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A look of shock came upon the King of Mezalea as he stood upon a tree. But this shock was different from his initial rage.
He wanted to lash out. That palace had taken him months to build, and he just finished it. But he reminded himself that the entirety of the Grimlands had exploded, and everyone in the southeast probably had it worse.
Eventually, his look became one of worry.
But not for himself.
“Lizzie,” he whispered. His eyes widened as he jumped off the tree with his elytra.
Maybe he should've been more concerned with his own kingdom, but something told him that the ocean draining was a bigger deal than a fractured palace.
He saw the destruction of the ocean, and the path he had just built. Sure, he was a little frustrated before.
But he could be annoyed later.
He landed upon the Prisma Palace, before frantically looking around.
He couldn't find her.
“Lizzie! Lizzie!”
The worry was settling in. He could've sworn she was right behind him when he had left the impromptu meeting with the other rulers.
Finally, finally, he saw her. Miraculously, part of one of the lily pad islands still touched the water.
A small smile came on his face as he glided down. Maybe things would be okay.
He didn't notice anything off about her as he landed, or if there even was.
“Lizzie! Oh my gosh I'm so glad you're okay.”
But as Lizzie slowly turned around, he could tell that something was different.
“Are you not the blue axolotl now? Does it have something to do with the ocean?” As he looked around, he noticed the boat in front of her.
She looked at him… confused.
“I'm sorry, but who are you?”
“Haha, very funny Lizzie. Y’know, you’re quite the jokester."
“I’m serious, do I know you?”
His eyes widened. Joel felt just as confused as Lizzie apparently was.
“Lizzie, it's me. Joel. Y'know, your husband?”
Her face got more confused. “I think you have the wrong person.”
Joel realized now that this wasn’t some prank.
“No I don't. You're the ocean queen, the blue axolotl. Jimmy's seabling?”
“Seabli- what? I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Joel didn't know how it took him so long to realize. He looked down.
“You… don't remember anything.” he mumbled to himself.
“Well, I hope you find your wife. Goodbye strange man.”
Joel looked back up. Panic came over him again.
“No! Lizzie! Come back!”
But she had already started to row away in her boat.
He doesn’t know how long he stood there. In disbelief, in anger, in confusion and grief as she slowly rowed away into the distance.
Before he could even think about what his body was doing, he was flying to the Cod Empire. Surely, Jimmy would know how to fix this.
Surely, Lizzie’s memories weren’t truly… gone.
To be fair, she didn’t know much about her origins until Jimmy found that random book in his empire. Maybe there was something there that could…
Well, he wasn’t sure what a book could do.
Lizzie was gone.
He can’t remember if he had seen the Cod Empire when he was flying over earlier, but it looked about in the same condition as the Ocean Empire.
Gone.
The water and the countless cod… was all gone.
He started to look around the empty empire, calling Jimmy’s name sporadically.
Joel looked up at the Church, and saw a distinct head.
The Codfather’s head.
Joel smiled and ran up the path before opening the door.
“Oh Jimmy you have no… what?”
The head… wasn’t on anyone. It sat there, with a sign from the Cod Council… whatever that was.
Jimmy… was gone.
He would find, that everyone he knew had left.
While exiting the Church of Cod, he heard an explosion past the wall and bridge to Mythland.
He flew over, and found Sausage’s magic circle… thing.
But in it, lied the King of Mythland. Caught in the explosion, the bits left were covered in smoke.
To this day, he still has no idea if it was Sausage himself who caused the explosion.
Or if it was even intentional.
At this point, there was no time to grieve.
He was beginning to fly to Gilded Helantheia and House Blossom, before deciding that Pearl had probably fled. And for good reason. He hoped the same for Katherine.
So, to Rivendell he went.
The icy kingdom always bothered him. The mesa was always hot and dry, but here it was cold and dry.
Way worse if you asked him.
But at the moment, he couldn’t care less.
Because while so far all he’s heard is either nothing or explosions, the sound he heard this time was different.
It was a scream. One of great pain.
His eyes widened, and he quickly sprinted towards where he believed the sound to be coming from.
The sight he found made him shiver.
In front of him lay Scott with a sword in his chest, with Xornoth opposite to him lying in pain.
Joel ran to Scott. “Oh gosh what the heck happened to you?!”
Scott slowly turned and smiled. “I did… what I had to.” he whispered.
“What?”
“Xornoth and I… we’re synced. If I die, he does also. He won’t corrupt any of us anymore.”
“But Scott-”
“Tell me, is everyone safe?”
Joel paused for a minute. He thought of the drained ocean and swamp, he thought of Sausage, he thought of everyone who was missing.
And he smiled.
“Yeah… everyone is safe.”
