Captivity of Étrebil

== Author's Note ==
None of this is real.
This is created by theidealist specifically for the 31st October 2020. It is a sequel to 'The Fourth Of July', another bad dramapasta thing I wrote.
== How It Began ==
I am steve102. I do not have very many friends, as I am a Minecraft geek, but those who do happen to like me are in fact very close to me. One such friend I played Minecraft with a few months ago, with exceedingly interesting results. But I am ahead of myself; I shall come back to that later.
Anyhow, the day I am about to relate to you was another strange encounter. It was a day on which I often like to play, and on which the game has a few special aspects: bats spawn at higher light levels, zombies and skeletons occasionally spawn wearing pumpkins, and probably best known is that the splash text is always 'OOooooooOOOOoooooOOO! Spooky!' It was Hallowe'en, the day before All Saints' Day and well known in modern pop culture.
On that day, I received an e-mail from a friend of mine, the same one I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. It was in a sort of monospace font, Courier New I think, and used perfect spelling. I was surprised at this, as said friend usually types informally using phone abbreviations such as 'ur', 'thx', 'lmfao' and the like. It read:Dear friend, Attached to this message is a Minecraft map. Please open and play it. I think you will find it very entertaining.Yours, ÉTREBIL.Étrebil. The name brought back memories. Memories of a corrupted world we had once played in, on the 4th of July. On that, day, one signifying independence and freedom, he had had his freedom siphoned out of him by a being calling himself Étrebil.
I knew my duty at once. I had to enter that world and defeat him.
But how?
== The Seed 'łïɃErŧé' ==
I opened the world, into the 'Create World' screen. As expected, the seed was 'éŧrEɃïł'.
I had an idea. Why not flip backwards the seed, type it in, and see what I got? It was unlikely to work, I knew, but maybe, just maybe, it would give me something to work from? So I made another world and did just that.
To my glee, I spawned inside a quartz room. Everything was orderly, and I guessed its freedom was taken into the being which dwelled there. I spun around and there was a sign. It said, 'We know you cannot have found this seed unless you are warring Étrebil. Thus we shall give you a few items to help you on your quest.'But why couldn't anyone else find this seed, I thought.
An answer came back in the chat:<?> When hashed as a number, 'łïɃErŧé' is outside the available range of numbers enterable as seeds.<?> It would not occur to anyone to enter it as a worded seed unless they know of him.But how did they hear my thoughts?<?> As he is infinite subjection and hatred, I am infinite freedom and love.<?> I have many forms of freedom, and indeed you humans cannot understand any but the merest incarnations of my freedom.<?> One such liberty is the ability to read the contents of your minds.So, what are you going to give me, I thought.<?> You will find in your hotbar a totem of freedom. It prevents others from taking away your free will.<?> And in your inventory you will find a siphon of the will. It can move degrees of free will from one being to another.I looked in my inventory, expecting to find strangely-textured items there, or at the very least renamed ordinary items. But nothing was there.<?> Did you not listen? I used the future tense. You WILL find those items, but only once you enter the world of Étrebil.<?> And it is there they will come in most useful.I had one more question - why is this entity's name just '?', a single question mark? What is its real name?<?> Why ask my name? It is too wonderful.
== Étrebil's World ==
With that knowledge I departed that world, to create the new world with the 'éŧrEɃïł' seed. I waited tensely as the game slowly loaded. It finished, and the terrain was as I had remembered it from before - but no worse. I looked in my inventory. There was a white-coloured item, in the shape of the Totem of Undying. There was another white item, this time in the shape of a hopper. I could not place it as one does a hopper, and when I looked at the names, they were simply scrambled.
I equipped the totem in my off-hand, copied another one into my inventory, put the siphon in my hotbar (but not held), and I set out to find Étrebil.
Since I remembered the seed, I headed straight for the corrupted mountains from before, then the mountain wall, over it and across the ice spikes desert, heading for the ice spikes wall. I had to know what was behind it.
I quickly spotted it coming into view across the horizon. Up and over I went, but first, I equipped myself with potions of Healing, Regeneration, Strength, Fire Resistance, Water Breathing, and Slow Falling, as well as an enchanted netherite sword, several stacks of cobblestone, wood, and iron, an enchanted netherite pickaxe, two tridents (one Riptide, the other Impaling), and full enchanted netherite armor - including Feather Falling and Respiration. I may have been over-cautious, but I knew I had to be prepared for anything - especially knowing what had happened last time we breached the ice spikes wall.
And I was right to be cautious. As I flew over the wall, the same message appeared:[!: Removed mayfly ability from all players][!: Gave mayfly ability to étrebil][!: Gave OP status to étrebil][!: Set gamemode of steve102 to Survival]Just as before, I fell downwards. Quickly drinking a Slow Falling potion, I landed safely on a block and looked around.
