Sigh I wanted to go to bed earlier but I refused to make this a late update so rip my sanity.

Prolly mitsakes. Idk tbh I think I did good.

K bye.

• • •

~ Lily ~

Harold seemed to enjoy flowers.

In the room in which the ladder went up into, I was greeted by at least ten flower pots. It was a circular oak wood room, with tables of potted plants from poppies to alliums around the circumference. There was a redstone lamp above me that Harold turned on with a flick of a lever.

"Don't be slow." He said from one of the three doorways. He turned around and started walking away.

I quickly got up and shut the wood trapdoor. Then, I followed after him onto a bridge outside.

"Where are we going?"

"You're going to need a room to stay in, aren't you?" He said without looking back.

"You're going to help me?" I ducked under a branch.

"Obviously you need it."

Okay. Wow. What is it with old people and roasting?

We walked into another room. This time, it was a square kitchen. There was a fridge, a few furnaces, a crafting table, and a table on the other side. There were two ways to exit the kitchen; we went through the other one.

As we walked down a bridge inside the tree, I asked, "How many rooms do you have?"

"Several."

"Can you be a little more specific?"

"We can do a tour later. Right now, we need to discuss why you're here."

"I need in—"

"Ah ah!" He stopped me. "Save it for when we get into the library."

"Library? Oh..."

We walked into a tall room shaped like a cylinder. Bookshelves were the walls, and in the middle was a couch and a chair with a table in between.  The roof was a single layer of leaves, so a little sunlight got into the room. Naturally, there was a flower pot on each side of the door with a poppy in each.

"You can look, but you can't touch." Harold gestured to the chair, making himself comfy on the couch.

I sat down on the chair. "What now?"

"Now, you tell me what happened ever since you spawned in."

I didn't speak for a few seconds.

"Oh come on, do you really not trust me?" He snapped. "You came here, you expect me to help you, and you aren't going to tell me anything?"

I realized he was right. I did go to him. So, I explained everything. The parts about Jess (which were basically everything) were difficult to describe in detail, but he was catching along to everything quite easily.

"So you ran away." Harold finished for me. After I nodded, he said, "What imbecile would look for someone they aren't even sure is real?"

At that point I was ready to snap back at him, but I held my tongue.

He huffed. "But that was gutsy. That's a good characteristic if you're smart enough to know when you should have the guts. You got lucky. I've been hiding in here for decades. A few people come by, but they never see me and spread rumors that I am either dead or don't exist. Which I'm fine with. Less people to bother me."

"So you became reclusive because you don't like people bothering you?"

"Exactly." He nodded. "Good thing you're not slow. I can't tell you how much unintelligent people bother me. When I lived in a village, people would always come to me with idiotic questions. 'Harold, how many sticks do you need for a sword?' 'Harold, why isn't my piston working?' 'Harold, why is it that you can make an infinite water source, but not an infinite lava source?'" He paused. "That last question actually was a good one, I just got upset because I didn't know the answer. Anyway, I felt sick of everyone and left. Made this tree, and have lived here for... How long is it? I can't even remember."

"It's a really cool tree." I looked around.

"Thank you." He then tilted his head, and stared at me.

I was getting a bit weirded out. "What? What is it?"

"Your age is 15."

"How do you—"

"You don't look like a fighter. Maybe a healer? Probably not a builder."

"What are you talking about?" I said it quickly in case he wanted to interrupt me again.

As I thought, he answered immediately after I finished. "Your class. Fighters, archers, builders, healers, parkourists, griefers, miners, redstoners. Those are how a lot of people describe each other. It isn't anything official, nothing that would show up on a resume."

"And you can guess what I'm like by my appearance?" I considered that shallow.

"Are you violent?" Harold raised an eyebrow.

I said nothing, which made him cackle. "I knew it."

"Okay fine." I crossed my arms. "Which class are you?"

"Eh, I don't like to label myself."

I sighed. "So do you know about spawns?"

He gestured to all the books. "What do you think?"

"Are they all on spawns?"

"Only a few. However, they answer questions that you may have. Why the spawns died out, why they were even made in the first place, and some biographies of famous ones. I recommend the Marissa Manison one. Famous motivational speaker in the 70's. She overcame a deathly sickness, and saved her town from being destroyed."

"Sounds cliche." I glanced at the books, trying to read the titles from there.

Harold snorted. "So is you being the first spawn to happen in a decade, after everyone thought they died out. Next, you're going to have to go on some heroic quest to stop a supervillain from destroying the world."

"I hope not." I shook my head. "I'm not very heroic."

"That's what they said, too." He pointed to a section of books on the shelves. "Action and adventure books. That's what they say before they're thrusted into a situation where they have to save people. But..." Harold stood up. "For now, you'll be a normal person. I will give you some alone time to start your research."

"You're trusting me enough to leave me alone?" I was surprised. I expected him to stick around to make sure I put the books back correctly and didn't touch his flowers.

"As demonstrated before, I am good at reading people. You aren't going to do anything bad. Plus, I need to water my plants."

"Thank you." I smiled at him as he left.

He walked away without smiling back. "Just put my books back correctly, and don't touch my flowers."

•    •    •

~ Amber ~

"So where's your family's town?" Sky asked.

I trudged up the hill. "We aren't going to see my family."

"What?" He stopped me by putting an arm out. "But you told Cameron we would."

Sighing, I put his arm down and kept moving. "My dad and brothers aren't going to let me out of their sight in a big city like Marstamian, let alone leave me alone with a guy that isn't Zach."

"Who's Zach?"

