Perpetually untitled Guude and Beef fic, part 3
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mindcracklovePart 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
It's like the week of fic and fic related things up in here. Watch as I flagrantly contribute to it!
So yeah... this part. Something I remembered while writing this that I had forgotten about when I posted the first part, was that this was all basically inspired by this comment. Kinda funny it said that these two would be too cheerful for it to be a depressing apocalypse, BUT I APPARENTLY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE IT SO. Yeah, if you thought the first two parts were sad... you don't even know yet.
Also, I thought I'd start slapping disclaimers on these things. You know the drill; this is all made up, and though the characters and how they interact are based on real things, their representations here are all fictionalized interpretations for the sake of storytelling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The cave dimmed before Guude as he spilled water over the pool of lava, turning the bright molten liquid into dark obsidian. The hiss of lava as it cooled under the water pierced the cave and didn't fully fade even as the water was reclaimed, or perhaps the sound just echoed in Guude's head like the dozen other thoughts that wouldn't leave him alone. He was, once again, in a hole in the ground, but not one he would be staying in for much longer. Scooping up some undisturbed lava and dumping it into a dirt mold he made on the newly formed obsidian, he was making a portal. He and Beef were leaving behind the ruined village on the surface and the wither that plagued it for the comparative safety of the nether. Maybe it wasn't a huge improvement, but there was nothing left for them here.
When he was finished with the frame, Guude switched to the diamond pickax and laboriously mined some extra obsidian. Maybe they could find what they needed to craft an enderchest after all, but first they still needed--
Guude was jolted to attention as the low, rattling screech of an aggressive enderman bore through his thoughts. His hand went to his sword, though he couldn't see where the enderman was. Wherever it was, it as taking damage, and soon let out its dying scream. A moment later Beef appeared from a nearby tunnel, holding out his prize.
"Got a pearl!" Beef announced triumphantly.
"You just killed an enderman," Guude said.
"I did."
"You hate endermen."
"I do!"
"Well... good job!" Guude finished lamely. Even though it was Beef's idea to hunt endermen for a pearl before leaving the overworld, Guude hadn't expected him to actively pick fights with them, much less by himself. Guude thought he was off grinding gravel for the flint and steel. Speaking of...
"Do you have the flint?" Guude asked.
"Sure do. You want to do the honors?"
It was just unexpected, Guude thought as he assembled the flint and steel, glancing again at his companion. It was common knowledge how much Beef hated endermen, and with having just recovered from a wither attack... It wasn't just unexpected. It was stupid, and Guude preferred not to have more reasons to wonder what he'd do if Beef died.
"You don't have to look so surprised," Beef said. "I know you want to get out of here, so I did what I had to. I'm in this for as long as you are. You know that, right?"
"I guess we're ready, then?"
A solemn nod. Guude turned. Taking one of his last breaths in this world, he lit the portal. The spark caught and clung to the obsidian frame like a film, spreading into a swirling purple aperture to another dimension. A slight wind exhaled from the portal, and with it, the eerie shrieks of whatever souls haunted the nether world.
With no further ceremony, they stepped into the haze and allowed it to overtake them, rippling the world around them until the cave they were in vanished entirely, now replaced by untamed nether. The airy whish of their trip faded to be replaced by all the expected sounds of hostile nether life, all subtle and distant for the moment, but which promised a constancy that could easily crawl under their skin before long. The smell was of smoke and sulfur and the stink of pigmen, not helped by the heat of the air.
Guude stepped onto the coarse, brittle netherrack that surrounded their exit portal. They emerged in a relatively sheltered location, too small for ghasts, but hidden. Guude supposed it didn't matter, if they weren't planning on returning here.
"Yep," he sighed. "This is where we live now."
"And we know no one's been here, since I can see glowstone," Beef said, stepping beside him. "But I do wonder, if everything in the nether is closer together--"
"If we'll find someplace that's been developed? I think I'd almost prefer not to. Be like moving into someone else's house after they died, and it's not even that nice of a house."
"I guess. Anyway, we're looking for a fortress, right, so we can get some-- Is that a bat?!"
Guude turned as he heard the squeaking. "Must've followed us through the portal."
"Come here, little guy. This place is not safe you you. Man, I wish you could tame them! I want to keep it!"
The bat, after some probing of the unfamiliar netherrack, eventually flapped its way further from the portal toward the open nether. Guude estimated less than two minutes before it would fly into lava and burn to death. But Guude didn't want to be around to see it, though not for his own sake. They had just barely escaped a situation where Beef almost died; Guude didn't want him to be sad either.
"Maybe it'll make friends with a ghast," said Guude. "And they'll fly around together and be flying buddies."
Beef chuckled. "The ghast and the bat. They're like the unlikely college roommates of Minecraft."
"Yep. Friends forever."
He said it halfheartedly, knowing nothing of the sort would happen. And though he had successfully distracted Beef's attention from the lost and helpless bat, the eye contact they now shared gave him an uncomfortable feeling.
"We should go," he said, turning away. In the corner of his eye he saw that the bat had found its way to an open lava flow in the distance. But whether it flew into the molten fire or just behind it, he couldn't tell.
Why did he care if Beef saw a bat die anyway? It's not like things dying was a new concept. That's how they ended up here. And Beef was willing to seek and kill an enderman without complaint, so soon after being withered. He must have known the risk. Not like Guude needed to save him from everything.
