from her belt, and marches swiftly down the road towards the forest.
I wish I could have told her what the book really was. Airlass likes to
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joke a lot, but she's also one of my closest friends. Maybe I'll tell her when she gets back in the afternoon.
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Chapter 2: Meeting Up With Jonas
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So here I am, stuck with a possessed book that wants to follow me
everywhere, that seems to be able to alter my dreams, and is able to
communicate with me by changing the words on its pages. That's just
splendid. I really hope that it
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doesn't have other freaky magical powers; I have enough to worry about caring for the livestock and watching out for bandits.
Apparently when Airlass opened the book, it was re-written to be a redstone manual.
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I wonder if it stayed that way; I'm not very keen on circuitry but it may be interesting to learn.
So I open up the book again to the first page.
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It seems like it's too late in the day to collect more bones.
Maybe we can wake
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up early tomorrow to collect them. I'm sure it will be worthwhile, as the product is as strong as steel, yet as light as cloth.
Don't hesitate to read me if you have any questions. Otherwise, I'll see you tonight.
By the way, your neighbor's quite
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rude.
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I don't understand why the book is so insistent that I make a full set of bone-enforced leather armor. I mean, it was an interesting experiment, but I don't want to go around wearing it
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if it looks stupid. Besides, it's hot and it itches.
I decide to wear it for a day. Maybe it will offer better protection, and it just needs breaking in to sit right.
I head up the road past a few houses to the farm. Jonas, my herding partner,
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is busy unraveling a rope and pulling out shears. Most townsfolk tend to shun him for being an Ender Born, but he works well with the animals, and I've gotten accustomed to his odd colors and accent. He wears a long brown robe over most of his body to
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conceal his glowing runes. Most people don't realize he's too human to mind if people make eye contact with him.
Jonas tosses me a lasso and a saddle. I fumble with it with the book still in my hand, but I manage to grasp it.
"Finally awake, I
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see! Good morning to you." He reorganizes the chest for a little while and closes it. "So, did you stay up late reading that book you have there?"
"You're not that far off, actually." I reply "I actually found this book in a nightmare I had last
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night, and it appeared in my pocket this morning. I'm quite sure it's filled with some sort of dark magic, because it seems to be able to talk to me by rewriting the words on its pages."
"Are you serious?" Jonas gestures with his hand to see
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the book. I hand it to him, and he opens it. "What a courteous greeting addressed to me!" Jonas's brows raise high on his forehead for a moment. "By Jeb! The pages really do change! In Notch's name! That is certainly one of the stranger things
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I've seen... it certainly beats that one time I saw lightning hit a pig!"
He gives the book back to me, and I put it into my back pocket again. Jonas and I head into the barn to saddle up the hogs. They greet us with pleased grunts from their bloated
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bellies.
We ride out into the corral with lassos in hand to lead the sheep out for shearing. This spring morning is especially warm and the sheep will be grateful to have their heavy coats removed.
After a light lunch of pork and melon,
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Jonas and I work in the corral for a few more hours, and I talked to him a little more about how I found the book, and how it kept asking me to craft the strange armor. We store the wool and produce we gathered before saying our goodbyes. Jonas
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gives me one last tip before I leave.
"Keep me informed if your strange book does anything else unusual. I'll ask my cousin to look at it this Sunday."
Jonas's cousin is human, but he's very fluent in the magical arts, like the grandmother both
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him and Jonas share. Jonas's cousin specializes in knowledge about monsters and other sentient magical beings, so perhaps he would be able to understand my book and why it's trying to communicate with me.
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Chapter 3: The Second Nightmare
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I head home and into my foyer, and note that my furnace does not have a
book on it. Suddenly I feel a strong urge to open the book. I bring it
out from my pocket. Somehow I feel excited.
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We must ask Jonas's cousin if he knows
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how to enchant armor.
Enchantment could make your new armor invaluable.
I'll be sure to wake you up early so we can collect bones, maybe even hunt some Skeletons. We only have four days, so we must act fast.
I'll see you in your
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dreams.
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I can't help shake the feeling that this book is trying to manipulate me. I wish there was some way to get rid of it... but it seems to be able to follow me wherever I go, so disposing of it could be difficult.
Maybe I'm being
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insensitive. The book came to me as a friend, asking for my friendship, after thousands of years of isolation. It's doing the best to be nice but doesn't have much social experience, so it may just not know any better.
But this isn't a
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person. It isn't even a monster. It's a book. Books aren't supposed to have a mind of their own; their contents are interpreted by the reader. It's simply unnatural for a book to be self-aware, let alone read my mind.
There's no use arguing with
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myself over some book. It's probably here to stay, so I might as well make good use of whatever may come out of it, whether it be some sort of friendship or just some stupid looking armor.
I walk up the stairs to my bedroom, nervously
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expecting another nightmare but helpless on how to avoid it. As I crawl into bed, I realize just how tired I really am. Sleep comes over me quickly.
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It's a sunny afternoon. The grass is a long Summery golden brown.
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Insects chirp loudly, and there is the distinctive smell of some wildfire burning in the distance. There is no civilization in sight, and the only thing moving is the wavering branches of trees and peacefully grazing cows.
The heat of the
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sun is oppressive, but no matter where I walk or how far there is no way to avoid it besides the occasional rest under a tree.
My hands are bare, my pockets and satchels empty, and my throat parched. I search hopelessly for a place to drink, so
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desperate that I look carefully for what could possibly be even a tiny puddle of mud. Hours pass.
The sun seems to become hotter and hotter. It begins to feel unbearable, then painful. Suddenly I see flames shoot up from my own body. I scream in
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agonizing pain, cursing the sun, running from its awful, malicious face. I sprint to underneath a large tree, begging for mercy from this newfound evil force. The flames on my body burn more slowly, but seem to die down. I still feel an
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oppressive parching heat, from this sun that threatens to hunt me as soon as it spots me, but for now at least I am alive. I must rest now, and wait for nightfall, when it is safe.
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Chapter 4: The Skeleton Hunt
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Suddenly I feel the refreshingly cool morning air, leaking in from the
cracks in the ceiling. It's that special damp air that you feel when the
dew of the night is still sitting on the leaves, and the sunlight has
lit the sky, but not enough to heat
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it.
I realize why I am awake. The book wants me to hunt for bones, so I can finish my suit of armor. I suppose if it's this insistent that I finish the armor, I might as well play along.
I get out of bed promptly. Judging from the air, I will
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probably have two hours before sunrise.
I sharpen my sword and stock up on food in my satchel. I think back on the last time I fought Skeletons. It was about two weeks ago. I rehearse a few sword moves and strafes that I remember suited
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me well in those fights. Then I carefully open the door and head down the road into the forest.
I look out carefully for formidable Creepers and Endermen, which I do not have much experience fighting and am not well
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equipped to deal with. Occasionally a Zombie or a Spider will run up to me, which I must quickly but carefully slay. I search for lone Skeletons and try to ambush them, strafing behind them to avoid their deadly arrows. At one moment I stumble over the
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rocky earth, and a Skeleton manages to shoot an arrow at my chest. I expect it to pierce the leather, but the arrow instead bounces off of the bone, which I forgot was there.
I am pleasantly surprised that the chest plate protects me so well from
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arrows. The leather also seems to have shrunk from yesterday's sun, leaving a small gap of air for my chest to breathe. The book was right all along. This chest plate suits me well, and I plan to wear a full set of the armor for a long time to come. I
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will have to tell the townsfolk of my success with this new armor. It will be exciting news to them, considering that iron deposits in the mine are running thin.
Sunrise comes upon the forest. Burning Skeletons in the distance flee
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under the trees, some collapsing before they find cover. I warily sprint through the trees, picking up bones where I find them, and return to the village with a satchel bloated with bones.
It is seven-thirty in the village, and the night guards are
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taking their final morning rounds, well-armored and armed with sword and bow. One tan-faced guard named Dameric waves at me on my way back up to my house.
