(Y/N)'s POV
"She's here!" Soren says.

"Watch out for her potions!" I warn.

{I just basically failed at fighting the stupid thing. Why can I actually feel the pain in my chest?}

I approach it quickly, dodging its attacks from time to time. I slash it with my sword until it finally falls over and disappears.

I thought we would be safe after that, but that is until we are shot at by a skeleton—skeletons being led by a witch, to be exact. {That Clash of Clans reference though.} The horses run off in fright.

"Witches and skeletons?" Soren says. "That's a deadly combination!"

"The Farlands are only across this swamp!" I say.

"But they've already seen us," Maya says. "They'll just follow us!"

"The rest of you, go!" Ivor says. "I'll hold them off."

"What?" Soren asks. "Ivor, no!"

"There's no time to argue," Ivor says, a splash potion of harming in hand. "Just head for the corner of the glitch wall."

"The who-what-now?" I ask.

"Hey, you, witch," Ivor says, ignoring me, "you're not the only one who can throw a potion!" He heaves potions at the monsters and the rest of us take the chance to get away.

After a few minutes of running, I say, "Okay, I think we lost them." I pant for a couple seconds, then gasp at what I see in front of me—the "glitch wall", I presume. "Wow," is all I can manage to say.

"'Wow' is right," Aiden says, walking up beside me.

It's just— I can't even begin to describe it. {That, my fair readers, is the author's way of saying she doesn't know how to describe it, so she's not going to ;-) }

"It's like we're at the edge of the world," Maya says.

"Actually, we seem to be at the corner of it," Soren corrects. "Welcome to the Farlands, my friends."

We walk towards the entrance.

"I'd feel a lot better about going here if I wasn't still hungry," Maya says. {Dang it, Maya, you're making me hungry, too!}

"Well, at least we have potatoes," Faith says.

"That might be the saddest sentence ever uttered," Maya groans. Fish gives a meow in agreement.

"It's quite a sight, isn't it?" Soren asks.

"Have you been here before?" I ask.

"Not here specifically," he says, "but I have been to the Farlands. The Order traveled far and wide during our heyday."

"I guess Ivor doesn't like visitors, huh?" Aiden says.

"He was always secretive," Soren says. "Both his weakness and his strength. Whatever Ivor's hiding in here will be extremely well-guarded."

We reach the entrance, which seems like a long, endless tunnel.

"This way, I presume," Soren says before entering.

"I wish everyone else was here with us," Maya says.

"Especially Gill, right?" I tease.

"(Y/N)!" Maya says. "I hate you!"

"You love me," I say.

"Just shut up!" she says.

I laugh. "Make me."

She swings her fist at me but stops halfway there, threatening me. I hide behind Aiden, which definitely backfires, because Maya says, "Run to your boyfriend! He'll protect you!"

It was my turn to threaten her.

"Okay, you two, quit it," Aiden says.

I childishly stick out my tongue.

*~*~*~*

We walk for what seems like hours until we finally reach new surroundings.

"Is that a maze?" Maya asks.

What's in front of us does, in fact, appear to be a maze.

"A massive one, from the looks of it," Soren says, and he's not wrong. "If Ivor used the Command Block to build this, it could hold unspeakable peril."

"I feel like going there would be a huge mistake," Faith says.

"Same," Maya says.

"Unfortunately," Soren says, "this seems to be the only way forward."

"There has to be another way," Maya says.

"I don't know. I think Soren's right," I say. "Besides, it might be fun."

"Here we go," Maya says. "Into another dungeon of doom."

We enter the maze, and I'm honestly pretty excited, yet curious as to what's in here. We walk through twisty passageways, occasionally stumbling upon a dead end. At one point, we come across falling stones—which just keep falling and falling, like a. . . .

"A stone waterfall?" Aiden says.

"A stonefall," I say.

He chuckles. "Wow. That's the craziest thing I've ever seen."

