Minecraft: Suicide Mission: 6 (2/2)

"What is it you need?" Raela asked, when the Councilors had settled back down into their hall, where no-one could hear. Trottimus left it to Aleph to explain; he was the speechmaker, but Aleph had an easygoing manner that made him a much better communicator than Trottimus would ever be. It was mid-afternoon; the sinking sun shone through the windows, painting the table a bright orange.

"How much do you know about the construction of a Testificate Iron Golem?"

"How much do I know?" Raela asked incredulously. "Boys, you're speaking to the finest golemancer in the Ashentha Isles. There is no-one that can make a better golem than me."

Trottimus held up a hand. "Wait, I thought you were a thaumaturge? What do golems have to do with this?"

"Thaumaturgy is about investing things with magic, right?" Aleph said. "To make a golem, you do the same thing. Make a humanoid shape, fill it with magic, give it orders."

"I didn't know you knew so much about golems," Trottimus said, raising an eyebrow.

"I was apprenticed to a Kon back in the swamps," Aleph said. "Back before we were adventurers. Golemancy was part of my lessons."

Raela nodded appreciatively. "Thanks for saving me an explanation, son. Anyway, I'm the best there is at golemancy. What part are you having trouble with?"

Aleph sighed. "We have enough metal and redstone for thirty, but we don't have the blood. Do you know any way we can make them with less blood?"

Raela hummed softly. "...No, I can't do that. Much less blood, and they won't obey you. This city's problems are bad enough without rebellious golems on your hands."

Aleph looked downcast. "All right. I'll bring you to the mages, maybe they'll have-"

"Wait!" Raela said. "I can't make it use less blood, but I have another solution." She leaned forward. "Have you ever heard of a thaumic duplicator?"

~

At her request, Aleph and a pair of Guardsmen escorted Raela to the city's storage chambers. These were a series of linked cavernous rooms deep beneath the city, where essential supplies and important documents were stored away from danger. It was quite a walk down the spiral staircases to their destination. "Son, do you know why Herobrine's armies have stopped attacking?" Raela asked.

"What makes you think they have?" Aleph said defensively.

"It's a little obvious from the lack of injured soldiers. I mean, you had enough spare people to send a dozen of them chasing after me. They've paused in their assault. Do you know why?"

Aleph scratched the back of his neck. "We've heard messages from Eldycion, New Extremis, the Dwarven Kingdoms and Ashentha. None of them have seen an attack in the last week, and we don't know why. To be honest, it's putting me on edge."

"If that's the case," Raela said, "why do you need Iron Golems? Perhaps Herobrine's armies are giving up and going home?"

Aleph got the uncanny feeling she was testing him, though her face was deathly serious. "There's no way he'd let us win so easily," he replied. "He's going to attack again, and we need to be ready when he does."

Raela grinned. "You're not as stupid as I thought, son."

"Well, we're here," Aleph said awkwardly. Raela didn't say one word more to him, but immediately set about searching through chests for what she required. She walked between the rows, taking quick notes on the contents of each chest.

Aleph looked at the Guardsmen, shrugged, and took a seat. "Pull up a stool, gentlemen. We'll be here for a while, I think."

Half an hour later, Raela had settled down at a desk and was scribbling on a few sheets of paper with a furious intensity, all while muttering under her breath. She had an abacus next to her, and every so often she moved a few beads back and forth before returning to her calculations. Aleph peered over her shoulder, but he couldn't understand any of it.

need: 30x glass jar @ 2v/t gives 60v/t; 30x blood @ 15v/t gives 450v/t; total 510 v/t
dupl ratio 5:1; 510 x 5 gives 2550 vis

Raela looked up for a moment. "You need to replicate the glass jar as well, otherwise the machine is just going to spit out a pool of blood. You want this stuff to come out and be easily transported. Unless you have a necromancer nearby that could order the blood into some jars?"

"No. We don't get many necromancers around here."

"As I thought." She returned to her calculations.

~

Raela sent Aleph on a bizarre errand; to find out where in the city he could find the wood of a silverwood tree. By the time he got back, one sapling in a bag on his back, Raela was already setting up her apparatus. A campfire had been started in the middle of the floor.

"A sapling? Even better! Plant it over here," she said. The cobblestone floor had been broken open here as well to expose the earth beneath. Aleph heaved the sack from his shoulders and planted the sapling in the dirt.