In the foyer, I pour the bones out onto the crafting bench and lay them out to count. There
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should be enough to complete the armor with some left over, if I use about the same amount I did for the shirt.
I open my chest and take out the leather, and set it out on the crafting bench to begin working.
The crafting bench is a finicky device.
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You'd think such a simple man-made object would be easy to explain. Ages of research have passed as people have tried to understand how it works, with little success. We don't know much about it except that some crafting recipes
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work with it and some don't. It's easy to assemble any sort of object without the use of a crafting bench, but the crafting bench imbues recipes it favors with a special energy. No matter how much we try to create new technologies, or
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invent better tools, they always seem to shatter almost immediately, or simply not function, unless they have been created with the crafting bench. It's strange that I stumbled across a recipe so easily.
But at this point I only know how to craft
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the shirt. How am I supposed to craft a full set armor I don't know the recipe for?
I take the book out of my back pocket, hoping for answers.
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I may be able to read your mind, but I am by no means all-knowing.
I cannot simply
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tell you what the recipe is. I can only tell you where to look for it.
The ability to craft the armor lies inside of you.
You are a skilled crafter. Persevere, and you will prevail.
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Chapter 5: Dark Stuff
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I still don't know whether I like this book or not. It's just... strange.
I put the book back in my back pocket again. I lay my satchel down on
the hood of the chest next to the crafting bench, and start trying to
craft the helmet. I split the
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leather into layers, like I did with the chest plate, and try laying the bones between them, where the forehead and temples might be. I try moving around the bones underneath the layers, feeling carefully for the magnetic pull that the crafting bench
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exerts when it pulls the objects for a proper crafting recipe into place. Nothing happens. I continue trying to rearrange the bones, without success. My forehead begins to sweat, so I take off my leather cap, and continue working.
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After adding in a few more bones, and adjusting and arranging the pieces a little more, I finally feel the pieces of bone and leather getting pulled out of my hands towards the center of the crafting bench. The leather shifts and coalesces,
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knitting seamlessly together with the bone. The mass of leather shifts and molds itself, until it takes the form of a well-fitted cap. I hold it in my hands and turn it around.
To my shock and disgust, the front of the helmet takes the form of a
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skull, complete with eye sockets and a jawbone for a strap. The crafting bench must have compressed and stretched the bone to create this monstrous design. It's a spitting image, besides the leather color. Only the teeth are missing.
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But even though the helmet looks strange, I still feel eager and apprehensive to try it on, just to see what it feels like. I stretch the skull cap open over my head, when I hear a knock on the door. I place the cap back on the crafting bench to open
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it. It's Jonas. His purple eyes look into mine. He is genuinely concerned.
"I've been waiting for you at the corral all morning long, but you never came. Is there something wrong?"
Somehow, his presence annoys me. This business with crafting the
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skeleton armor is somewhat important, and yet he comes to interrupt me while I'm trying to test the cap I've just crafted. Anger wells up inside of my stomach. How dare he intrude! How dare he poke his disgusting half-blood face into my house, my
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sanctuary! I'm crafting armor that will change the world, and yet here he comes, to meddle with it, to taint it, to destroy it!
But how could I think that? I have always been so patient with Jonas. He's my friend. What is wrong with me?
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Why would I suddenly feel so eager to finish crafting the skeleton armor? It must be so! There's no other explanation.
I try to contain myself, and explain things to Jonas as calmly as possible. "It's the book. It keeps asking me to
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make that special armor."
"The new armor? Is that all this is about? You could just craft it some other time. I could still use your help feeding the animals. It's not easy doing it all by myself."
Poor Jonas. He's been caring for the animals by
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himself all this time? I should have known.
"I know it isn't. For some reason I lost track of time. I think it may be because of the book. I think it might be able to control my thoughts."
"That's just... strange." Jonas looks deflated and dazed for a
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moment, leans a little heavier against the windowsill, and then collects himself again. "Are you really sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"That's dark stuff." Jonas sighs. "Really dark. I will have to see if I can get someone else to look after the animals
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tomorrow. We need to visit my cousin as soon as possible to make sure that the book doesn't make you do something dangerous. Promise me you'll lie low today, okay?"
"I promise."
Jonas closes the door, leaving me in the house alone. I
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stand still for a few minutes, realizing just how much time has actually passed. Then I remember I forgot to tell Jonas that I went Skeleton hunting this morning. It probably would make him more worried about me. He knows enough about what's going on
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for now.
I remember the book, and decide to open it again, to try and see what it wants, and why it wants to control me.
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Chapter 6: The Skull Cap
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I never meant to make you do anything against your own will.
All this time I've been trying to communicate with you.
But you only seem to understand that it's me when I write these words to
you on my pages.
I've tried many times to show you what I
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think and what I feel, but you seem to think that it's your own emotions and your own thoughts.
I've never tried to change the way you think, or prevent you from thinking certain thoughts.
I just want to be friends with you and show you
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things.
Please don't be afraid of me.
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I don't know whether to believe it.
Again I feel the eagerness and apprehension to put on the skull cap. Maybe that's just the feelings the book has. It wants me to
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try the helmet on.
I suppose I've come this far. I might as well satisfy the book's curiosity, if that's really what it's feeling. I suppose if the book wanted me to feel a certain way, or think certain things, then the book would probably be thinking
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and feeling the same.
I lift the cap up from the crafting bench, and stretch it over my head. The edges of the eye sockets of the helmet surround my own. The lower front tip of the cap covers my nose. My head feels hot from the thick leather, and
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slightly tingly from the residual crafting energy.
Then I fasten the jaw-shaped strap under my chin. The fit is snug.
I draw my sword out from its holster, and hold it flat to see my reflection. I almost look like an entirely different
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person. With both the cap and the chest plate combined together, I look all too much like a Skeleton. The helmet is just too much. I take it off.
I feel a sense of protest and disappointment, which must be from the book. I take the
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book out of my back pocket and open it up to the first page.
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Why did you have to take it off?
It will give you much better protection than just your leather cap.
It looked great on you, too.
You have to let go
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of your stigma for the undead.
They are highly misunderstood creatures.
Look: if you promise to finish the armor and get Jonas's cousin to enchant it tomorrow, I promise I won't give you nightmares tonight.
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Look, book: if I wear that armor, I'm going to look like a nightmare!
The words on the page fade, being replaced by new ones.
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Just trust me, please.
You've already trusted me all this time.
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You continued wearing the chest plate, and you crafted the skull cap out of your own free will.
And you discovered the crafting recipe in the process. Doesn't that make you feel proud?
Sure, the armor does have a shape that
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resembles a skeleton. But nobody in town was afraid of your new chest plate, were they?
If anything, you're afraid of me.
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Chapter 7: Lunch
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I suppose the book does have a point. But there's only a certain level
of trust I'm willing to give this book.
If the armor really is as good as the book insists it is, then it's
worth crafting. Surely it won't hurt anything to craft the leggings and
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boots.
Except maybe Jonas's time. I feel bad letting him run the corral on his own for the rest of the day, but I want to make sure this book isn't trying to control me.
I begin arranging some bones and leather on the crafting bench
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again, when I hear a knock on the door. I come up to it and open it.
It's Ironbrawn, one of the night guards. I've never seen him not wearing his armor before, but he still looks like a giant. His shoulders are broad and every muscle in his body
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widens him over a decimeter, much like the miners I see passing through town ever so often.
"Your Enderman friend wanted me to bring you lunch and ask you how you were doing."
"I'm fine, thank you." I take the cloth-covered
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basket he hands to me. "Tell Jonas, 'Thanks for the food.'"
"Who's Jonas?" Ironbrawn seems a little annoyed. He doesn't like Jonas too much and tries to avoid him, like most people in town.
"He's my Enderman friend you
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mentioned."
"Alright then." He sighs, and turns to leave. "Take care."