I frowned at him. "My... oh, I haven't told you yet? Zach's my boyfriend."

For a split second, I saw hurt on his face. However, he turned away. "Oh. I did not know that."

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner... It just slipped my mind."

"It's okay." He muttered.

I was confused about why he was so upset. Maybe he thought that was an important detail about my life that he should've known about immediately. It is important, I just didn't think it was necessary to tell him.

"So you aren't going to go see your boyfriend, or your family?" He asked after a few minutes.

I inhaled. "I don't know. I do want to see him; I do miss him... them. But they would want to come along, and I don't think I want them to know what I plan on doing." To be honest, I didn't even know what I planned on doing.

"Ah. I see." He stared at the horizon.

I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I didn't want to make his mood worse. Instead, I changed the conversation. "So Marstamian is in a taiga biome, which will probably take only a day or two to get to. Two tops."

"Why taiga?" He asked.

I shrugged. "They have a lot of heat so no one is freezing cold, and the water doesn't turn to ice, so it's a pretty hospitable place."

"Well it's good that people don't turn to icicles. The bad thing is that a lot of people will be wearing coats. Black coats."

"We will find him."

Truth be told, I was worried I was leading us blindly off a cliff. I didn't have a plan at all. I was just grasping for some closure, and chose revenge and a cool city. Literally. Cool. Haha.

"Two days, huh? Are we going to have to make shelter for the night?"

"We should just sleep when we can't continue on— day or night. I don't want to waste any time, and we can fight the mobs off."

"Famous last words." He mumbled.

•    •    •

They were almost my famous last words.

When the sunset happened, mobs spawned in immediately. Sky and I didn't go to sleep, so we charged on into the night.

Despite all the mobs, it was actually quite easy.

Until I decided to be stupid.

We were running side by side in a sort of valley between two steep mountainsides. The path we were taking was getting steep, but I was pretty sure it would open up at the end into a Savannah biome.

"Just a little further!" I called out.

"Not su— AH!"

His knees buckled as an arrow sank into his right calf.

I turned to the right and saw two skeleton shooting at us from a cave entrance in the mountain.

For a split second, I debated between protecting Sky or killing the skeletons. However, as I turned my sword to block an arrow, I realized they were a big threat. Keeping myself in front of Sky, I made my way toward the skeletons. I went to one of the skeletons and sliced off it's arm that held the bow. I turned to the other one just in time to block another arrow. I kicked the bow out of it's hand and used the momentum to sliced it's head off. I whipped around and lodged my sword into the remaining skeleton's ribcage. I pulled my blade upward and the mob fell apart.

"Sky!" I ran back to him. "Are you okay?"

He pulled the arrow out of his leg, and winced. "Yeah. Yeah. I'll be okay. We gotta get somewhere safe."

"We can built a shelter in the Savannah. Right now, we need to get out of here." I pulled him up. He tried to walk a step, but he would've collapsed again if I hadn't grabbed his arm. I wrapped it around my shoulder (for support, you shippers), and was about to continue on, but I felt a shove from behind me.

From the nauseous feeling I got when I fell to the floor, I knew it was an Enderman. Instinctively, I turned and threw my sword. It stuck into the Enderman's stomach, and the mob let out a loud scream. He teleported away. Now I was weaponless.

"Son of a creeper." After I stopped feeling dizzy, I stumbled to Sky again, who managed to get up on his own. We started to move, and I searched my inventory for a weapon. All I could find was an iron axe. I pulled it out and gripped the wooden shaft with my right hand.

"Almost there." I grunted. We were so close to the top of the hill. An arrow whizzed by me, but we didn't have enough time to turn around and battle the mobs. At the top, I could be able to get the high ground and defend the hill while Sky made a house. However, when we reached the peak, I almost fell off the cliff.

I steadied myself and Sky as I looked down fifty blocks into a deep, raging river about twenty blocks wide. The Savannah biome was past that, so I was partially right. However, I did not get my Y coordinate right.

"What now?" Sky looked around.

I turned back and blocked another arrow. There were two skeletons, a zombie, and two creepers about to come and get us. Behind that wave were a few more mobs. I could've possibly tried to fight if Sky made a shelter, but we had nowhere to build.

"Sky." An arrow barely missed his face as he looked at me. "We're going to have to jump."

"Are you nuts?" He looked back down at the river.

"The water is at least five blocks deep, we should be able to survive."

"Should? Can't you fight off the mobs?"

"I can't fight them all and protect you."

He glanced at the mobs, me, and down below. Finally, he nodded.

"On three. One. Two. Th—" Just as we were about to jump, a spider came from the side and jumped on my face. I barely grabbed it's legs before it could bite my face off. But it made me lose my balance and knock into Sky at the same time. The three of us toppled off the edge.

In mid air, I felt the cold air press against my back as I fell. I was so in shock of what just happened, the spider managed to sink it's fangs into my shoulder. I cried out, and finally risked letting go of it's leg. I stabbed it in the chest, and the spider hissed and flew back away from me.

I didn't know whether I killed the mob or not, because I felt the water hit me like stone, and everything turned black and fuzzy.

• • •

K thanks to the radish (no tag because you were rude to me earlier) for suggesting I make the last part a suspenseful action scene instead of like regular boring action. Idk if that makes sense now but it made sense at the time, okay?

Alright so Harold is cooperating. Will he and Lily be able to bond? Will Lily find out what she needed to know?
And Amber and Sky set off on their journey. Why was Sky so butthurt about Amber having a boyfriend? But did they die?

Sigh Imma go slep.

Rock on, my little rebels.