"Why do we need this?" Aleph asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"You ever seen a Tainted region, son?" she replied. "Purple slime, vaporous gas, an infection that's almost impossible to eradicate. The reason mages hate thaumaturges is that someone foolhardy idiot corrupted a major mage outpost with the Taint centuries back, and we had a hard time stopping it from devouring Eldycion."

"Oh. My Kon never told me the Taint was real. I always thought it was..." Aleph searched for the word. "...y'know, a cautionary tale. To make sure that future Kons show restraint."

"Nope!" Raela said. In a motion that hurt Aleph's eyes to watch, she pulled a full-sized cauldron from a satchel that should not have been able to contain it. She placed over the fire on its metal legs and jammed an orange crystal into a crevice on the side. "This crucible only has a fifty percent conversion rate, so half of what I throw in gets put straight back out as Taint. If we let enough of that get out, then this whole place will look like the rear end of a Cave Slime. That's why the silverwood is there. That thing absorbs Taint like a sponge."

The Guardsmen he'd left to watch her was connecting a series of glass tubes together, leading from the crucible to a device made of gold and enchanted wood. At the sight of Aleph, he stood up and gave a salute before returning to his work.

"Miss Raela... may I call you Raela?" Aleph asked.

"You may."

"Very well. Raela, what does all this stuff even do?"

Raela sighed. "Did that Kon of yours teach you anything, son? We put stuff in the crucible, and it's ground down into raw vis. Or mana, I guess, if you want to call it that. Then it's piped through this conduit..." She tapped the glass tube with her foot as she walked over to the other device. "...And into the thaumic duplicator itself. It uses the mana to make copies of whatever I put into this slot." She flicked the hatch open and put in the first jar, the blood that Aleph had had a surgeon let out earlier that day.

"How long before it's ready?" Aleph said, raising an eyebrow at the ramshackle setup.

"It already is!" Raela said. She seemed excited at the prospect of using this bizarre device. "That is to say, as soon as I put the fuel in the crucible, it will be ready. And there's a lot of fuel going into this; it might be dangerous. Do you want to do that part, or shall I?"

Aleph raised his hands as if to fend her off. "You do it. I insist."

She smiled. "It's always my favourite part." She put on a set of goggles festooned with additional lenses and attachments.
"Is this going to be safe?" one of the Guardsmen asked, looking skittish.

"Don't worry!" she said, starting to pour a sack of dyes into the crucible. It made such a sound of bubbling and hissing that she had to shout to be heard. "It's perfectly safe! I'm wearing my safety goggles!"

Aleph remembered the most useful thing his Kon master had ever taught him about magic. This was the one cardinal rule that he always followed, no matter what. He flipped Raela's desk onto its side and ducked down behind it, quickly followed by the Guardsmen, and he did not emerge until the noises had stopped.

~

Morucius looked up from his latest project, a perfectly formed mechanical bird, as Councilor Aleph entered his store, accompanied by a woman in a hooded cloak. Behind them, a pair of Guardsmen hauled a trolley stacked with dozens of glass jars. "Ah," the wizened old Testificate said as the door slammed shut behind them. He was his usual self; slow, careful, both in speech and movement. "I welcome you again to Morucius' Mechanisms and Merchandise, Councilor and friends. What can I do for you?"

Aleph was covered in back soot stains. He looked exhausted, but he heaved a reinforced glass jar onto the table. Inside was about a pint of red liquid. "I got you the blood," he spluttered. The Greenman broke off into a fit of coughing. He'd breathed in a lot of smoke after what had happened with the thaumaturgy.

"Impossible," Morucius said, raising a single eyebrow. "How, my old friend? You could not lose so much blood and live."

"Ask her," Aleph said, letting Raela step forward. "She's the one that duplicated it. Not without cost, I might add."

"Great Jebus!" Morucius said, donning a pair of spectacles to improve his eyesight. The pair studied each other for a few moments. "A thaumaturge, here in Haat? I never thought I'd see the day."

Raela sighed. "I know. We're not quite as popular as we once were, are we?"

Morucius shook his head. "Ah, times have changed, haven't they? Luckily for you, I am no great supporter of the mages. Back home, we never believed that old tale about the Taint being unleashed intentionally by the leaders of the Thaumaturge's Guild."

"Did they really claim that?" Raela asked, raising an eyebrow. "These damn mages will spread any story if it puts more coin in their coffers, won't they?"