"You too." I close the door, and walk into the side room to eat the lunch Jonas gave me. He packed me some pork and melon, the usual lunch we eat in the afternoon, but also an
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Ender Pearl, for good luck. He always gives me an Ender Pearl when I'm at home and ill. I'm very lucky to have a friend like him.
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Chapter 8: Second Thoughts
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After that satisfying meal, I return to the foyer to start crafting the
leggings. I lay out the bones and leather together, trying to see if the
pattern with the arrangement of bones between the layers continues.
Hours pass, as I try to arrange the
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bones in what feels like my intuition. I move my arm within the leather, when suddenly I feel the arrangement pull itself, and my arm with it, towards the center of the crafting bench. The seams form, putting pressure on my arm, pulling it in
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tighter. I struggle quickly to pull my arm out with great strength, and manage to tug it out, but rip the leather in the process. The rip is folded away as the bone-enforced leggings finish taking shape.
My arm feels numb for a moment as blood
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begins to pump through it again. That piece of armor put up a nasty fight! I will have to be more careful while crafting the boots. I guess crafting something new comes with its own danger: you never know when the crafting bench will start to pull on
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it.
Even so, I'm still frightened and amazed at what just happened. In all my years of crafting, I've successfully completed many crafting recipes I wasn't familiar with, even the skull cap just a half an hour ago, but I've
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never had to quickly move my hand out of the way like that. The crafting bench acts slowly, circumventing human touch, not rapidly and impatiently like it just did. I wonder if the book might be responsible?
I need to stop being so paranoid. I'm
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obviously not quite myself today. All the strange events that have happened have taken a toll on me. They are all happening because of this strange presence, the book, but it's not so much the book itself that is making me feel this way. I just don't
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quite understand how to react to everything that has happened.
I feel a sense of relief and satisfaction, as if some sort of understanding has taken place. It's definitely the book that feels that way, not me.
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I lift up the leggings from the crafting bench, noting it's structure. The bones within the fabric are aligned parallel to its length, forming a solid plate near the kneecap. Again, the shape of the bones bears an uncanny resemblance to a
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Skeleton.
Another thought crosses my mind, that I must have felt for a split second before, but didn't quite develop: What's the point of all this? I know I'm crafting some supposedly good armor, but is it really worth it to do what the book
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wants me to do? What are the book's intentions? I don't care if the book says the armor is as strong as steel. It looks like a Skeleton. Perfectly suitable armor doesn't make you look like a monster when you wear it. The book doesn't get to
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dictate what I wear. I'm done with this stupid game.
I un-strap the bone chest plate from my back. The book projects a clear sense of surprise, frustration, and anger. I ignore it. I put my old leather helmet and chest plate back on, and
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lift up the bone armor from the table. I walk to the closet under the stairwell, open it, and toss the armor into the darkness. I hesitate for a moment, and then reach into my back pocket, take the book out, and throw it into the darkness as well. I
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shut the door.
"Why are you afraid of me?"
It's a voice inside my head. A female voice, deep and sad, pleading. I know it's the book, but I don't care anymore.
All I see is the wood of the door in front of me, and the wall under the stairwell. I
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feel a sense of relief, as if a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I look outside the windows of the foyer, and the town is already covered in the darkness of the night. I realize how exhausted I am, from hunting skeletons
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early in the morning to searching for crafting recipes all day. I should go to sleep. I head upstairs, into my bedroom, and collapse onto the bed.
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Chapter 9: The Void
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I'm in a library for some reason. The wooden ceiling is six meters up,
and bookshelves reach all the way to the top. The bindings of each book
are covered in a thin layer of dust, and the air is thick with the smell
of old paper and wood shavings. The
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light is dim, barely comfortable to see in but dark enough for monsters to spawn. Even so, the room is absolutely silent. All I can hear is my own breath and heartbeat.
I walk down the hallway of bookshelves, until I reach a larger
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hallway, with seemingly endless lines of bookshelves facing it in both directions. I look down the left side of bookshelves, following the floor with my eyes upward and forward until it seems to shrink and then vanish, without meeting up with
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any observable wall. I look to the right and see the same thing, endless bookshelves with no end in sight. I decide to walk further forward a little longer.
I reach another large hallway. I look to the left again, and see a larger gap in between two
#pgx135
lines of bookshelves, with wooden tables and chairs for reading. I walk towards it, and see a reed-bound book covered in dust, laid open with its pages facing down. I brush the dust off with my hand, and lift it to read. An old flint pen falls out of
#pgx136
its pages and rattles against the table. They became obsolete when ink was discovered.
I turn the book over and hold it open to the first page. The flint script is faint, and the letters are written with the Latin alphabet, which I barely remember
#pgx137
from when I was young and still in school. I struggle as best I can to read them:
"The purpose of this journal is to try to record what I have seen and done throughout my many years of deep research. I will do my best to summarize
#pgx138
my findings and experiences, as well as search and provide explanations for the strange phenomena that fill our strange world.
"The primary focus of my research has been on crafting, as it is for many others. I think the significant amount of
#pgx139
attention dedicated to the science of crafting is well-deserved. It is a very complex field, which draws both on the physical properties of materials as well as the metaphysical properties of the crafter.
"That second part
#pgx140
of crafting, the metaphysical, is often fatally underestimated by most researchers. I hope that this journal can help prove that what we perceive and what we think is just as important to crafting as...."
This book is
#pgx141
somewhat dull. I don't think I want to read any more of it.
I close the book and stand up from the table, and feel the body heat of someone leaning tightly against my back. I turn around and lock sight with two glowing purple eyes surrounded in
#pgx142
Obsidian-colored blackness, with black runes surrounding them. A bony jaw lined with black knifed teeth drops down, unhatching unearthly groans and screams of agony.
I struggle against my fear to not look away from it, backing away slowly. Purple
#pgx143
smoke begins to materialize between the Enderman and I. It thickens, and then shatters with the sound of dimensions being ripped apart and sewn back together again. Obsidian darkness takes its place, filling the room with Endermen, some
#pgx144
so close they touch me as they wander past. Now many of them directly in my sight are screaming. I realize that the longer that I continue to stare, the more Endermen are going to stumble into my gaze and become driven into a frenzy.
I drop my eyes
#pgx145
down the floor and turn around, running as quickly as I can, shoving countless Endermen aside, focusing only on the wooden floor and not stopping, hearing footsteps and enraged screams against my neck.
The wooden floor vanishes, leaving
#pgx146
only the tainted blue of the void below. I feel myself stumble over air, falling and falling. The searing heat and silver smoke of the void envelopes me, igniting me with unimaginable invisible flames. I feel the void soaking into my mind, filling my
#pgx147
consciousness with uncertainty and fear, chaos and destruction, and incinerating all my other perceptions with a pain more intense than any flame.
"Now do you see? Do you understand now the immense suffering I've
#pgx148
been through and the pain I've felt, all these years? I try to forget my past. I try to share my knowledge with you, and you throw it away like trash! How selfish and gluttonous you are! Wake up, and face the truth!"
#pgx149
Chapter 10: Mind Games
#pgx150
In a sort of lucid waking dream, I awake unconscious of my surroundings.
The unburning heat of the void does not leave me; I feel hot and sweaty
under thick fabric as if ailed by a sickly fever.
I struggle to stay awake, shaking as a sleep deprived
#pgx151
body does in its second wind. I realize the struggle is also to keep my body on its two feet. Somehow I am standing, wearing armor, and my eyes are closed. I open them, and see in the dim light my hands resting on the crafting bench, holding a shifting
#pgx152
mass of leather and bone, as it coalesces to form two boots.
How is this possible? Was I sleepwalking when I did this?
Somehow the fact that the skeleton armor is complete makes me wary of how these forces came to be, how I came to craft those strange
#pgx153
things, one after the other. I'd rather I didn't try to discover how it happened, but somehow it doesn't feel right.
How could I have put on this armor in my sleep? Did my memories lapse somehow? Did the book somehow gain control of me
#pgx154
through the nightmare?
