The New Order (19 page)

“I don't see what it is you're so amused about,” said Kat, the cheery tone of Count Drake's voice clearly getting under her skin. “But whatever. How did you get the materials to break out of Brimstone?”

“Why, they were given to me, of course,” Drake replied, as if this should have been obvious.

“By who?” Kat demanded.

“Why, you don't know? Oh my, I knew that your council was dysfunctional, but I didn't know it was that dysfunctional.”

“Shut up!” seethed Kat, a small growl escaping her mouth as her nostrils flared with rage. “What are you talking about?”

“The spy, my dear Kat,” Drake replied with a chuckle. “The spy in your midst slipped in the materials necessary for my escape, along with my daily lunch.”

“You're saying that you guys've got a spy in Elementia?” gasped DZ.

“Oh, dear, I really do have to spell this out for you, don't I,” replied Drake in mock exasperation. “Yes, there is a spy within the command of Element City. The spy has lived in your city since the inception of the Noctem Alliance. In fact, along with Chancellor Caesar and Generals Minotaurus and Leonidas, the spy was one of the very first followers of the great Lord Tenebris.”

“Who is this Lord Tenebris, anyway?” asked Charlie before Stan could reply. “Even after everything you guys have put us through, we still have no idea who the guy is. What, is he afraid to show himself?”

“Charlie, stay focused!” hissed Kat, who, like Stan, couldn't believe that Charlie could think about anything else after they had just heard a claim that there was a spy in Elementia.

“Oh, Kat, don't fret,” replied Drake in a voice of mock concern. “There will be plenty of time for all questions to be answered. And besides, I will never grow tired of praising our great leader, Lord Tenebris.”

“Okay then, spill! Who is he?” asked Charlie.

“Lord Tenebris,” Drake said, “is the most powerful entity who has ever inhabited Minecraft. To call him a mere player would be an insult. He has experimented, pushed the limits of the game of Minecraft. In doing so, Lord Tenebris has become more powerful than the mind can imagine, far surpassing any limits of the average player, or even those of a player with operating powers. There are reasons he has not yet revealed himself, and those reasons are not mine to tell you. However, rest assured, my esteemed captors, that when the great Lord Tenebris does show himself, it shall be a dark day for the disgusting ideals you claim as justice.” And with that, Count Drake leered an evil grin and licked his lip threateningly.

Up until that point, Stan had taken care to appear just as powerful and confident as he really was, so that he could intimidate this Noctem agent and discourage him from lying. But as Stan listened to Drake talk about his leader for the first time, a wave of fear swept over him. There was a flame, a passion in Drake's voice as he talked, a passion that made Stan wonder for a moment what exactly they were dealing with in the leader of the Noctem Alliance. After a moment, Stan snapped out of it. There was plenty of time to worry about that later. They had more pressing matters at hand.

“Whatever,” shot back Stan, trying to keep his voice steady. “Now, back to the spy. Who is it?”

Drake's grin faded a bit, but a hint of smile still remained as he turned to face Stan.

“Stan, I swore to you that I would be honest with you,” replied the count. “And I will not lie to you now. However, just like the plans of the great Lord Tenebris, there is some information that I am not at liberty to share. The identity of the spy in your walls falls under that category.”

Stan's eyebrow twitched, and his grip on the bow tightened further still as Charlie exploded at Count Drake. “Enough of your double talk, Drake! Tell us who it is, or things are gonna get ugly!”

Drake's full smile returned. “Oh, by all means, go ahead and shoot me. I've given you all the information I'm
authorized to give you. I'm of no use to you now. The Noctem Alliance will not negotiate with you if you take me hostage—I am of no significance in the grand scheme of things. And besides, I . . .”

His speech was cut off by a gagging noise as Kat leaped out, quicker than a striking rattlesnake, and knocked the butt of her sword against Drake's chest. She was quick to follow up by pinning him to the ground under her knee, sword drawn. She had passed the normal levels of rage long ago. Her face was so contorted in fury that she looked inhuman.

