POV: Steve
"Looks like the plan has failed."
"Yeah, I still feel the presence of the Shadow Lord, even though he's weakened."
We both let out a sigh, even though we expected the Shadow Lord to be much more troublesome to deal with.
From what we know, he's the one who called for the Void to invade the Nether.
And since the connection between the Nether and the Overworld is so close, I'm sure he got reworded by the Void for such an accomplishment.
Otherwise, I don't think he could've escaped the spawner so soon or have an attack powerful enough to destroy Obsidian.
Still, this endeavor wasn't wasted, as the Shadow Lord must be in a weakened state right now, no matter how powerful he is.
"Do you think we'll have a problem when we use our powers to find the original body?"
Alex asked me while looking bored at the walls of the room filed with schematics.
"I don't think so, since the 'Death Arrow' should be enough to deal with all of them. Instead, I'm more worried about the Void stepping in. We will weaken the barriers of this world when we use our powers after all."
While I was reluctant at first to leave Daniel's side, I had to say that it was a wise decision.
Alex and I are meant to be one.
Sure we have our own ideas and personalities, but when we are together, we feel that we are complete and can unlock a power unknown to this world.
Alex is the creative type, she can innovate things that were previously thought impossible, while I'm the logical type, that would make her ideas come true.
That's why she's so good with enchantments since it takes a certain knack of creativity, and I'm good in redstone since it's a direct science.
We are humans, but we're also a part of the old System.
We are the System in human form.
"Are you still looking at Daniels's plans?"
Alex asked me with an innocent voice.
"Yes, I still think he plans something that would benefit him in the end. I just want to make sure, it wouldn't be at the cost of our existence."
Our ability allows us to monitor the dimension we are in, but since space is so vast and our minds are so limited, we decided to only concentrate on our planet.
And since we could see everyone on this planet, we didn't stop only at the Monster Lords, but important people as well.
"So you don't supervise him because you miss him?"
I decided to stay silent since we already had this argument dozens of times.
Instead, I decided to turn the wheel towards her.
"Do you have any progress on Trader's whereabouts?"
She let out a tired sigh and I could understand why.
That man was the key to all of this, or at least that is what we think the previous System planned, and I could understand why.
He's too involved in everything that left a lasting impact on multiple dimensions, and all in the span of 3 years.
We have a vague idea that he's being followed by an evolved Endeman which was a shock to us, and he has connections to the minor God in the Nether.
But no matter how much we looked after him, there was no trace!
Sure, the Netherite armor would hide him from our scanners, but nobody had seen him in the whole world in the past few weeks.
If we can't see him with our scanners, then other people must be interacting with him at least, and we can pick up from there.
But still no sign.
"I found his base and the hidden one after talking with Merry, but it doesn't seem to be used in a while. And get this, he somehow doesn't have chests on the lower floors, which makes me believe that he has some enchantments that could hide them from our scanners."
Indeed, that could be a possibility, but I can't see the reason why he would do that.
He's the one who started this whole mess, and he's not the type to run and hide while everyone is in danger.
Which is more worrying since that means he was kidnapped and can't get back.
From what Alexa told us, he's not in the Nether either, and it's hard to keep that man in one place since he has backup plans in case this happens.
So something more powerful than he anticipated is holding him now, or so I hope.
"I think we should give up on looking and concentrate on the plan for the System location. We want to have a lot of traps and walls since all monsters in the world would get attracted to our power. And with how much of a commotion we'll make, I'm sure Trader would get the signal as well."
"Sure, I'll get to it and send the ideas to you. Try not to bankrupt the Royal treasury."
She's saying that like I'm not the reason we can afford her plans to begin with.
Sure she's the designer, but I'm the engineer who has to cry himself to sleep because of her crazy ideas. But they have the highest chance of working, so I could only do my job in silence.
"I'll see what I can do. Tell Merry to come back. We'll have to prepare for the next meeting soon. I don't want you all to arrive sleep-deprived like last time."
She only laughed nervously at my stern warning.
"Camon, we weren't that bad."
"Your group is the reason the meeting lasted so long! I don't know why Aisha was so adamant about small details against stabbing in the back! I know she has good intentions, but the stakes are too high for any of us to pull something like this. I could see this in Daniel's character, but he got burned enough times not to mess with the people in this world or Trader."