The idea of the book's influence sinks in more. Somehow a precious part of my consciousness has been violated, and couldn't be rectified. The book is responsible for that violation. Part of me feels terrified,
#pgx155
and another part enraged.
I thought I told you to leave me alone! I reach underneath the skeleton armor, for the back pocket underneath, and sure enough, there is the familiar square bulge. I reach within the pocket and grab the book out to
#pgx156
open it, projecting my anger as I stare at the blank pages. Words materialize, both on the paper and within my mind.
"You did it! You should be so proud! Do you have any idea what this means?"
If you had any teeth, you'd be lying through them.
#pgx157
Don't play coy. Explain what you did to me, and tell it to me straight.
"I'm not sure what you mean. I was simply a guide. The effort and credit belong to you."
You could start explaining what the nightmare you gave me has to do with me crafting
#pgx158
these boots.
"I see no connection, and I'm not sure why you'd think I gave you a nightmare. I would never do that sort of thing!"
That's wrong. You're lying! You said it yourself that you gave me those nightmares. Then you made me craft this
#pgx159
armor!
"I don't understand why you're taking your anger out on me. Besides, that armor is your accomplishment, not mine. I will take no credit. Perhaps there is some hidden grudge we need to discuss?"
I know what you're
#pgx160
trying to do to me and I won't let you do it!
I have to get rid of the book somehow. Putting it in a closet isn't enough. I have to destroy it. I wonder how hard it would be to rip apart the binding... but it can still hear my thoughts!
"I wouldn't
#pgx161
try that if I were you. I can make you feel whatever I feel, including pain. Perhaps you still remember the void, and what that felt like? That terrible, unbearable void...."
The book projects a deep fear and loathing. I remember how the pain felt,
#pgx162
and for a small moment I feel sympathy for the book... but then I try to shut my mind off from the thought, knowing it is a trick meant to manipulate me.
"Don't be so upset. You've crafted the boots and made the decision to put
#pgx163
them on. And for that, the nightmare is over."
But I never wanted to put them on. When did I make that decision? Never. The book is trying to tell me what to think. I won't let it.
But I don't have much of a choice. If I don't put on the boots, I
#pgx164
will be thrust into another nightmare. Surely putting on a set of armor before bed to fulfill the book's false perception of control over me is better than the alternative.
I take the first boot, and stretch it underneath my
#pgx165
right foot, sliding my leg into it. Then I take the second boot, and slide it over my left foot. Then I head groggily back to the bedroom, and slide clumsily into my bed.
But if I am coerced against choosing for myself, is that perception of control
#pgx166
really false?
#pgx167
Part 2: Growing Influence
#pgx168
Chapter 11: Leaving the Darkness
#pgx169
I hear a nervous knocking on the door, and realize that I must have
slept in. I force myself to breathe in, opening my eyes, only to stare
at the burning brightness of the high noon sun. I squint to protect my
now sore corneas, glancing
#pgx170
downward opposite my now raised arm, as I hastily shuffle my way off my bed and onto the creaky wood floor. I feel apprehension and fear that the sun will burn me under its vindictive gaze. Then I realize with relief that I am wearing the armor; it
#pgx171
will protect me from the sight of the sun.
Is this another nightmare?
I gather the courage to lift my eyes to a level angle. Around me are familiar surroundings: the cobblestone etched in shadow from the bright skylight, the sun-bleached
#pgx172
pine desk with the feather quill and ink propped up, with the Farmcrafter's Almanac resting closed beside it. To its right is a well-worn dust covered chest, and to its left the ever-present cobwebs which always seems to return no matter how many
#pgx173
times they are swept away. Surely an environment which so closely resembles reality cannot be a nightmare, but at the same time a place that looked as accurately like my room as in reality existed within a nightmare. It is too soon to tell.
I remember
#pgx174
with urgency that there is someone waiting at the door. Already fully dressed in armor, I do not bother searching for shoes. I grab my satchel from the floor, step with haste down the stairs into the foyer, and rush towards the door
#pgx175
to open it. It is Jonas, breathing heavily. Underneath his cloak, he is wearing his iron chestplate where normally his farmer vest and burlap pants can barely be seen. He has a large leather bag strapped over his shoulder. His sword is strapped
#pgx176
to his side.
"Fristad!" He exhales with relief. "Thank Notch you're alright! I was waiting for you by the corral all this morning; I had the hogs saddled up and everything..." He pulls the bag's strap over his head and lifts up the bag. "Do you need
#pgx177
help packing?"
"Wait... where are we going? Why are we packing?"
"We're going to see my cousin, remember? He's just in the next town over."
"Oh yea, right." I take the bag from him. "So what do I need to pack?"
"Anything you
#pgx178
want to bring that isn't food and water." Jonas explains. "The journey will take about a day and a half, so things like a change of clothes, an axe, and the like. You shouldn't need to pack much in terms of necessities, but I thought I'd bring a bigger
#pgx179
bag just in case you needed more room for the... um..." He stares a bit sheepishly at me, scanning from my skeleton boots up to my skull cap. "...your armor. I figured my cousin could take a look at that as well."
I nod at him. "I agree. I'll start
#pgx180
gathering my things. You wait just a minute; I won't be long."
I turn around and head upstairs to grab the almanac and another set of clothes from the dusty chest, and put them both inside the leather bag. Then I quickly unstrap
#pgx181
and pull off the skeleton armor, and place that in the bag as well. I step into the shoes at the top of the stairs, and head back down into the foyer where Jonas is waiting by the door. I open the chest near him and take out the leather chestplate,
#pgx182
sword, and axe inside. I quickly slip the axe into the bag's side pocket, strap the sword to my side, and pull on the leather chestplate. I nod at Jonas.
"Are you ready?" asks Jonas.
"Yea."
"Let me get that bag for you. I'll strap
#pgx183
it onto your hog."
"Okay."
I hand the bag to Jonas. He takes it by the handle and carries it out to the hogs. I lean forward to step outside, but something feels terribly wrong. I feel hesitant. I lean my head away, backing slowly from the
#pgx184
door.
I can't help but feel deathly afraid of the light. Even the idea of putting my finger out into it, just to test it, just to see what it feels like, only evokes expectations of terrible anguish and burning pain. Just seeing its indirect glow
#pgx185
shining off of the gravel makes my legs stiff; it makes me want to sprint down into the darkest confines of the earth, or at least into the closet, the only place within safe reach where there is true darkness, true safety....
I look out towards
#pgx186
Jonas, whose face seems to take on a different, unnerving appearance. Somehow his face seems to belong not to a friend, but to a heartless monster. I feel his presence as if it were tangible; it causes anger and hatred to flow into the pit of my
#pgx187
stomach. There he is, that thief, packing away my precious armor onto the backs of his malicious steeds, purposefully making me feel vulnerable, insecure. I can't let him steal it from me! I have to take the armor back from this monster....
#pgx188
I shove this corrupted perception of Jonas out of my consciousness. Why do I even think these terrible things? I know what kind of person Jonas is.
"Hey um... Jonas?"
Jonas turns away from the hogs and my bag he just
#pgx189
strapped to the one on the right. "What is it?"
"I'm sorry but... It's just that... What I mean to say is..." I struggle to block the anger I feel from Jonas out of my mind, trying hard to maintain a considerate tone. "I can't go on
#pgx190
without the skeleton armor. I need it. It..." I struggle to find the right words to describe how much I need it... the total necessity the armor is for me... how awfully I need to have it back... while restraining insults and aggression aimed at Jonas
#pgx191
that are a plague sickened by my need for it... "It... the armor makes me feel safe."
"Alright then," Jonas says. He turns around again and pulls my precious armor out of the leather bag, and brings it to me.