“Well, then, if that's the case, let's see if a little pain will get you talking!” snarled Kat, and she began slowly lowering the point of her sword toward Drake's face.

“Kat, no!” bellowed DZ, and he leaped forward to knock the sword to the side. Count Drake beat him to the punch, and in one motion he knocked the sword to the side with his hand, pushed off the ground with it, and propelled his body onto his feet. He then proceeded to do a backflip between Kat and DZ, plummeting to the lava sea below. Stan's eyes followed him down toward the expanse of orange magma, and as the body entered the molten liquid, Stan saw a distinctive trail of orange smoke above the lava.

“He survived, guys.” Stan sighed. “He had a Potion of Fire Resistance.” But as he looked up, Stan realized that nobody was listening to him. Instead, Charlie and DZ were fixated on
Kat with pointed concern. She was still seething with rage, but there was another element in her eyes, too, as if she were about to cry. Stan had seen it before. Long ago, in the Ender Desert, as Stan had watched Kat on the verge of killing an unarmed soldier of King Kev, she had had the exact same look on her face.

“Kat, what . . . what was that?” DZ asked, looking at Kat in a way that he never had before.

“I'm . . . I'm sorry . . . ,” panted Kat, heaving fast and hard. “I'm just . . . so sick of the Noctem Alliance and their mind games. . . . This isn't my kind of fight. I'll take anyone on in a sword fight but this . . . this . . . this whatever-it-is . . .” Kat's breathing had calmed, but Stan was shocked to see the utterly defeated look on her face. “I can't do this anymore.”

“I agree with you, Kat,” said Charlie fervently. “I don't think any of us can deal with these mind games for too much longer. But you can't go around torturing people for information. We may be playing a different game than they are, but if our values are going to survive, we have to hold fast to them. You understand, don't you?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” replied Kat hastily, trying to get any shred of doubt out of the air as soon as possible. “I'm sorry, I just lost myself for a second.”

DZ and Charlie sighed in relief, but Stan gave a solemn glance down at the lava sea that Drake had disappeared into
just moments before. The time he had feared for so long had finally arrived. The Noctem Alliance had pushed one of them past the breaking point. Stan had known Kat back in a time where she would kill without remorse to get what she wanted. However, even back then, Stan knew that it would never even cross her mind to torture a player for information.

The Noctem Alliance had corrupted her. Sure, it may have only been for one moment, and she definitely had the most troubled past out of all them, but the tension that the Alliance's omnipresence had placed upon Kat had broken her in that one moment. And if the Noctem Alliance had caused one of them to betray their ideals, it was only a matter of time before the others began to follow.

In fact, hadn't they begun to fall already? It dawned on Stan that Jayden and G had already begun to turn their backs on justice, being ready to do anything and everything to destroy the Alliance that had killed their best friend. Wanting to burn Nocturia to the ground with no second thoughts, appointing council members without election, torturing prisoners for information—it was all the same, wasn't it? All those things went against the principles of democracy and fair treatment to all. They were only thinking like that because the Noctem Alliance was putting them under such pressure.

Although, Stan had to admit, Caesar was never going to negotiate with him, he was sure of it, so perhaps it might
have been better to burn Nocturia to the ground. And perhaps a little bit of pain would have convinced Count Drake to share that so-called classified information.

Stan shook his head, catching himself.
Look at me!
he thought.
Here I am, thinking that betraying my ideals just to take down the Alliance faster is a good idea! Obviously that way of thinking is wrong, right? Isn't it?

However confused Stan was about what was right and what was wrong, there was one thing he knew for sure: the situation had become critical. Despite having next to no information to go on, it was crucial that the Noctem Alliance go down very soon. The Alliance had already begun to rot away at the core of justice in Elementia. They had to dispose of it before the core finally rotted through.

CHAPTER 18
THE WARNINGS

A
s the earthshaking footsteps of Minotaurus grew closer and closer, Leonidas cringed. Dirt particles fell from the roof of his foxhole outside Element City with every step Minotaurus took.