To this day, Joel wonders if Scott knew he was lying through his teeth when he said that.
But Scott somehow smiled wider. “Good…”
Then he drifted off.
Joel sat there for a minute before exiting the cave.
Once he did, a dragon flew overhead. A dragon he could only assume belonged to Crystal Cliffs.
At this point, he just hoped Gem and fWhip were safe upon it.
He flew in the opposite direction of the dragon, and got to Joey’s Lost Empire.
It… was in ruins.
Probably in worse shape than his palace.
He saw the smoke not just from the temples, but also from Shrub’s Undergrove.
He sighed as he landed at the top of the temple.
Would it have made sense for Joey to have run away at this point? Probably.
But was Joey also loyal to a fault? Unfortunately, yes.
Joel walked around a bit at the top of the central temple, before jumping back when some of it collapsed under him.
But… after all this… he wasn’t prepared for what he saw at the bottom.
“Oh gosh, Joey.”
He quickly flew down next to him.
“Alright come on Joey. You gotta wake up.”
Deep down, he knew Joey was gone.
Perhaps, part of him hoped he was alive before he noticed the lack of breathing.
He wishes he could’ve stayed by his side longer, but a temple ablaze was not suitable for a living person.
So, he left. To the only place he could think of.
Pixandria.
Now, he wasn’t hoping for a miracle. He knew that The Copper King had been missing for weeks now.
Maybe, some part of him hoped that the explosion heard across the empires would bring him back to his land.
But after the deaths of his fellow rulers, he wishes he knew better before landing in front of Pixel’s candle monument.
Joel stared at the candles. The sun had begun to go down a bit ago, so the eternal flames danced in the night.
It was then, when he broke.
His body grew heavy.
His legs gave out before he fell to the ground.
He wanted to cry, to grieve.
But he… couldn’t.
He was still on the ground as he looked back up at the candles.
He wondered where Pixel kept the spare ones.
With every bit of his strength, he wandered around the monument.
The answer was: not very far.
He grabbed one of almost every color, and carefully placed them around the monument before lighting them.
The only one he didn’t, was his.
He stared back at the chest with his candles, before turning away.
He just wanted to lay in his bed, and sleep.
Maybe he hoped this was some bad dream, and it would go away when he woke up.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to sleep in a palace that has effectively split in two.
But he thought of something as he passed Lizzie’s and Jimmy’s mini builds on the main level.
“The Codfather Head…” he whispered.
The head was an artifact of the Cod Empire, much like Lizzie’s Ocean orb and Scott’s golden antlers.
All these things were left behind.
Looking back, things after this revelation became a blur for Joel.
Maybe he felt a connection with these lost things.
Or maybe, he saw it as a way to repay his friends. To save their history.
So, he traveled the empires and gathered any artifact or book or banner he could in his shulkers.
He gathered the Ocean Orb and Lizzie’s recollection before her memories vanished.
That one may have hurt the most.
But he also found the remains of her map, which he also took.
He gathered Jimmy’s Codfather Head and his special disc, along with the book containing his and Lizzie’s story.
He walked around Mythland. He wasn’t sure what it was that Sausage treasured, other than living beings that he couldn’t put in a shulker.
He slowly walked over to the magic circle. It felt wrong, but maybe Sausage would have something on him that was important.
All he found was a scarf thing with “Bubbles” written on it.
This’ll do.
Unfortunately, the blaze that had hit Gilded Helantheia destroyed most of Pearl’s things.
He still doesn’t know what happened to her, and he hopes she fled with everyone else.
He then gathered the crown that belonged to Katherine, and slightly smiled at the slight sprout coming out of the rubble.
Scott’s empire was a hard one.
It felt wrong to take directly from Scott’s body after his sacrifice, but he knew the antlers deserved to be preserved.
He faintly remembered hearing Lizzie mention some Frost Walker boots she exchanged with Scott to get her orb, so he rumaged through his chests until he found those.
He did wander around the Crystal Cliffs, but it seems as though Gem left with her possessions when she left Gandalf in charge.
It didn’t take long for him to see the devastation that was the Grimlands.
Maybe he had noticed back when he found Joey, but perhaps he was too out of it to notice.
He knew that nothing survived, but was hoping for one artifact.
The crown.
Oh for it to be a few months ago… when the only problem amongst the empires was who would be the next ultimate ruler.
He wonders if fWhip left it in his ender chest for safe keeping.
Joel still wonders if fWhip knew what would happen.
But he still searched every nook and cranny for the crown.
A crown, that he soon discovered, would be entirely lost to history.
A part of him wanted to cry when he couldn’t find it. That crown, that stupid stupid crown, had the essence of every empire.