Before long they emerged into the wide open nether. The bright sea of lava stretched across much of the open expanse below, with more lava streams flowing into it from above. Bulbous white ghasts floated in the open space like giant, pale balloons with tentacles and a bad temper. Everything else was an dull mass of dark red from the netherrack, with no visible pillars or platforms to distinguish a fortress.
One of the ghasts shrieked as it spotted them.
"Angry babies," Guude said, reaching for his bow as the fireball sailed harmlessly over their heads. At the next fireball, an arrow from Beef reflected its trajectory back at the ghast at just the right angle to hit and kill it.
"Nice shot."
"Now why can't you do that with withers?" said Beef, a little ruefully.
Soon they were under attack again, which was taken care of with another volley of arrows. The ghasts were not a huge threat as long as they kept moving, and they killed them out of annoyance as much as for safety.
"I don't suppose it's a good time to ask how many arrows you have left?" said Beef after a few encounters.
"Are you out?"
"No. But I'm not exactly swimming in them either. And it's not like we can restock."
"Oh, yeah. Fuck." He had to remember they were back in a hostile environment that didn't offer much in the way of resources. They had to consider the limits of what they carried again, so better not to waste arrows on every ghast they saw.
But at least this time Guude wasn't completely devoid of useful items. Remembering something, he dug through his inventory.
"Sapling," he announced, presenting a tiny tree sprout. After being so starved for basic items before, he always kept one on him. "We may not have everything, but we are not running out of wood this time. What else do we need? Ores can't be had in the nether, so we'll have to make do with what we got. Food? Well, we got plenty from the village."
"I wasn't going to say anything," said Beef, "but if we wanted a renewable food source, just in case we do run out..."
He motioned to something behind Guude. Growing on the netherrack in droves was a wealth of red mushrooms. Of course Beef probably still had all the brown ones from their first caving trip. What, was it like his life's mission to feed him soup?
"Like I said, we have plenty of food." He heard Beef give a tiny groan as he walked away.
~~~~~
Monotony. That was a good word to describe it. Guude and Beef's trek through the nether quickly blurred into a stretch of monotony. Everywhere they looked was the same ugly shade of red with few feature variations and no biome changes. Sometimes they had to carve a staircase into a steep section of netherrack, and sometimes they had to make detours around a vast pool of lava, but really the nether was all the same. There was no difference between day and night, so even time blurred together since there was no reason to stop, making it difficult to judge how long they'd been there. It was easy to feel like they would wander forever without finding anything different. Maybe that's why it was the hell biome.
That's when Guude saw the pigman charging.
"Look out!"
"You just shot a pigman!"
"He was already charging! Dude was out for blood!"
"Here comes another one!"
The pigmen's squeals of anger echoed through the area, attracting the rest of the tribe. They wouldn't be able to keep fighting them from a distance, but fighting close range felt like a bad idea.
"Just pillar up!"
Guude managed to get out of reach of the pigmen's gold swords as a group closed in on him. He looked over and saw Beef had reached safety as well, and was swiping at them from above.
This didn't make sense. They had passed several packs of pigmen, and until now they had all been content to let them pass without acknowledgement. Something must be up. But they had to kill these pigmen first.
When they were confident no more were coming, they climbed down into the remains of the slaughter, which consisted of a lot of rotten flesh with glints of gold showing through.
"What was that about?" Beef said. "What angered them?"
"Someone else must have been here," Guude said grimly.
A little further ahead, they found the discarded pile of items of a dead man, the last remains of whatever unlucky guy got on the wrong side of these zombie pigmen.
"I wonder who it was," Beef said sadly. "And what were they doing out here?"
"Hardly matters now," said Guude, already picking through the items despite his near bloated inventory. "Could have been looking for new land by cutting through the nether, but they obviously didn't come prepared. There's not a lot here that's useful, except some diamond tools. Some spare iron, that's good. Random mob drops, sand-- Who brings sand to the nether?"
"Looks like you weren't the only one caught off guard when the withers came a-withering," said Beef, tossing aside some of his own inventory. "Any blaze powder, by chance?"
"No. So wherever this guy came from, it probably wasn't a fortress."
"Either that, or there was no reason to go in one, if all you're looking for is distance."
Guude stood up, still looking at the remaining items strewn across the ground. How long ago had this person died? It seemed so unlikely that they'd run into anyone else, living or dead. Guude was lucky enough to have found Beef. This guy was alone...
It was way too easy to see himself in that situation, with how much he had been alone. And he had been caught off guard. At least pissing off pigmen was a fairly quick way to go, even if it was a stupid mistake to pull.
"We ready?" Beef said, looking at him curiously.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." They faded back into the monotony of nether travel.
~~~~~
The nether was getting to Guude. The ambient noise at least was something he expected, setting him on edge even when he forgot it was there. Grunts of pigmen especially made him suspicious, though they encountered no other hostile tribes. Whines of ghasts he tried to ignore, unless they were close enough to spew fireballs. Eventually it all dulled into a uniform monotony of white noise that was nevertheless grating in its own backdoor way.
What he didn't expect was the air itself, which was so infused with dry heat that it gave him the impression he was walking through a very red desert. Guude never thought that he would miss rain given its seemingly perpetual presence in the overworld, but he supposed he never went to the nether with the intention of staying there. No matter where they were, there was heat radiating from some nearby fire or lava stream. He did have that bucket of water, which he kept just to know it was there, even though it was useless if he tried to expose it to the air.
"Remember when you could put ice in the nether, and then you could have ice? Didn't Etho put a bunch of source blocks all over the place before that got fixed?"
