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FlameFrags was pacing back and forth in his expansive fortress of a base, which had been rebuilt by Lomedy with blood, sweat and tears after Wemmbu had appeared and blown it up in a fit of rage a few months ago. He gripped the iron railing, gazing out over the beautiful Mesa landscape illuminated by the afternoon sun, the vibrant colours matching his armor, shining as new after mending it with the rebuilt experience farm. He had equipped his signature netherite armor with fire-coloured ribs. He felt that it made him think better, reminiscing over the many adventures he had gone on with this armor set, all the battles fought. Wemmbu, Jaden, Swight, ItzRealMe, GodofWar, LettuceK, Araknid, Mistrul, Flowtives, Theo, the list went on. His goal was to become a combat grandmaster, a fighter with no weaknesses, the best of the best. In order to accomplish this, he sought out highly skilled opponents and fought them, in order to learn from them and adapt to every possible playstyle.
”But who was even left to fight?” He pondered. His journey felt far from complete, but he had difficulty thinking of any worthy fighter left to face. Perhaps it really was like Itz had said, that the greatest fighters eventually retire and live as recluses. Was there a whole hidden world out there, of legendary pvp’ers left to face? But was that not what he had already tapped into, with ManePear, Itz and Swight? He continued to ponder as he walked across the tuff brick floor, past the automatic potion brewer. It was then, as he was gazing up to the cloudless sky through the ceiling window of the tower, when something struck him. Early in his career on the Unstable SMP, when few knew his name, when he had met one highly skilled fighter.
He had been on a mission in the invisibility Mafia. He was a gold-ranked player at the time, but that didn’t make him any less cocky, as he openly snubbed the rule to use invisibility potions. For this, he remembered being scolded by his superior for the mission, who bore a shining diamond sigil on their chestplate, signifying the highest rank. “Use invis, you’ll be killed” - the cherry wood sign read. But despite their demonstrable loyalty, the player didn’t tattle on him to Ashswag. He always found that sign of benevolence strange, coming from such a player.
They were in a rather formidable task force to destroy a civilization. They didn’t put up much of a fight, it was a city of builders, not a faction of skilled fighters. He had met a few diamond players before, but this one stood out to him. The speed and almost inhuman precision at which they moved with the elytra and the sheer ferocity of their sword confrontations, it was unlike anything he had seen before. But the player slipped up once, failing to smash their mace into a fleeing player and instead crashed into the ground in an explosion of green and yellow light. For a split second, he could make out a name tag, reading “Marlowww”, before once again fading with the sound of glass breaking and a white flash.
The rest of that mission was not of much interest to him, Flame had gone on many similar ones. It was rather that player and their astounding skill who stuck in his memory. Later on in the days of the mafia, having received a diamond-encrusted chestplate of his own, Flame had heard rumors on the castle grounds, of another elite player having been moved to guard the faction's greatest vault, colloquially known as the ”tomb of the mafia”. He had also been entrusted with the coordinates to it, but never actually visited the vault due to its remote location in the outer end islands.
Long since the days of the Mafia, he had heard whispers in merchant city and stories recited by Eggchan of various thieves and adventurers seeking out perhaps the greatest treasure on the server, the tomb of the mafia, only to be crushed by the legendary guardian of the tomb. Many details were foggy or contradictory, but the name of this warrior stayed consistent, and
it was the same one he caught for a split second in that city.
Flame had sold the coordinates to the tomb to Parrot a while ago, while he was going on adventures to find various great treasures of the server. If anyone could crack that vault, it would be him. However, thinking about it, Flame had never bothered to ask how that journey actually went. Parrot didn’t seem to be swimming in endless wealth, might he have hidden the plunder somewhere? Or did he fail and not want to talk about it? Theo was a highly skilled fighter, but not unstoppable after all. That seemed like the most likely possibility.
Flame looked down to the floor, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to fight Marlow. The words echoed in his head, this was the answer to his question, the student must surpass the master. Parrot and Theo were the best bet to get any information about her and they were not especially difficult to find these days. Lomedy was currently away farming, so Flame wouldn’t need to worry about bringing him along and his disputes with the king. If his companion returned to the base while he was gone, Lomedy would likely just patiently await his return and assume that his friend was off on some adventure, which wouldn’t be incorrect. He had gotten used to it at this point.
