Jesse yawned as she walked into the living area of the tree-house, still feeling half asleep. It was so hard to get up on such a cloudy, cool day. There hadn't been any rain yet, but the promising clouds were continuing to pack together in the sky.

"Look who's finally up!" Olivia said from the dining table, glancing up from the book she was reading. Lukas was sitting opposite her, halfway through chewing a mouthful of cereal, so he just waved at Jesse.

"Against my will." Jesse responded with a sleepy chuckle as she slumped down in a chair as well. "In this weather? I almost just want to stay in bed and read a book."

"Yeah, it is looking quite gloomy outside." Olivia responded, grimacing as she as she peered out of the window.

"Gloomy? Hell no, 'relaxing' is more the word I'd use!" Jesse said, grinning. "I love it!"

"Sure is calming, that's for sure." Lukas agreed. "Pancake weather, I'd say. Maybe-"

"Did somebody say pancakes?!" Axel's voice suddenly bellowed from the hallway, cutting Lukas off.

He excitedly came barreling into the kitchen, a large grin on his face. Jesse, Lukas and Olivia all rolled their eyes, laughing. Petra chuckled as well as she came walking in after Axel, just shaking her head as she headed straight for the coffee machine.

"Your appetite never fails to amaze me, big guy!" She said over her shoulder.

"Ditto." Olivia responded, giggling.

Jesse frowned, looking around for Rascal, who was usually stuck to Petra's side. She didn't have to search for long, seeing him trudge into the kitchen. Ears drooped and step sluggish, he simply walked over to the table, lying down beside the chair that Petra usually sat on.

"Is everything okay with Rascal?" Jesse asked.

"I don't know." Petra admitted. "He hasn't quite been himself since yesterday. He didn't even eat yesterday night." She gestured to his food bowl, still full with the previous day's dinner.

"Think he might be sick?" Lukas asked, leaning down to give Rascal a pet on his head.

"I'm hoping not." Petra replied as she came walking back with a mug of coffee, taking her seat. "Everyone has an off day every now and then, hopefully he'll just be back to himself soon."

The cheerfulness in the atmosphere died down a tiny bit, everybody unable to help the bit of worry they felt for the young wolf.

"So what are the plans for today?" Axel asked, trying to change the subject. "Pancakes?"

"We're really just going on as if this command block incident never happened then?" Petra asked skeptically. "It's really bugging me."

"Me too, I can't get it out of the back of my mind." Olivia admitted. "But what can we do?"

"With no clues, there really isn't much I can think of." Jesse responded, scratching the back of her head. "We really just have to be ready. Who knows, maybe this person has a battle to fight that doesn't even concern us? We might as well just go on."

"Yeah, you're right." Lukas said with a sigh. "Pancakes it is then?"

Everybody laughed, while Axel excitedly nodded his head. Nobody noticed the wolf at Petra's feet tremble slightly, stiffly getting up and staggering away. Heads snapped in his direction as Rascal made an odd choking noise, laughter immediately dying down.

"The hell?" Petra asked, concern flooding across her face immediately.

Rascal's breaths were heaving slightly, his mouth open as he panted. He made another gag-like choking noise, seemingly trying to get something out of his throat.

"What's wrong with him?" Jesse asked with wide eyes.

"I mean, my ocelot once did that when he had a hairball-" Lukas began.

"Rascal isn't a freaking cat!" Petra aggressively cut him off.

They were quick to shut up again, when Rascal finally manage to relieve himself of whatever he had been choking on. Everybody raised their eyebrows slightly at the small, strange object on the ground, coated in mashed up dog food.

"Well what an eventful... and nauseating, start to the day." Olivia said, grimacing. She quickly looked over at Petra. "You know you're the one cleaning that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, Liv." Petra said with a roll of her eyes, getting up from her chair and walking over to Rascal.

He weakly wagged his tail at Petra, seeming to already be feeling more like himself again. Petra frowned as she knelt down, examining the small object.