"Yeah, that was my ice," Beef said. "But I thought you didn't want to go to places people have already been."
"No, I'm just saying it'd be nice if we could have water in the nether again."
"Oh, the heat's getting to you too. You're thirsty."
"Yes, save me with your magic nether water."
"Magic nether water?" Beef repeated with a laugh. "What should I be doing if I don't have my magic nether water?"
Damn it, why did this have to sound weird? Wherever this was going, never mind.
"Nothing. Forget it," Guude said hurriedly.
"What? You're the one who said it!"
"Whatever. I think the nether's getting to me." There was a time when he'd run with stupid shit like that, but it felt different here. He wasn't sure how he felt about anything anymore.
Beef had stopped walking. He was frowning. "Why do you have to be like that?"
"Be like what?"
"Well, that. You're so evasive and dismissive sometimes, like you don't want to talk to me."
"It's nothing. I just said the nether was getting to me--"
"It's not the nether, though," said Beef. He spoke gently, but there was a quiet force behind the words, and it was picking up speed. Around them the nether life continued to churn and lava continued to flow, unending, uncaring. Beef seemed to make the commitment to continue, taking another breath.
"I know this has all been hard on you. And I try to help you, you know, but you're so distant sometimes I can't tell if you even care. But then at the village you save me from the wither and I thought maybe you might--" He broke off, still unable to get it out. "I guess I just want to know. Whatever you have to say, you can say it. It's cool. Just-- tell me and get it over with. I'll understand."
He looked so sad as he said it. Guude was taken aback by this and wasn't prepared to have this reaction. He didn't know what to do.
"I-- can't," he said.
"Can't what? Tell me what's wrong?"
"Well maybe not, if you can't even spit out that thing you keep trying to say!"
Beef groaned in frustration. He paced in place, visibly trying to work up the nerve, then with a deep breath stepped forward...
And punched him.
"That's for shooting me with an arrow!" he yelled. "You know, when you thought I was a zombie. Or is that all I am to you still?"
He remembered that? Beef continued to seethe and Guude just stood there watching him unravel, too dumbfounded to speak.
"I'm sorry for that. No, I'm not. I'm not sure if I'm sorry or not! Because all I've done since then is try to help you, and you still won't talk to me or take me seriously! You weren't always like this. What happened?"
Guude dropped the hand he was using to rub the sting out of his face where Beef hit him. Guess he couldn't avoid this forever.
"Fine. You want to know what happened? BdoubleO. At first everything's normal, but I can't always be around, so he starts hanging out with other people and gaining popularity without me, but that's all well and good, right? Fine. Good for him, seriously. I am glad he found something to do that he likes. So much so that even when I can be around, he's still off doing those other things. Still fine. It happens. But when it happens as consistently as it did, it starts looking less like a bad coincidence and more like outright avoidance, but I try not to make judgments. But this guy is constantly out doing who the hell knows what with GenerikB, and I can't even ask to find out what's up, because he's stopped talking to me by this point, but it always feels like I just missed him leaving, you know? Until one day I managed to catch him, just to ask where we were, because I don't fucking know anymore."
Guude paused for a moment. He swallowed, breathed, and continued.
"He basically admitted to avoiding me. Or rather, he didn't deny that's what he's been doing, like he didn't want to be the one to end it. He actually said he 'never wanted to hurt me.' Like, how the fuck does that work? You think you know a guy, after hanging out for so long, but you don't. It's like you never knew them at all.
"And then he left. And that was the last I saw of him. Way I understand it, he went on to summon some withers with Generik without thinking any of it through, and that was that. You think you know a man, and you think nothing will ever come between you that you can't work out, but it really turns out that you just can't trust anyone. People will always let you down. So yes, if you find it helpful to explain why I will never trust another person again by saying you are little more than a zombie to me, then so be it. Because I am done with that shit."
Silence fell as he let that sink in. Relative silence anyway, since the monsters of the nether still wouldn't shut up, not even for Story Time with Guude.
Beef exhaled. Sympathetic concern had settled on his face. He looked like he was about to speak, but to Guude's surprise, he began to laugh, with the kind of shallow, uneven breaths that would look like sobbing if it weren't for the tilt to his mouth.
"Jesus, man. Would have made this so much easier if I had known that. You want to talk about being ignored by people you thought you knew? I get it. I don't even know what Pause gets up to half the time, or who for that matter, but ever since Millbee, he stopped pretending like we were exclusive, but he never broke it off, so I'm stuck here always thinking he might still come back, so I stay. Most of the time he doesn't, of course, and the times he does when he finally gets lonely again, he makes it sound like I'm the one who's been ignoring him!"
"That's different," Guude said, shaking his head. "Anyone could have told you Pause wasn't the exclusive type. Anyone. Most of us probably thought you would take it the wrong way, or had already figured it out and was okay with it. In any case you didn't tell me anything new there, but at least it makes sense now. You're still bitter Pause didn't love you enough, so now that I'm the last man in the world, you've been projecting your feelings for him onto me like I'm going to make a difference, but I just said I was done with that."
Beef looked as though Guude had returned his punch, shocked and hurt. Mostly hurt. To Guude's consternation, he felt a little bit of that pain reflect back at him for having caused it.
But whatever Beef was about to say next, it was interrupted by the cry of a ghast choosing the worst possible moment to ruin their day.
Whether it was the charged emotions he was entangled in or the unrelenting heat of the nether truly dulling his mind, Guude couldn't react in time as the fireball exploded at his feet and the resulting flame leapt to him.