And so, FlameFrags set off to the northern council, not bothering to fully prepare equipment, as he wasn’t expecting much combat beyond the odd bandit gang. Absent-mindedly, he walked down the long spiral staircase of the fortress down to the surface. As Flame began to dash across the desert terrain with his trusty spear, he began to think about this mysterious warrior. How much stronger might she have gotten at this point? Given the timescale, he could hardly imagine the lethal precision with which she could now fight. What could her combat style look like? Flame didn’t pay as much attention to technique back in the battle at that city as nowadays, but she seemed skilled with the mace. Trekking across the plains, he already began to plan out battle scenarios and how to counter different hypothetical strategies. Theorizing about battles had become one of his favourite pastimes ever since his training for the revolutionary war against LettuceK.
The environment began to get colder as he approached the northern council, the temperate plains turning into chilly tundra. It was as if the gravity exerted by the castle sapped all the warmth from the nearby region. Flame had made it to one of the obsidian highways leading straight to Parrots Citadel, the path was damp and had patches of snow on it. After some more travelling, he finally made it to the northern council. Flame stood before perhaps the mightiest building on the whole Unstable SMP, a colossus of stone and andesite stretching to the build limit, rebuilt by Horace to reflect the heroic glory of Parrot's kingdom. The guard force stood in sharp contrast to this opulence, consisting of a few trusted players, not exceptionally skilled or well-equipped. It was led by Reina, a commoner who Parrot had befriended. Flame was let through the castle gates without question. The guards recognized the name and knew that king Parrot trusted this player, and besides - they couldn’t stop him if they tried. Theo was the real muscle of the kingdom, and they were personal friends.
Flame made his way through the expansive andesite corridors of the castle, decorated by fine red carpets and banners, the sounds of footsteps echoed from his netherite boots. He finally entered the king's chamber, a large room decorated with numerous bookshelves, giving the impression of a highly knowledgeable and learned ruler. In the center of the room was a round table and at the opposite end of the entrance, with Theo by his right side, sat the individual Flame had come to meet: King Parrot.
Flame did not concern himself with bowing or any other formalities one could expect in such a meeting. Parrot was a humble ruler and could even get offended if players made an effort to behave as lesser than him, which was appreciated by Flame, who seldom cared much for the many kings of the server. “What’s up, Flame? Have a seat.”, said the royal calmly. Flame sat down on the opposite end of the table and explained his inquiry. “Hey, remember when I gave you the coordinates to the tomb of the mafia? Was there any player there, like a guard?”, after a brief pause, Parrot responded “Uhh, yeah, why do you ask?”, to which Flame gave another question, “What was their name?”
Parrot sighed deeply and waited for a bit. There seemed to be something bothering him about this topic, but alas that was to be expected as he hadn’t said much about it. “Marlow”, he finally said. “Bingo”, Flame thought to himself, before continuing to answer Parrot's question: “I came here because I want to go to the tomb. I want to fight Marlow, so I wanted to ask you, well, if you have any information about her that could help me and like, how it went for you.” Parrot tilted his head downward, visibly in deep thought. After a moment of hesitation, the king responded: “Flame… don’t. Look, I'm sorry but please, do not go to the tomb, it won’t lead to anything good. Is this about your whole combat grandmaster mission?”
The cryptic and ominous answer baffled Flame. With mild frustration in his voice, he leaned forward and rebutted “Whuh - what could possibly be so bad? Like if she’s strong I can just run, I mean, clearly you made it out!” Parrot responded, still seeming uneasy. This was no easy conversation for either of them. “It’s not about that. It’s just that some things are best left untouched. Just trust me.”
FlameFrags let out a sigh of disappointment, but there wasn’t much he could do. At a loss, he nodded in defeat, stood up, said goodbye and began to walk back through the halls of the citadel. What could Parrot possibly be referring to? In his head, the combat master debated how to proceed. His friend was not a liar and didn’t have ill intentions, they knew each other. But his answer seemed deeply irrational, and there simply seemed like there was no other way forward in his journey aside from battling Marlow, the legendary guardian of the tomb. Having almost reached the main gate of the castle, Flame suddenly felt a poke on his shoulder plate.
