Glitch (A MCSM Fanfic)

Chapter 6: Exploration

The Order, plus Steve and Alex, walked down the corridors in silence, their footsteps echoing on the nether brick.

Axel decided to break the silence first. "So, who do you think found this place?" he asked.

"Frankly, we don't have the slightest idea," Alex said. "Or rather, we don't have the slightest logical idea. We only found this place a while ago, and it seemed to be completely unexplored, so we were pretty surprised to find people here. Unless the Nether portals just happened to spawn near each other by coincidence."

"Actually, our Nether portal is a decent distance away from here," Jess explained. "We set down minecart tracks leading here."

"Oh, that makes sense, I guess," Alex concluded.

"Hey, I think I found blaze rods!" Petra shouted from a bit farther down the hall.

"Really? You found the spawners?" Lukas ran over to her.

"Well, not the spawners," Petra corrected. "Just the blaze rods. Chests full of potion materials, including blaze rods."

Jesse caught up to her, the rest of the group following. There was an iron door, a pressure plate attached to it. Petra was standing inside, pointing at a chest.

"There's almost nine stacks of blaze rods in here," she pointed out. "Rods! We only need the blaze powder, so we can just take a few."

"I don't know, isn't this stealing?" Jess said slightly nervously.

Jesse thought for a moment. "It's only a little amount," he said. "And while I don't condone stealing, whoever lives here definitely has more than needed, and taking a few won't make too much of a difference."

"I guess..." Lukas hesitated. "Let's just grab this and go. It doesn't feel right to just be standing here discussing about whether or not we're going to steal stuff."

"Alright, then," Olivia quickly grabbed a few blaze rods, as Steve also took a handful.

They left the room, walking back the way they came. Jesse was about to pull his flint and steel, before his sister quickly elbowed him, and he put it away. It was better that people they had just met didn't see the enchanted flint and steel. They weren't sure if Steve and Alex would know about the worlds.

"Do you know the way out of here?" Steve suddenly asked.

"I'm pretty sure we remember," Petra said defensively.

Steve raised his hands. "I'm just checking."

"Well, I think we came from a different direction, then," Alex said. "Because I don't remember seeing that lever there earlier. She pointed at a lever sitting on a wall, seemingly leading to nothing.

"Where does this even go to?" Olivia inspected it. "It doesn't seem to connect to anything, unless the redstone's behind this wall."

"I mean, we could always pull in and find out," Axel suggested. "What? I'm just saying," he added on, when every looked at him strangely.

"Well, I guess we could...everyone step back," Steve walked up and flipped the lever, immediately jumping back a few blocks.

For a second, nothing happened. "Uhh...is it–" Petra started, just as a three by three section of the wall disappeared, leading into another room.

"Whoa!" Jess looked inside. It led to a wide, circular room. It actually seemed more like a throne room, with the throne at the far end, with displays of treasures around it.

"Those were really fast pistons," Olivia commented. "I didn't even see them move the blocks!"

"Can we see?" Jess and Olivia moved more into the room, letting the others look in.

The room was impressive. The walls were made of a regular and red nether brick frames, and nether wart blocks in between, and hanging glowstone lights lit up the room. The floors were made of black glazed terracotta, and the pedestals where an assortment of different treasures laid were quartz blocks. The throne was made of different types of quartz, and two lava falls flowed besides it, edging the room with a small stream of lava.

"This is pretty well built," Lukas admitted, impressed. "This person is a good architect."

"Although tripping into the lava might be hazardous," Jess pointed out.

"But the question still remains, who owns this place?" Alex wondered. "This style of building does remind me of someone, but it's impossible for him to be here."

"Why?" Jesse asked.

"Well, uhh, he doesn't like the Nether much," Steve said.

"Hey, what does this lever do?" Axel asked, pointing at another lever on the wall. Before any of them could warn him, he flicked it, and a Nether Portal opened up next to him, immediately igniting.

"Axel! That could've been dangerous!" Olivia scolded.

"Well, it wasn't, was it?" Axel replied. "Besides, I figured that since this room was already concealed, this ever shouldn't have done anything dangerous."

"He's not wrong..." Jesse trailed off. "Although this room was just hidden by a lever. Wouldn't there be, oh I don't know, a more complex way?"

Petra shrugged. "Maybe they were hoping the person would be too paranoid to pull it?"

"Well, at least we know that's how they get in and out of this place," Jess said.

"Hmmm......" Steve and Alex were turned around, backs to the Order. Alex quietly pulled up a light green holographic screen, and quickly looked through it, suddenly stopping at a string of words.

[@: 9 blocks filled]

They looked at each other. "Does that mean–" Alex started, cut off by a sudden flash of lightning. When it receded, a single man was standing there. He was dressed exactly like Steve–in fact, he looked exactly like Steve–at least, until he turned around and opened his eyes. They were pure white, with no pupils, that almost seemed to emit a white glow.

Everyone froze.

"Who...who are you?" Jesse finally said.

"No," Steve breathed. "No...not here. He can't be!" Alex's face was white as a sheet, which was almost impressive, considered how light her skin already was.

All eyes turned to them. "You know that guy?" Jess asked nervously.

"Yes, why didn't you tell them who I am?" the man chuckled darkly. "After all, you seemed to spend a good amount of effort getting rid of me. And I actually do quite like the Nether." He took a step forwards. The lava around them started to bubble a little.

Alex looked back at the exit, the way they came. "Look, I–We'll explain this later. But right now..." She glanced back at the white-eyed man.

"RUN!"

I feel like all I do in these A/Ns is complain about STEM stuff.  You're probably getting tired of that now though, so let's see...Happy early 4th of July!  Okay now that that's out of the way...actually there isn't really anything new at the time I'm posting this, so this is just a random A/N.  Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
~Athenaᾦ