He stumbled away, just wanting distance, leaving Beef to handle the ghast. The fire ate at him with every second and no way to put it out. Regardless of anything he'd said, he really could use that magic nether water right now.
Finally the fire faded, but the heat still clung. He could still hear ghasts firing, but closer than that, he heard a new sound, a metallic breathing like the inside of a lit furnace come to life, with an appearance to match. The blaze descended from the dark platform Guude now noticed above his head. All this time yelling at each other, he thought weakly, and they were right next to a nether fortress and didn't notice. It was half buried in netherrack; no wonder. And this blaze, the thing they needed, a tiny, bright inferno within an even bigger inferno, drifting toward him...
He was dimly aware that Beef seemed to be screaming at him, but he couldn't hear what. The world around him fell away, just like it fell apart at the hands of so many withers, leaving empty holes where something used to be. There was just him and the blaze and something very important that he couldn't seem to remember how to do. What was he doing here?
One final flash of brightness, then all went dark.
~~~~~
Somewhere in the darkness, Guude couldn't speak. He wasn't sure why he needed to, or what the words would be, just a vague sensation that something needed to be said. But what did that matter? Here in the void of nothingness, there were no words. There was no need, because he didn't need to do anything, just be. Here in the darkness, everything was fine, except for that little feeling that it wasn't.
Maybe he shouldn't worry about it. It was almost comfortable here, even. Sometimes it was as if there was something pleasant and close surrounding him. A reassuring presence. Once, a gentle brush.
Wait, fuck, was he dead? That might be important. But if this was the afterlife, it still felt pretty warm. Kind of like... something. He couldn't remember.
He thought he could hear a very distant splash as a soothing sensation spread over him. Something was happening, but he couldn't tell what, but the realm of nothingness he was in seemed to fall away a little. And still there was something important he couldn't remember. Something... Someone...
~~~~~
Guude awoke to see the misty swirls from some potion effect still lingering around his body. He was lying on netherrack in a small hollowed out room, and kneeling beside him--
Beef pulled him into a tight embrace before Guude had time to fully blink away the heaviness in his eyes. Granted it wouldn't be difficult to catch him off guard in this state, but this surprised him. Though the part that surprised him the most was realizing how long it had been since he'd been touched, just a hug. He couldn't help but be sad when Beef slid away, laying him back down, though a hand stayed behind on his shoulder, gripping just a little bit like it had wanted to be there all along.
"How are you feeling?" Beef asked.
"Kind of how you'd expect after being almost dead: like shit," Guude croaked.
He didn't need to ask what happened. He remembered now, up until being faced down by that blaze and being unable to move. But it seemed Beef had been busy in the time he was out. That was definitely a brewing stand and a cauldron against the wall, along with the rest of the expected necessities: crafting table, furnace, and a normal, wooden chest.
"How do we have potions now?" he managed, still not used to speaking.
"I used the blaze rod from the blaze that attacked you on the stand," Beef recounted, his voice sounding distant and flat. "I figured that'd be the only way to... revive you. I had that sand we found from the dead guy for the glass bottles. I remembered you could put water in a cauldron, so I made that. Gunpowder for the splash, had that. I had to go looking for the netherwart." There was an incredulous chuckle behind the last statement that suggested that was not a pleasant experience. He grew pensive.
"You had me worried, though," he continued. "I ran out of arrows on the ghast so I couldn't snipe the blaze that was after you. But you just standing there. It almost looked like you... wanted it to kill you."
"Lost my goddamned mind, that's what happened. Couldn't think straight. Thank you, for, you know..."
He meant to finish with everything, but it caught in his dry throat. He hadn't forgotten Beef's tirade from before, and it had reminded Guude that he never did thank Beef for all of his help. He needed to say it.
"Wait," Beef said before he could start. "Please. First, I'm sorry. For anything. Really. And I said I would understand, so I get it, if you don't care about me like that. But... I didn't get the chance to tell you everything. I don't care about Pause anymore. Well, I stopped being bitter about him a long time ago. We were still friends and all, but I moved on. I don't know if he noticed or not, but I did. And then you-- I never did anything because I didn't think I had a chance with you. Thought we were too different, but then this whole wither thing happened, and you were the best person I could have hoped to stumble across..."
Guude got the impression he had been sitting on that for a long time.
"But I guess I was right about us to begin with," he added, gently removing his hand from Guude's shoulder. "But I'm glad for this, even if you don't feel the same. I'm glad you're alive."
Whatever Guude had wanted to say before was crushed beneath the effort of trying to take this all in. He had been wrong about Beef, it seemed. Somehow this made him feel terrible.
"Anyway," Beef sighed. "We can still kill another blaze and get that enderchest, if you're up to it. Will you be okay?"
Right, that. Guude calmed the torrent in his head, grateful to return to something where he knew he stood. He slowly stood up, relieved to find he could still use his muscles without much difficulty, easing out the stiffness.
"I'll be fine."
"There's... something else, though."
"What?"
"It wasn't close or anything, but while I was out looking for netherwart, I saw something. There's a wither in the nether."
~~TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 4~~
Part 2 is here.
It's like the week of fic and fic related things up in here. Watch as I flagrantly contribute to it!
So yeah... this part. Something I remembered while writing this that I had forgotten about when I posted the first part, was that this was all basically inspired by this comment. Kinda funny it said that these two would be too cheerful for it to be a depressing apocalypse, BUT I APPARENTLY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE IT SO. Yeah, if you thought the first two parts were sad... you don't even know yet.
