Chapter Text
Nothing built can last forever. And every legend, no matter how great, fades with time. With each passing year, more and more details are lost... until all that remains are myths. Half truths. To put it simply, lies. And yet in all the known universe, between here and the Far Lands, the legend of the Order of the Stone endures, unabridged, as self-evident fact. Indeed, it is only a troubled land that has need for heroes - and ours was fortunate to have, so long ago, four heroes such as these: Petra the Fighter, before whose sword all combatants would tremble. Olivia the Redstone Genius, whose machines would spark an era of invention. Axel the Trickster, who would channel his destructive creativity for the benefit of all. And Lukas the Creator, Builder of Worlds and leader of the Order of the Stone. These FOUR friends together, would give so much to gain their rightful place as FOUR heroes. Their greatest quest would take them on a dangerous journey to fight a mysterious creature known as the Ender Dragon. In the end, the Order of the Stone emerged victorious and the dragon was defeated. Their story complete, they slipped away into the pages of legends.
But when one story ends, another one begins…
Every year toward the end of September, one of the biggest events is held: EnderCon. A huge convention going on the whole weekend fully dedicated to the day the Order of the stone defeated the Ender dragon and came back victorious. The town where it took place existed not so long after that day, evolving and growing with the years. The most memorable part of the town is the conference hall, a huge dome made out of yellow glass standing on a separate island which lit up each night, reflecting its comfortable light in the water around. The town was surrounded by a forest covered by a light fog every morning.
This morning wasn’t different from the others, peaceful mobs came out as the monsters finished burning, the light of the sun peeked through the leaves of the tall conifers, making the forest floor look like it was glittering. Yet, the calmness of the place was disturbed today as orders were shouted and blocks were placed. After all, EnderCon meant building competition, and the place had to be cleaned and prepared before the participants arrived.
Not so far from there stood a small cabin made out of oak. It was a tranquil place, far from civilisations, but not so much, perfect for some people, too calm for some others. The smell of a hearty breakfast lingered, the sweet aroma of butter filling up the air, bringing comfort in the little home.
“Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized zombies or 10 zombie-sized chickens?”
Ivor looked up from the book he was reading “What?”
“WhAt?”
The boy put his book down and looked at Ellegaard, who stood right next to him.
“I said would you rather fight-”
“I’d say the zombie-sized chickens are more easy to take in a fight, chickens don’t attack you, and in the end.” He looked her in the eyes. “Chicken-sized zombies are just baby zombies, which are a pain to get rid of.”
She put on a smile. “Heh, I knew you’d make the right choice.”
He opened his book and started reading again before his friend put her hand on it.
“Hey!”
She closed the book and put it in her bag. “You’ll get this again after the building competition. We don’t want something like last year to happen again.” She furrowed her brows. “You do remember it is today right?”
“Yeah I do, but that was uncalled for!”
Ellegaard was about to respond but stopped when they both heard an eerie sound at the entrance.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
Ivor stood up and approached the door, he put his hand on the knob and slowly started to turn it before the person on the other side opened it. The boy yelped in surprise and fell back, when he opened his eyes, he was met with a creeper mask.
“Magnus are you serious?!”
The smaller boy laughed as he took off his mask.
“Oh you should have seen yer faces!”
“Urgh you’re nuts.” He took the hand that Ellegard was lending him, muttering a small “thanks” afterwards. “Seriously, what's wrong with you?”
“Come on guys, you’re not fun.”
Ellegaard sighed and went back to what she was doing.
“I hope that at least you brought the fireworks I asked you to.”
“Of course, they’re right there.”
He took the small red projectiles out of his inventory to show them off. Ellegaard came back to take them and carefully counted them.
“Hey! You don’t trust me or what?”
“We’re never too sure.”
Magnus grunted and took a chair to sit on, when his friend had finished counting them, she smiled and put them in her bag.
“Can you please not put the fire hazards next to my book?”
“Oh come on, it’s not like I’m going to light them on in my bag.”
The tall boy mumbled something incoherent before plopping down next to Magnus, the small boy could not stay in place.
“Did you guys hear? The winners of the buildin’ competition will get to meet Petra the Fighter in person after her public appearance at EnderCon!”
“Really?”
“Ye”
“Well, great fighter or not, we’re going to win this anyway!”
“Are you sure about that? We lost the last ten years.”
“Thank you for that optimism Ivor, but this time, I’m more than sure that we’ll win.” She looked at both of them. “And when we’ll win… I have a big surprise for you guys~”
“A surprise?”
“Sweet. What is it?”
“Magnus do you know the point of a surprise?”
“Of course.”
Ellegaard sighed but had a smile on her face, she tapped him on the nose and went to a chest to get the last things she needed.
