#minecraft creeper

Days after their undeath experience, the Hero returns to the crumbling ancient city beneath the ground. Their boots have since been enchanted with feather falling, in hopes another slip will not end like the last one. Just to be safe, another Totem is strung around their neck.

The ruins of the city are even more unsettling now then they had been when they first explored it. Has that massive unbreakable frame in the center always been lit aflame? Abandoning their search for their lost items, they approach this change.

What would have caused these flames to ignite? Maybe... Surely not. Their almost death can't be the reason, can it? But it was the last thing that happened before they were respawned back at their camp. It was the last change they caused down here. Bubt how could death create fire?

As they creep closer, they notice the rough stone tomb in front has been disturbed. It looks as though it has crumbled under its own weight, collapsed into dust and sculk. And yet, peering inside shows it empty. If it truly was a tomb, what happened to the body within?

Eventually, they stop poking at the changes their near death seemingly caused and goes to find where it happened. If the things they collected and then lost were to be anywhere, they would be there. It does not take long to find it. Scattered across the darkened stone is everything they had gathered, splayed out like scattered marbles. The center of the mess is bare. They knew if they lay down, their body would fit perfectly in the gap. It is an outline of death.

They force down a shudder at the memory of their own neck snapping, of bones splintering. Instead, they begin collecting the fallen items, uncaring of any sounds they might make. Anything to distract them from the echoes of what once was.

In the distance, a piercing shriek cuts through the stillness. They wince at the sound, but pay it no further mind. Not even when their vision goes dark, rendering them blind to all but what's right in front of them. In their blindness, they accidentally knock over a rock and jump at the sudden sound. It sends off another round of ear-splitting screams and darkness.

As they pick up the last of their lost things, they ehar something heavy lumbering through the now lighter darkness. Their head slowly turns, tiling up, up, up, until they are face-to-blindfold with a huge, hulking figure.

At firsst glance, it is a tall woman in a dry rotted gown, eyes bound. But the more they look, the less the creature resembles a person. The center of its gown is torn open, revealing slowly pulsating lights trapped beneath the skin. Two horns curl out and up from either side of its head, draped in gems and sculk veins.

The creature's mouth opens as if to speak. But instead of words, a scream so loud it leaves visible shock waves in the air bursts forth, slamming into them so hard they go flying backwards. Their body collides with the stone walls of the cavern hard enough to knock the wind from their chest.

Despite the pain, they force themself to their feet, barely able to drag in gulps of air. They run, though try to keep their footsteps as light as they can, taking advantage of the creature's apparent blindness. But speed wins out over stealth, and somehow they manage to outrun the creature and find the way they came. They had thought there would be only memories haunting them here. They were not prepared to deal with screaming monsters. Was that thing what had been buried in that crumbled tomb?

Back down in the darkness, the Warden listens to the receeding sounds of footsteps as the disturbance runs away. She is not inclined to follow. No, instead she stand right where she is, chest heaving with labored breaths. Just that one sonic shriek took so much out of her. How long had she been asleep, to weaken so greatly?

She slowly lumbers around the ruins of her city, pausing agaisnt crumbling pillars every so often to catch her breath. It must have been years, she muses as her fingers graze a thin patch of sculk. The veins cry out to her in hunger, reaching for anything she has to give. But she has nothing. The soul energy in her chest pulses weakly, barely enough to keep her upright.

Her memories piece together slowly as she walks. After the battle against the Wither, after that final, war-ending blow, she had had just enough strength to drag her way down through the earth and bury herself at the foot of the portal frame. Resting beneath stone and sculk was the only was she had to preserve herself until she could be reawakened. The sculk was supposed to gather any and all energy from dying mobs and redirect it to her, but that obviously had not happened in a long time. Had nothing truly died in the Deep Dark until now?

She wonders what has become of the surface since that battle. Surely the Wither is finally dead. Nothing but a miracle could have kept it alive. And what of the Elder Guardian? Did she make it out of the battle? It would be nice to still have an ally somewhere in the world.

The most pressing question, though, is what woke her up? Just what was that scurrying creature? It couldn't have been a builder. Could it? No buildesr had been here since she drove them out so long ago. No. She must be mistaken. Maybe it was one of those lanky things that like to carry around dirt. Her sculk had absorbed a few of them near small underground ponds before. Yes, that must be it. Builders would never dare tred down here, after all.

Eventually, the Warden manages to scrape together enough strength to send a pulse through the sculk, instructing it to search for something, anything, to cling to. If she was going to regain her power, she would need help.

High above the Ancient City, in the darkest part of the lush caves, a Creeper wanders around, poking its flat green face into anything it finds interesting. A winking blue light in the shadows catches its eye. It crawls over on its four short legs, lowering its tall torso down to get a better look.

Cyan pulses in cobalt veins, glittering enticingly against the grey stone. The Creeper reaches out its foreleg to poke at the light. Can it eat it, like the yellow berries in the cave?

The instant the Creeper touches the sculk, the veins cling onto its furry limbs and start to climb. The Creeper hisses, skittering back. It tries to shake off the veins, but they just hold tighter. As the veins reach the Creeper's head, a hypnotic pulsating sound rings through its body. Blue obscures its vision. The veins pierce the Creeper's skin, but it does not feel it.