Leonidas brushed the dirt off his black leather armor in disgust. It was bad enough that he had to share a tiny dirt hole with six other players, one of whom was modded to double size. Even though the stuffiness and perpetual perspiration were inevitable, Leonidas was determined to keep the sweat on his brow from turning to mud.

“Ouch!” came a bellow from the entrance to the hole, and two dirt blocks broke loose from the roof of the doorway and tumbled to the ground, bouncing off something invisible as they fell.

“Shut up!” hissed Leonidas. “Ya want the entire kingdom to know we're here, ya idiot bull? And put those dirt blocks back!”

“I am sorry, Leonidas,” replied Minotaurus in a glum voice as the blocks of dirt levitated up and fixated themselves back onto the cave wall. Leonidas shuddered. He still wasn't used to the effects of the Potion of Invisibility. It kind of freaked him out.

“And drink your milk when you're done with that,” Leonidas reminded Minotaurus.

“What? Oh, right.” And with that, a bucket of milk materialized in midair, and began pouring itself, disappearing into thin air. Moments later, the milk nullified the effects of the potion, and the giant, muscled form of Minotaurus became visible in the hole. Three other buckets appeared behind him, and within a few seconds, three Noctem troopers materialized.

“Did ya get it all set up?” Leonidas asked, trying to keep his overwhelming boredom out of his voice.

“Yes, we did,” replied Minotaurus. “The explosives have been completely wired. As soon as the next person uses the machine, it will go ka-boom!”

“And the note?” asked Leonidas in a disinterested voice.

“Taken care of,” replied Spyro, the private standing closest to Minotaurus. “We set it up perfectly. When they scan the wreckage of the machine, they'll find the message. Then, it's all up to Chancellor Caesar what happens after that.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Leonidas through gritted teeth. “It's all Chancellor Caesar's decision what we do next.”

“Yep,” replied Spyro, sounding irritatingly peppy. “All right, back to Nocturia we go!”

“Not yet.” Leonidas sighed.

“Why not?” Spyro asked, tilting his head to the side like a confused puppy.

“Accordin' to the great Chancellor Caesar, we have to wait for it to go off.”

“And . . . why is . . .”

“I dunno, kid, all right?” barked Leonidas. “It must be the same reason Caesar had us dig this stupid, tiny foxhole to stay in instead of settin' up a normal-size hideout like any normal Minecrafter would do!”

“But,” cut in Minotaurus, “Chancellor Caesar said that we needed a small hideout so that we would be less constipated!”

“The word is ‘conspicuous,' Minotaurus, not ‘constipated.'” Leonidas sighed, putting his palm to his forehead.
I'm surrounded by idiots
, he thought as the other soldiers snickered.

“Let's just get as comfortable as we can in here,” mumbled Leonidas. “We'll head to Nocturia as soon as possible.”

As the six troopers settled into place around the walls of the hole, Leonidas pulled an arrow out of his inventory. He held it like a pencil in his hand, doodled a sloppy stick figure in the dirt, and stabbed it through the heart, imagining Caesar's face on it. Leonidas was surprised to find that this actually relieved some of his stress. As he pondered what exactly that meant, he leaned back against the cave wall and closed his eyes, hoping to get some sleep before the bomb went off.

“Are you serious, Charlie?” asked Blackraven in alarm.

“Would I joke about something like that?” replied Charlie gravely. “We're still waiting on the official report from Bill, Ben, and Bob about the situation. All we know for sure is that the Wither Skeletons have joined the Noctem Alliance, and they helped Count Drake escape from Blackstone.”

“Oh, well that's just wonderful,” spat Jayden in disgust. “You know, maybe G and I should handle the interrogations and stuff from now on. It seems like every time you do it, we somehow manage to wind up worse than we already were!”

“Well, maybe I should point out,” shot back DZ, “that you guys handled getting the Wither Skeletons on our side, and they turned on us pretty fast! It's almost like they were ready to turn on us from the start or something.”