Morucius chuckled quietly. "Ah, a thaumaturge from Ashentha was bound to be a fiery combination. Come, come, I must show you something."

This time, the old pale Testificate opened a different door behind his counter and led them into a hallway. Aleph could hear the sounds of hammering from behind the door. Morucius opened it to reveal a small smithy, built into the house. There was a smith inside, laying down a hammer and picking up a red-hot sheet of steel with tongs. She had noticed their entrance, but she carefully lowered the sheet into a bucket of water before she stepped away from her work.

"Have I introduced you to my wife, Myazo?" Morucius said. She lifted her goggles and smiled. She was a Greenman, lime-skinned and quite muscular. She shook Aleph's hand with a firm grip that was stained with soot from her furnace. She made a series of gestures that Aleph remembered as the hand signs that Greenman hunters used to communicate silently in the swamps. They spelled out a traditional greeting that didn't really translate to the common tongue; something like May your snares entangle a bountiful haul. He replied with the normal response: I wish you the best of luck in the hunt. She smiled again.

"Is that Greenman hunting-sign?" Raela asked. "I've never seen it used before. I only know a few words."

"Not a lot of people around here know how to sign," Morucius said with a wistful smile. "I was a linguist back in my day, so I was almost the only one around here she could talk to when she came here." He shook his head. "Although she cannot speak, she is the finest blacksmith I've ever known. There is no-one better equipped to make an Iron Golem."

Myazo handed him a piece of metal. It was the faceplate for an Iron Golem, newly made, still slightly warm. "I thought that making them for use in warfare would be a disgrace to your heritage?" Aleph asked.

"In my heart of hearts," Morucius said, smiling, "I knew you would find a way to provide the blood, and so Myazo and I started to work. My heritage would be disgraced even more if people died because I, in my pride, refused to help you."

The first of the new Iron Golems rose later that day. Another two were finished by the next nightfall. More would follow. When Herobrine finally came for the city of Haat, he would not find their defences lacking.

~

Percival tossed a coin into the air. At the apex of its arc, it vanished. A moment later, he heard it hitting the ground. He relaxed the illusion, and the coin reappeared on the floor.

"Hmm," he said. He began writing on a new page of the small leather-bound journal he kept on his person at all times. If anyone else was to find the records of his experiments, then he would probably have to kill them. Or, at the very least, make them disappear for a while.

Making an object invisible is not proving difficult, he wrote. But projecting the image of another object in its place is tricky; it requires care and attention to shape the proper image and make it look realistic from all angles. Sound is proving to be a problem, but I have managed to muffle it from time to time. It is possible that I could completely conceal a sound with further training.

"Of course it is possible," the voice of an Elf said to him. Percival was not particularly surprised by this.

"How am I able to hear your words?" Percival asked to thin air; but quietly, to reduce the risk of people overhearing and thinking he was crazy. He was already one of the most unusual Grand Mages ever to hold the title; he didn't need rumours floating around about his sanity, not when he was so close to triumph.

"We have exerted influence on your world over many centuries. Have you ever noticed how often in history someone has the idea to build a gateway between worlds? Or how many times some figure has found our artifacts and begun acting peculiarly? This was our doing. You were merely the first to go far enough to discover us, and begin to free us."

Percival gave a nod. "That seems sound. But what is this illusion, exactly? It's not part of magecraft. Is it related to the mentalist discipline?"

The voice became somehow sharper inside his head, like a blade's edge grinding against a whetstone. "When we ruled, there were none of these distinctions between magical disciplines. There was only one form with a dozen aspects, and the most powerful of these aspects was illusion. It could take decades to explain it to you in detail, but we do not have that long."

"How will I know exactly what to carve?" Percival asked. "Summoning was never my specialty, so I am unfamiliar with the written form of the Hierolect."

"You will have to follow this Raela's lead. Study her carvings, and we will look through your eyes at them. We will inform you what changes to make, and you will cover it with an illusion so fine that not even she will notice the difference."

Percival nodded again. "And then, instead of a general spell of banishment, which would not dispel all of Herobrine's minions, it will produce a summoning, which will bring through your finest magic-users, and you will win this war for us. It sounds simple enough."

"Of course. We will save your world, and in return-"

There was a noise outside, and the voice stopped. There came a knock on the door. "Come in!" he said, pocketing the coin and the journal. He seated himself at his desk facing the door, making it look like he'd been studying a grimoire. His sister entered the room.