“Well, we should get going if we want a good booth.”
She left the cabin, leaving the two boys inside. Ivor got up and went to check his chests.
“Man, she took all my redstone!”
“Sucks to be you.”
He glared at Magnus as he got up to leave the cabin. He then got up and followed him, locking the door.
“Ellie I swear, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Of course I do.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what you said last year.”
She looked down. “Well, yeah, but I’m really sure this time.”
Magnus stopped and put his hands on his hips, clearing his throat to catch the other two’s attention.
“I think our problem is that we don’t have anythin’ cool.”
“What do you mean?”
“That we have nothin’ catchy.”
Ellegaard tilted her head to the side.
“I mean don’t get me wrong, a firecracker dispenser’s cool, but we want to be noticed don’t we? I say we build a wool-creeper!”
“Hmmm. I see what you mean but I think a zombie would be better, it’s more scary.”
“What?! Nothin’s scarier than the sound of a creeper who’s about to explode your build.”
“I honestly think zombies are much scarier.”
“That’s because ya get scared too easily!”
The two started to quarrel, Ivor didn’t mind though, he was deep in thought. ‘Something that gets the attention… But the attention of who? The others, the judges, or both?’ He thinked for a little while, an idea then came in his head, making his cheeks go a little red.
“Why not an enderman?”
“You’re right! That’s some scary creature.”
“Meh, not better than a creeper but I see where ya going.”
“We’ll need some black and purple dye, I think I got it, wait here.”
The two nodded as he turned back to his cabin.
Around an hour later, the three of them were at the competition location. Ivor felt better the more they approached, they may have lost the last ten years, but this time, he got a good feeling.
“Oh great, there’s Hadrian’s gang.”
“Man, the way they dress is so weird…”
“ye”
As they got closer, a blue haired girl, Mevia, noticed them and poked at the boy at the front. Hadrian.
“Look at these losers.”
Hadrian snickered but waved for her to move forward.
“Come on, we don't have time for that.”
The four of them entered and went to their booth, one of them glancing back.
“Oh man this is goin’ to suck.”
“It’s gonna be okay.”
“I’d love to agree with you but whenever those four participate they always win and you know that.”
Ellegaard started to shake, which didn’t go unnoticed by Ivor who grabbed her hand.
“Hey it’s okay, it’s just a silly competition anyway.”
She looked at the floor, pouting as if she had already lost, she then put a hand on her stomach and sighed, squeezing Ivor’s hand before letting go.
“Okay… Ready?”
The two boys nodded and followed her to the inscription booth, held by a woman with tanned skin and glasses.
“Name?”
“Huh… Ivor?”
“No- Team name please.”
“Oh…”
The three of them looked at each-others
“Oh we’re so not ready for this.”
Ivor put a hand to his chin and started to think. Now, what would be a cool name for a group?
“We’re the Lava Maniacs.”
“AlRight!”
“Pff, yer a lava maniac.”
“Maybe, but that’ll do.”
He chuckled as he playfully shoved the taller boy’s arm.
“Okay, Lava Maniacs, you guys are booth 5.”
They nodded and thanked her as they made their way inside. Just like every year, a lot of people were here, chatting here and there, reviewing their plan, preparing themselves or for some unfortunate groups, already fighting. They slowly walked, taking the time to observe and see what people had brought, sometimes whistling and sometimes laughing.
“Heh- At least we know we won’t be the last ones.”
“Magnus!”
“What, I’m just tellin’ the truth.”
They stopped right behind Ivor, who was looking at Hadrian’s gang.
“They got a beacon, a freaking beacon.”
Ellegaard walked up to his side.
“And stained glass, they’re not building just any beacon, they’re building a rainbow beacon.”
“What does it change? We got a super idea too don’t we?”
“I wish I had your optimism, Ivor.”
Mevia turned around and noticed them. “Ugh, what do you want?”
“Girl calm down, we’re just looking.”
“Ah!” Ellegaard flinched as Hadrian put a hand on her shoulder. How had she not noticed him? “You’ll have all the time in the world to look at it when it’ll be exposed at EnderCon.” He looked at the two boys, a look of disdain on his face. “And you know, if you want you can always ditch those losers and get on the podium with us .”
Mevia screeched. “What?!”
“You’re a smart girl Ellegaard, don’t waste your potential like this.”
“Get lost.”
Hadrian huffed but eventually let her go. “As you wish, but don’t come crying when you realise how much better we are.”
“Only idiots would willingly want to stay with you.”
She turned around with a “Come on boys” and made her way to booth 5. Magnus flipped Hadrian off and Ivor rolled his eyes before following her. They started taking everything off their inventory, counting again and laying the plan down. A little while after, Ivor felt a gentle tap on his shoulder.