"This looks like some sort of redstone device." Petra said in surprise, picking up the object and wiping it off. She turned her head to Rascal. "I didn't even know you were in Olivia's lab, much less ate something of hers!"

"And you think he would have learned his lesson after eating one of your socks last month." Jesse said with a chuckle.

"Don't forget the box of tissue paper that came before the sock." Lukas added. "Apparently everyday objects look more appetising than what's in his food bowl."

"But what even is that?" Axel added. "I've never seen that little contraption of yours, Liv!"

"That makes two of us." Olivia said, getting up and walking over to Petra as well. "This almost looks like somebody tried to make their own cellphone and failed by a mile."

She leaned closer to examine the object in Petra's hands without having to touch it herself. The engineer's eyes widened, and she gasped.

"Look!" Temporarily seeming to forget about the state the object was in, Olivia grabbed the item. She stuck her other hand in her pocket, pulling out the tiny tool they had found the previous day, holding it up beside the tiny device. Revealing both of them to have the same engraving of a crescent moon on.

"Of course." Petra exclaimed. "Rascal was eating the spilled chips in there, he must have thought this was edible too!" She turned to look at her wolf. "Rascal, seriously? I thought you were smarter than this."

Rascal simply wagged his tail, getting up and starting to walk over to his food bowl, appetite freshly restored.

"But what is it exactly?" Jesse asked as Olivia and Petra both sat back down at the table, everybody leaning over to see as well.

"If this thing still works, I'll be impressed." Olivia said, attempting to switch on the device.

"Yeah okay, I'm impressed too." Lukas said in awe as the device's screen slowly flickered on. "Whoever did that made it more than just waterproof."

"It's a redstone powered tracking device." Olivia said in amazement. "Like a type of GPS."

"No freaking way!" Axel exclaimed.

"Would you look at that..." Jesse said, a grin starting to form on her face at the pixelated map forming on the screen, location names starting to pop up. She pointed a finger to a name at the top of the screen. "Home Base. We just found ourselves a way straight to the thief who took the command block."

"For once, Rascal, I'm proud of you for eating something you weren't meant to." Petra said with a shake of her head.

"Wait." Axel suddenly said, his face falling. "Does this mean we're no longer making pancakes?"

"Hell yes." Petra said, starting to grin. "Let's get breakfast and all out of the way, and armour up.

We have a journey to make."

------------------------

The Order had sped through the necessary of what was left of their morning routine. Even Rascal seemed to pick up on the nervous excitement in the atmosphere, all around their feet for the majority of the time – completely fine as if he hadn't coughed up a redstone device that morning.

Everybody grew a bit more serious as they armoured up, the matter of the command block still being a heavy weight on their shoulders. With no weapon against it, they knew they could very well find themselves powerless against the enemy.

"We need to be cautious when approaching this person, or these people for that matter." Jesse said as they walked the horses through the jungle. "We don't want to come off as a threat at first meeting."

"Exactly, their intentions might not be evil at all." Olivia pointed out.

"Let's hope for that." Lukas responded, shuddering lightly. "Otherwise they might just incinerate us, or curse us, or-"

"We hear you." Petra mumbled, rolling her eyes.

"But what if they want to attack us?" Axel asked.

"They only just acquired the command block." Olivia responded. "It takes years of working with one, to be able to use it in the way Soren did. "The worst we can expect is... I don't know, completely over powered weapons, invincible armour even. And that's thinking big already."

"See!" Petra dropped her reins, holding her arms out. "Nothing to worry about! We can handle that!"

Rascal let out an excited yap, as if he was agreeing with her. Everybody else smiled as well, the tension slightly relieved.

"I'd love to know how this person knew of the command block, more importantly how they found it." Jesse said, pushing back a strand of her chestnut hair. "The fact that we ended up building a home right near it, was complete and utter luck."

"I'm still debating whether it was good or bad luck at that." Olivia responded. "But you're right, I too would like to know how they found the command block."

Jesse thoughtfully gave her horse's neck a pat, feeling her mind spin wildly. So many thoughts swirling around, possible outcomes and scenarios to that day.

