(Y/N)'s POV
I look around in awe. So much redstone! We go on like this for a minute or so.
"Builders of Redstonia!" I hear a voice announce. "I want you to know that I value and adore each and every one of you!" We walk towards the voice. "Your work inspires me every day!"
"(Y/N)! It's her!" Maya whispers. It's true, it is her. Ellegaard is standing high above on a balcony, speaking to the audience that has gathered around.
"I'm about to enter my dome of concentration," Ellegaard continues, "where I will be unreachable for the time being. I will return once I finish my latest and greatest creation—the Command Block!" Applause arises from the crowd. "So, please, continue working, continue building and whoever most impresses me will be my new protégé!" A small cheer. "Ready to usher in a new era of innovation and creativity? Calvin, throw the switch!" A man in a suit with dark hair, dark skin, and glasses walks over to a lever and pulls it. The stairs leading up to her start to close and iron blocks start to cover the entrances.
"We have to get there before it's too late!" I shout, pointing at the building.
We start to run up the stairs, but we're too slow. The steps sink into the walls and we fall.
"Shoot," I say. We stand up. "Excuse me, Mister, uh, Calvin?" We walk over to the man. "We, uh, need to, uh, speak to Ellegaard," I tell him.
"I'm afraid that's not going to happen," he replies. "Didn't you hear her speech? She's on lockdown until she completes her invention." He gestures towards the building. "But, I can try to help. What do you need?"
"We need her so we can save the world," I say. I know, I sound pretty crazy.
"Um, I can tell you're not from around here." Yep, my statement made me sound crazy. "Who are you? What do you need to save the world from?"
"I'm (Y/N); this is Maya; this is Fish." I gesture a hand to Maya, Fish, and myself as I say our names. "There's a huge Witherstorm out there and we need Ellegaard to stop it!"
"How do I know I can trust you?" he says, turning away from us.
"Show him the amulet, (Y/N)!" Maya orders impatiently.
I pull out the device. "See? This is Gabriel's amulet. He gave it to me so I could reassemble the Order. It's how I found this place. It's how I found Ellegaard."
"Oh, my, that is interesting. If you would like, I can send it up to Ellegaard. Would that be helpful?" he suggests.
I think for a moment. On one hand, it could get lost and we'd have nothing to find the others. On the other, Ellegaard could receive it and we could get her to join us. "Okay," I decide.
He drops it into a small canal, which sends it up a tube.
"If I'm not mistaken, that should lead right to Ellegaard's private office," he tells us. "I might be wrong. Could be wrong. This place is pretty complicated." I almost regret letting him do that. "Speaking if which," he says, turning to us, "I'm afraid I have many more things to attend to than answering all of your questions. I must go." He turns to the switch mechanism. "Better just take this repeater." He does as he says. "We don't want any troublemakers disturbing Ellegaard." He walks away.
"Well, I guess we'll need another repeater," Maya says. I nod. I start looking around. I decide it might be a good idea to talk to people and ask them if they have any spare repeaters.
The first person I walk up to is an interesting-looking man. He has a big brown afro accompanying his mustache, giant white sunglasses with violet lenses, and a long white coat over a purple dress shirt and black pants. He's dancing in a disco manner.
"Hello," I greet him as I walk up to him.
"Heyyy," he replies, holding out his hey for way too long, "how's it going; how you doing? Here to see the next great revolution in entertainment? It is preeetty amazing! Definitely the sort of creation that Ellegaard's future protégé might make, no?"
"Actually, I was wondering if you had any repeaters I could use?" I ask.
"Ooh, sorry, friend. Actually just used my last one on this puppy. One of the key components that helps the cows dance, ha ha!" Dancing cows?
"What even is this?" I ask in the politest way possible.
"This friend of mine," he spins around and flips a switch, "is the Bovine Lava Disco!" The lava curtain melts away to reveal three cows behind a glass wall, hopping up and down as if they were dancing. "The perfect fusion of my two loves: cows and music. Ellegaard's going to see it and make me her protégé for sure!"
"Do you need any help?"
"That's might groovy of you to offer, but I'm doing just fine, thanks. So long as that dunderhead sticks over there." He points towards a boy in a school uniform-like outfit.
I nod. "I'm going to go, now."
"Enjoy the dancing cows! Just stay away from that little schoolboy, alright? He's never had an original idea in his life."
Despite the man's words, I walk over to the boy in curiosity.