"Have you taken leave of your wits, brother?" Brytha asked. "Talking to yourself?" She was tall and vaguely menacing, wearing robes of purple and crimson. She carried her staff of oak, topped with a gleaming orange shard of crystal.

"You must be mistaken," Percival said smoothly. "Who could I be speaking to? A spirit, perhaps, but mages do not dabble in such things."

Brytha practically snarled at the slight. A few months ago, there had been a scandal over her (alleged) attempted summoning of a spirit of fearsome power. Spirit-summoning was within the purview of druids, and a high-ranking mage like Brytha was expected to not involve herself with such unrefined magic. Nothing had been proven, but her reputation had been besmirched by the rumours.

"I did not come here just to trade barbs, brother," Brytha said. "I do have some news that must be brought to your attention."

Percival steepled his fingers. "Do go on."

"I've been in contact with a group of mentalists in the eastern district of Haat. They have a theory as to why Herobrine's forces have ceased their attack."

"And why would that be?"

"Because, when he does attack, he wants to do it at the right time. He has as much of a sense of timing as any of us do. We're nearing the very end of the year, the winter solstice. That would be a fortuitous time to attack, wiping his foes out just in time for a new year."

Percival nodded slowly. "It is just a theory, but it seems sound. Very well. You are dismissed."

The Elf's voice did not return, even after Brytha's footsteps had faded away. Percival returned to his analysis of illusions. The last day of the Month of Emerald was only four days away. He had no time to waste.

~

In a disused barn near the centre of town, Trottimus went to meet with the Endermen. He'd left Aleph to deal with the thaumaturge; the Greenman had experience in matters of magic, while he was better when it came to dealing with the more unusual species of the world. The clan of Walrus that Trottimus had grown up with, far to the north, had traded with the Endermen on occasion.

The holes in the old barn's roof had been boarded up to keep out the sunlight and precipitation, as had the windows. Although the Endermen had found a way to overcome their aversion to sunlight, water was still a great problem to them. One of them watched as he entered, fiddling with a complicated piece of machinery on a table. Others attended to the room's centrepiece, the thing that drew eyes and dropped jaws.

Behind him was one of the Ender-made machines, a marvel of engineering. It was a five-metre tall humanoid form coated in plates of armour, some a translucent turquoise, others a deep dark metal. Some of it was clockwork; there were gears and cogs visible at the joints. The rest was some kind of electrical system he didn't understand at all. There was no head, but overlapping plates of Endmetal covered the place at the front of the torso where he'd been told the pilot would sit. There were four more in the barn, standing in a line like soldiers stopped mid-march.

The one that had been fiddling with the machine stood up and dropped to one knee. Trottimus remembered; this was the Enderman equivalent of a bow. Bowing was impractical when you were so tall. He returned the gesture, which made the Enderman chuckle softly. He was an albino; his skin was a pale grey, almost white, and his eyes were a paler pink than the normal purple colour.

"Councilor Trottimus," the albino Enderman said softly. Behind him, the other Endermen continued their work on the machines. "I wish you a good day. To what do I owe this visit?"

"Yekulzchath, I'm afraid this is no social call," Trottimus said. The syllables of an Enderman name were very difficult to get right. "We need to discuss your men, and their efforts in defending the walls."

"I did not know there had been any attacks in the last week," Yekulzchath said with a frown. "Has something changed?"

"They haven't," Trottimus said, "but that's not the point. They could at any time. Why haven't I seen your machines on patrols recently?"

"Repairs must be made, Councilor," the Enderman said. "The machines sustain damage easily. They are far more sensitive than Iron Golems, unfortunately."

"Yekul... If it's not too much trouble, is there a title I could address you by? I have a feeling that a Walrus' tongue was never meant to speak names like these."

Yekulzchath laughed gently. "You may call me Mechanic, for that is my calling in life."

"Mechanic, I am afraid this is no time for laughter," Trottimus said. "Why are there only five of your machines here? When your people asked for Haat's resources in the production of more of these suits, we expected to actually see some."

Although the Enderman's emotions were hard to read, he looked uncomfortable. "We... we made a mistake, Councilor. Your world... the elements we need to construct our devices are very, very hard to find. We were only able to complete two here. The other three date from the time of the Exodus from our home."

"Aren't there any others?" Trottimus asked.