Also, I thought I'd start slapping disclaimers on these things. You know the drill; this is all made up, and though the characters and how they interact are based on real things, their representations here are all fictionalized interpretations for the sake of storytelling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The cave dimmed before Guude as he spilled water over the pool of lava, turning the bright molten liquid into dark obsidian. The hiss of lava as it cooled under the water pierced the cave and didn't fully fade even as the water was reclaimed, or perhaps the sound just echoed in Guude's head like the dozen other thoughts that wouldn't leave him alone. He was, once again, in a hole in the ground, but not one he would be staying in for much longer. Scooping up some undisturbed lava and dumping it into a dirt mold he made on the newly formed obsidian, he was making a portal. He and Beef were leaving behind the ruined village on the surface and the wither that plagued it for the comparative safety of the nether. Maybe it wasn't a huge improvement, but there was nothing left for them here.
When he was finished with the frame, Guude switched to the diamond pickax and laboriously mined some extra obsidian. Maybe they could find what they needed to craft an enderchest after all, but first they still needed--
Guude was jolted to attention as the low, rattling screech of an aggressive enderman bore through his thoughts. His hand went to his sword, though he couldn't see where the enderman was. Wherever it was, it as taking damage, and soon let out its dying scream. A moment later Beef appeared from a nearby tunnel, holding out his prize.
"Got a pearl!" Beef announced triumphantly.
"You just killed an enderman," Guude said.
"I did."
"You hate endermen."
"I do!"
"Well... good job!" Guude finished lamely. Even though it was Beef's idea to hunt endermen for a pearl before leaving the overworld, Guude hadn't expected him to actively pick fights with them, much less by himself. Guude thought he was off grinding gravel for the flint and steel. Speaking of...
"Do you have the flint?" Guude asked.
"Sure do. You want to do the honors?"
It was just unexpected, Guude thought as he assembled the flint and steel, glancing again at his companion. It was common knowledge how much Beef hated endermen, and with having just recovered from a wither attack... It wasn't just unexpected. It was stupid, and Guude preferred not to have more reasons to wonder what he'd do if Beef died.
"You don't have to look so surprised," Beef said. "I know you want to get out of here, so I did what I had to. I'm in this for as long as you are. You know that, right?"
"I guess we're ready, then?"
A solemn nod. Guude turned. Taking one of his last breaths in this world, he lit the portal. The spark caught and clung to the obsidian frame like a film, spreading into a swirling purple aperture to another dimension. A slight wind exhaled from the portal, and with it, the eerie shrieks of whatever souls haunted the nether world.
With no further ceremony, they stepped into the haze and allowed it to overtake them, rippling the world around them until the cave they were in vanished entirely, now replaced by untamed nether. The airy whish of their trip faded to be replaced by all the expected sounds of hostile nether life, all subtle and distant for the moment, but which promised a constancy that could easily crawl under their skin before long. The smell was of smoke and sulfur and the stink of pigmen, not helped by the heat of the air.
Guude stepped onto the coarse, brittle netherrack that surrounded their exit portal. They emerged in a relatively sheltered location, too small for ghasts, but hidden. Guude supposed it didn't matter, if they weren't planning on returning here.
"Yep," he sighed. "This is where we live now."
"And we know no one's been here, since I can see glowstone," Beef said, stepping beside him. "But I do wonder, if everything in the nether is closer together--"
"If we'll find someplace that's been developed? I think I'd almost prefer not to. Be like moving into someone else's house after they died, and it's not even that nice of a house."
"I guess. Anyway, we're looking for a fortress, right, so we can get some-- Is that a bat?!"
Guude turned as he heard the squeaking. "Must've followed us through the portal."
"Come here, little guy. This place is not safe you you. Man, I wish you could tame them! I want to keep it!"
The bat, after some probing of the unfamiliar netherrack, eventually flapped its way further from the portal toward the open nether. Guude estimated less than two minutes before it would fly into lava and burn to death. But Guude didn't want to be around to see it, though not for his own sake. They had just barely escaped a situation where Beef almost died; Guude didn't want him to be sad either.
"Maybe it'll make friends with a ghast," said Guude. "And they'll fly around together and be flying buddies."
Beef chuckled. "The ghast and the bat. They're like the unlikely college roommates of Minecraft."
"Yep. Friends forever."
He said it halfheartedly, knowing nothing of the sort would happen. And though he had successfully distracted Beef's attention from the lost and helpless bat, the eye contact they now shared gave him an uncomfortable feeling.
"We should go," he said, turning away. In the corner of his eye he saw that the bat had found its way to an open lava flow in the distance. But whether it flew into the molten fire or just behind it, he couldn't tell.
Why did he care if Beef saw a bat die anyway? It's not like things dying was a new concept. That's how they ended up here. And Beef was willing to seek and kill an enderman without complaint, so soon after being withered. He must have known the risk. Not like Guude needed to save him from everything.
Before long they emerged into the wide open nether. The bright sea of lava stretched across much of the open expanse below, with more lava streams flowing into it from above. Bulbous white ghasts floated in the open space like giant, pale balloons with tentacles and a bad temper. Everything else was an dull mass of dark red from the netherrack, with no visible pillars or platforms to distinguish a fortress.
One of the ghasts shrieked as it spotted them.
"Angry babies," Guude said, reaching for his bow as the fireball sailed harmlessly over their heads. At the next fireball, an arrow from Beef reflected its trajectory back at the ghast at just the right angle to hit and kill it.