It was Theo, who had apparently pursued him all the way here from the round table. Surprised, Flame looked his old trainer in the eyes, through his signature sunglasses. After catching his breath for a moment, Theo said “Hey, Flame, I'm sorry about that, Parrot can be a bit proactive, but I think you deserve the truth. Let’s keep this between us though, I don’t want to be scolded by Parrot, okay?” Flame breathed a sigh of relief over finally getting some answers. “Alright, thank you.”, he said, nodding in approval. “So basically, Marlow is an elytra-macer, she will stay in the air most of the time and then divebomb you. Similar to Wemmbu, but way faster and more precise.” Flame rolled his eyes at that, viewing it as perhaps the most dishonorable and cheap combat style. It was powerful, but not unstoppable, he just needed to bring plenty of slow-falling arrows. Theo continued, “That’s really about it, just one more thing. Don’t kill her, just trust me on this one.” Flame nodded and thanked Theo, before they went their separate ways. Finally someone had provided some real information about this player.
Back in the base in the mesa, Flame had begun to brew an industrial supply of slow-falling potions and organize his shulker boxes, when he was suddenly snapped out of his flow upon hearing footsteps nearby and instinctively drew his sword. But before being able to worry too much about the situation, Flame was relieved as the visitor turned out to just be Lomedy, who had returned from farming. “Flame! I’m back!” he said, waving from across the room. Putting his weapon away and laughing a little, Flame responded “Lomedy! How has it gone? I thought there was like an intruder or something in the base when I heard you walking, you scared me.” His friend responded: ”Ohh, maybe we could add some sort of doorbell system to prevent that. Anyways, it’s gone well! I built out the farm a lot, took a lot of time but it will be worth it. I also got a bunch of apples from chopping down oak trees, do you want them?” Those could be made into golden apples, a resource that would be essential for his upcoming battle. Flame said ”That would be perfect, give me as many as you want. I’m gonna fight an opponent who is said to be, like, one of the best on Unstable, so i’ll need them, haha!”
Lomedy sighed. He clearly appreciated having FlameFrags as a friend, but did at times dislike his recklessness to charge headfirst into dangerous adventures, often with goals a farmer had difficulty comprehending. ”Do you really have to do this? You’re already really good and I don’t want you to just keep charging into these situations.” He said with a resigned tone. Flame took a moment before answering: ”Look, I think this might be the final opponent I need to defeat in order to become a combat grandmaster. Theo gave me some information on her, so I’m preparing here. I’ve beaten worse odds before, just trust me. I’ll make it. You don’t even need to come along.” After a few drawn-out seconds, Lomedy closed his eyes and slowly nodded. ”Fine,” he said, finishing with ”Just stay safe.” Flame nodded determinedly and answered ”I will.”
After completing his preparations, now equipped with over 10 inventories worth of combat gear stored in shulker boxes, FlameFrags set off alone to his target destination: The tomb of the mafia. It was located in the end, so he would need to pass through a stronghold. He knew the coordinates of a few by heart, so it was only a matter of going down the list. The first and closest one, under the desert biome, looked to once have been converted into a base, now laying abandoned, with empty chests, the remains of simple farms and amateur builds strewn about, the portal itself being destroyed. While leaving, Flame thought for a bit about how these players’ stories might never be told, these ruins being their only legacy. He would make sure that he and Lomedy would not meet such a fate. The second stronghold however, turned out to be in better condition, the halls were mostly untouched save for a few cobwebs, building blocks and forgotten crafting tables. The portal remained open. After double-checking that he had all necessary equipment, FlameFrags jumped in.
After both MinuteTech and the Law had been expelled from the end, the central island had returned to a state of anarchy, the mighty castle once built there laid in ruin, picked apart by thieves and covered in cobwebs and pillars of building blocks. At least it was easier to pass through these days, the gateways to the outer islands, though vandalized by the many adventurers who had passed through them, were not guarded by any empire. It was simply a matter of throwing an ender pearl through the gateway.
The islands were in an even worse state than the central point, as very little infrastructure had been built there to begin with. In order to bypass the patchy terrain, covered in random blocks and pyramids of lava and cobblestone, Flame had come prepared. He quickly scaffolded up to the block limit and constructed a combination of slime blocks, observers and pistons. It was a flying machine, an idea he had gotten while brewing slow-falling potions. He activated the device by placing a block in front of an observer, and so began his 707,000 block long journey to the tomb of the mafia.
