20 – Come on up in the sky, my children

The battle that ensued was chaotic, noisy and messy. While the two metallic constructs fought one another, Jacob ran around the village and tried to take all the people into his house. It was not the most secure by a long shot, but it was the only one big enough to host the fifty surviving elves.

After another group of women went safely inside, he rushed to fetch the last group, composed of the surviving hunters. They were observing the battle from behind a large tree, but they had stopped shooting their arrows a while ago, seeing how useless it was.

“Come, you’re last.” Jacob said.

One by one they followed, in silence. They were quite obedient now, their aggressive nature momentarily suppressed by fear. When they were halfway through the small clearing right in front of Jacob’s cabin, however, the loudest noise yet came from where the two giants were battling.

The iron golem, which weighted several tonnes, flew through the air like a ragdoll. It landed close to the running group, creating a small impact crater and sending mountains of dirt flying through the air. Amidst the falling dirt, the group resumed running with all their might. Jacob only stopped to look at the golem for a fleeting second before running straight for the door to his place.

“The iron golem is gone.” He said somberly.

“What do we do now?” Tyla, who was the figure all the others looked up to, asked.

“Plan B. We make a run for it.”

“A run for it? Are you insane?”

Jacob shook his head. “No, of course no. I don’t mean we run on the surface. Here.”

He led them towards his trapdoor, and down the ladder. At the bottom, his basement featured a long and narrow tunnel two blocks high and one wide.

“We go through this tunnel here.” He said.

One by one, they went in. Jacob and Tyla waited at the end, and entered the tunnel last. As he went in, Jacob shut the entrance with several meters of rock, sealing it from the inside. Then, he hurried the rest of the group along the tunnel.

“Come, hurry up. The air is not going to last long in here.”

To him, this was not a problem, because with his ability he could just keep breathing even if he was in a closed off space. But for the many elves here, staying too long would mean death.

They ran for several hundred meters, and ended up in a small underground room Jacob had dug just for the occasion. At a corner of the room, a flight of stairs took them back to the surface, in a small room made of compacted cobblestone without windows.

“What now?” one of the hunters asked, impatient.

“Now, we go up.” Jacob said, grinning.

He took out his pickaxe, and broke the roof of the room. Then, he jumped in the air and placed a block just below his feet. After a few times, he had to suppress a laugh.

“It works! Pillaring up works!”

The others just stared; mouth agape. Jacob kept going up, every now and then stopping to place ladders to one side of his one block pillar. When he was a good hundred meters in the air, he made a small platform all around the stairway. It floated, just as it would in Minecraft. Perfect.

“Come on!” he said, after having tested the ladder by going back down to the elves on the ground.

“You want us… to go up there? How is it even standing?”

He shrugged. “Magic.” And then he went up.

None of the elves made a move, however. They just stared at the tall and thin pillar of stone, standing tall in the middle of a jungle, with a wooden ladder on one side. Then, Lumia emerged from the crowd and gingerly touched the ladder.

She closed her eyes and exhaled, trying to calm herself. After what happened tonight, and last night, she now had complete faith in this strange human. One step after the other, she climbed up the pillar. The others, seeing this, awkwardly began to follow suit. Small and tentative steps at first, then with more and more confidence.

By the time everyone was up on the platform, it was as big as a town square and covered in torches. Jacob closed off the entrance with an iron trapdoor that could only be activated by pressing a button, placed too far for anyone without his ability to push. Then, he turned to face all the elves, and did a head count.

43 women, 12 men and 15 children.

“Today,” he began. “The woodland elves have officially colonized the skies. From now on, you will be Sky Elves!” He roared, and the crowd erupted in cheers and tears of relief. They hugged each other, and for a while all that was bad in the world was forgotten.