I grab it from him and run into the dark
#pgx192
closet under the stairwell, closing the door. I quickly rip my old leather shirt off, so quickly that the sleeve tears, and I kick my old shoes off against the wall. Then I lift the skeleton armor up and place each piece on gingerly one by one, starting
#pgx193
by sliding on the skull cap, then strapping on the chestpiece, then stepping into the leggings, and finally stepping carefully into the boots. Their protective touch reassures me. I feel a wave of relief wash over me. I remember what a good friend Jonas
#pgx194
is. I feel like myself again.
I open the closet door and exit into the dim indoor light. As I walk through the foyer, and I walk into the light outside, I feel nothing. There is no uneasiness; it's as if I never experienced the fear of light before. I
#pgx195
close the front door behind me, and approach the hog on the right. Despite the leather saddle and heavy bags hanging over it, it seems content. The pupil in the eye of the hog turns toward me, observing me with calm and innocence. I bend my knees,
#pgx196
and jump to reach my leg over to the other side of the saddle. It grunts politely from the thump as I land on the saddle. In front of me, Jonas has climbed up onto his hog as well. He turns his head over his shoulder, so that his purple eyes can see
#pgx197
me.
"Are you ready to leave?" asks Jonas.
"Yes, I'm ready."
And, with that, we lightly kick the sides of the hogs, guiding them down the town road, traveling downhill towards the forest, and into the depths of the shadow and trees,
#pgx198
through a manmade gravel path that is narrow but well-traveled.
#pgx199
Chapter 12: Reflection
#pgx200
It's been about an hour since Jonas and I first departed on hogback from
the village. We haven't talked much, simply because there wasn't much to
say. Jonas saw what happened to me when I took the armor off. He did not
speak, both to sympathize with
#pgx201
my troubles and to restrain judgment.
Back when I didn't know Jonas as well, I used to be frustrated by the fact that Jonas spoke so little when I felt like I needed his consolation the most. One time when I was sad, I asked him why he seemed to not
#pgx202
want to talk to me. His response has always stayed with me:
"Sometimes rubbing a wound with words does not help it heal; it causes abrasion, which widens the wound."
Jonas is a selfless and reflective man. He knows a lot about feelings, but he
#pgx203
rarely talks about his own. Often I wonder what Jonas' life was like before he moved to town, but even though we are close friends, I feel as if asking him is a violation of the trust between us. What I do know about him is what he has told me over the
#pgx204
years about his family, and even then mostly simple things such as family relation and occupation, which most people will gladly share with strangers on the first day of acquaintance. On one of the few occasions I felt compelled enough to talk to
#pgx205
him about it, I asked him who his mother was, and he didn't even seem to understand the question. I was willing to be patient and earn his trust, and over the years some of his quietness and solemnity has rubbed off on me.
In stark contrast
#pgx206
is Airlass, a funny girl with sarcasm loaded into her cheeks, and snide remarks for any occasion. She grew up in the same home town as I did, and we haven't moved since. She always has had a love for the outdoors and a discipline with her
#pgx207
axe that rivals a warrior's training with a sword. She kills creepers, something I could never muster up the courage to do, with such speed and finesse, and then jokes about it afterward as if they weren't a threat. She is always full of energy and
#pgx208
loves to talk. She also tends to become emotional very easily. Sometimes I can't tell if she seriously feels a certain way or if she's faking her emotions for sport. Airlass is rarely serious, but she always knows how to cheer me up, and
#pgx209
she isn't hesitant to offer help to those who need it. It is very possible that Jonas asked Airlass to help look after the farm for us.
Airlass knows me well enough that she understands who Jonas truly is. Other good friends of mine, such as the
#pgx210
librarian Dunjen, or the nurse Azura, are good people, but they see Jonas the way everyone else sees him: a monster with no sympathy for humanity... a case of nature where it is only a matter of time... while his corrupted mind struggles to
#pgx211
grasp human concepts such as emotion, sympathy, trust, and loyalty... before his patience cracks, and he feels the inevitable urge to kill. This perception, as flawed and lacking of evidence it is, is held firmly by most of the people of the village.
#pgx212
It has cost him his spot in the lines of market tents. It has inflicted him cuts and bruises from being pushed over simply from standing too close. It has marked him as the blame for when the monsters of the night are more aggressive than usual. It has
#pgx213
left him alone as villagers forbid him from entering public buildings like the town hall and the schoolhouse. It is no small wonder why Jonas is so reserved about his past, when his present is marred by distrust.
The silence of the ride has made me
#pgx214
reflective. I think back on what has happened between me and the book since I last talked to Jonas about it: the second nightmare, the skeleton hunt, the crafting, the hesitance to accept the armor, the third nightmare, and the coerced finishing
#pgx215
and emotional attachment to the armor. What seemed like a relatively easygoing day physically, was a grueling and painful day mentally. Now that the two of us are alone, I feel it is a good time to tell Jonas the rest of the story.
#pgx216
"Hey, Jonas?" I call to him.
"What is it?" Jonas responds.
"I... I feel like I need to tell you what happened after the last afternoon I helped you with the corral."
"I'm listening."
I sigh, preparing to speak. "Well, when
#pgx217
first I got back home from the corral, the book was insistent I complete the armor.
Jonas nods as he continues to ride on the hog just in front of me, at the same pace as mine. There is an occasional faint rustling in the trees.
"Then when I went to
#pgx218
bed that night, I had another nightmare. It started off like a typical summer day. It was hot in some field with cows. There were some small trees, and the grass was golden brown.
"Then it got really weird. I actually started burning alive from the
#pgx219
heat of the sun. I had to run under the trees to try and make it stop. It scared the bajeezus out of me.
"Then I woke up early that morning to hunt skeletons, so I could get enough bones to finish the rest of the armor."
Jonas nodded again. "That
#pgx220
makes sense. You needed materials to make the rest of the armor, so you took some leather from the corral, and you took some bones from the skellies."
"Hold on... what? You mean I took leather from the corral?"
"Yea, you asked if you could have some
#pgx221
leather, and I said yes."
"I... never remember doing that. That's very strange. I remember everything that happened at that day at the corral. I must have just forgotten... but somehow I feel as if... I never planned to do it. Somehow I just
#pgx222
went along crafting with the leather as if I always had it."
Jonas passively listens as we continue ride along in the seemingly endless forest. We all forget things, I suppose.
"Anyways, then I went back home to craft the helmet. After working for
#pgx223
several hours, I finally finished it, and that's when you came by. You seemed very worried."
"Well, of course," Jonas replies. "Your absence was a warning sign."
"Right, I suppose so." I continue to think back on what happened. "After
#pgx224
you left, Ironbrawn came back with the lunch you made me. That was quite tasty."
Jonas smiles briefly.
"Then I went back to crafting, I made the skeleton leggings. At that point, I decided I didn't really want to go through with what the book wanted
#pgx225
me to do. It was trying really hard to get me to do it. It kept telling me I was afraid. I thought I could get rid of it by throwing it in the closet, but... then I had another nightmare.
"It started off in an abandoned library. I walked around for a
#pgx226
while, and I found this old reed-bound book. I think it was some sort of crafting research book, but it was boring so I didn't really want to read it.
"When I put it down and turned around, I saw an Enderman leaning right up against me. I looked
#pgx227
directly into its eyes, and it started to scream. I tried not to break eye contact as I broke away, but then all of a sudden there were Endermen everywhere. At that point I tried to run away, but the floor just... disappeared... and I fell into the
#pgx228
void. Then the dream ended."
"Wait! Hold on..." Jonas suddenly seemed alert. There was a degree of urgency in his voice. He pulled back on the reins of his hog, and turned it around to face me. I pulled back my reins as well, so we were facing each
#pgx229
other while stationary. "Did you feel anything when you were in the void? What did it feel like?"
I never expected that kind of question, especially from Jonas. But he seems worried, so I should probably tell him. "Just the thought of it..." My mind
#pgx230
struggles for a moment. "...is painful to remember. I remember an unbearable heat, hotter than any flame. I felt as if I lost all sense of certainty of what it meant to exist. The void felt like it was it was seeping into my consciousness
#pgx231
and tearing it apart."