After several hours of travelling across the sprawling endstone terrain, Flame had made it to the first void ring, a region in the end that was completely empty. That is also where the tomb was supposedly located, meaning that he had to be close. He gazed out over the boundless abyss, lazing on the humble mechanical island, legs dangling above certain death. How different this place was to the inner server Flame was used to - no empires that rose and fell, no great battles to fight, no resources to collect. It was quiet and simple, but he couldn’t imagine living out here, he lived for the chaos of the inner server. How could such a great fighter reduce themselves to this?
He continued to drift across the void, mentally preparing for what was to come and rehearsed a hundred different battle scenarios he had thought of. After an hour, this long journey would finally reach its destination. In the distance, FlameFrags could see a massive floating island, far wider and taller than anything which generated naturally. This had to be it. Upon closer inspection, he saw the island was covered in lush grass and beautiful cherry blossom trees, the tranquility stood in sharp contrast to what the build represented. Typical architecture of the invisible mafia was dark, sharp and imposing. Perhaps that wasn’t necessary here. When securely above land, Flame stood up on the flying machine, placed a block of obsidian to stop it and proceeded to jump down, flawlessly placing water below to break the fall.
He had made it to the tomb of the mafia, and there was no turning back. Now it was only a matter of doing what Flame was really there for, finding and battling its guardian, Marlow. There was conveniently a dirt trail leading through the forest, which Flame slowly and carefully walked along as the pink petals danced through the air. The only noises which could be heard were his own footsteps and the clanking of his armor. Eventually, Flame made it to what looked like the focal point of the island. An opening in the forest, surrounded by hills and boulders, the trail leading towards a massive stone gateway. Towering before any adventurer, with intricate details and symbols engraved, this had to be the entrance to the tomb itself.
Flame took a moment to simply marvel at the grandeur of it, and maybe even more so at what these blocks represented. This was the last remnant of the most powerful civilization to ever have existed on the Unstable SMP, standing silently in this forgotten corner of the world. His thoughts were however interrupted by a suffocating darkness flooding the air, the stone door was no longer visible, Flame could barely see more than 10 blocks ahead. Together with this came the sound of a heartbeat, not his own but one which came from the outside. He suddenly recalled hearing rumors about the guardian of the tomb having the magical ability to drain all the light from an area. She must be close. Realizing the danger he was in, Flame bolted to action and smashed three potion bottles onto the ground, granting fire resistance, strength, and speed. He drew his netherite sword, but it was too late.
In the blink of an eye, Flame was hit with devastating force, feeling like he was crushed by a falling boulder, he was sent flying backward over a dozen blocks while yellow and green light flooded his view, having popped a totem of undying. Ever vigilant, Flame quickly got back up from being knocked to the ground and assessed the situation, which was made easier by his sight now being clear, the darkness was gone. Before him stood a lone player, dressed in flawless netherite armor with a white eye sigil on the chestplate and holding a mace. The warrior's face was cold as ice and pale as snow, she had piercing blue eyes and long, silver-coloured hair matching the chestplate. It was the legendary player FlameFrags had sought out, Marlow.
Flame drew his sword again and quickly reapplied potions, while his opponent looked to not be moving a muscle. Neither party took a singular step closer, locked in stalemate. Breaking the deafening silence, Flame uttered ”So you’re Marlow huh? Defender of the tomb? I think we met back in the invis mafia or whatever, don’t know if you remember me. I’ve heard that you’re really strong, so I've come here to battle you. I’m trying to become a combat grandmaster. So I request that we have, like, a fair and honorable duel. I’m not trying to rob you or anything.” Marlow remained stonefaced, keeping ambiguous how Flame’s attempt at diplomacy was received. She very subtly tilted her head downward and after what felt like an eternity, Marlow finally answered: ”I do remember you from the Mafia, I think we fought together. But I don’t want to fight you, I want you to leave. I don’t fight for sport like you seem to do. But if you insist, I will need to neutralize you.” She spoke with a cold and flat tone, in tandem with her general persona. Flame sighed disappointedly, feeling as if the whole world was against this essential step in his journey. But there was still a chance for a battle, based on her warning. ”I reached diamond rank in the mafia, you know, before it fell. But like I don’t get why we can’t just have a fair duel, I won’t kill you.” Flame said. Marlow responded faster this time, seeming to recognize Flame as a worthy opponent. ”I don’t think that’s something to be proud of. Please leave this place, or I will need to neutralize you.” Her tone had a slight frustration to it. Flame realized his opportunity, perhaps a no-frills battle like this would be better anyways, as she wouldn’t hold back.
