Joshua and Jophiel freeze, both staring wide eyed at the message.
[ Something is approaching ]
It's a simple, yet ominous warning.
One that needs no expnation.
Joshua hears footsteps.
“pony”
“It fucking followed me?!”
His mind catches up, and he throws himself off the chair. Jophiel is flung off but she's wide awake now, scrambling up just as frantically as he is.
Going to the corner of the office, he hastily climbs down the dder into the hole he dug earlier.
Standing just at the dder, he looks up with impatience as Jophiel hesitates, looking down at him from the top.
“Jophiel, come on!” He whisper-shouts.
She takes a half step forward, hooves near the edge of the hole, before freezing and anxiously shaking her head.
Trying again, she only lifts one hoof up before ultimately backing away.
“Jophiel come on!”
It's difficult to see her in the angle he's in, but he can tell she's failing to jump in, despite the increasingly advancing threat coming towards them.
Joshua looks down, his cross is glowing brighter and vibrating harder with each passing second.
“Are you fucking serious?!” He immediately regrets saying that, as her ears fall back and a sad look appears on her face.
“Just… just jump, I'll catch you”
She still hesitates, but after hearing something outside, she jumps a few times to hype herself up and leaps down into Joshua's waiting arms.
He grunts at her weight and sets her down quickly.
Willing his aura, he breaks the top part of the dder with an axe before sealing it with cobblestone, sealing the two of them inside.
He hears something opening the office door.
Pulling out his sword, he waits, trying to stay as quiet as possible for the second time today.
That's all he can do right now.
So, he just listens to the shuffling above him, the barely audible and unidentifiable sounds he can't even bother to figure out.
Joshua does what he does best.
He waits.
…
[wat?]
[What is that?!]
[Is he getting robbed?]
[HOLY SHIT]
[JOEYYY]
[IonoZone: What??? Wat happen?!]
The chat starts panicking. The ones who watched the previous encounter are freaking out as they have a better idea of what's happening, while those who just joined in are scratching their heads.
Iono is one of the panicking ones.
Through the speakers of her phone, she can hear something utterly destroying the office.
Walls breaking, furniture being torn apart, but what's most eerie about it is the fact that whatever is doing it is completely silent.
Dogs snarl, beasts growl, grunts, something.
But there is nothing.
Not a grunt, not a snarl, or even a whisper.
Just the occasional, bone chilling “Pony”.
Is it trying to copy Jophiel?
Why?
A few of the viewers even called the police, but they could do nothing as nobody had any real idea where Joshua and Jophiel were.
Overall, it was a very stressful situation for all parties involved.
Maybe she should talk to the other gym leaders about this?
…
Joshua is really gd he spent the time making a bunker, giving genuine thanks to Ace as the ‘entity’ above doesn't sound like it's getting closer anymore.
Wrecking the office, sure. But he doesn't give two shits about the office, it can do all it wants up there as long as it leaves him alone.
The bunker is rather pin. Just a cobblestone box with a furnace, double chest, crafting table, and his bed.
He was thinking of adding another yer of stone outside, but he admittedly didn't think it mattered all that much.
After tonight though, he's tripling the amount of stone, just to satisfy his paranoia.
Jophiel is… fine, all things considered.
Freaked out and shaking slightly, but not paralyzed like st time. Good for her.
He feels… safer, not fully, but safer.
Safe enough to not stay still, so after a minute he starts to move, doing general tasks like cooking some mutton he's been meaning to do.
Luckily the furnaces are the same as in game, not making smoke and he just has to move stuff into a screen that appears when he interacts with it.
Chests are the same, which makes him think there's some odd bag-of-holding thing going on, but honestly his inventory is definitely more useful than a bag-of-holding.
Jophiel looks annoyed, not at him, but at something else. She has the shovel floating beside her again.
Joshua makes a note to ask her about that… and to apologize for his earlier outburst.
He wonders what the thing upstairs is, but he's more interested in what happened before that.
The Dove With Seven Names…
What does that mean?
Is that another entity?
Is that… him?
Speaking a verse supposedly “increased my understanding” on it, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.
And what was with that cross? The one he carved.
So many questions…
“...”
It's been an hour, and the two decide to head to bed.
The thing stopped making noise a while ago, so it's most likely gone, but neither of them are too keen on the idea of checking right now.
So he keeps the bunker sealed and gets into bed. Jophiel joins him, ying beside him and resting her head on his chest in a tired huff of her snout.
“Hey… uh… Jophiel?”
“Pony…”
“I'm sorry about what I, uh… said, earlier. That wasn't fair of me”
“Pony”
“You still upset?”
She mulls to herself for a moment before looking away.
“Pony…”
She is upset, but not at him.
“I wouldn't beat myself up over that…”
“Pony!”
She is frustrated at herself, for doing nothing but freezing and panicking when they were in danger. Instead of helping, she's made the situation harder, and she's not happy about it.
“Joey, I don't bme you for freaking out. I can't imagine how that must seem to someone who's not as desensitized to ‘scary’ stuff like me. Only reason I was able to move was because of that. So don't be that harsh on yourself”
To be fair, with his ‘experience’ (horror movies), he was still close to losing it.
“Pony…” She sighs in resignation, with obvious frustration on her face.
Joshua doesn't know what to say, so he just strokes her mane.
“Hey, I've got an idea”
Let's try changing the topic.
“I want to find some iron tomorrow, wanna enter the iron age, girl?”
Jophiel looks at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Pony”
She nods.
“I love technological developments”