“Do not blame Jayden and Goldman for my mistake!” boomed Blackraven, his voice loud and echoing around the council chamber. “I was the one who attempted to reason with those monsters, I am the one who should take the blame for their betrayal!”

“It's not your fault, Blackraven! Think about what the guard heard Drake say. ‘The time is now, fight the tyrants, rejoin your master,'” pointed out the Mechanist reasonably. “He must have spoken to the Skeletons while he was imprisoned, and convinced them to join the Noctem Alliance. What he said to convince them, though, I can only guess. . . .”

“Well, it's not hard to imagine,” said Charlie. “The Skeletons gain strength from the misery of players, and the Noctem Alliance is a terrorist organization. . . . I can't imagine that misery would be something they're lacking in.”

A five-note chime rang out as Charlie finished speaking, and Bill walked in. The look on his face set off alarm bells in Stan's head. He looked utterly distressed.

“What's the word, Bill?” Stan asked, almost hesitantly.

“Nothing good, Stan, nothing good,” Bill replied gravely, and Stan's stomach dropped, continuing to plummet as Bill gave his report. “We sent a team in to secure the Nether Fortress, and it turns out that Drake was very busy in the ten minutes it took us to get in there. The entire prison was empty. He let all the prisoners in Brimstone escape. I'm assuming that he also managed to convince all of them to join the Noctem Alliance, 'cause as soon as we sent out search parties, we came under heavy arrow fire from sources we couldn't see. Stupid Invisibility Potions. And so,” Bill concluded with a heavy sigh, “we'll fight for it for all it's worth, but as of now, the Noctem Alliance has control over the Nether.

“And what's worse,” continued Bill darkly, “is that as long as the Noctems have the Nether, they'll be able to fast-travel.”

“What does that mean?” Kat asked apprehensively.

“For every block that you walk in the Nether, you move eight blocks in that direction in the Overworld. When you consider the fact that the Noctems can use Invisibility Potions to stay safe from the Ghasts, they can now use portals to warp across the entire Overworld in a matter of minutes.”

Eight mouths around the tables dropped open at this statement, but before anybody had a chance to respond, the doors flew open yet again, this time spitting Ben, Bob, and Ivanhoe into the courtroom. The pig skidded to a stop. Stan felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on as he realized that both of the other chiefs had looks on their faces identical to Bill's.

“What happened now?” Stan said, not sure how much more bad news he could take.

“The Noctem Alliance bombed the Tennis Machine,” Bob stated solemnly.

“
What
?” Stan, Kat, DZ, and Jayden burst out simultaneously.

“What did they do?” breathed the Mechanist, reeling in shock.

“The Tennis Machine blew up while people were in the middle of playing it. When the police got to the wreckage, we found a book inside that was titled
The Demands of Lord Tenebris
. We haven't read it yet, it's in evidence right now. The bomb went off about twenty minutes ago. Eleven people
were killed in the blast, and the citizen population is freaking out. We had to order a military quarantine and force people back into their houses. They're there now, waiting for orders.”

There was a moment of silence as the sheer gravity of what was going on sunk in. The Noctem Alliance had just gained about fifty members who had escaped from the Element City prison. They now had control over the entirety of the Nether. Using that dimension, they could warp across the entire world in no time flat. And now, the same players had detonated a bomb in the heart of Element City and killed its citizens.
This is the last straw
, thought Stan. The Noctem Alliance had killed Elementian citizens. It was time to go on the offensive.

“We've come here to ask your official permission to instate a draft, Stan,” said Bill tiredly. “Our normal army isn't going to have enough manpower to do all the stuff that we have to do now that they've killed our citizens. We've got to use about half our normal forces to fight the Noctems in the Nether, and it'll take a lot more men to take back Brimstone from the Wither Skeletons.”

“And that's just in that dimension,” Bob continued. “In the Overworld, we have to send even more forces into the city to patrol for hostile activity, secure our walls, and investigate how the bombers got in. The most soldiers of all, though, have got to go into the invasion of Nocturia. All we
need is the council to officially declare war on the NNA, and then we'll march into Nocturia with two hundred men and destroy the Alliance once and for all.”