Like a thunderbolt, FlameFrags broke the standoff by throwing an ender pearl to teleport right in front of his opponent. With perfect execution, he proceeded to place a TNT minecart and explode it with a crossbow, it was now Marlow’s turn to use up a totem of undying as the sound of the blast echoed through the valley and smoke cleared from the ground. She had been caught completely off-guard by this maneuver, which Flame had thought of while on the flying machine. To finish off the attack, he quickly shot an arrow tipped with slow-falling, hitting his opponent mid-air, crippling her ability to use the mace. Marlow equipped her elytra and flew into the sky to regain some control over the situation. Realizing she had the potion effect, she did not attempt another mace attack, but rather descended slowly onto a hill to gain some distance. While his opponent applied various, more beneficial potion effects, Flame wasted no time and threw an ender pearl, again landing right in front of the enemy, refusing to let up pressure. He placed a cobweb, before delivering a series of critical sword attacks, stopping her from falling down and breaking the combo.
But Marlow was no amateur, she placed water to destroy the cobweb while raising a shield to break the sword barrage. She knocked the challenger down the hill with a fast swipe, before pearling down to pursue Flame. The two began to rhythmically exchange sword attacks, who got the advantage depended on microscopic time margins with two such highly skilled fighters. But it was Marlow who got the upper hand in the exchange, using her signature laser precision. Flame understood the situation and threw another ender pearl to break the pattern and quickly ate a golden apple to regenerate, supplied by Lomedy. The tomb guardian, the metaphorical wind blowing in her direction, followed her opponent to continue the sword barrage. However, this time, Flame was ready and retaliated with a well-timed swipe, which put his opponent off balance. But to his surprise, she flew up into the sky with elytra instead of coming back to fight. He then realized that time was running out on the slow falling. Marlow stalled in the air for a moment, waiting for the time to strike. In accordance with his diligent planning, Flame covered himself in cobwebs to block any potential mace hit. However, he hadn’t positioned himself correctly, allowing his airborne opponent to score a critical mace attack on him and cause heavy damage. The challenger, never one to be thrown off balance, jumped aside while gobbling down another golden apple and prepared to execute the move correctly. Positioning himself more carefully, Marlow’s mace hit was successfully blocked this time, causing her to crash into the ground. Flame utilized this to apply another arrow of slow falling, putting the two on even ground again.
Marlow, reeling from the mistake, flew up into the sky to heal. But instead of waiting for the battle to continue on his enemy’s terms, Flame prepared to perform one of the boldest maneuvers he had theorized. He shot an arrow of slow falling, straight upwards and quickly proceeded to throw a wind charge and ender pearl in the same direction. He was promptly teleported up into the sky and the arrow gently fell onto him, both combatants were now affected with slow falling, it had all been timed perfectly. Flame then threw another pearl, this time crashing directly into his slowly descending opponent. This allowed him to launch a vicious barrage of sword attacks, inflicting extra damage due to Marlow wearing elytra wings instead of a chestplate and her downward angle made it impossible to effectively block attacks with a shield. Quickly, FlameFrags caused her to use up another totem of undying, sending her tumbling to the ground in a burst of light.
But he wasn’t done yet with this spectacular combo. Flame threw yet another pearl to the ground, placing him yet again face-to-face with Marlow. Predicting that his opponent would stop to reapply potions and heal, he exploded a point-blank TNT minecart, inflicting massive damage on his enemy, causing her to pop yet another totem. Fearing losing control over the battle, she flew into the sky, much higher than before. While she fluttered, eating golden apples to regenerate, Flame began to grow confident and mockingly exclaimed “I thought diamond players were supposed to be good!” But that was quickly punished, as he was hit by another crushing mace attack - he didn’t even see it coming this time. The grounded combatant threw an ender pearl to the side and looked upward to better assess the situation. Itz had taught him total focus on the battle, why did he not listen?
