Chapter Text
“Did you think that would work?” Jamato and Spoke walked side by side through the hall of the guard chambers. Tears pricked at the latter's eyes. There were guards walking behind, in front and on the sides of them. There was no way for Spoke to escape. “I know you Spoke. You’re smarter than that, you can’t have actually thought that would work.” Spoke looked down, he didn’t answer. They had reached Jamato’s office. Jamato walked over to his desk and took a seat. “Spoke.” He looked up. “Say something.”
“Please,” Spoke begged, “don’t kill Found. Don’t kill Jumper. Leave them out of this. This was my plan. It’s my fault. If you have to kill anyone, kill me. I don’t care anymore!” Spoke’s eyes were red, tears fell down his face. “Please,” he whispered, “just leave them alone.”
“I’m not gonna kill you. Found has been sent to the worst cell in the prison. I’m sending you to solitary,” he paused, “where you will have front row seats, to the execution of Jumper and Mapicc.”
Spoke froze. It seemed as if the air had dropped ten degrees as he said that sentence. “What?”
“Mapicc and Jumper will be executed tonight, and you will have nothing to do but watch.” He crossed the room to Spoke. “Let’s go.” They were back to walking. They took a left, then two rights, another left, Spoke eventually lost track of where they went. There was no hope for escape. He just walked with Jamato, eyes on the ground. “Get on.” Spoke looked up. There was a happy ghast waiting. Spoke stepped up on the stirrup, climbing with the rope, then sitting down. Jamato followed, they had two more happy ghasts with guards trailing them.
Spoke sat on the edge, legs dangling over the lava. He looked down. It’d be so easy to die here. I could just jump. Who would really care? He stared into the lava, sparks flew up. “You’ve got in contact with Planet.” Spoke stayed silent. “Your mind is completely blank. I take it they taught you to shield it from me?” He bobbed his head up and down. Not caring if Jamato knew anymore. He was trapped, Mapicc was gonna be killed and there was nothing he could do about it. He could end it here. All the pain, all the suffering, being helpless. He shifted his weight. “Don’t. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it.” Jamato’s voice had a strange softness to it. No anger. This was the same man who is about to kill his closest friends, send him who knows where, isolated from everything and everyone. And he’s trying to stop Spoke from dying? Spoke hugged his knees, he didn’t want to talk to Jamato.
He didn’t know how much time passed before Jamato said, “We’re here.” Spoke picked his head up. He didn’t see anything but lava.
“Where?” His voice broke.
Jamato pointed to a singular block of blackstone. Spoke climbed off the ghast, standing on the block. “You are not allowed anything. Drop your food.” Spoke took the rotten flesh out of his satchel, throwing it into the lava. He caught a glimpse of something he didn’t know was in there. Glowing orange. “That’s it?” Spoke nodded. “Very well. Tonight Mapicc and Jumper will be executed right above you.” Spoke looked up. He saw the arrow cannon where Dev and the others were killed. Jamato turned to get back in his spot on the ghast. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He opened his own satchel, pulling out a potion. He threw it. It hit Spoke and he yelped. It was burning. Seeping into the cuts from the fights the past few days. Poison. It would put him on half a heart and with no food he’d be stuck like that. "Everything you need to survive and nothing more. Enjoy your stay, Spoke." With that he and the guards that followed them floated away.
Spoke curled up. He sobbed silently. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m so, so, sorry.” Then he remembered what he saw in his inventory. He reopened the bag. A potion, fire resistance. And a book. Last chance. By found2. He stared at it. There might be hope after all. He opened to the first page.