While I appreciated Daniels's genius, I don't think the old System made a good decision by picking him up. At this point, I think that the selection was made random, rather than looking at his skills.
But he was here and got an important position, whether we like it or not, so it's better to have him on our side then not.
"I sent her the text, she said she'll be back in an hour after searching the abounded temple."
"Is she hoping to find the Shadow Lord?"
"Most likely, but it's pointless since he clearly ran away and we can't see him in the Shadow form."
"Well, as long as she'll be back soon, I don't see a problem with a little more exploring."
With those final words said, we both went back to work.
After all, everyone was counting on us, and we didn't want to disappoint them.
----
A few days passed, and we were now back at the meeting place, all ready for the final touches.
Looks like everyone learned from their last meeting and got some rest and comfortable clothes since we would be staying here for a while.
"Welcome back everyone! I'm glad to see that everyone is ready for today. Now we shall start the meeting."
Bobby begun the meeting again, but at the end looked at the Mad Prince longer than usual before sitting down, which made me think that they got into a fight.
This wasn't a good start, so I decided to speak next so the awkward moment won't settle.
"Hello everyone, as you saw on the Chat, we figured out the locations of the spawners and even destroyed one. Unfortunately, it wasn't a full success, since the Shadow Lord managed to escape at the last moment and now is hidden in the shadows away from our eyes."
People began to whisper when suddenly Daniel spoke out loud.
"Seriously Merry? The guy couldn't move from his place and you still missed him? Do we need to use my Death Arrow again?"
I knew that Daniel didn't care that the Shadow Lord, even though he was the one most likely to be killed by him.
He just wanted to get a hit at Merry's pride since she was more popular than him.
His ego grew a bit since he got some power.
"Oh shut up Daniel, this was supposed to be your Monster Lord to begin with, so don't put the blame on me."
Daniel just smirked in response.
Not wanting this to escalate anymore I decided to intervene once again.
"As for the other spawners, it's a little more complicated since their located in the heart of the Monster Lords. This gives them great regeneration, almost unlimited energy, and can to spawn other monsters. But at the cost of having only one life. So if we killed them once, it would be enough."
There were some mixed reactions in the room, but most of them were relieved that we had the information in the first place.
"I'm glad to see that we have some progress. Since the Phantom Lady is in the Nether, we would be the ones to deal with her. If you have any information about that monster, please don't hesitate to share."
The Mad Prince finally spoke, which was a rare sight, since nobody could read his expression with the helmet on.
Nobody said anything, but Merry looked at Daniel with a raised eyebrow, like he was supposed to know something.
In the end, he let out a sigh.
"I don't know too much about her, but there's a mob called Phantom that is supposed to attack anyone who didn't sleep for 3 days. They're not that strong, only annoying since they disappeared when the sun is up again."
"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind when we'll plan the attack."
The conversation was short, so we moved on to the last assignment for today before going into the pointless details.
I gave everyone a few papers that showed the schematics of the defense maze Alex and I created, and everyone was quite impressed until they saw the materials required to do it.
"That's... a lot of obsidian right there. I don't think even our palace used so many. How do you plan on getting so much."
"The Nether is willing to donate a small part of this, but the rest we will have to trade for it."
Well it was a beginning, but not enough for what we wanted, which was unfortunate since those blocks were quite important.
"I guess we could mass produce obsidian with Traders ideas, but I'll have to talk with Daniel about the details since I don't think I can recreate it perfectly."
The 2 of them got closer and talked about cauldrons, pistons, lava and others.
Basically, we were going to make another obsidian factory similar to the one the Sand Palace had, but better and on a larger scale.
While they were busy with that, the rest of us talked about the rest of the materials.
Obsidian was essential for the maze, but so we're the traps and the equipment of the soldiers.
The Stone kindome would supply us with the diamond armor, the Sandstone Kindome would enchant them to their best ability, and the Coral Kingdom would be building the traps.
Of course, we would also prepare a golem army that would stay in the center of the maze toghater with us.
The meeting laster only a day this time, since we knew what to ask beforehand, and Aisha was more silent this time.
This was a huge project, that would take hundreds of workers and thousands of brilliant minds to pull this off.
We weren't preparing just for the Monster Lords, but the Void as well in case something unexpected happend.
The project would take roughly a month to be finished, and luckily we would should not be disturbed.
I only hoped that Trader would get back in the meantime, since he was quite an important pice of the puzzle.
But that was a problem for later.