Flame threw the standard three potions on the ground and attempted to regain self control. He shot a tipped slow-falling arrow towards his opponent, but missed as she swooped in for another attack, still frustrated by her recent blunder. Flame now attempted to graciously dodge the attack, but Marlow’s superhuman precision and speed made his effort futile, as Flame yet again was launched aside and exploded into a flash of green and yellow light. She immediately rushed toward him, sword in hand. In a situation like this, most players would give up - but FlameFrags was not most players.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This was not a matter of “getting a grip”, it was simply a matter of winning or losing, and Flame had made his choice. With cold efficiency almost reflecting that of his opponent, he swung his netherite blade sideways, creating distance between the two. He pursued the enemy with an ender pearl and locked her in place with cobwebs. He then launched a series of sword strikes, distance and timing precisely calculated. But Marlow swiftly escaped the unfavorable situation by placing water, and proceeded to fly into the sky once more. However, Flame made no effort to shoot any arrows this time - he had another plan.
He awaited his opponent's return to the ground, patiently and silently this time, he didn’t even trace her movement. The following exchange was to be on his terms. The guardian promptly descended towards the ground, mace in hand, but Flame was ready. With lightning speed, he protected himself with cobwebs and placed a TNT minecart on the ground. Moments later, when the timing was just right and his opponent was roughly two blocks above the ground, he launched an arrow from his crossbow and detonated the explosive, point-blank. After the flash of a popping totem of undying combined with the smoke and dust from the minecart explosion, Flame could identify Marlow, knocked into a boulder of the terrain, her netherite armor and elytra wings laid shattered on the ground. The maneuver was executed perfectly, and went even better than he had expected. Perhaps low armor durability was the reason she didn’t want to fight. Panicking, she quickly equipped her netherite chestplate with the white eye, the only armor she had left after the explosion.
Her cold demeanor was now gone, replaced by a desperate frenzy, she rushed towards Flame in a last ditch effort to inflict any damage. Her masterful swordplay remained, but it was more aggressive. Had things been different, Flame would likely have run away from this exchange, but she was now using up totem after totem, the loud bangs sounded like foreboding drums. Then - a crack was heard. Marlow had lost her chestplate, her last piece of armor. Standing, as if frozen, in complete shock, she dropped her netherite sword to the ground.
As their eyes met, it was as if time had stopped, both could hardly believe what was occurring. This time, Marlow was the one to break the piercing silence. “No… No… You don’t know what you’ve done…” The image of a cold and heartless warrior began to collapse before Flame, as she began to hyperventilate and ice-like eyes began watering. Flame reasoned, “Chill, I’m not here to kill you. I wanted a duel, and I got one.” After a while of silence, she seemed to calm down, relaxing her posture and turning to gaze into the vast void of the end. “You don’t understand.” She said simply. Flame, fed up with the constant feeling of missing crucial information, exclaimed: “What!? What don’t I understand? Nobody tells me anything on this server!”
Marlow sighed, and after a long pause, she finally explained: “The tomb of the mafia is connected to a grid of ender pearl stasis chambers, belonging to former mafia members. If any item is taken, all stasis chambers will activate, killing hundreds, if not thousands of former mafia members. I dedicated myself to guarding the tomb to protect them.” It was now Flame’s turn to take a long pause. He was relieved to finally have gotten an explanation for everyone's aversion to this battle, but contemplated how to resound tastefully. ”It’s not necessary.” He began, causing Marlow to face him again, with a baffled expression. ”Pearls can’t really be transported into the end. I’m no, like, redstone genius but that’s not really possible. If I remember correctly Ash spread it to diamond players in the mafia as a hoax to get us to guard the vault. Shortly before it fell, he straight-up told me.”
”That’s why there was no clear activation mechanism…” She said slowly, with a melancholic tone. Flame took a moment to imagine how that must feel, having your entire world collapse before you. After yet another pause, the fallen guardian said “Now you understand why I don’t like the mafia. I only joined them to protect my friend, they forced her to join. But I haven't seen her since.” Marlow took a deep breath, her eyes began to water again. “What was her name?” Flame asked, partially to simply make conversation, partially out of curiosity, he had met a lot of people on the server. “IMajesticRose, I remember it distinctly.” Flame took a moment to think, but could not recall ever meeting such a player. On the bright side, it wasn’t someone he had killed.
That memory seemed to be the breaking point. The once cold, calculating warrior broke down, closing her eyes as tears began to roll down her face. Flame understood her, he couldn’t imagine what it was like to be trapped on this destitute island, forced to kill anyone who visited, not knowing the fate of your only friend. But it didn’t have to be like this. Feeling that it was the only right thing to do, he put his sword away and opened his arms. The two combat champions embraced each other. They stood there, in the tranquil cherry forest, for several minutes, all tension from the battle slowly melted away between them as the petals fell. FlameFrags had travelled here to face a powerful opponent and complete his journey to become combat grandmaster, but such things felt so unimportant now. Flame also shed tears, overwhelmed by the emotional charge of the situation.
