Keep in mind that Cole's PoV was one day ahead of Lily's. So by this time, Lily has spent another day in the tree.

Probably mitsakes.

•    •    •

~ Cole ~

I stared up at the giant tree in front of me. It was very well made, and well sculpted. I didn't really understand why someone would take the time to build a giant tree, but from what I heard, Harold has had a lot of time to do something as big as that.

It was daylight, yet I still couldn't see inside of the treehouse's rooms. They were too high up, and the windows were fences.

I looked around at the roots. They were wooden logs that created arches and twists. There was definitely a good place to hide a secret lever somewhere in them.

I started walking around the base of the tree, examining any nook and cranny that I could find. However, a lever or button must have been very cleverly hidden because I couldn't find anything. I even broke some blocks (I placed them back).

Frowning, I stepped back and looked at the tree. I decided to think about this better.

If I were a man who didn't want to be associated with society, I wouldn't stop by towns for supplies. Which would mean I'd have all the food I'd need. However, I would run out eventually. So I'd have some kind of farm.

As I looked around, I crossed the farm idea out. There was no traces of a crop or animal farm anywhere. Underground farms are likely, but the food takes forever to grow. And with animals, the air is more difficult to breathe, so the meat could turn out bad. A large collection of pistons could open up a roofless farm in the ground, but there were flowers and grass everywhere. Pistons moving would mean the flora gets broken, and there isn't a clearing around big enough for a good farm. Unless he just had a two by two farm of chickens.

I chuckled at my overthinking. The basic idea was that Rapunzel didn't come down. He possibly had a farm on top of the tree; it was big enough.

I didn't know whether or not to call out. I could be just going on some wild chicken chase.

The best option was to build up.

I grabbed some cobblestone out of my inventory. I glanced back at Shoelace, who was just grazing around. It was amazing he wasn't fat.

Pillaring up took less than a minute, but I was still off by six blocks. I carefully made a cobble bridge over, and hopped onto the wooden one in the tree.

I stood straight up and looked at my options. To my left, the bridge went deeper into the tree. To the right was a room that jutted out.

I turned to the left and started walking. The ground was still wooden, but the walls and ceiling were leaves. Eventually, they turned into oak wood as well, and I entered a room. It was circular, with the outer edge of the ground one block up and the outer edge of the ceiling one block down to make it more spherical. There were no decorations, no furniture, no other tunnels except one to the left.

I started to head that way, when something made me stop in my tracks. Or, someone. A girl appeared in the tunnel entrance. She had light brown hair with blue tips in a braid, and deep blue eyes. She wore a long sleeve light blue dress, and sandals. Around her forehead was some sort of simple blue headpiece with a fake-looking gem on it. Pale, and small. Fragile looking (I mean the girl, not the gem). Her facial expression was a mixture of fright and shock.

"I'm not here to hurt you." I held my hands out in a calming way. "Are you Lily?"

I expected some sort of reaction like more surprise, or even an answer like "Yes" or "No, this is Patrick". However, all she did was stare at me with her mouth slightly open. Her eyes took a split second to glance to something behind me. But a split second was all I needed to know something was up.

Turning around, I had just enough time to see an old man swing a golden hoe at me before the metal hit me square in the face.

As I fell to the ground and started losing consciousness, the last thing I heard was a voice saying, "Was the hoe really necessary?"

•    •    •

I woke up from a really weird dream. There was a chicken with long blonde hair chasing me around with a golden hoe in their beak screaming, "Did you just assume my gender?!" Also Shoelace was on the sidelines tap dancing with an old man. Man, it was weird. Anyway.

I groggily lifted my head up, wincing at the pain. I tried to move my arms, but they were restrained. When my vision finally cleared up, I noticed that I was tied to a chair with multiple leads. My hands were tied behind the chair with one lead, and my legs were tied with another. The third was around my chest which strapped me to the chair.

(I really wanted to make a joke about this situation so I can make fun of one of my friends [they know who they are], but I decided against it so I can spare what dignity they have left)

(Although someone else [they might know who they are] may say the joke anyway)

I started to shift around and tug at the ropes, looking for a weak spot. But they were tied pretty tight. It was funny that either a fragile girl or old man did this. Then again, the old man knocked me out with a hoe.

"He's awake!" I heard a voice from behind me.

I tried to turn and see them, but I couldn't see directly behind me. Instead, I waited until the person moved into my vision. It was the girl. She kept her distance from me as she circled me, and eventually stopped right in front of me.

"I'm not supposed to interrogate you until Harold returns." She spoke. "But who are you? How did you find us?"