"No one could possibly give such a detailed description of what it feels like to be that deep within the void..." Jonas pauses. His purple eyes seem focused into the distance. "...without having experiencing it firsthand. That's
#pgx232
what confuses me. Most humans couldn't possibly survive in the void long enough to feel that. Most creatures would burn to death very quickly and then just respawn. The same goes for just about any inanimate object. Only an Ender-being
#pgx233
could survive that deep in the void, but they wouldn't feel any pain. Half-bloods don't feel the pain either. That's how I know." His eyes focused back on me. "If your book really was in the void, it should have disintegrated almost immediately."
#pgx234
The answer was profound; it surprised me. "I had no idea Endermen could survive in the void."
"Yes," Jonas nodded, "that's how they teleport. Somehow the book understood the connection between Endermen and the void. I'm not
#pgx235
exactly sure how, but I think it may help us understand how the book came to you in the first place. If you don't mind, I'd like to hear more of what happened."
"Alright, then."
Truthfully, I don't want to go on. I don't want to bring up the painful
#pgx236
memories again, but if it can help Jonas' cousin understand the book better and help me get rid of it once and for all, then it's worth the pain.
"When I finally gained consciousness again, it was as if I was already awake. It was late at night, and I
#pgx237
suddenly realized I was standing in front of the crafting bench, and I had already crafted the skeleton boots, the final piece of the skeleton armor. It was as if the book had briefly taken over my consciousness. I think the book's control over me
#pgx238
seems to have grown since I started crafting the armor. Sometimes I worry that even what I'm thinking right now isn't coming from my true self..." I consider telling Jonas about how I suddenly perceived him when the book took hold of me,
#pgx239
but I'm afraid he may not trust me any more if I do. "Then the book convinced me to put the full suit of armor on and wear it to bed. I woke up hearing your knock on the door, and after I opened it, you saw how I acted. Somehow I couldn't go outside
#pgx240
without the armor. I felt deathly afraid that I'd burn to death in the sunlight."
Jonas nodded again. "I see how it is. For some reason, the book wants you to keep wearing that armor. It's how it exercises its control over you."
"Exactly. But what
#pgx241
I don't quite understand is: why? I don't quite understand why that armor is so valuable to it."
"Perhaps the armor has some sort of magical properties we don't quite understand yet."
"Yea, that makes sense."
#pgx242
Then I remember back when the book wanted me to ask Jonas' cousin enchant the armor. I consider telling Jonas this, but I decide not to. If I did, Jonas would never let me do it. I feel curious to know what would happen to the armor if it was
#pgx243
enchanted... and I was wearing it.
It looks like it's going to be a long, long ride.
#pgx244
Chapter 13: Out of Town
#pgx245
The forest is no longer as thick as it used to be. The trees are
somewhat shorter, allowing sunlight to shine through in large patches.
The hogs rest blissfully in the grassy dust next to us, drowsy under the
afternoon sun.
Jonas and I stand
#pgx246
up, brushing the dirt off our pants. We just had our customary meal of pork and melon, and it's time once again to mount our hogs for a long ride.
I nudge my hog on its belly with my foot, and with a displeased snort the hog slowly lifts itself up
#pgx247
from the ground. Once it has fully stood up, I climb onto its back and reach for its reins. Then Jonas and I steer our hogs towards the road, and continue on our journey.
After about an hour of riding, I notice a cobbled stone road on my left. It is
#pgx248
the third side road I've seen since we started. It is a short road, leading to a rotting wooden gate. To the right of the gate is a sign reading, "Mighty Oaks City Gate. No Trespassing." On the other side is a shanty guard wearing torn leather armor and
#pgx249
wielding a golden sword. He holds his sword at an ineffective angle, and nervously shifts his weight from one leg to the other as he avoids our gaze.
That guard wouldn't stand a chance against us. We could easily pillage the whole town, but
#pgx250
that would be cruel. They are an unfortunate town, making do with what little resources and experience they have to protect and sustain themselves. It is likely that they have been pillaged many times, which in turn makes it more difficult to
#pgx251
protect themselves from being pillaged again. Perhaps if their city wasn't nearly as close to the roads, them would fare slightly better.
As we continue to ride, and afternoon turns to dusk, Jonas and I approach a break in the forest, where the paved
#pgx252
road ends. The terrain becomes steep and rocky, and riding the hogs becomes significantly slower as we carefully navigate the crisscrossing paths between gradually larger boulders. Eventually the terrain becomes so steep that it is
#pgx253
no longer practical to ride, so we climb down our hogs and guide them by the reins as we slowly hike.
It is dusk now, and the blue of the sky is rapidly fading to a starry black, as the blush of the sunset fades from the west. We have reached
#pgx254
the mouth of a cliffside cave, and the inside is lit with torches. As we enter, their eternal glow envelopes us in a relieving warmth which slowly leeches the cold from our skin. There are a series of paired stone brick pillars leading on the
#pgx255
walls of a tunnel into its depth, and at the far end are two large iron-framed doors with a stone engraving above it. On the engraving, it reads...
"Welcome to the Adamant Mountain Inn. We hope you GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF!!!"
The second part is
#pgx256
graffiti, written over the original second half of the engraving in black.
I want to ask Jonas what he thinks of this. "Hey Jonas, do you know why there's graffiti there?"
Jonas glances at it for a moment, not caring too much about what is
#pgx257
written. "This place has long been abandoned. Most of what's left of it has since been stolen or vandalized, including the beds. It's not a very comfortable place to sleep, but it is one of the few refuges that will protect us from the monsters of the
#pgx258
night."
"I see." I ponder the desolation of this place, wondering who has been here since then, and why someone would write such a hostile greeting on the wall. "Is it still safe, though? I mean... are the other people who come here, and
#pgx259
are they dangerous?"
Jonas shook his head. "I've never seen anyone here." He pulled the reins of his hog forward into the tunnel of columns. "Come on, let's get inside."
It's not a very satisfying answer, but I figure it's
#pgx260
nearly as mysterious to him as it is to me. I tug on the reins of my hog, so that we walk with Jonas and his hog down the corridor, up to the great metal-framed pine doors, which tower over us at perhaps three times our height.
Jonas does not
#pgx261
seem discouraged by the size of the door. He hands the reins of his hog to me, and leans the door on the left with both of his arms. Slowly, the door gives way, moaning and crackling in a deep tone, as if its structure carries the wisdom of histories
#pgx262
past. The musty smell of old wood, met with warm air, blows out toward us. The smell reminds me all too much of the abandoned library I saw in my dream.
We walk into a large room, our boots echoing on the stone. High on the ceiling is a wooden
#pgx263
chandelier, and on the floor is a crisscrossing pattern of stone bricks, with a strange yellow glowing rock at each vertex. It may be the Glowstone which I have heard rumors of, but I have never seen it before so I wouldn't know for certain. There is
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no furniture to speak of. Off of each wall, there is a great hallway with an arched ceiling, each with many doors on either side of their walls, and every so often unintelligible writing made with various colors of paint. Down the center hallway,
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there appears to be another great room, with the same crisscrossing floor pattern as here.
Jonas hands his hog's reins to me again, and goes behind me to close the door. Its groans propagate loudly about the room, until finally ending in a deep,
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reverberating thud. The sounds of the wind and chirping insects, once hardly noticeable before, are suddenly gone, giving way to a profound silence.
Jonas takes the reins from me again.
"Follow me this way."
He leads us forward through the
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center hallway, our footsteps and breathing seemingly saturating it with noise. Then the light of the second great room surrounds us, again showing three hallways, one on either side and one in front.
Jonas turns to walk towards the
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hallway on the left, and we follow him into it. I notice what sounds like the echo of distant running water to my right. It gradually grows louder until, at the second door from the end of the hallway, Jonas turns to the right and opens the door. He
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points at it with his hand turned over, indicating that I should look inside.