“Well, I think the council will definitely be behind you in declaring war at this point,” replied Stan, and there were grim murmurs of assent behind him. “But there's another thing I'm gonna have to ask you to add to your agenda.”

“Stan, it's gonna be impossible to do all this at once,” grunted Bob. “We're fighting a war here in the Nether and in Nocturia all at the same time. Our forces are going to be stretched paper-thin as it is. Whatever it is you need us to do, it had better be really important.”

“Trust me, it is,” said DZ. “There's a spy in our government. Drake told us, and trust me, he wasn't lying.”

“Stan, can you hear me?”

Stan's eyes widened and his ears perked up. That voice. The voice that he had almost forgotten about over the past week, echoing from somewhere far beyond the server. Sally.

He jumped up from his seat. The others were still reeling from the announcement that there was a spy in their midst, but Stan trusted Charlie, Kat, and DZ to address the issue completely and tell the chiefs what Drake had told them. Right now, he had to concentrate on not letting Sally's voice slip from his mind again.

“Sally is contacting me, guys, I'll be back in a few,” Stan
exclaimed, and not waiting for a response, he ran out of the council room and straight to his room. He pulled the lever to close the iron door and sat on his bed, concentrating.

“Sally, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you, Stan,” the response came back, and Stan sighed in relief.

“It's good to hear from you, Sal.”

“Yeah, ditto to that, noob. I've been warping in and out of different places all around Elementia, and by listening to people, I've gotten a pretty good idea of what's happened there since the last time we talked. A lot has gone down since then, huh.”

Stan faltered for a moment. So much had happened over the past week that Stan was having trouble remembering when he had last talked to Sally. In fact, since Elementia Day, he couldn't remember even thinking about her once, let alone remembering what she had said. Then it came to him. The afternoon of Elementia Day, punctuated by static, Sally's voice had come through to him. She had warned him about the incoming attack on the city. . . . And she had also said . . .

“Sally!” Stan exclaimed, remembering the conversation clearly now. “How did you know the Noctems were going to bomb the Tennis Machine?”

“Oh, did it happen?” she responded glumly. “Hold on . . . Stan, how did that happen? I told you it was going to
happen . . . so why did you not, like, put extra security measures around the machine or anything?”

“Well, the others didn't believe you at first,” replied Stan. “And I was going to try to convince them to at least take precautions. but then the attack happened, and . . . You know what happened to Archie, right?”

“Yeah,” Sally said. “I heard some people in the city talking about it. It's a real shame. Archie was a good guy, I knew him for a long time.”

“Well, anyway,” continued Stan. “That happened, and then after that, stuff wouldn't stop happening, so I kind of got distracted.”

“Understandable,” said Sally reasonably. “In any case, I know that you must realize the Noctem Alliance is becoming more powerful by the day, but I don't think you realize just how powerful they're becoming. Stan, you're not gonna like hearing this, but they've started to work against me too.”

“What? How is that possible?” Stan asked, bewildered. “You're not even in Elementia anymore, how can the Noctems be going against you?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Sally grimly. “But haven't you wondered why my voice has been all static-y every time we've talked?”

“Well, yeah, but I just assumed it was because the blacklist is hard to get around, and it's causing you interference.”

“Well, that is part of it, but trust me, Stan, I'm a pretty good hacker. If this were just a normal blacklist, I would have bypassed it and been able to rejoin Elementia by now. Somehow, somebody in the Noctem Alliance is putting up more firewalls and other security measures, to make hacking back into Elementia almost impossible. And that's not all. As I try to bypass the new security, I find messages coded into it, and they're all saying that attempting to hack into Elementia is futile and that I'm just making things worse for the players of Elementia. The messages are signed in the name of Lord Tenebris.”

“So . . . that means . . . ,” Stan said slowly, putting the puzzle pieces together in his head.