Eventually, Marlow began to let go, seeming to have calmed down somewhat. Flame opened his eyes and took a step back, noticing some wet stains on the shoulderplates of his armor. “You can set things right”, he said. He paused as they continued to make direct eye contact, finally understanding each other. “I still have a flying machine, we can both leave this place.”, Flame continued. Marlow slowly nodded as a response, seeming to come to terms with the situation. They walked across the dirt path, now dotted with craters from the battle, until they reached the edge of the massive island, the flying machine could still be seen, parked high up in the sky. Figuring that she was low on resources, the adventurer handed over a few stacks of building blocks and they began to scaffold up to the block limit. The forest they had been immersed in for so long once again looked small, the terrain blended into a patchwork of green plains and pink trees.
The two reached maximum build height and, in complete silence, stepped onto the humble, yet ever trusty redstone device. Flame destroyed the block of obsidian he had placed on arrival to stop the device, which activated the back observer, beginning their long journey back to the central end island as the pistons began extending and retracting rhythmically. After a few minutes, the two now having fully left the island, Marlow finally broke the awkward silence by asking “Do you know what happened to Ashswag? I know that the mafia fell, but what became of him? Is he dead?” She hardly knew anything about the workings of the Unstable SMP ever since the fall of the mafia, an obvious fact which Flame hadn’t fully considered before. At least there would be plenty of time to explain his many adventures from the inner server, but thinking back, Flame didn’t really know the answer to the question. When the beacons of resistance were lit and the pearls were destroyed, he had just simply moved back to his personal base, keeping all items and resources, never caring too much about the greater civilization. He recalled Spoke mentioning meeting Ash in the far lands shortly after the fall, although you had to take everything Spoke said with a grain of salt. He finally answered: “I don’t really know honestly. I’ve heard rumors that he went off to the farlands, but he might just be dead.”
“At least he’s finally left the people of the server be.”, Marlow said coldly. The conversation ended and they continued to drift across the void. Yet again, the two sat awkwardly on the basic flying machine, the only noise being the clicking of the pistons and the occasional bang of an “end flash”, accompanied by a burst of purple light, which reflected off of Flame’s armor. Flame was in deep thought, assessing this whole adventure and assumed his companion was in a similar state. After a few more minutes of this, the fallen guardian suddenly declared “There is nothing more, then.”, in her typically flat tone. Flame turned his head toward her, confused by the cryptic statement. He had heard enough of those. Then suddenly, Marlow stood up on the flying machine, which was somewhat dangerous on such a primitive design. Her luscious silver hair, in contrast to the black-purple void, looked like a kind of magical glow around her. Another end flash went off, the light caused her eyes to shine like diamonds.
Then, as if on cue with the burst, she began to lean backward and folded her arms outward. Flame, alarmed by her action, scrambled to get up, almost slipping on the slime block he sat on. But when he had gotten up and dashed forward, it was too late. Marlow had lost grip of the floor and fell backwards, arms spread out 90 degrees. Flame could do nothing but watch in total shock, as his newfound friend plummeted into the void of the end. While falling, she closed her eyes, air resistance shaping her hair into a white circle behind her head. Marlow soon turned into little more than a vague light-blue shape in the abyss, until Flame heard that deep hum. The noise signified death on the server. He had heard it many times, but now, it was far more painful to hear. He remained standing on the edge of the device, trying to take in, accept, what had just transpired, thoughts rushing through his mind. It all happened so fast.
Flame looked around himself. Nothing but himself, the humble flying machine and seemingly endless abyss. He was still deep in the void ring. He considered the fact that dying in the void was, in a way, more total than any other way to die, nothing would remain of you. Marlow had been isolated on that effectively unknown island, 707,000 blocks out, for over a year. What would even be left of her, the memory of perhaps a dozen players? On the shoulder plate of his chestplate, Flame noticed a singular long strand of silver-coloured hair. It belonged to Marlow, it had likely gotten there from their hug after the battle. He gently took it in his hand and held it up, this was one of the only pieces of material evidence that his brief friend had existed at all.