FOOD
000
000
100
ENTRANCE
He flipped to the next page. Blank. Blank, blank, blank. The rest all blank. That was it. “Uh okay. I think I can figure this out.” If the numbers represent blocks, and the food is the rec room, the entrance is opposite of it. So the 100 would be where her cell is. “Okay.” Now getting out of here. He had fire resistance for three minutes, he had to find the right way that would get him there in time. Just swimming to the stream would take way longer than three minutes. I think if I swam to that little island, jump to the others. Then swam up that stream. I should make it in time. “I got this.” He took out the potion. He took off the top, brought the bottle to his mouth, and tipped it up. The potion tasted spicy with a hint of metal. It wasn’t a taste he particularly liked but he swallowed it. He breathed then jumped into the lava.
It was warm but didn’t hurt. He swam, no real stroke. He had to swim fast but couldn’t get his face in because no matter how immune the rest of his body was, if the lava got in his eyes, nose, mouth, he would be dead and he wasn’t that good at keeping water out. Spoke had always been a good swimmer but with how weak he was right now and how starved everyone was in purgatory it was tiring. He was so close, a little farther. His hand came into contact with the stone. He pushed himself up onto the small island. He coughed, then was on the move again, jumping between islands until he was back in the lava, swimming. His throat burned from the ash and smoke he was breathing in. Ahead of him was the stream he had to swim up.
How the hell was he gonna do this? He checked his time, still had a minute and thirty seconds. Spoke squeezed his eyes shut, closed his mouth and pinched his nose. He swam up, using only one arm. He didn’t know when he’d be at the top and he couldn’t breathe but he had to keep going, for Mapicc. He didn’t know how long it had been. Thirty seconds? A minute? More? If he stayed in here for another second would he die? Questions like this ran through his head as he swam. Until his hand hit something. He pulled himself up, out of the lava. Coughing and breathing heavily, he checked how long he had, less than twenty seconds.
It scared him to see how close to death he had been, if he hadn’t made it out of the lava… He didn’t want to think about that. He pushed himself to his feet. He stumbled over to the small spiral staircase going to the main prison. He moved as fast as he could. He couldn’t run, couldn't take any fall damage, and had to not be seen. He wandered the halls of purgatory, looking for Found’s cell. If that's food, and opposites the entrance, her cell should be there. He approached where he thought the cell should be. No, no, no, no, no. He thought as he walked past rows and rows of cells, until. “Found!” He exclaimed quietly.
“Spoke?” She asked, peeking out from behind the bars. Her cell looked horrible, a three by three room with a bed in the corner. “Where were you?” He opened the cell using the lever above the door.
“Solitary. Why the hell is there a bed in this room? I’m on half a heart, please don’t hit me.”
“I don’t know.” She hissed, “I didn’t make the prison. Better question. How the hell did you escape solitary?” She opened the furnace in the corner opposite from the bed, pulling out a few pieces of bread. She handed them to Spoke.
“Thank you.” He pulled off a piece of the bread, eating it. One hit would no longer kill him. “Escaping wasn’t that hard, Jamato didn’t do an inventory check, I had a fire resistance potion in my inventory somehow. That’s basically it.”
“Oh thank gods, it was you who picked it up.” Spoke tilted his head in confusion. “I dropped it, hoping you would pick it up. With the book.”
Spoke’s eyes widened. “That was you? Thank you, oh my gods, I couldn’t have escaped without it.”
“What’s happening to Jumper?”
“Oh,” Spoke looked down, “if I can’t save her, she’s being executed.” Found’s mouth dropped open. “Along with my best friend, Mapicc.”
“Then you have to save her! Go! Take this and run!” She handed him a few more pieces of bread and an invis potion, then pushed him out of the cell.
“Okay, okay, okay.” He ran, splashing the potion. He had to find the guard chambers. If he could get to them, he could get gear, and save Jumper and Mapicc. He ran to where he and Dev had entered. There were guards everywhere, he ducked into a hall and ran into a locked door, he needed a keycard. Shit. The guards must have cards to unlock it. He studied the mechanism. Oh this works just like the law doors. So he just had to steal a keycard from a null. easy enough. He ran back to where the guards were. Once you had unlocked the door, the card would fall out of the dropper where they would pick it up again.