I hesitated. She stared at me with big eyes full of wonder and curiosity. Not fright, since I was the one tied up.

Which meant I had to cooperate. Somewhat.

"My name is Cole." I responded. "But I'm not going say anything more until Rapu- I mean, Harold gets here."

"I'm sorry about the hoe." She blurted out. "I really didn't think he was going to knock you out."

"Hey." I shook my head. "If a random guy entered my house unannounced, I'd probably do something drastic too. I guess I should've seen it coming."

"Yeah..." She muttered.

Harold walked into view. He positioned himself next to who I believed to be Lily. There, I got a good look at him. He had white hair surrounding a bald spot on his head, and bright blue eyes. He wore suspenders with brown trousers, and a long-sleeve white shirt.

He looked at me for a few seconds, and said, "Alright. Let's do this."

•    •    •

~ Sky ~

I stared up at the giant city in front of me.

Wait lmao I already did that introduction. Okay let's try this again.

The rest of the journey was pretty boring. Half of it was in silence, part was mob fighting, part was resting, and a small part was actually conversations. Amber had her nonexistent nose in that book for some of the time. Yet it seemed like it was taking forever for her to read it. She probably wanted to soak up every piece of information she could find.

At one point, she started to talk about conspiracy theories to me.

"There's so many in here!" She exclaimed. "I usually don't believe in conspiracy theories, but this guy really does his research. Every single one is backed up with really good evidence. I didn't know how corrupted the government really is!"

I decided not to argue with her.

When we made it to the forest biome, we took a break on a tree. At first I was thinking we could just jump on the treetops to get there faster, but Amber reminded me about my leg. It hurt whenever I took long steps, or bent it too much. So jumping was out of the question.

Then, we made it to the taiga biome. It got a little colder, which was a definite change from the Savannah. I just hoped that it wasn't going to snow. It was also going to be dark in a little while. We couldn't travel at night in cold temperatures.

Luckily, Amber's timing was correct. After a few hours of walking, I saw some towers and skyscrapers peeking over the trees.

"Hey." I stopped her and pointed to the buildings.

She grinned. "Let's go."

We walked forward with new energy. Eventually, we reached a clearing, and the city entrance.

It really was a breathtaking sight. The opening was a giant archway in front of a large polished andesite rectangular ground. On the andesite were four large fountains, and cobblestone paths to them. The main route to the andesite and diorite archway was make of redstone blocks. It was like a red carpet, but shinier. A stone brick wall blocked the city from the outside environment, but we were able to see quartz, stone, stone brick, and andesite skyscrapers beyond it. The wall was tall, but also had fancy designs.

"Trump it." I coughed.

"What?"

"Nothing. Shall we go in?"

Amber stared up at the skyscrapers. "Marstamian, here we come."

•    •    •

"You think the people here are called Marstamians? Or Marstamianians?"

"I think they're called people."

I shrugged. "I suppose so."

We were on the streets of the city. It was pretty crowded, but no one seemed to bother us. People of all different appearances were on their way to whatever they were doing with their lives. The streets were lit up with glowstone lamps hooked up to daylight sensors. The buildings were usually the same color combination: a type of gray or white. Yet the atmosphere was still bright and cheerful. They were quite tall, and it looked like a lot of them were repeated buildings owned by popular businesses.

"For a city that is known for it's redstone, there's not a lot around."

"That's because showing redstone is usually a big no no." Amber explained. "People like to conceal it otherwise the machine that it controls doesn't seem so magical anymore. Most redstone is underground, or hidden in the walls."

"I dunno, I think it would be cool to have glass floors to show off the expert designs."

"I didn't know you had the mind of a builder." Amber laughed.

I frowned. "I'm not... nevermind. What's our plan?"

Her joy faded as she took a look around. "Find a place to stay. Somewhere cheap. We can think about a more detailed plan there."

I almost winced at the poor planning. "Perhaps we can look around for Wanted posters along the way? It's a pretty desperate attempt, but it can still help."

"Or we can act like spies and break into the police station to find information."

"I hope you're joking." I chuckled. "We aren't going to do anything illegal, right?"

"Probably not." She smiled, staring ahead.

"Probably not?"

"Yes."

"Yes to the 'probably not' or yes to doing something illegal?"

"Yes."

I sighed.

•    •    •

I'm sorry that this chapter is a little shorter than usual, but I'm sure you guys can live. Or not. Up to you.

So what's gonna happen now that Cole and Lily met up?
Are Lily and Harold going to trust Cole?
Will Jess ever come back into the picture?
What is going on with that book?
Will Amber and Sky actually do anything illegal?
Will they even have a plan?

Rock on, my little rebels.