"I apologise, but most of the remaining suits of armour are on the other side of the continent. Most of the Endermen were recalled to defend New Extremis. It is vulnerable; we have not finished the town walls at present."

Trottimus sighed. "So all I have available are these five machines and a dozen Endermen, when I was promised at least twice that? Mark my words, Mechanic, there is going to be a reckoning after this." The Walrus walked to the barn doors. "Repair your machines, and make it fast. We don't have long." He slammed the door shut and walked away, returning to the city hall. Another shower of snow was beginning to drift down.

~

Kokariphel's horde surged towards the walls of Enbrook as the guards watched from the ramparts. Next to the defenders, a trio of travellers were wondering why the universe seemed so determined to kill them.

"How long do we have?" Gimrak asked, sheltering his eyes from the snow with his arm. The mayor of Enbrook, Dwali, shook his head. Ice had begun to gather in his grey beard since the blizzard had started.

"I don't know, mountain-brother," Dwali replied. His expression was grim. "They are without number, but they are slow. We have maybe fifteen minutes before they reach the town."

Gimrak pondered their imminent doom for a moment. "I'm fresh out of bombs. Is there anyone in town that might know a bit about fighting Heralds and elementals?"

Dwali's face sank further. "Would that there were. The Birchman absorbed our magic-users into himself to gain their strength. I'm afraid that our only hope lies with you three."

Shategua tore his eyes away from the horde for a moment. "What, really? Us?"

Dwali frowned. "Yes, you. I told you, there's no-one here that can fight anything more dangerous than a Zombie."

Shategua's eyes bulged. "Well then. In any case, we're probably going to die here, so we'll give it our best shot."

"I overestimated my power," Atril groaned from behind them as Dwali hurried away to organise his men. She rose to one knee, supporting herself with her sword. She still seemed weak, but she was no longer on the brink of death. Her skin was blackened by Israphel's aura, especially around her throat. "It's peculiar. The last few days, it felt like I was stronger than I'd ever been, but that monster beat me easily."

"It's not your fault," Gimrak said. "Sparklez gave you your powers, right? You're a demi-Herald; you can't take on something like Israphel and win."

She frowned, looking behind Gimrak. "He won too easily. As soon as I left the ground, my strength faded. It's like something had been fueling me..."

Gimrak turned to see Shategua, who wouldn't meet his gaze. He had returned to their rooms and retrieved his bag, though it wasn't clear why. "I think I know the answer," the Enderman said. He opened his satchel, and Gimrak was almost blinded by the golden glow from within. He instinctively slid down his goggles, and through the tinted glass he could see what was inside. It was a small black hat, but its aura had grown so intense that the hat itself was barely visible.

"The Hat of Notch," Gimrak breathed. "I thought we left it in the Church of Mojang, what with it being a sacred relic and all."

"Endermen see these things differently," Shategua said, studying the hat carefully. "To a mortal, this hat must be kept safe because it's ancient and holy. To us... Notch never made us. We don't worship him, and we don't revere his artifacts. What matters to us is the power items like this hold; every one we obtain is another step towards reclaiming the End. That's all that matters to the Endermen."

Atril's aura flared, and she tightened her grip on her sword. Her wounds were almost healed. "Blasphemer, thief. To think that you handle the Hat so casually..." She took a deep breath. "Blasphemy doesn't matter if we don't survive, of course. We do what we must."

"I know I shouldn't have, but I stole it. There. I said it. It's helping you heal right now, I can see that. It's supposed to be one of the most powerful artifacts of Notch ever to exist; maybe we can use it against this Kokariphel creature?"

Gimrak nodded. "We should leave aside the blaspheming for a while; we gotta focus on staying alive. Do you think that hat is more powerful than a Herald?"

"Not on its own," Atril said, standing again. "But I will bear it. Together..." She took the hat from Shategua and put it on her head. It changed itself to match her armour, becoming a leather helmet. Her wings unfurled fully in a shock of golden-white feathers, and her aura shone bright, feeding off the hat's power. With the Hat of Notch, Atril looked like she could take on an army.

"To hell with blasphemy. We're at war. Let's make a plan."

~

After five minutes of hurried discussion, the trio emerged from the sheltered room. They immediately set off in different directions. "As we planned, gentlemen!" Atril said as took to the skies; a small group of giant icy moths were gliding towards the town, and she set into them with the fury of a berserker.