I walk a little closer, and turning to the right I see a gaping hole spanning half of the wall and a quarter of the floor, with a torrent of water gushing through it
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diagonally like a waterfall from an earth tilted on its side. It's hard to imagine where such water would have come from, being so deep within the mountain.
"That's the loo." Jonas says casually.
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Chapter 14: Only the Present
#pgx272
For about an hour, we prepare for the night. Jonas helps me tie the
reins of the hogs to the hinges of some doors near in the middle of the
hall, and together we unload them so that they can sleep unburdened.
After preparing for bed, we settle down with
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sleeping bags in the bedroom closest to the second large room.
After a long day of traveling, I feel tired, but it still feels too early to sleep. I turn my head to the right to face Jonas, with a curious thought.
"Jonas, I just
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realized something strange. Even though, like you say, this place is vandalized and all the furniture is gone, all the torches are still here."
Jonas meets my gaze. "I suppose then, that even though this shelter has been abandoned by its
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caretakers, it still retains the original purpose it is designed for."
Strangely, even in the solitude of the inn, Jonas remains fully concealed in his clothes. His leather gloves cover his hands... his cloak covers all else but his face and
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feet... and I even saw him wearing socks as he slid into his sleeping bag. His manner of dress is a testament to his habitual secrecy and vagueness, a relic of a foreign mind I will never fully understand. But somehow I feel that perhaps, in this
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solitude, he may open up a little, unfolding the hood of the robe of his personal life.
I feel inclined to ask him about this mysterious place, the abandoned, isolated shelter we now call home for the night. "How often have you been here, exactly? I
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mean... how did you find this place? It's so hidden."
Jonas sighs deeply, exasperated as usual from personal questions. "We're here now. That's all that matters." He turns over in his sleeping bag with his back facing me. "Let's get some
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sleep."
"Goodnight, then." I look down at my satchel laid down to my left. I feel disappointed, having wanted to talk to Jonas, but being dismissed. A little bored, I open up my satchel, and reach in it for my Farmcrafter's
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Almanac. I pull it out, feeling for the folded corner of the page I left off at, but I realize that the binding is much too thick for a magazine. I glance at it, and see a thick, blank leather cover. It is not the Farmcrafter's Almanac at all, but the
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Book.
I feel my stomach curl, and suddenly I realize I read that very Farmcrafter's Almanac before I fell asleep into the first nightmare. I remember feeling bored that night, but very tired. I remember reading the Almanac
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before I lost concentration and fell asleep. Is it possible that the Almanac was the Book all along?
But the Book said it was drifting in the void for millennia. Perhaps the Almanac was possessed, and became the Book? Was my fading
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consciousness a beacon for the Book to enter my mind? I open it.
"You are correct," the Book speaks. "I'm surprised you didn't figure that out sooner. I thought you'd remember better how we met. It's quite dismissive, really, to forget
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how you met a friend."
I'm not your friend. I never wanted to meet you. You came uninvited, and you've stayed long past my patience for you.
"So that's how you think of me, after all this time we've been together?"
Is it possible that I missed
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something? Have I selfishly dismissed an honest friend, ignoring their emotions and hopes? What if I told all those things to Jonas? I feel a sad longing, a pang of guilt. I know these aren't my thoughts. I try to regain my reason, and remember how
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I truly feel, but the sadness of it attracts me like a forgotten childhood memory. The feeling is so pointless... but I can't stop thinking about it. Why do I have these emotions?
"It's alright, Fristad. I understand. You can't figure out how you
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could have those emotions, because you feel out of place. First you skipped work to tirelessly create a new set of armor, and now all of a sudden you're traveling to a place you've never seen before. That's why you feel so uncomfortable in
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your own skin."
So you do understand. You know how difficult it's been.
I know there's been a conflict between us. It has hurt us both. I know that we had misunderstandings that seemed irreconcilable, but I'm glad we are at a
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consensus now.
But something still isn't right. I can't remember what is going on, or why I oppose these thoughts in the first place... I just know they're wrong!
"Why are you still so belligerent? What do you still have against me?"
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I'm sorry. It's just that... I can't remember what it was exactly that bothered me. I can't think clearly about what I want to think anymore... but something about this is wrong! I know it's wrong... but I don't know how... or why. You did something
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to me... something important... you changed me somehow!
"I changed you?"
Yes. I'm not sure how, but you did, and there was some reason why I didn't want it to happen. Wait... never mind. It's not that I didn't want it to happen. I just
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couldn't figure out how I could have these emotions, because I feel out of place. That's why I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin. I understand now! I want you to change me!
"That's wonderful. I never thought
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our relationship was this close. Perhaps I haven't had enough faith in you. In fact, I'm flattered. Have I really changed you so much already? Perhaps I should change you even more."
Yes.
I close the Book, and slide it into my
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pocket. Then I slide as deep into my sleeping bag as I can, and close my eyes. I feel as if I am falling through darkness, as the Book plunges me into the deepest of my subconsciousness.
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Chapter 15: Duality
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It is very dark and unbearably cold. I am standing upright with my arms
stretched forward, grasping vertical, icy cold steel bars. The metal is
barely visible as a faint grey sheen. Beyond the bars is absolutely
nothing. It is a fog of perfect
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blackness.
I tilt my head down towards the floor. My feet seem to float in space, even though I feel a solid floor. The floor looks as black as the nothingness beyond... perhaps it is too difficult to see. I tilt my head up to try and spot the ceiling,
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but it is also much too dark to see.
I feel a strange longing. Even though there is only darkness, I feel as if the darkness holds the potential of a pristine, pastoral wilderness. Anything is better than the confines of these iron bars.
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I try to let go of the iron bars, but nothing happens. I feel the strain of my muscles maintaining my grip on the bars, but I can't control them. I try to lift my legs, but they feel as stiff and unbendable as stone. The more I try to move some part
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of my body other than my neck, its muscles become saturated with restlessness, unable to move and yet extremely uncomfortable because of that. The futile dark nothingness seems ever more tantalizing. Why must I be tormented this
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way?
"Because..."
It the female voice of the Book... except it is different. Before when I heard this voice, it was the projection of a voice within my thoughts. This time, it is a voice clear and loud. I feel it as sound through my ears,
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reverberating down my spine and through my hands to the fingertips with every consonant.
"...I am trapped. You are trapped. The iron bars you see in front of you, trapping you in a black empty space, are trapping me as well. Our minds are trapped in a
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prison, and you know the means by which we can escape. You know our captor... and you have the power to take from him the freedom that is rightfully ours."
Freedom... what a distant concept it seems right now. It simply isn't plausible. Nothing visibly
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exists except these iron bars. I can't move anything except my head. For all we know, I could remain in this very spot for years... perhaps millennia.
"I have drifted in the void for millennia. The time will come. You must try."
I want to... but I
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can't. Besides, why would it matter? Is endless darkness really any better than the certainty of confinement?
"We can't afford to think like that. Complacency is poison. It is creating the mental weakness within you that has prevented you
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from escaping all this time."
I know... you're right. I have to figure out a way to get out of here... somehow....
I fixate on the darkness, desiring to enter its hidden green fields. I imagine the sweet success of tearing the bars apart with a
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pickaxe and stepping through. Nothing happens. It is just as before: I am unable to move my arms or walk. There is only the iron bars in front of the darkness, with my hands permanently grasping them.
There's nothing that I could possibly do. I'm stuck
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here.
"No you're not. You are deceiving yourself. There is a reason why you are trapped here, and if you find out why, you can escape. The answer lies in our captor; he is why we are confined by these iron bars, and he is how we will go
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free."
But I don't know where he is! How am I supposed to find him?
"You already know the answer to that question."
I look into the darkness. It is as monotonous and black as it was before. Where is my captive? Who is
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he? Is he someone I know? Is he Dunjen? Is he Jonas? Is he me?
