“I still can’t believe that he’s alive,” Kat said.
“I still don’t completely understand that,” Cassandrix said, turning to face Kat. “Could you please explain to me what happened to him? And why everybody finds this so amazing?”
Kat was quite pleased to find that Cassandrix was talking to her in a civil manner. Although Kat tried to be pleasant towards her, Cassandrix only returned the attitude half the time, while reverting to her snappy, unbearable personality the rest of the time. Kat was glad to see that, today at least, she was being agreeable, and answered her question.
“You see, Cassandrix, Sirus was our redstone engineer during the Battle for Elementia, when we first took down King Kev. That was back before the Mechanist joined us.”
Hearing his name, the Mechanist looked up, revealing his tired and stressed face for a moment before returning to the book he was reading.
“Anyway, a lot of players died in that battle, and he was one of them. And even though none of us saw it, one of our friends named Archie said that he saw Sirus get killed in battle. Apparently, it happened right as the battle was ending, right before the castle tower blew up, in fact. We all thought that he was dead, and according to him, he was. Yet somehow, he managed to come back.”
“I see,” Cassandrix replied, looking mystified. “But … do you have any idea how? I mean … the server’s difficulty is locked on Hardcore, and there’s no way to change it unless King Kev himself did it. And even then, he gave up his operating powers! So there’s no possible way that Sirus could have gotten back onto the server through simply respawning!”
“Yer guess be as good as any o’ ours, lass,” Commander Crunch responded solemnly, “but fer now, thar’s no way t’ know fer certain. More than likely, it had t’ do wit’ some sort o’ glitch, but fer now, we ’ave more important thin’s t’ worry about.”
There was a dark silence around the circle of leaders. They all knew that that was the understatement of the century. Nobody knew what to say. They all knew exactly what they were about to go into, and yet at the same time had no idea.
“I still can’t believe that the Noctems managed to find us,” muttered Kat.
“Why is that so surprising?” Charlie demanded defensively. “They’ve been inspecting every block of the city nonstop since they’ve broken through the wall. It’s not that surprising that they’ve managed to find us!”
“Calm down!” exclaimed Kat, shocked by Charlie’s aggressive tone. She had no idea what had come over him since they had rescued him from the prison on the Mushroom Islands, but Kat didn’t like it one bit. She had expected that by now he would be back to his normal, friendly, soft-spoken self, but if anything he had only gotten worse.
“What I meant,” Kat continued cautiously, “was that Ben and Bob have been sending spies out into the city, to see how close the Noctems were to finding us. According to the intelligence they gathered, the Noctems were doing most of their searching in the Merchant’s District, on the total opposite end of the city. If that’s true, then it makes no sense that they managed to discover us here so quickly.”
“Well, however it came about, th’ attack couldn’t ’ave come at a worse time,” Commander Crunch replied darkly. “We ’ave t’ act fast, now that th’ Noctems know where we be, ’n’ we ’ave no time t’ put together an actual invasion plan. We be forced t’ jus’ rush willy-nilly into th’ Adorian Village, ’n’ hope that this cockamamie assault wit’ no thought put into it somehow works.”
“You’re right,” growled Leonidas in disgust. “Why couldn’t the Noctems have broken in, like, just two or three days later? That would have made everythin’ so much easier!”
Suddenly, Charlie leaped to his feet, prompting all to turn towards him. He looked distressed and mortified, and it seemed as if he were on the verge of tears. For a moment, nobody moved as Charlie looked like a deer in the headlights of his friends’ concerned looks. Then Charlie turned around and marched away from the circle without a word, a sob escaping his mouth as he limped down the tunnel.
“Wha’ be his problem?” Commander Crunch asked incredulously as he turned to look at his comrades, and saw that nobody had the slightest idea what was wrong with him.
“I’ll be right back,” Leonidas said determinedly and, before anybody could stop him, he stood up and took off down the tunnel after Charlie.
“What do you want?” demanded Charlie as Leonidas caught up to him, weaving around a group of soldiers pulling on diamond armour as he went.
“I wanna know why you’re so upset, man,” Leonidas said straightly. “You’ve been totally out of it ever since we met up, and you seem like you’re upset with me. Listen, dude, I know I haven’t really known you for long, but it’s pretty obvious to me that you’ve got somethin’ going on.”
“Oh it is, is it?” Charlie spat, looking beyond outraged. “Well, thank you for noticing!”
“Charlie, listen … I know that your injury has been bothering you—”
“Shut up!” Charlie bellowed at the top of his lungs, causing all in the vicinity to turn and stare at him. “Just shut up and go away! I don’t want you to be here! Just … leave!”
And Charlie took off, hobbling down the mine as fast as he could, crawling under the nearest outcrop of rock that he could find.
Leonidas took a deep breath. Although he could feel his frustration at Charlie’s attitude boiling in his stomach, he knew that in this case, he had to be the bigger man. From what Stan had told him, Charlie was usually calm, collected and even timid. In other words, miles from what he had just witnessed. Something was very wrong, and Leonidas was going to find out what.
Slowly, he crept over to the edge of the cave, to the outside of the stone-block dimple in the wall. As he peeked into the crack, he was surprised to see that Charlie was actually crawling awkwardly out of the hole. Leonidas stepped back as Charlie grabbed on to the cave wall and pulled himself to his feet, bearing his full body weight on his good leg. He looked up at Leonidas, eyes still slightly red, but a tired, apologetic look on his face.
“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled, unable to meet Leonidas’s eyes. “Look at me, what I’ve become … screaming, throwing a fit, running away and hiding in a cave … pathetic …”
“Charlie, I know that ya don’t think highly of me,” Leonidas said hastily, unwilling to acknowledge that what Charlie had just said was true. “Maybe you’re having a hard time forgivin’ me for the things I did in the past … maybe it’s something else I did, I dunno. But trust me, man … I’m not just some idiot who’s only good for a fight, I’ve got a brain, too, and I’ve seen a lotta crap since I’ve joined Elementia. If you’re willing to talk, I wanna do what I can to help ya. So please, Charlie … can ya tell me what’s wrong?”
Charlie sighed. “I don’t have a problem with you, Leonidas … Well, I mean, I do, but it’s not a real problem. It’s totally unfair to you, and I know that …”
“Tell me.”
“It’s just … ever since you joined us, you’ve been nothing but amazing. You’ve helped us fight, you’ve talked with us, you’ve become a part of our group. Everybody loves you, and I was just really jealous of that – the fact that you’ve done terrible things in the past, but you’re one of our greatest assets now. For me, it’s exactly the opposite. I mean, look at me. I can barely walk, let alone fight, and … since I was imprisoned, I’ve really hurt our cause. And now there’s nothing I can do to fix it.”
“What’re you talking about?” exclaimed Leonidas, taken aback. “I mean … OK, man, I’m gonna level with you. Since we’ve met, ya haven’t been very helpful