"The Farlands may be perilous, but they are indisputably fascinating," Soren says matter-of-factly.

I sigh. "We should probably keep moving," I say, despite my aching legs. I continue walking until I come to what seems like a way out. I turn around to tell the others, but find instead that we have some company—unwanted company, at that.

"Zombies," I groan.

"There's too many!" Maya says. "We can't fight them all!"

"Everyone, back!" Soren says.

The zombies walk towards me in their slow zombie-pace. I back away from them, into a wall. Then, I spot vines on the wall.

"Climb the vines!" I tell the others. Oh gosh. Time to put my small amount of upper-body strength to use. And also forget about my fear of heights.

Reminding myself to forget about it is really only making me remember more.

I finally make it to the top—with a lot of struggle—but find that I am totally separated from my friends.

"Well, that worked, I guess," Soren says.

"At least we're away from the zombies," Maya says.

"But now we're all split up!" Aiden says.

I find a small building in the distance. "We'll just head for there," I tell them, gesturing towards the building. "Maybe we can find a place where the paths connect."

"Are you going to be okay, (Y/N)?" Aiden asks. "It's pretty high up."

I glance down, which I immediately regret. My heartbeat speeds up. "Aiden, did you have to say that?"

"Sorry," he says.

I take a deep breath. "I'll be fine. Just start moving."

They follow my orders and I do too. I somehow manage to walk through—avoiding dead ends, and also avoiding looking down—but have to stop when a cave spider gets in my way. {I actually managed to go through without hitting a dead end once I'm so boss.} It jumps on top of me, but I manage to push it off. I pull out my sword and hit it off the edge. I find that to be a mistake, because my sword breaks.

"No!" I cry. The sword Aiden let me make, when we were in the glade. A sign he trusts me. I know it sounds obsessive, but it's special to me because of that. It's like it was his gift to me. And now it's gone.

I press the broken sword against my lips, trying not to cry. Dang it, I'm too sensitive. After a few breaths, I put the sword back into my inventory. Well, at least I'm not completely unprotected. I still have my bow and arrows.

{Okay I broke my good maze navigating streak. I'm totally lost now xD}

I keep walking. Finally, I spot someone—Maya and Fish—on the ground walking through the maze. I call down to her, but stop dead in my tracks when a witch appears in front of me. She cackles and narrows her deep violet eyes. I pull out my bow and arrows, ready to strike, as she pulls out her potions. I hit her with three arrows—simultaneously dodging her attacks—and she eventually falls off the ledge.

I start walking again. Thankfully there are no more monsters, as I have no more weapons. After a long while of twists and turns and dead ends, I come to a spot where I can climb down to ground level. On said ground level, there is some sort of machine consisting of slime blocks, pistons, redstone, and stone.

I go over to examine it, but someone interrupts me.

"Hello?" they call. "Anyone?"

"Maya!" I say as she turns a corner into the area where I stand. Fish comes running in after her.

"(Y/N)!" She runs up to me. "There you are!"

"See any of the others?" I ask.

"No, I haven't," she says disappointedly. "This stupid maze! We don't have time for this!" She starts walking to the edge of the small island we're on and I follow her. "Who knows where the others are by now? I mean, we're running out of time."

"Well, at least we're back together," I say.

"Yeah, the Ocelot girls, reunited!" she says.

I laugh.

"Now the Ocelot girls have got to find a way across this gaping bottomless pit," she says.

"You know, I've never like the words 'bottomless pit'," I say. I sigh, then remember the machine. "What about that?" I ask. "Could that help?"

"It's some kind of flying barge," she says, checking it out. "It would probably get us to the other side, but it's in really bad shape. And it's really complicated."

"You can fix it though, right?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says. "I think it's out of my league."

Maya has always been a redstone nerd, but she hates it when you say so. And honestly, I really don't think this is out of her league. I've known Maya for a really long time, and she's done things that look way more advanced than this.