"Nice shot."
"Now why can't you do that with withers?" said Beef, a little ruefully.
Soon they were under attack again, which was taken care of with another volley of arrows. The ghasts were not a huge threat as long as they kept moving, and they killed them out of annoyance as much as for safety.
"I don't suppose it's a good time to ask how many arrows you have left?" said Beef after a few encounters.
"Are you out?"
"No. But I'm not exactly swimming in them either. And it's not like we can restock."
"Oh, yeah. Fuck." He had to remember they were back in a hostile environment that didn't offer much in the way of resources. They had to consider the limits of what they carried again, so better not to waste arrows on every ghast they saw.
But at least this time Guude wasn't completely devoid of useful items. Remembering something, he dug through his inventory.
"Sapling," he announced, presenting a tiny tree sprout. After being so starved for basic items before, he always kept one on him. "We may not have everything, but we are not running out of wood this time. What else do we need? Ores can't be had in the nether, so we'll have to make do with what we got. Food? Well, we got plenty from the village."
"I wasn't going to say anything," said Beef, "but if we wanted a renewable food source, just in case we do run out..."
He motioned to something behind Guude. Growing on the netherrack in droves was a wealth of red mushrooms. Of course Beef probably still had all the brown ones from their first caving trip. What, was it like his life's mission to feed him soup?
"Like I said, we have plenty of food." He heard Beef give a tiny groan as he walked away.
~~~~~
Monotony. That was a good word to describe it. Guude and Beef's trek through the nether quickly blurred into a stretch of monotony. Everywhere they looked was the same ugly shade of red with few feature variations and no biome changes. Sometimes they had to carve a staircase into a steep section of netherrack, and sometimes they had to make detours around a vast pool of lava, but really the nether was all the same. There was no difference between day and night, so even time blurred together since there was no reason to stop, making it difficult to judge how long they'd been there. It was easy to feel like they would wander forever without finding anything different. Maybe that's why it was the hell biome.
That's when Guude saw the pigman charging.
"Look out!"
"You just shot a pigman!"
"He was already charging! Dude was out for blood!"
"Here comes another one!"
The pigmen's squeals of anger echoed through the area, attracting the rest of the tribe. They wouldn't be able to keep fighting them from a distance, but fighting close range felt like a bad idea.
"Just pillar up!"
Guude managed to get out of reach of the pigmen's gold swords as a group closed in on him. He looked over and saw Beef had reached safety as well, and was swiping at them from above.
This didn't make sense. They had passed several packs of pigmen, and until now they had all been content to let them pass without acknowledgement. Something must be up. But they had to kill these pigmen first.
When they were confident no more were coming, they climbed down into the remains of the slaughter, which consisted of a lot of rotten flesh with glints of gold showing through.
"What was that about?" Beef said. "What angered them?"
"Someone else must have been here," Guude said grimly.
A little further ahead, they found the discarded pile of items of a dead man, the last remains of whatever unlucky guy got on the wrong side of these zombie pigmen.
"I wonder who it was," Beef said sadly. "And what were they doing out here?"
"Hardly matters now," said Guude, already picking through the items despite his near bloated inventory. "Could have been looking for new land by cutting through the nether, but they obviously didn't come prepared. There's not a lot here that's useful, except some diamond tools. Some spare iron, that's good. Random mob drops, sand-- Who brings sand to the nether?"
"Looks like you weren't the only one caught off guard when the withers came a-withering," said Beef, tossing aside some of his own inventory. "Any blaze powder, by chance?"
"No. So wherever this guy came from, it probably wasn't a fortress."
"Either that, or there was no reason to go in one, if all you're looking for is distance."
Guude stood up, still looking at the remaining items strewn across the ground. How long ago had this person died? It seemed so unlikely that they'd run into anyone else, living or dead. Guude was lucky enough to have found Beef. This guy was alone...
It was way too easy to see himself in that situation, with how much he had been alone. And he had been caught off guard. At least pissing off pigmen was a fairly quick way to go, even if it was a stupid mistake to pull.
"We ready?" Beef said, looking at him curiously.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." They faded back into the monotony of nether travel.
~~~~~
The nether was getting to Guude. The ambient noise at least was something he expected, setting him on edge even when he forgot it was there. Grunts of pigmen especially made him suspicious, though they encountered no other hostile tribes. Whines of ghasts he tried to ignore, unless they were close enough to spew fireballs. Eventually it all dulled into a uniform monotony of white noise that was nevertheless grating in its own backdoor way.
What he didn't expect was the air itself, which was so infused with dry heat that it gave him the impression he was walking through a very red desert. Guude never thought that he would miss rain given its seemingly perpetual presence in the overworld, but he supposed he never went to the nether with the intention of staying there. No matter where they were, there was heat radiating from some nearby fire or lava stream. He did have that bucket of water, which he kept just to know it was there, even though it was useless if he tried to expose it to the air.
"Remember when you could put ice in the nether, and then you could have ice? Didn't Etho put a bunch of source blocks all over the place before that got fixed?"
"Yeah, that was my ice," Beef said. "But I thought you didn't want to go to places people have already been."
"No, I'm just saying it'd be nice if we could have water in the nether again."
"Oh, the heat's getting to you too. You're thirsty."
"Yes, save me with your magic nether water."
"Magic nether water?" Beef repeated with a laugh. "What should I be doing if I don't have my magic nether water?"
Damn it, why did this have to sound weird? Wherever this was going, never mind.