But, it was gone. Lost in the flames that consumed the Grimlands.
He hated how symbolic it ended up being.
Joel had no idea what Joey treasured other than his collection of player heads, so that was the only thing he took.
The Undergrove had a similar story as Gilded Helantheia. The fire had burned most of Shrub’s things.
But what he did find, was something he managed to find everywhere else.
When they all started their empires, they all agreed to keep a record of everything. Every conflict and friendship. Every trade and scam.
Everything, to act as history books for their respective empires.
Back when they thought that they would last forever.
Lizzie’s was her hastily made collection of now lost memories, but he managed to find everyone’s in one way or another.
Sausage’s and Pearl’s were both in her beanstalk, and fWhip’s was left with Gem’s in the academy, but everyone else’s was in their empire.
Except Pixel’s.
Joel still wonders if the Copper King took it on his nomadic adventures when he disappeared, or if he truly just couldn’t find it.
He would feel like an idiot if it was the second.
But as he stepped into his palace, he realized he had no idea what to do with their things.
At this point, he was no different than a bandit.
So, he placed his shulkers in the middle of his storage room. The one of artifacts, one of banners…
And one of memories.
At one point or another, he had added his to the box.
One by one, he pulled out the books. The memories that didn’t belong to him.
And he read them.
The fracture in the palace remained, but he continued to read.
Maybe Mezalea worried about their king after he entered the palace and didn’t come out of it for a year.
But he read and read and read. Until he had read almost all of his friends’ journals more than three times.
He got the idea while he read through Lizzie’s for the first time. The idea to preserve their stories.
And to make a collective one.
The King of Mezalea only left the palace for that one day before devoting the next year to writing down everything.
Maybe it was closer to two years. He wasn’t keeping track.
He referenced everyone’s story, and cross referenced to tell the stories.
He even included the demon Xornoth, because like it or not he was the reason Scott died.
Stories of the Great Disc War, for the Search for the Codfather’s Head, the end of the Ender Dragon, the eternal winter, the trapping of Xornoth after his corruption, the Crown and the…
The end.
It was at that moment that he realized he had finished.
There were bits missing, as to this day he doesn't know what happened to those who fled, or those believed to have fled.
However, the book, Tales of Empires, was done.
He closed it, and along with all the other journals, placed them carefully in a shulker.
No one knows if Mezalea rejoiced as the dying empire saw the king zoom out of his still fractured palace.
And no one knows if they even noticed when he didn’t return.
But the king’s destination was the academy at Crystal Cliffs.
As dumb as it sounds, the only one Joel trusted with these priceless pieces of information and history, was a cat.
But according to Gem, Gandalf was a magical cat.
And to be fair, he had kept the academy running.
He left the shulker with a letter just inside the entrance of the academy library.
He slightly smiled, before flying away.
Joel stopped by Lizzie’s palace to grab something.
Her trident, the one that matched his.
The ones given at their wedding oh so long ago.
And he continued to fly towards the empire that gifted them.
Somehow, the candles continued to eternally burn even through the rain.
Joel doesn’t know how long he stood there, watching the flames dance in the night as he held the matching tridents.
Eventually, he slowly placed the tridents on the ground.
He walked over to the chest containing his color of candle, and picked one before placing it with the others.
He lit it, then stood back.
Part of him still hoped Pixel would appear out of nowhere, but in the many years since the empires collapsed, the nomadic Copper King hadn’t returned.
So, he carefully turned where he left his and Lizzie’s tridents. He stuck his into the ground at a slight diagonal.
He made sure it stayed, before picking up Lizzie’s Channeling trident.
He slowly looked towards the sky, and smiled.
“Lizzie, let me find you again…”
He then struck her trident in front of his, lightning following soon after.
----------
“So, what brings you to Critter City?” asked Lizzie.
Joel looked at her. “I hear you have a few bookstores, with one having biographies?”
Lizzie nodded. “Right this way! Though unfortunately I don’t have anything about you or Stratos.”
“As expected, I’m just far too great to have everything fit in a book.”
In truth, Joel didn’t remember much after the lightning strike. It’s not like he expected it to turn him into a roman-like god figure thing.
But he still remembers his past life, but it's clear that no one else does.
“Alright, here we are! Let me know if anything interests you.” Lizzie opened the door and allowed Joel to enter first.
He glazed over the titles, and found three that caught his eye.
“The Ocean Queen, the Copper King, and Tales of Empires? Quite the selection.”
“Yeah, though I don’t think any of those people existed. Sausage insisted that Pearl from Tales of Empires was real so who truly knows.”
He picked up Tales of Empires. The book he authored, and opened the cover.
Signed, King Joel of Mezalea.
He smiled.