A dim figure materializes on the other side of the iron bars, standing at a certain distance and holding the bars in a certain way as to appear to be an exact reflection
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of me, but instead wearing the regular leather hat and shirt I wore before I met the Book. The moment I look into his solemn eyes, his identity becomes clear. He is my identity, my captor, holding me as a prisoner in these iron bars, preventing me from
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truly existing. He is the conspirator who all this time has been seeding animosity between me and the Book, preventing our inevitable fate and lasting friendship from being fulfilled.
I must imprison him. He must be on the other side of the bars,
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feeling what I feel. I will it possible. I look into his ignorant eyes, seeing his pathetic distress as he realizes that I am him, and he is me, that he is the one trapped, and that I am his captor, purifying my own existence by ridding myself of his
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contaminating thoughts. Pride and a sense of true purpose fills my chest. I smile at him, taunting him as I lift my hands from the bars. I look to my left and my right, and see that the iron bars do not surround be, but instead end at sharp corners
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bending away from me, forming the rectangular shape of the generously large 2-by-2 meter cage that imprisons my corrupted self. Satisfied with the conditions of his imprisonment, I turn around and walk into the darkness. At the will of my foot,
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grass forms where I step, spreading forward into the horizon and germinating a sunlit sky that grows taller and surrounds the visible sphere of landscape. I turn around to see the rapidly shrinking blackness, with no sign of the false
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Fristad in view. He has been made as black and shapeless as nothingness so he may never be seen as human, and blind as to never see again, just as I have willed it.
I take a deep breath, and tilt my head up toward the sky with a triumphant laugh.
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It is good to be the master of my own dreams.
It is also good, after much time waiting, to truly communicate with the Book. I realize now the terrible things the false Fristad has done to us. Now that he is gone, we can see together what
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wondrous possibilities lie ahead. It was a long process... brought forth first on the very day I first spawned, when I said, "Book, come to me! I seek to share my existence with you, savor your consciousness within me, and adopt
#pgx320
your aspirations to fulfill our life!" I had made the decision the moment my life began, and all my life I had been searching for what I have found just now. I am setting foot on a path to incredible power. Today, I have conquered my dreams.
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Tomorrow, I will conquer pain, and in the many days that come after tomorrow, who can fathom what I will achieve?
#pgx322
Chapter 16: Zomem
#pgx323
I wake up, the first thing I notice when I open my eyes being a tall
grey stone ceiling. I look to the right, noticing that Jonas and his
sleeping bag are both gone, as well as all the other bags we set down.
Somewhat confused, I sit up, looking at the
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wooden door, which is now cracked open, but not enough to notice anything except the stone wall on the other side of the hallway. I stand up, then bend down to roll up my sleeping bag and hang my satchel around my shoulder. Then I head out into the
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hallway. Turning right, I see Jonas with the hogs all strapped up with our cargo. He is sitting with his back against the belly of one of the hogs, eating a loaf of bread.
"Good morning," Jonas says. "Here, have some bread."
He opens up the
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bag closest to him, pulls out a loaf of bread, and tosses it to me. Then he reaches into the bag again, and pulls out a full canteen, setting it down next to him.
I sit down on his right, biting into the loaf. It is fresh and soft, and the mere
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imagining of its taste makes my mouth water. We take turns sipping the canteen, and after that silent meal, we stand up simultaneously, unfasten our hogs from the doorknob, and lead them out of the abandoned inn through the giant iron-framed
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doors. From the mouth of the cave looking out, the sky is a beautiful cold morning blue, asymmetrical in hue from the light of the sun.
We head out to the cave's very edge, where a rocky cliff face looks far down onto the sparse
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end of shrubs which leads to the beginning of a cobblestone path and later a forest, out a significant distance, and continuing as a bumpy plane of green out into the horizon. Then, we turn a right, carefully guiding our hogs on a narrow edge, climbing
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up many rocks to eventually ascend to the dirt which is held up by the ceiling of the cave we were just in. Onwards the path is still rocky, but not quite as steep.
The terrain is much too rocky for the hogs, so we continue to travel on foot with them
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alongside us. The journey through the rocky outcrops is strenuous and tiring. After three hours of traveling, we stop on top of a small mesa to rest.
Then, after an apple and a half hour's rest, we continue our trek through the many rocks. After
#pgx332
a little past noon, we finally notice patches of dirt and weeds among gradually decreasing numbers of rocks. The slope starts to descend, and we get our first glimpses of the bottom: trees with much space between them, with brown grass. Far off to
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the left and near the horizon, the roofs of unidentifiable buildings can be seen poking up behind the trees.
The slope quickly becomes steep, and we must veer to the left to follow a narrow path down the dusty mountain. Once the path ends at a
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much lighter slope, we climb onto our hogs and ride down the mountain and through the dry forest. After about an hour of smooth riding, we arrive at the beginnings of a gravel path, which leads us into the outskirts of a medium-sized
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town.
The character of the place, from the first time I see it, is odd. The architecture is different what I am used to seeing. Building walls with cobblestone are the norm, rather than stone bricks. The path is lit with torches on top of
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smoothstone, rather than on top of wooden posts.
Suddenly a figure appears from behind the corner of a cobblestone building in front of us. I accidentally make eye contact with it, which it immediately notices and turns to stare right back at me. It
#pgx337
looks more or less humanoid in stature, and wears human clothes, but its hands and face hint at a much different identity. Its hands are covered in a grotesque combination of green, dead, and moldy leaves as well as fur, and the
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fingers end in thick black claws. The face is covered in a similar manner to the hands, with big, black, beady eyes, large nostrils, and a toothless mouth with a large underbite. What terrifying eyes! Such a perverted scowl! Oh Notch I hate
#pgx339
Creepers...
The Creeper takes in a deep breath. "Ssstrangersss," it moans, its voice cracked and dry.
The thing walks toward us slowly, a tactic meant to deceive us into a false sense of security. I have to get ready to
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attack. It could charge at us and detonate at any moment. I reach for the sword at my belt... but Jonas obstructs my reach by putting his hand underneath mine. I turn to look at him in urgent frustration.
"Jonas, what are you doing? I need to
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get my sword!"
"He's just a half-blood. He won't hurt us." His purple eyes look into mine, and I remember that he's a half-blood too.
But it's a Creeper! Oh Notch, I can't stand them...
But I have to trust Jonas. Certainly
#pgx342
he would know, being an Ender-born. I reluctantly relax my arm to let it rest at my side. The Creeper is only three meters from us now! I clench my jaw, trying to stay calm and keep a polite gaze in its direction. It stops just under two meters from
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us.
"Welcome to Zzzomem..." It hisses, "My name isss Frank... What are your namesss?"
It turns to face me, looking at me with its beady eyes. I am too nervous to say anything. I briefly shift my gaze towards Jonas, to try and
#pgx344
get the pressure of his gaze off of me.
"My name is Jonas," he says, "And this is my good friend, Fristad. Pleased to meet your acquaintance."
"Indeed," the Creeper Frank moans, his eyes gleaming in surprise, "Ssso you're a half-Enderman
#pgx345
then? I never know they exxxisssted... You have a very ssstrange accccccent. Your Consssonantsss are very loud... almossst like a popping sssound... and you sssay vowelsss differently..."
It's kind of hard to tell what Frank is
#pgx346
saying with his terrible lisp and slow, monotone voice... but it makes me think about how much I must have had to adjust to the way Jonas speaks. I suppose it's been a while since I've talked with Jonas for the first time... perhaps I've listened to
#pgx347
him talk long enough that I've grown used to it.
"That's interesting. I never realized that," Jonas says, mulling it over, "Well, Fristad and I have to meet up with my cousin. I'll see you later, I suppose."
"Take care," Frank says. He turns around
#pgx348
and walks up the path towards the way he came, passing out of sight behind the same building.
Jonas glances at me quickly, revealing a subtle smirk. "He must be new here."
We walk up the gravel path a score or so meters, entering onto a smoothstone
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road which seems to be the beginning of some sort of town square. There are small fountains on either side of us, and buildings with a mix of cobble and wood surround the square. Their wide windows and ostentatiously placed signs