“Hello Ivor. Guys.”
“Oh, hey Gabriel.”
“How’s the build going?”
“Only time will tell.”
Ivor turned his head and saw Soren and Otto walk toward the group.
“Hey Gabriel, we forgot to thank you for that nether star.”
“Hello Soren, and that’s no problem, really.”
“Really? Ya helped these tools?”
“Oh come on, they’re nice.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be difficult to convince me.”
Soren smiled sheepishly as he hid his face in his scarf. Otto scratched the back of his neck and turned to them, he looked guilty.
“Sorry about Mevia and Hadrian, they are…”
“Assholes?”
“I wouldn’t say that…” Ivor didn’t miss Soren's little nod. “But yeah, they could do better.”
“You bet.”
Soren looked up again. “Why don’t we just forget about that and, you know, make this about how cool our builds are?”
He held his hand out, Ivor hesitated before taking it and shaking hands.
“Of course, but just to tell you.” He smiled. “We’re going to win.”
“Ah! You wish!”
Gabriel chuckled as they let go, he then started leaving. “I’ll see you guys later, and if you need me, you know where to find me.”
Ellegaard looked up from her inventory checking.
“No one knows where to find you.”
“Haha! you’re funny you know that?”
He waved as he disappeared in the forest, leaving behind the group, who didn’t know whether they should be amused or not.
“Sometimes I wonder if he knows how mysterious he can get.”
Soren hummed. “Well, that’s something for later.” He looked at his booth. “The competition is about to start, see you when we win.”
Ivor laughed, watching Soren and his friend make it back to their booth. His laugh died down once they were far enough to not hear him anymore.
“Oh we’re going to destroy them.” He turned to his friends. “Are you guys ready?”
Magnus nodded as Ellegaard got up from the ground.
“This year, the Lava Maniacs cannot lose!”
“We need a handshake.”
“No we don’t, get into place.”
Magnus grumbled as he went to stand next to the fences. Not even a minute later, the announcer got on the platform.
“Are you ready? Building… Starts… Now!”
A second later, chaos started. All the different teams were shouting, most of it being covered by the sound of blocks being placed down or redstone being activated. It was almost overwhelming for Ivor, who tried his best to focus on his own build, but it was just too much, he would have passed out if Magnus didn’t come to him.
“What’s up?”
Ivor shook his head. “Nothing, I… It just always gets to me.”
“Oh okay.” He shrugged. “We’re going to put the dispensers, come help.”
He glared at him, he liked his friend, but he wished he could at least pretend to care when his friends were not okay. He huffed and climbed up their makeshift ladder after him and stood next to Ellegaard. She crouched to place the dispensers and put the fireworks rocket inside.
“Oh wow, fireworks? Really?” Hadrian shouted over the noise. “That was trending last year!”
Ellegaard quickly got up and shouted back. “And your fashion sense was trending like a thousand years ago so shut the hell up!”
Ivor and Magnus bursted out laughing, followed by some other groups, even Soren seemed to chuckle under his scarf. Hadrian’s face became red like a berry, he quickly turned around, cursing under his breath.
Around ten minutes later, they were finished with the main build, they got down and started to see how they would build an enderman, after another minute, they started building the wool structure, it was also very nice because it covered the whole redstone circuit which was kinda messy, but after all, Ellegaard was the one who made it.
Once again, they were on top of everything, they took the time to look around, some teams were already done while some others were far from finished.
“Here comes the moment of truth.” Ivor was holding his breath as he looked at his friends.
“Here goes nothing.”
Ellegaard flipped the switch, the soft sound of redstone could be heard as the whole circuit was powered up, it was a matter of a few seconds before fireworks lit up the sky which was slowly beginning to get darker.
“Woah! This is so cool!”
“Yeah, the enderman was definitely the right way to go!”
Some people came closer but most of them stayed at their booth, though they all stopped building to look at the trio. They then started to shout, cheering and whistling.
“I want to see what it looks like from down there.”
Ivor carefully got down the wool statue and took a few steps back. Their enderman wasn’t really the best thing ever, but it was huge and really cool. He noticed Hadrian approaching but didn’t do anything, he was so happy nothing could ruin his mood.
“Seriously!? This is just a bunch of dyed wool!”
Heh, cry about it.
He heard the sound of a block breaking but he didn’t care, he had catched a glimpse of Soren, who was looking at their build with stars in his eyes. Victory!
But it didn’t last long, the whole place went silent before cheering turned into screams of terror and scared laughter. Ivor didn’t move, not understanding what was happening until he heard Soren scream.
“Hadrian what have you done!?”
He was scared, his mind told him to look down, but for some reasons, he didn’t want to. He eventually did, and his eyes widened.
Ivor was on fire.