It is left with only one thought: down.

The sculk puppeteers the Creeper deeper into the caves, its gait shambling and awkward as soemthing that was not meant to move controls something rebelling with its panic. But rebellion is futile against infection, and eventually it stumbles its way into the ancient city and to the feet of the Warden.

The Warden speaks directly to the sculk, barely acknowledging the Creeper as anything other than a vessel for her command, and instructs it to go and trap as many mobs in the sculk as it can. Mostly for harvest, but also for conversion if the creature is strong enough to survive the process. She will need others to fight for her if it comes to that. She has learned her lesson on fighting alone.

Before the thing-that-was-a-Creeper is dismissed, the Warden gives it one final command. It is not allowed to die. Not for any altruistic reason, but a practical one. There is no telling if the Warden will have enough energy to spare to create another sculk-infested minion before any other mob is harvested. It would be a shame to lose her lone vassal before she is able to replace it.

The thing-piloting-the-Creeper does as the Warden wishes. It pulls its fighting body, each step cracking and reforming something deep in its skin, back up the way it came. Each weak mob that crosses its path - little flopping axolotls wandering around the pools, skeletons with bows long since rotted, spidesr missing a limb or two from past fights - is herded toward or outright pushed into the creeping veins of blue light. They are ensnared and devoured, their souls converted into energy for the Warden. The no-longer-a-Creeper watches blankly as they die. It cares nothing for fuel. It only cares for the Warden and her word.

A few mobs are nothing and let be. They are strong, strong enough to survive the infection and serve the Warden alongside the Creeper. When the sculk has had its fill, it will drag these mobs into itself and grow the Warden's army. But not yet. It is still too weak, and it must not die.

Far above and further away, the Hero secludes themself in the village library. They tear through books so old their pages threaten to crumble beneath their fingers, searching desperately for any information on the creature they encountered in the Deep Dark. The librarian watches on in concern, mostly for the safety of their tomes.

Eventually, they find a lone journal, tucked away in some forgotten chest in the back of the library. The smell of aged paper wraps around them like a thick smog as they ever so gently open the book, careful of the spine that threatens to fall apart in their hands. Inside is everything they could have hoped for.

In an old script, one they can barely read, they make out a tale of a battle. One that shook the skies and rose the seas, a battle that decided the fate of the worlds for ages to come. It was a battle between three queens of monsters, whose anger tore the land apart.

The journal also holds the secrets of these queens' origins, as known to the author. The one they are interested in, the thing in the depths, is the second they find. They skip the ocean's ruler for now. So long as they stay on land, it shouldn't be a threat to them yet.

The monster in the caves, they learn, was once the hallowed protector of the ruined and ancient city they had found. But something happened, and it turned on those it was sworn to protect. Every resident of the city was slain in a single night. Now the monster is said to roam the empty streets, a queen with no subjects, a protector with no charge.

The journal also claims that monster was supposed to protect the city from something called a Wither. They frown at the name. Wither? Like those blackened skeletons in the Nether fortress? Why would these ancient people need a monster to protect them from those? The withering effect may have hurt, the worst thing they have felt besides their own neck snapping, but an entire city of people should have been able to easily deal with one. Did they truly think they needed another monster? No wonder they were wiped out.

They carefully close the journal and return it to its chest before continuing their search. If this monster was brought to the city, it must have come from somewhere else. And if so, there is a chance it is not the only one of its kind. They cannot hope to defeat more than one of these things without knowing more about it.

Back deep beneath the ground, the Creeper still picks its way foreward. As it moves, it feels its body morph with each step. The sculk invades past its skin, tearing apart muscles only to reform them into new shapes. It starts to stand taller on longer legs. Its forelimbs become arms it can use to reach. While it still hunches over, it can tell that, given enough time, it will eventually walk upright just as easily as the Warden does.

Its crackly, leaf-like fur sloughs off, exposing growing patches of skin run through with cyan veins. The fur on its head grows longer, poofing up from the energy still encased in its core.

The sculk remakes the Creeper in the image of the Warden, for it is her and she is it, and now so is the Creeper.

Something deep within, something nearly entirely suppressed, rebels against the changes. It does not want to be this thing. It wants to be a Creeper. It wants to live its life in the lush caves until it eventually detonates. But the sculk does not care what the remnants of the Creeper wants.

When finally the Creeper has amassed enough energy from slain mobs, it feels a pulse through the sculk, a call to return. In the city, the Warden waits for her vassal. It approaches, now shaped more like her than the animal it once was, and leads her through the caves toward the surface. She could have made the journey alone, obviously, but why risk herself when she has a puppet to take the danger for her?

The feel of moss and wet clay beneath her feet as they walk through the lush cave is familiar. The Warden's hand flexes into a fist. How things have changed. How they have stayed the same.

As they climb toward the surface, the Warden sends veins of sculk into every mob they pass. While the Creeper may have done what she commanded, and did it well, she is strong enough to convert those it was wary of approaching. Most will die, yes, but those that survive will be hers and feed on those that did not. When she returns, her army will have begun.

Finally, the Creeper and Warden emerge from the caves and into the open air. Beneath the Warden's feet is something soft. Grass? Her teeth bare in disgust.