I was on a single block in the middle of a sea of water. There was then a submerged obsidian barrier, concealing a sea of lava. And after that...
A hazy cloud of mist, obscuring what lay beyond.
I jumped into the water, dropped a bit, and sprinted. Still sprint-swimming, I surfaced so I could breathe, and carried on, just skimming the surface of the water, until I reached the obsidian bank. There I stopped for a second to drink a Fire Resistance potion, and kept going, doing an ordinary sprint over the lava, since I could not sprint-swim in it.
As I started to enter the foggy cloud, I noticed a Nausea effect on-screen. Not daunted, I went on, and soon the intensifying Nausea became almost unbearable; yet still I kept going.
I could just about make out the vague shape of a solid mass in front of me, when suddenly the screen blacked out. It only took a few seconds, and then it returned to life, but I found myself in a very different place in the Minecraft world.
== Beyond the Seas ==
[!: Removed OP status from steve102]I was back in the bedrock room: the one where we had respawned in before. Opposite me was the figure, in red and gold garments and simply darkness underneath. 'étrebil', read the nametag above it.<étrebil> Well. I see I drew you into my trap, after all. I remember you from before. <étrebil> At this moment your freedom is being sucked out of you, as it was your friend - what's that you are holding?I still had the totem in my offhand.<étrebil> Aggggghhh, shit. I thought you might have come prepared in some way, but I did not anticipate this.<étrebil> It seems you have been to the seed of 'łïɃErŧé' before coming here. <étrebil> Well, I shall just have to imprison you until you relinquish it.The screen once again blacked out, and when it flickered back on, I was in a bedrock jailcell with a grey bed, cobwebs and iron bars. I could easily have escaped by mining up the bars and the iron door, but I decided to keep my tools under wraps. For good reason, too, because in the next cell, standing quite still as if AFK, was my friend![!: Set gamemode of all players to Adventure][!: Set gamemode of étrebil to Creative]Well, that was expected. But could I restore life to my friend, on the other side of the bars? Did I have anything -
The siphon! It was still in my hotbar! But, who was there for me to get the will from? Maybe if I had brought eggs, I could have taken the chickens' free will, if they can be said to have any. It was too late to think of that, though. Étrebil was a possibility, but somehow that did not seem likely.
Then I noticed a prison guard, sitting very bored-looking outside my cell. A plan began to ferment in my mind.
== Freedom Returned ==
Out came my cobblestone. In a few seconds the main iron-bars window to my cell was blocked up.
I whipped out my wood, immediately crafting a crafting table, furnace, then burning some wood into charcoal and laying in some cobblestone to smelt. Out popped the stone, straight into a stonecutter, and in a minute I had half a stack of stone bricks, because stone bricks are stronger, and look better too. With that and my netherite pickaxe, I chopped a hole in my cell window and quickly laid down two walls, trapping the guard.
He started to grumble, but was quickly whisked into my cell with me as I replaced the bars and cobblestone. Then I broke the wall between me and my friend, and lastly boarded up the window on his side.<Guard #1307> What are you doing?He was starting to look a little more alert, so I knew I had to do it quickly and get it over with. I switched to the siphon in my inventory.<Guard #1307> What is that hopper you are holding?<Guard #1307> Stop! You can't!I held out my siphon. Nothing seemed to be happening. Was it working?<Guard #1307> You caaaann't.. Do thaaatt...He was visibly getting drowsier. Soon he was moving very lethargically, but then he stiffened up straight and ceased moving. I pushed him into a corner. Evidently it had worked, but not enough!<Guard #1286> What's happening?A hole appeared in the wall of the cell, as a guard poked their head in. I sealed them in and raised the siphon.<Guard #1286> What did you do to #1307? Are you dooiiingg itt - tto mmeeee?...The same thing happened again, and this time I could detect my friend's body swaying.<???> Who what..?<???> Ohh... it's you steve102!He walked up to me in greeting.<steve102> Take this totem. Then you won't go like that again.I dropped him a totem. Good thing I had thought to copy my original. Soon he started acting less jerkily, and more sort of naturally.<???> Where am I? Why are you back here?<steve102> We are in the jails of Étrebil. Remember?<???> Ah yes.<???> What will we do about it then? How can we escape a bedrock prison?<steve102> I don't know, but we must. We shall escape from this dungeon, as we always do from our Minecraft predicaments.<steve102> Together.
Category:Creepypasta
Category:Dramapasta
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Category:Seeds
Category:Sequels
Category:Theidealist