"Oh my gods," I whispered, staring in shock at what used to be a beautiful, green land. Had Sparklez done this, with the radioactive chemicals? The priest had said that he hadn't known if the chemicals would have an impact on the land physically, but he hadn't sounded very worried. Is it possible that the chemicals in Sonja's house could have caused destruction all the way to here?

Terrified, I tapped some of the decayed land with the tip of my shoe. Bits of it crumbled at my touch, but most of it was as hard as rock. Hoping that nothing bad would happen to me if I walked on it, I continued down what used to be a beautiful path. One thing I noticed was that the lake appeared to be gone. Curious, I headed down toward it, wondering if an immense body of water like that could really just have disappeared overnight.

Sure enough, when I approached it, I found that the entire thing had dried up. There was only a gorge where the lake used to be. Even the moist soil that had previously surrounded it was completely dried up. Was this entire world going to die, because of a prank Sparklez had pulled? Suddenly angry, I stormed off in the direction of the Fortress. I flew up to his entrance, and entered his basement.

He emerged from his bedroom, looking like he'd just woken up. "Oh, hey Mot. What's wrong?"

I didn't know how to explain it. "Just... just come up with me. You need to see something."

"Can it wait?" he asked, yawning.

"No. This is urgent. I think you'll wake up a bit when you see how your radioactive chemicals affected the area." I snapped, crossing my arms.

His blue eyes flew wide. "What? My chemicals did... huh?" Sparklez immediately jumped into the elevator with me, and we headed upstairs.

"Just take a nice look around, will you?" I asked, crossing my arms. He climbed onto the remains of his mountain, and gaped at the decayed land.

"How much is like this?" he asked quietly after a minute, his hands shaking.

"I flew over here from the priest's house, and everything I could see in all directions is like this," I responded grimly. "All bodies of water are completely dried up, and the plant life that used to be around here is dead and gone."

"I... I did this?" His voice was high-pitched with terror, and he began to run his fingers through his messy black hair. "What are we going to do?"

I felt Dianite flying up next to us. "Did Sparklez do this?" I asked immediately, turning to face the god.

I could feel him shaking his head. "No. The radioactive chemicals, it turns out, don't damage the land. The only thing they do is kill a player if they decay."

Sparklez relaxed immediately, the fear slowly draining from his face. "What did it, then?"

Dianite became tense all of a sudden. "The quintessence was drained from the land."

Nobody spoke for a second, stunned. "The... the quintessence?" Sparklez's hands flew over his mouth. "The thing that killed Ianite killed the land too?"

"That's right." Dianite sounded incredibly sad. "And one more thing, you two."

"What is it?" I wasn't sure how much more bad news I could take.

"We're convinced that we can overpower the being that's harvesting the quintessence. We're going to try to revive Ianite." I could feel him looking at both of us cautiously.

"But..." I began, but was interrupted.

"No complaining. We have to try. There's no guarantee, Sparklez, but it's worth a shot. It won't be another Capsize, because if we can't get all of her quintessence back, she just won't appear at all. It's either all or nothing."

"Okay," Sparklez said quietly. "So what should I do now?"

"We should go speak to Mianite," Dianite sighed. "He knows more about this than I do."

The three of us flew up what used to be a mountain, only to find that it was an active volcano. Mianite was under an umbrella at the top, wearing blue sunglasses and sipping a drink. He rolled his eyes when he saw us and set the drink down, folding his arms when we went to take a seat next to him.

"Oh, come on. This was supposed to be a vacation for me! I needed to... how do you kids say it? I needed to 'chill'. That's right." He took another sip from his drink, which seemed to be lemonade.

"Well," Sparklez said nervously, "I don't think the best place to chill is on top of a volcano. Shouldn't we go somewhere else to talk?"

Mianite shrugged lazily. "I'm staying up here, and you're the ones who want to talk, so it looks like we're staying here."

"Let's just get to the point," I cut in. "Can you explain how the quintessence was drained from the land?"

"I don't know the initial force that caused it," Mianite said, stirring the lemonade with the little umbrella inside it. "Gaines is trying to figure it out, but so far it's impossible to know. It appears to be taking the 'Horcruxes' and draining the quintessence out of them, making it much more difficult to revive the gods."

"But are we still going to be able to revive them?" Sparklez asked. Both of us sat straighter in our seats, staring in horror at Mianite.

"Dianite, most likely," the god said. He had finished his lemonade, so he turned and chucked it into the volcano. "We have plenty of his items, since he's here to tell us which still contain his quintessence. Ianite, on the other hand, not only needs more quintessence to revive her, but has less items containing quintessence. That's why we might have to take drastic measures to revive her."

Sparklez's hands were trembling. "What kind of drastic measures?"

Mianite sighed and leaned back in his chair. "We'll have to sacrifice the Ianita's."

The disappointment on his face was clear. "I thought it would come to this. But will..." Suddenly, an explosion sounded behind him. All three of us fell over, and scrambled to get away, as lava suddenly shot from the volcano and hurtled toward us.

"OH MY GODS!" I screamed as I fell over in an attempt to scramble away. Sparklez had knocked over the table, but had managed to fly away the second he regained his balance. I felt Dianite coming over and moving the rocks underneath me, carrying me to safety.

"There ya go, boyo," Dianite said as we landed. "I would've made that escape a little more comfortable for you than laying on a bed of rocks, but my powers are currently very limited."

I got to my feet, panting. "Thanks, Dianite."

Sparklez flew over to where we were standing. Mianite quickly joined us, and I folded my arms furiously when he went to speak. Sparklez did the same, and Dianite laughed softly at our responses.

"I can't enjoy my vacation when that thing is exploding left and right!" Mianite complained. "But, oh well. It's better than before. Hey, would you look at that!" He pointed to a group of enormous zombies behind us. "The apocalypse is starting again!"

"WHAT?" Sparklez yelled, outraged, as more and more mobs began to spawn.

"Have fun with that, you two," Mianite chuckled as he flew back to the volcano.

Why is my life such a mess?