"Nothing. Forget it," Guude said hurriedly.
"What? You're the one who said it!"
"Whatever. I think the nether's getting to me." There was a time when he'd run with stupid shit like that, but it felt different here. He wasn't sure how he felt about anything anymore.
Beef had stopped walking. He was frowning. "Why do you have to be like that?"
"Be like what?"
"Well, that. You're so evasive and dismissive sometimes, like you don't want to talk to me."
"It's nothing. I just said the nether was getting to me--"
"It's not the nether, though," said Beef. He spoke gently, but there was a quiet force behind the words, and it was picking up speed. Around them the nether life continued to churn and lava continued to flow, unending, uncaring. Beef seemed to make the commitment to continue, taking another breath.
"I know this has all been hard on you. And I try to help you, you know, but you're so distant sometimes I can't tell if you even care. But then at the village you save me from the wither and I thought maybe you might--" He broke off, still unable to get it out. "I guess I just want to know. Whatever you have to say, you can say it. It's cool. Just-- tell me and get it over with. I'll understand."
He looked so sad as he said it. Guude was taken aback by this and wasn't prepared to have this reaction. He didn't know what to do.
"I-- can't," he said.
"Can't what? Tell me what's wrong?"
"Well maybe not, if you can't even spit out that thing you keep trying to say!"
Beef groaned in frustration. He paced in place, visibly trying to work up the nerve, then with a deep breath stepped forward...
And punched him.
"That's for shooting me with an arrow!" he yelled. "You know, when you thought I was a zombie. Or is that all I am to you still?"
He remembered that? Beef continued to seethe and Guude just stood there watching him unravel, too dumbfounded to speak.
"I'm sorry for that. No, I'm not. I'm not sure if I'm sorry or not! Because all I've done since then is try to help you, and you still won't talk to me or take me seriously! You weren't always like this. What happened?"
Guude dropped the hand he was using to rub the sting out of his face where Beef hit him. Guess he couldn't avoid this forever.
"Fine. You want to know what happened? BdoubleO. At first everything's normal, but I can't always be around, so he starts hanging out with other people and gaining popularity without me, but that's all well and good, right? Fine. Good for him, seriously. I am glad he found something to do that he likes. So much so that even when I can be around, he's still off doing those other things. Still fine. It happens. But when it happens as consistently as it did, it starts looking less like a bad coincidence and more like outright avoidance, but I try not to make judgments. But this guy is constantly out doing who the hell knows what with GenerikB, and I can't even ask to find out what's up, because he's stopped talking to me by this point, but it always feels like I just missed him leaving, you know? Until one day I managed to catch him, just to ask where we were, because I don't fucking know anymore."
Guude paused for a moment. He swallowed, breathed, and continued.
"He basically admitted to avoiding me. Or rather, he didn't deny that's what he's been doing, like he didn't want to be the one to end it. He actually said he 'never wanted to hurt me.' Like, how the fuck does that work? You think you know a guy, after hanging out for so long, but you don't. It's like you never knew them at all.
"And then he left. And that was the last I saw of him. Way I understand it, he went on to summon some withers with Generik without thinking any of it through, and that was that. You think you know a man, and you think nothing will ever come between you that you can't work out, but it really turns out that you just can't trust anyone. People will always let you down. So yes, if you find it helpful to explain why I will never trust another person again by saying you are little more than a zombie to me, then so be it. Because I am done with that shit."
Silence fell as he let that sink in. Relative silence anyway, since the monsters of the nether still wouldn't shut up, not even for Story Time with Guude.
Beef exhaled. Sympathetic concern had settled on his face. He looked like he was about to speak, but to Guude's surprise, he began to laugh, with the kind of shallow, uneven breaths that would look like sobbing if it weren't for the tilt to his mouth.
"Jesus, man. Would have made this so much easier if I had known that. You want to talk about being ignored by people you thought you knew? I get it. I don't even know what Pause gets up to half the time, or who for that matter, but ever since Millbee, he stopped pretending like we were exclusive, but he never broke it off, so I'm stuck here always thinking he might still come back, so I stay. Most of the time he doesn't, of course, and the times he does when he finally gets lonely again, he makes it sound like I'm the one who's been ignoring him!"
"That's different," Guude said, shaking his head. "Anyone could have told you Pause wasn't the exclusive type. Anyone. Most of us probably thought you would take it the wrong way, or had already figured it out and was okay with it. In any case you didn't tell me anything new there, but at least it makes sense now. You're still bitter Pause didn't love you enough, so now that I'm the last man in the world, you've been projecting your feelings for him onto me like I'm going to make a difference, but I just said I was done with that."
Beef looked as though Guude had returned his punch, shocked and hurt. Mostly hurt. To Guude's consternation, he felt a little bit of that pain reflect back at him for having caused it.
But whatever Beef was about to say next, it was interrupted by the cry of a ghast choosing the worst possible moment to ruin their day.
Whether it was the charged emotions he was entangled in or the unrelenting heat of the nether truly dulling his mind, Guude couldn't react in time as the fireball exploded at his feet and the resulting flame leapt to him.
He stumbled away, just wanting distance, leaving Beef to handle the ghast. The fire ate at him with every second and no way to put it out. Regardless of anything he'd said, he really could use that magic nether water right now.
