Chapter X: Flashes of Silver
When The Maker and Tacky enter the Stronghold, they find that it is very dark. The Maker brandishes his Diamond Sword, and Tacky loads his Bow. It is virtually no time at all before they find a large, sealed door in a large atrium. It seems that a key is required to open this door. The Maker tells Tacky to stay at the large door while he goes off to search for the key, to which Tacky obliges.
The Maker sets off down the corridor, using a button to open an iron door and diving through before it slams shut right behind him. He finds himself face to face with a Zombie, whom he dispatches effortlessly. Walking down more corridors, he encounters few creatures other than the occasional Spider and even a Cave Spider which drops from the ceiling. He eventually finds himself in what seems to be a library. After taking out three Zombies and a Skeleton, The Maker makes his way to the back of the library, where a narrow passageway ends in a Chest. Opening the Chest, The Maker discovers a small, silver key. Removing it from the Chest appears to set off some kind of booby trap because the stone above the Chest breaks suddenly, and water crashes in from above, flooding the library and sending The Maker back to the library door. The Maker traces his steps from earlier and makes his way safely back to Tacky.
Tacky does the honor of inserting the silver key and opening the large door. In the center of the room beyond, a set of stairs leads up to the frame of an End Portal that hovers over a contained pool of lava. At the top of the stairs, there is also a Source of Life for hostile Mobs. The latter sight puts The Maker and Tacky into combat mode, poised for what may jump out at them at any moment. Cautiously, Tacky mounts the stairs and sees that the End Portal frame already has two Eyes of Ender placed into it. Suddenly, The Maker shouts at Tacky to jump down. Tacky looks down at his feet to see a glint of silver as a small, bony, metallic, rat-like insect crawls around his ankles, down the stairs, and into a stone tile, disappearing. Tacky rushes back down to The Maker. The Maker runs up and strikes the Source of Life with his Diamond Sword, but it glances right off. He leaps to the ground just as another of the creatures emerges from the Source of Life. The second shiny insect scurries down and disappears into another tile. The Maker and Tacky watch in horror as a swarm of these Silverfish spawn from their Source of Life, running around the room and burrowing into the stone floor, hiding. Waiting. When the swarm concludes, the two explorers slowly walk up the steps. Before they can reach the top, a wall of fire erupts from the ground on the top step, blocking their path to the End Portal. The Maker swings his sword at the Source of Life, and this time it shatters, destroyed. But their path remains blocked by fire. Tacky flies up and tries to fly over it and around it, but the flames simply reach up higher and around the Portal. The Maker realizes that this is a challenge; they will have to kill all of the Silverfish in order to proceed.
Using extreme caution, the two walk across the stone floor. Startling Tacky, The Maker suddenly lunges at one of the floor tiles, smashing it with his Sword with a loud crash. Tacky moves behind The Maker, Arrow aimed at the ground, understanding what The Maker is doing. The Maker smashes another tile and another. Then he smashes another…and a Silverfish flies out, latching onto The Maker’s leg with its teeth. Tacky fires his Fire-Arrow, and the Silverfish dies, The Maker’s skin scorched by the Arrow’s flame. The two continue smashing tiles, Silverfish occasionally bursting out of them and leaping at the two humans, sometimes two at a time, until most of the original floor is smashed up, and the wall of flame recedes.
Tacky and The Maker walk up the steps until they stand before the End Portal frame. The Maker proceeds to create Eyes of Ender, each of which he places in a different empty slot in the frame. As he places the last one, the Portal bursts into life, a starry abyss appearing in the center of the frame. The two explorers nod to each other, and they step into the Portal together, falling through the dimensions.
Played out in-game on 12/3/2012. Written 12/4/2012.