"Hey, beautiful," he says. "What's up, what's up? Here to see the best machine ever with those beautiful (E/C) eyes of yours?"
"I regret this," I say under my breath. I force a smile. "Just wanted to know if you had a repeater available."
"Sorry, but no. But I myself am available." I cannot stand his flirting, so I just walk away at a fast pace.
Next, I approach a ginger-haired girl. She appears to be catapulting cows.
"Hello—"
"Welcome to Mabel's Mighty Cowapult!" she cuts me off with a very heavy southern accent. "Make your cows soar through the air with a wide-eyed stare!"
"Do you have any extra repeaters?" I ask.
"Sorry, friend. Tapped out," she shrugs.
"Uh, so, what is this?" I try to make conversation.
"You are about to witness the world's first cowapult machine," she explains. "I came up with the idea when I lived in a place called Boom Town. But now I am here and the cows are a-flying!"
"Why would you do that to the cows?"
"Oh, spare me the false compassion! Deep down in all people, there lurks the overwhelming desire to throw cows! Admit it!"
I walk away. The Bovine Lava Disco, Cowapult, and that cow hot air balloon I just noticed. . . . What is it with cows here?
I notice that every time a cow from the Cowapult lands in the pool of water, a lady across from the water glares at Mabel. I decide to go check out the situation.
"That stupid cow-launching machine!" she yells in anger. "You must be here to see my incredible auto-farmer! Why waste time planting sugar cane when it could be planting itself?"
"That's cool! Do you have a repeater I could use?"
"Sorry, already used all of mine. I've got some redstone torches," she says.
"I guess I should be going, then."
"Goodbye!" Another cow flies through the sky. "Ugh! She is driving me nuts with that! Geez."
"I can tell."
"Hey, how about if you can do something about that situation, I can give you some primo crafting stuff. Okay?"
"I'll try my best." I walk back over to Mabel.
"Hey, that farmer over there sent me," I say. "Okay, so, all of your 'cow-a-pulting' is really bothering her. Can you please stop?"
"Well, she's going to have to suck it up," she scoffs. "No way."
"Aw, come on! Isn't this beneath you? You've already perfected the cowapult. Why not move onto bigger and better things?"
"You actually make a lot of sense, friend!" I think I've convinced her. "Maybe it is time to move on to my next masterpiece. . . . Thanks for helping me get my head straight!"
"No, thank you!"
I walk back to the farmer.
"Thanks for stopping that cow-launching nut job over there. All of the constant splashing and mooing was driving me crazy," she says. "Here, you've earned these." She hands me two redstone torches.
"Sweet," I say. "Thank you!" I run off.
I have almost enough to craft a repeater, so I decide to talk to other people. I approach an older man.
"Hello!"
"What? You're going to have to speak up!" he says in an overly loud tone.
"I just said hello!" I speak more loudly.
"That's better! What can I do for you? You want to see my TNT cannon?"
"How does it work?"
"Still a work in progress! But eventually, it will launch people high into the air so they can see for miles around!"
"Cool! Sounds awesome!" Except for, you know, the extremely high part. "I hope it works out!"
"Hey, I like you, kiddo! Here, have some redstone dust!" He hands me the item.
"Well, thank you! Goodbye!"
I walk over to a crafting table. I already have some stone that I've been carrying around since the building competition. I place the three stone blocks at the bottom squares and put the redstone dust in the middle square and the redstone torches on either side. "Got it!" I say.
I return to Maya, who is standing around, admiring all of the machines. I place the repeater in the empty space where one once was. I then turn to the row of switches. I flip the first one, which opens the staircase.
"Okay . . . ," I say to myself. I then flip the middle switch. The iron blocks surrounding the windows disappear.
"That's not exactly . . . helpful," Maya says.
"Oh, shut it; I'm working on it!" I shout back. I flip the last switch, which reveals the door. "There we go!" We quickly run up the stairs before anyone can stop us.
We are on our way to find Ellegaard.
,.-~*'¨¯¨'*.~-.¸-A/N-,.-~*'¨¯¨'*.~-.¸
Yay another one! I had actually done this before (this was what I decided to cut out of the last chapter. I made the right decision, yeah?) so that's why it's done so quickly. Anyways, I'll have a nice surprise in the next chapter! I'm so excited to start working on it.
Also, in case you were confused, (E/C) means "eye color", so in that space just fill in your eye color (ex. mine would be blue). Just thought I would tell you in case you didn't know.
I guess I have nothing else to say, so . . .
Word Count: 1,798