"Come on, Maya. I believe in you," I say. "And, if you need any help, I'll be right here."

"You know," she says, "having help from you when it comes to redstone isn't exactly reassuring."

"Point taken," I say, "but you can tell me what to do."

"I guess," she says. "I'll take a look at it."

She walks around it, looking super focused. "This layout doesn't even make any sense. What was Ivor thinking?" She looks at it for a few more seconds, then sits on the ground with her back to the machine. "Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I just don't have what it takes."

"Maya," I say, kneeling next to her. "That's not true. At all. If you can manage to make a rainbow beacon, you should be able to do this."

"A rainbow beacon is easy!" she says. "You don't understand, (Y/N)! You know nothing about redstone!"

I'm hurt, but I push that aside. I know that she's hurting more.

"That's not entirely true," I say. "I do know a little. And you know where I learned that from?"

She stays silent.

"I learned from you," I say. "And it's pretty ethereal that I learned anything. It's because you're so amazing at redstone."

She looks at me for a little while, then breaks out into a smile. "Okay, okay. I'll look at it again."

She goes back to surveying the machine. She paces back and forth, looking it up and down. "Wait a minute . . . I think I see what he was trying to do here!"

"Okay, take this piston." She hands me the piston. "Craft it into a sticky piston, then place it on the other side of the barge, along with a redstone block."

"That I can do," I say.

I walk over to a chest and root through it until I find enough redstone dust and a slimeball to follow Maya's instructions. I craft each item, then put them in the right place.

"Oh my gosh, we did it!" Maya says. "We actually did it!"

"I knew you could," I say.

"Thanks, (Y/N)," she says.

I hold my arms out, asking for a hug. She laughs and rolls her eyes before accepting the hug. {Aw. Bestie moment.}

We pull away from each other when we hear voices—voices that sound like our friends.

"It must be this way!" one of them—Faith, it sounds like—says.

"Run!" Soren yells as he and the others come into view—followed by a bunch of zombies.

"Oh, gosh," I say. "Get onto the barge!"

We race to the barge. I quickly light it then hop on myself.

"Too high, too high, too high," I say as we fly over the giant pit.

"I'm not too happy about this situation, either," Soren says.

When we finally reach the other side, I climb out of the barge as quickly as possible—while still being super cautious.

"So, this is it, huh?" Aiden says.

"Let's go see what this'll get us into," I say.

▂▃▄▅▆▇A/N▇▆▅▄▃▂

Let me just start with saying I am SO sorry for the huge wait. It's just that the past two weeks have been SUPER busy and I haven't had much free time. For starters, I had the whole throat (Wither, wink, wink) debacle the first week, and that took up a lot of my time. This past week was the week of my theater group's performance, so we had a ton of rehearsals and more preparation for that. I wanted to post yesterday, but because of the performances, yesterday was the day I had to get all my work done. I had a small amount of free time, but I kind of got distracted by Sporcle . . .
Oh! Speaking of! I made my own quiz on Sporcle! It's just called "Minecraft Blind Box Figures" . . . Basically, you just name the Minecraft blind box figures. Pretty much self explanatory. BUT, I am making a MCSM quiz. It's still a work in progress, but I think it'll turn out pretty cool! I'm trying to top this other awesome MCSM quiz someone else made . . . Which, by the way, lost a lot of its awesomeness when it asked who the "villain" of episode five was -_-
I also apologize for the millions of mid-chapter author's notes? I don't know why there are so many? I also don't know why I'm typing all of these sentences as questions?
And we're celebrating one hundred votes!!! Woohoo! I'll refrain from being emotional . . .
This is getting really long, so . . .
Word count: 2,358
Oh, and, I'm trying to spread around a hashtag for Aiden, so everyone go put #SPREADLOVEFORAIDEN in your bio and just . . . everywhere xD I don't know. Just spread it around somehow. We need to overtake the Aiden haters.