Finally the fire faded, but the heat still clung. He could still hear ghasts firing, but closer than that, he heard a new sound, a metallic breathing like the inside of a lit furnace come to life, with an appearance to match. The blaze descended from the dark platform Guude now noticed above his head. All this time yelling at each other, he thought weakly, and they were right next to a nether fortress and didn't notice. It was half buried in netherrack; no wonder. And this blaze, the thing they needed, a tiny, bright inferno within an even bigger inferno, drifting toward him...
He was dimly aware that Beef seemed to be screaming at him, but he couldn't hear what. The world around him fell away, just like it fell apart at the hands of so many withers, leaving empty holes where something used to be. There was just him and the blaze and something very important that he couldn't seem to remember how to do. What was he doing here?
One final flash of brightness, then all went dark.
~~~~~
Somewhere in the darkness, Guude couldn't speak. He wasn't sure why he needed to, or what the words would be, just a vague sensation that something needed to be said. But what did that matter? Here in the void of nothingness, there were no words. There was no need, because he didn't need to do anything, just be. Here in the darkness, everything was fine, except for that little feeling that it wasn't.
Maybe he shouldn't worry about it. It was almost comfortable here, even. Sometimes it was as if there was something pleasant and close surrounding him. A reassuring presence. Once, a gentle brush.
Wait, fuck, was he dead? That might be important. But if this was the afterlife, it still felt pretty warm. Kind of like... something. He couldn't remember.
He thought he could hear a very distant splash as a soothing sensation spread over him. Something was happening, but he couldn't tell what, but the realm of nothingness he was in seemed to fall away a little. And still there was something important he couldn't remember. Something... Someone...
~~~~~
Guude awoke to see the misty swirls from some potion effect still lingering around his body. He was lying on netherrack in a small hollowed out room, and kneeling beside him--
Beef pulled him into a tight embrace before Guude had time to fully blink away the heaviness in his eyes. Granted it wouldn't be difficult to catch him off guard in this state, but this surprised him. Though the part that surprised him the most was realizing how long it had been since he'd been touched, just a hug. He couldn't help but be sad when Beef slid away, laying him back down, though a hand stayed behind on his shoulder, gripping just a little bit like it had wanted to be there all along.
"How are you feeling?" Beef asked.
"Kind of how you'd expect after being almost dead: like shit," Guude croaked.
He didn't need to ask what happened. He remembered now, up until being faced down by that blaze and being unable to move. But it seemed Beef had been busy in the time he was out. That was definitely a brewing stand and a cauldron against the wall, along with the rest of the expected necessities: crafting table, furnace, and a normal, wooden chest.
"How do we have potions now?" he managed, still not used to speaking.
"I used the blaze rod from the blaze that attacked you on the stand," Beef recounted, his voice sounding distant and flat. "I figured that'd be the only way to... revive you. I had that sand we found from the dead guy for the glass bottles. I remembered you could put water in a cauldron, so I made that. Gunpowder for the splash, had that. I had to go looking for the netherwart." There was an incredulous chuckle behind the last statement that suggested that was not a pleasant experience. He grew pensive.
"You had me worried, though," he continued. "I ran out of arrows on the ghast so I couldn't snipe the blaze that was after you. But you just standing there. It almost looked like you... wanted it to kill you."
"Lost my goddamned mind, that's what happened. Couldn't think straight. Thank you, for, you know..."
He meant to finish with everything, but it caught in his dry throat. He hadn't forgotten Beef's tirade from before, and it had reminded Guude that he never did thank Beef for all of his help. He needed to say it.
"Wait," Beef said before he could start. "Please. First, I'm sorry. For anything. Really. And I said I would understand, so I get it, if you don't care about me like that. But... I didn't get the chance to tell you everything. I don't care about Pause anymore. Well, I stopped being bitter about him a long time ago. We were still friends and all, but I moved on. I don't know if he noticed or not, but I did. And then you-- I never did anything because I didn't think I had a chance with you. Thought we were too different, but then this whole wither thing happened, and you were the best person I could have hoped to stumble across..."
Guude got the impression he had been sitting on that for a long time.
"But I guess I was right about us to begin with," he added, gently removing his hand from Guude's shoulder. "But I'm glad for this, even if you don't feel the same. I'm glad you're alive."
Whatever Guude had wanted to say before was crushed beneath the effort of trying to take this all in. He had been wrong about Beef, it seemed. Somehow this made him feel terrible.
"Anyway," Beef sighed. "We can still kill another blaze and get that enderchest, if you're up to it. Will you be okay?"
Right, that. Guude calmed the torrent in his head, grateful to return to something where he knew he stood. He slowly stood up, relieved to find he could still use his muscles without much difficulty, easing out the stiffness.
"I'll be fine."
"There's... something else, though."
"What?"
"It wasn't close or anything, but while I was out looking for netherwart, I saw something. There's a wither in the nether."
~~TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 4~~
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Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 07:50 pm (UTC)Too damn cute together :D :3
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Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 09:32 pm (UTC)Really intense moment with all the ~feelings~ too. Just... sad. And a little hope, at the end... until that last line. Damn.
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Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 10:02 pm (UTC)Also, random amusing typo I made while typing this: I wrote "nethertheless" instead of "nevertheless" at one point. Why yes, brain, I was describing the nether in that very sentence. XD
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Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 10:57 pm (UTC)I'm now waiting in anticipation for part 4.
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Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 12:29 am (UTC)*hoards all the shiny jewelstories*
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Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 12:40 am (UTC)You gave me a title idea with this update. Perpetuate. That could work right? Or Persist?
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Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 10:35 pm (UTC)Also I gotta say you have Guude and Beef's personalities down perfectly.
*eagerly awaits part 4 83*