It was high noon in the Far Western Desert. The sun shone bright overhead in the crisp blue sky, beating down on the heat-baked sand blocks. Two- or three-block-high cacti sprouted up from the tan earth and speckled the dusty landscape with green, while a few odd Creepers and Spiders wandered aimlessly across the barren wasteland. The endless dune sea was nearly as vast as the Ender Desert, and was far less travelled in this day and age. At any given time, the Far Western Desert contained just a few players, and they rarely stayed there for long.
The average player on the Minecraft server Elementia would find it foolish to venture into the Far Western Desert at all. There was hardly anything to be gained from it and everything to lose in the hot desert sun. However, if a player were to make the long trek across thousands of blocks of sand, into the very epicentre of the desert, he or she would find a small cluster of buildings. The houses were centred around a gravel network of roads and constructed of wood planks, clearly indicating that, at one point in the distant past, this town with no name had been filled with NPC villagers.
No villagers were left now.
Instead, this hollow shell of a village had been populated by players, though they were not the type that anyone would want to run into. These players bore various scars across their skins, and would snarl and crack their knuckles menacingly should you be so unfortunate as to catch their eye. This was the type of town where an accusation over stolen iron or diamonds would start a fight that only one would walk away from.
And there were a lot of diamonds and iron to fight over. Countless valuable items passed through this trading post of the desert in exchange for services of the underhand sort, which the residents of the town were happy to provide. Just like the materials, though, the residents of this town never stayed there for long. This was the place to go if you needed a job done discreetly, so it was not a place where you wanted to be caught.
This particular day started off typically. The sun shined hot, and there had already been various fits of bare-knuckle brawling among the players who were in the town.
When the sun was at its zenith in the sky, a figure appeared on the horizon. As the others went about their daily business, the player slowly approached the town. And as he walked down the dusty gravel road, more and more of the ruffian inhabitants of the village seemed to be giving him a steely glance out of the corner of their eyes. He hardly noticed; he was sure that this desert wasteland had never seen a player as important as he before.
The player was dressed in black trousers and a black shirt, with a golden cloak draped over his head, flowing like a shimmering waterfall onto his upper body. His striking skin was hard to ignore as he briskly turned and headed into a large building on the main road.
This building, which had once been the village library, had been gutted, the inside library furnishings replaced by tables and chairs. These were occupied by players laughing and shouting in raucous fashion, gulping bottles of QPO and SloPo as they did so. A long stretch of wood blocks created a counter that ran the length of the building. From behind this wooden strip, the bartender shouted out, asking if the golden-hooded figure would care for a drink. The figure gave no reply, simply waving his hand in rejection. After all, he was about to attend a meeting of the utmost importance to the cause of the Noctem Alliance. His mind could not be clouded by potion.
As the figure looked around for his contact, he was momentarily distracted by the taunts, jeers, and general cacophony of a fight breaking out in the corner of the bar. The figure allowed himself a moment to watch as two thuggish brutes in tattered clothes locked their pickaxes. Soon an explosion of cheers erupted from the corner as one of the players slumped to the ground beside his pickaxe, and the crowd scrambled to collect his dropped items for themselves. The figure was slightly irritated by the noise, but he knew that it was by no means a bad thing—quite the contrary, actually. This was the perfect place to go if you didn’t wish to be overheard.
As the rumble of the fight died down, the figure once again looked around the bar for his contact. It took a few passes before he finally locked eyes with a lone player, sitting across from an empty seat at a table amid the ruckus. This player was dressed in a relatively common skin, bearing the same body colouring as a spider. However, of the many eyes on the player’s face, only the two largest ones had a distinctly human trait to them.
The golden-hooded figure walked over and sat down across from the player. He wasted no time in speaking.
“I’ve heard a lot about you. They say you’re good at what you do.”
The spider-player smiled. “And I heard that you might show your face around here again. Count Drake, I presume?”
The gold-hooded figure faltered for a moment, but only slightly. He was nearly positive that this was the player he was looking for, but he had to be sure without a doubt.
“I go by General Drake now, actually,” Drake responded evenly.
The spider-player held her poker face; Drake couldn’t read her in the slightest. He knew that the time had come, and he reached into the folds of his shawl. From there, he produced an item, the head of a Creeper. He only showed it to the spider-player for a moment before immediately returning it to his inventory. Drake then glanced at the spider-player expectantly.
With her face still locked into a steely gaze, the spider-player reached under the table. Drake focused intently on her hand, and watched as she produced her own Creeper head for a moment before returning it to her inventory.
Instantly, the aura of tension at the table relaxed, and both players smiled. The two old friends had each revealed the unique items they had given each other the last time they had met, and both now knew they could talk freely.
“It’s good to see you again, Arachnia,” Drake said. Then he smirked. “From what I heard, you’ve been pretty busy since I left.”
“You might say that,” the spider-player replied, amused. “I have to say, Drake, it’s good to see you too. It’s been a long time. So, you’re a general now, huh?”
“Sure am,” Drake said.
“And am I to assume that this is a position you obtained somewhere other than under the command of President Stan?” Arachnia asked with a smirk.
Drake chuckled. “Oh, don’t patronize me. You know perfectly well what I think of the illustrious Stan2012.” His voice was dripping with oily cynicism. “No, I’m now a general of the Noctem Alliance.”
“Really,” said Arachnia, raising an eyebrow slightly. “You don’t mean that little protesters’ group that somehow managed to take over the entire server?”
“That’s the one,” Drake replied, nodding. “I assume that you know what has happened in the Elementia mainland over the past month.”
“Of course I do, Drake. You of all people should know just how much information passes through this settlement,” Arachnia murmured darkly. “Although I have to admit, it never did come to my attention that you were the one in charge of leading the Noctem Alliance to victory.”
Drake looked humble. “Well, I