As Gimrak waved for Dwali to follow him, Shategua disappeared. Even through the heavy snow, Gimrak could see the dark shape of the Endermen teleporting his way through the snow, back along the road towards Lorecia.

"Where's he going?" Dwali asked, peering after the Enderman.

"To get help!" Gimrak said, striding along the wall. "Now, how much oil do you have?"

~

Shategua breathed in the freezing air through the skin of his face and jumped through dimensions, twisting and falling through the purple mist of the Otherworld until he landed again, about thirty metres ahead. He took his bearings, picking out the landmarks Voormitha had mentioned, and leapt again.

Teleporting this rapidly would wear him out in minutes, but he only needed a dozen jumps to reach the place that Voormitha had told him about. He left the road, making his way through snow-covered trees. Endermen were experts at navigation; even though he'd never been here before, he found the forest clearing where they'd stopped for the night. His eyes picked out the overhang she'd mentioned, the rocky cliff that he should keep to his left, the waterfall that had now frozen solid.

At last, he found it. A carved hole in the rock, a tunnel leading deep underground. He perched in a tree, catching his breath. He'd undergone more than two dozen teleportations in fifteen minutes. Shategua had been born in the Overworld, but a surviving mechanic had installed some End-made augmentations for him. One of them was a visual display in his eyes, and right now it was warning him that he could implode if he tried to teleport again.

Fine. All that meant was that he wouldn't have a way out if this went downhill. He tensed and jumped, this time physically, from the branch. Shategua disappeared into the tunnel.

~

The archers formed ranks on the walls. Behind them, at ground level, blocks of spearmen were moving into position. Dwali was in the process of evacuating everyone he could to the town hall, a more defensible location than anywhere else in Enbrook. The caverns underneath should provide some protection for the civilians.

The troops lined up at the walls. Most wore leather and chainmail armour, though Dwali had a traditional suit of Dwarven plate that he hadn't worn in years. It came within a hair's breadth of no longer fitting him; several years as a mayor and a healthy appetite did not make for a slim Dwarf. He still fought, though, which earned him Gimrak's respect no matter how large he was.

As the horde approached, Dwali signalled for his troops to move into position. In front of the archers, pairs of soldiers stood at the front of the wall, each carrying between them a black iron cauldron heaving with burning oil.

"On my mark!" Dwali commanded, one hand in the air. He waited, counting until he could see their thin golden eyes before his hand fell. "Pour!"

At his signal, the cauldron-bearers emptied their vessels over the edge of the wall. Gimrak gave a grin as the oil was poured over the sides, rivers of thick black pitch that bubbled and writhed as it emerged from the cauldrons.

"Heh," Gimrak said. "Looks like water and oil don't mix."

"A good pun, mountain-brother," Dwali said. They shared a high-five as the wave of oil rushed through the army below.

The boiling tar was nothing if not effective. It flooded through Kokariphel's forces, eating away at the very substance they were made of. Super-dense ice melted in seconds, and the mix of oil and water prevented the ice from re-crystallising immediately. Dozens of icy elementals were destroyed in seconds. Kokariphel reeled from the mental feedback of the mass destruction, but for every elemental that the wave melted, two more rose up from the frozen ground.

A moment of distraction was all Atril needed. The demi-Herald dropped down from the sky like a hawk, catching Kokariphel in the side with her sword and plummetting with her to the ground in an eruption of snow and ice. The two recovered from the blast quickly; by the time the dust had cleared enough for Gimrak to see, the pair were circling each other like duelists in the rocky crater made by their impact. Atril shone with a light greater than anything Gimrak had seen before.

The ice elementals could survive without Kokariphel's direct attention, but they could not regenerate without her. The first wave of boiling oil had merely been a distraction; now the cauldron-bearers fell back and made way for the archers. They dipped their arrows in the reserve barrels of oil before lighting each one with the flame from a torch. Dwali cried "Fire!", and dozens of bowmen sent flaming arrows screaming into the mass. The arrows hit home well, striking down many more elementals, but enough continued that the charge struck home.

The wall shook with the force of the impact as a beast made of boulders slammed its shoulder into it. The elemental clambered over the wall, a bulky figure of ice twice a man's height and four times his width. It had a trio of golden eyes burning in its blank face. One massive fist raised and fell, crushing a man beneath its bulk. Gimrak hacked at one ankle with a waraxe while another guard took out the other one. Bereft of its feet, the elemental tumbled backwards off the wall, pinning some of its smaller fellows beneath its bulk. But it was only the first, and many more followed.