Once the guard put the card in, Spoke grabbed it before they had a chance to. Then he ran. “Did you pick it up?” He heard one asked from behind him.
“No. You sure you didn’t?”
“Oh gods. Jamato’s gonna kill me.” Spoke glanced down at the card in his hand and grinned. Mapicc would live another day on this server. He got to the next door, opened it, ran until he found a storage room, potions, invis, fire res, poison. He grabbed a few, then noticed the three barrels at the back of the room. Opening them slowly and silently he found wind charges, pearls, and bread. He quickly ate a few pieces, splashed a new invis potion, and kept moving.
Running non-stop was already hard, running non-stop, while weak, in the nether? Almost impossible. Spoke had to keep himself from coughing, covering his mouth with his hoodie. He just needed to find where they kept the gear. He took a left, dead end, backtracked, took a right, opened a new door. Took another left, this time leading to a door he opened. He took a few more turns before he stood in front of the room with all the armor, weapons, everything. “Oh. My. Gods.” He whispered. There were chests upon chests of netherite, golden apples, bows, wind charges, everything he could possibly need.
He crept to the first chests, armor. He took three sets. One for him, one for Mapicc, one for Jumper. Moving faster now, he grabbed three stacks of golden apples, a bunch of wind charges, and anything else they might need. Something glowing at the back of the room caught his eye. He slowly moved over to it. “What is-” He gasped. It was a mace. Null had a mace, Jamato had a mace. He grabbed it from where it sat on the wall. Spoke stared at the weapon. A mace. He had held a mace a few times.
He could kill Jamato with this. He was good enough. He had watched Wemmbu practice. Wemmbu had let him use Crucible a few times. He knew how to hold it, he could wield it. He slung the weapon over his shoulder, it rested on his back. He went invisible again, taking off his armor.
He ran back to the execution platform. The arrow cannon that was supposed to kill Mapicc and Jumper tonight was right in front of him. He took out one of his pearls and threw it, landing in the mechanism. What can I do with this? He circled around the machine. He stopped. This arrow canon had water in it. That shouldn’t be possible. Water would evaporate as soon as it met nether air. The water had bubbles in it. Oh. He could get rid of the bubbles and the cannon wouldn’t work. He did exactly that. The cannon can't kill anyone now.
He fell back down to his one single block and waited. “Spoke,” Jamato demanded, floating down on a ghast, “What did you do to the cannon?”
“Nothing. I’ve been here the whole time.” He stood. “Why, what happened?”
Jamato glanced at him skeptically, “Never mind. The execution will be happening in the center, falling should work just as well as the cannon.”
Spoke stiffened, “What?”
“You heard me. Anyways, it’s happening in a few minutes, so enjoy.” He floated off.
No. No no no no. No! This was not happening. What do I do? He got an idea. He’d pass out right after but was it worth it? He hesitated for a minute then willed his wings to spread out from his back. With a quick flap of them, he shot up into the air. He flew to the center of the prison. He perched above the platform and waited. Barely two minutes passed before Jamato walked onto the platform with Mapicc and Jumper behind him, each had two null guards to either side of them. He was invisible. Of course he was, coward. He couldn’t hear what they were saying from up there. Yeah, fuck it. He pulled out the mace and jumped down. He hit Jamato, popping his totem. “What the hell?” Mapicc startled. “Spoke?”
“You.” Jamato glared.
“Me.”
“Wait what? Spoke wasn’t lying?” Jumper asked.
“See? This is what I mean. He manipulated everyone to think I was the villain, the reason we’re here.”
“Thats not fully true though. Is it? Purgatory exists because of you, Spoke. If you weren't a horrible person, none of these players would be here. You deserve everything that has happened to you. Kill them.”
Spoke’s eyes went wide as he spun to face his best friend. “No!” Spoke screamed and Mapicc fell. Then the room went black.