She raised her right hand that held the tracker, seeing their red dot slowly move across the screen. It was unsettling how close the owner of the tracker's home base was to their tree-house.

"Olivia." Petra suddenly said, turning slightly in the saddle to face the engineer. "Jesse and I were discussing this yesterday, but with everything that happened, we haven't really thought of it again. Because her Nether Star sword was made with the command block, is it dangerous to her? Maybe even to me?"

"My gosh, I haven't thought of that." Olivia said, biting her lip. "Maybe? There's a very high chance that Jesse's sword could have the same effect on her as the zombie had, that night. I'm not sure about you, though."

"Should you even be using it then?" Axel asked with wide eyes.

"We don't really have another enchanted weapon on us, Axel." Jesse pointed out. "I doubt I'll accidentally manage to stab myself, if I was that clumsy, the sword probably wouldn't even need to be powered by the command block to be a safety hazard in my hands."

Everybody laughed again at her words. The smiles on their faces and their loose holds on the reins being a clear sign that they were completely relaxed at that point.

"This almost reminds me of when we rode to Soren's fortress." Jesse said, as they began stepping out of the dense trees, into the more open jungle edge.

"I wasn't even there." Olivia said gloomily.

"Oh you didn't miss anything." Petra said. "It wasn't eventful at all, in fact, Jesse and I took turns sleeping behind each other on the horse."

"And we had to listen to Axel begging for snack breaks over and over and over-" Lukas began to tease.

"Hold up, guys." Jesse said, suddenly pulling on her horse's reins. Her eyes were glued to the tracker in her hands. "We're really close."

"I don't see any buildings." Petra said, turning her head slightly as she scanned the surroundings.

"I swear, if this tracker is broken-" Jesse started, giving it a tap with her hand.

"-then this would be one hell of an anticlimax." Lukas finished, earning a chuckle from Olivia, an eye-roll from Petra and a confused look from Axel.

Rascal growled softly, lifting his head as his tail stopped wagging. The fur rose on the back of his head, his ears swiveling back and forth.

"Okay, maybe Rascal can hear or smell something we don't." Jesse said, lowering her own voice.

"Must be very distant then, I can't pick anything up." Petra responded, beginning to slip her feet from the stirrups. "I swear Rascal, if it's just a wild ocelot you smell, I'm not going to be proud of you."

The others also slowly dismounted, deciding it best to leave their horses behind to avoid attention being drawn to them. Rascal was quick to start leading them through the trees, his ears completely pulled back.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Olivia said as she took her bow of her back, getting it ready for in case.

"That makes two of us." Petra said, promptly sniffing the air. "Whatever Rascal's detecting, it's beyond my senses. Makes me think it's smell, maybe the smell of animal or person."

Rascal stopped, pricking his ears, before pulling them back again. He turned around, growling, before turning the other way again. Almost making a full 360 turn.

"Huh? Did Rascal have a drink or what?" Axel asked, earning a slap to shoulder from Jesse to shut him up.

"He's sensing something coming from every direction." Lukas said softly, everybody exchanging horrified glances as they realised they could very well be surrounded.

"Well what do you know? Out of all the people in the world, I never expected the mighty order of the stone to show their faces."

Everybody swung around at the voice, Rascal immediately shooting to Petra's side and baring his teeth aggressively at the figure standing behind them.

Jesse felt her blood run cold, feeling like her heart skipped more than just one beat. She gulped thickly, immediately knowing – It was one hundred percent not going to be a pleasant encounter.

___

SO... Any theories about who the order just stumbled on?

We're officially at my favourite part of the book ahhh, things are about to completely spiral out of control and into chaos. The Cliffhanger Queen can't wait to have some fun!
(Side note, do ya'll remember where you started calling me that? This legitimately had me thinking XD)

Things are about to escalate even more quickly, because the next chapter should be out pretty soon to make up for lost time!!

...and ya'll might want to get your tissues ready for the next one.

I might have done something that could cost me my head-