Gimrak grabbed a mace from the corpse of a crushed soldier, and gave a quick prayer to Notch that he'd live to see the end of this day.

~

Atril fought like never before. This Kokariphel was a dangerous creature, the very embodiment of winter. But with the power granted to her by the Hat of Notch, she could go toe-to-toe with the very worst of Herobrine's creations and survive. Her every blow was faster, her blade hummed with power like she had never known. Her aura had grown so strong that the snow around her feet had melted, giving her a solid footing from which to fight the monster. They eyed each other. Neither spoke; in fact, Atril wasn't sure if Kokariphel could speak at all. It was irrelevant.

She struck forward, but Kokariphel slid to the side on a trail of ice and parried with a freezing shield in its forearm. A spear formed in her other hand, stabbing at Atril. It was only her enhanced reflexes that allowed her to lean away from the blow and kick out at its legs. Crystalline wings like icicles sprouted from the Herald's back and she soared upwards again before the kick connected. Atril rolled to one side before the next spear blow connected. Kokariphel's spear moved through the icy ground with no resistance; she immediately slid forward for another attack, spinning the spear around before jabbing with the equally sharp base. Atril raised her blade to block it, and the resounding clash sent vibrations along her arms. She might have looked thin, but Kokariphel was still a being of frightening strength.

Atril spread her wings again and flew, soaring just high enough to leap over Kokariphel's head and land behind her. Her sword struck deep into the monster's back and stuck there. Atril tried to pull it out, but super-cooled water was pooling around the gash, not only to seal it but to hold Atril's weapon fast. She let go of the sword, whereupon it vanished into golden smoke. Like her armour, Atril could shape her weapon at will. It required a great deal of effort to do so, but with her power boost it was no challenge at all. The vapour spun into her hand, reforming into a new weapon.

Kokariphel spun around just in time for a massive golden mace to smash her in the face. Cracks spiderwebbed across her blank face as the Herald flew away, landing in a heap of snow some distance away. She soared back towards Atril, claws spread to tear her apart, but she once again slid beneath the attack. Atril turned in mid-air, swinging her club again. Kokariphel almost dodged it, the impact shattering two of the spikes of her icy crown. She struck back with a javelin of ice that grew from her hand. It lodged in Atril's forearm, where it stayed long enough to cause her pain before she yanked it out. The cold made the wound sting, but she had no time to focus on that.

Kokariphel gathered a sphere of purest coldness between her hands and let it out in a blast of freezing air. Atril held her hands together, focusing her aura-shield around her face, but even so the coldness of the blast cut to her core. She idly wondered if she could do something similar. The strength flowing into her from the Hat of Notch was suddenly diverted from her into her mace. The weapon hummed briefly before a golden beam of energy erupted from it, slamming Kokariphel into the ground with the force of a cannonball. Atril let out a whoop of joy before she swooped down. Kokariphel emerged from the smoke in a rage, and the duel continued.

On and on their combat went, the back-and-forth of two evenly matched fighters waiting for the other to slip up. Parry after parry, strike after blow after dodge after flip. They fought on the ground and in the sky with equal skill. Atril focused on blunt weapons, trying to shatter the Herald's icy form. Kokariphel specialised in blades and spears, slicing at the air, searching for a weakness. They fought with breathtaking skill, a dance of blades and energy and crushing blows between the scions of two opposing gods.

Everything was going well, Atril decided. She didn't have to kill Kokariphel, though that would be a feat that would seal her place in history. She just had to hold her off until Shategua returned. After all, with this level of power, she was unstoppable!

While she was thinking this, Kokariphel jumped forward in mid-air and passed over her head. Atril deflected the thrust of her spear, but with the other hand Kokariphel snatched the Hat of Notch from her head. Atril's stomach dropped as the power she'd been soaring on faded to her normal levels. Strong, but not strong enough to have a single chance against Kokariphel.

The helmet returned to its default form, the hat. It floated above her palm, suspended in mid-air. The golden aura it gave off ate away at Kokariphel's form, her claws dripping away into lukewarm water. She closed her hand around it, freezing the hat solid. Cracks formed in the surface, golden rays emerging from within, and Atril felt a sudden dread.

"Get down!" she yelled at the walls as the relic erupted in a nova of golden light.