“I don’t want to go on an adventure,” Second replied. “I want to sleep.”

“You always want to sleep.”

“Such is life.” Second turned onto their side to hide their face from the disruptor of all things good and pure. “Go away.”

Green stopped shaking them, only to sit in the space between Second’s chest and the backrest of the couch. “So Purple was talking about this dungeon called the Trial Chambers and apparently some of the loot you can get from it is like three music discs! I really really need them! Please come with me.”

Second turned their head slightly, squinting at her. “You can get those from the block.”

She shook her head. “We’re grounded from the block because we destroyed Alan’s phone, remember?”

“If we’re grounded, shouldn’t we stay on the PC?” 

Green leaned to the side to get face to face with Second, who had to shuffle themself backwards for her to fit. “Alan never specified that. Besides, we could get a mace core from it.”

They frowned. “What’s a mace core?”

Green had a smirk on her face. “Oh you know, only the key to an exclusive weapon that the others don’t have yet. It’s just the perfect thing to prank everyone if you get the timing right. But I guess you don’t care so I’ll have it all to myself.” She started sitting back up when Second grabbed her shoulders. “Unless, you want to come with?”

Second stared at her for a moment, considering. Doing this was going to end the perfect day of doing nothing, and Second had been looking forward to it. But… They had a hard time saying no to this adventure, especially when a new tool was at stake. Besides, they had a bad feeling about letting Green go to a dungeon alone. Second let out a long sigh and Green laughed as she pulled both of them to their feet. It was time for an adventure.

Second rubbed their eyes looking around the forest noticeably empty of any building that could hold a magical new weapon.

Green lowered the map from her face. “It looks like we’re going to have to dig down!”

They got out their shovels and started the descent. “Do you think there’s anything here that the others will like?” Second asked.

“Uhh, I don’t know? Yellow might like the copper bulbs? I haven’t looked into it other than what Purple showed me.” They dug into a cave, and Second was quick to place down water to stop their fall. While Second managed to land, Green fell flat on her back. She sat up, rubbing the back of her head. Second reached out their hand and pulled her to her feet. The two looked around. They were on deepslate but the lighter stone could still be seen at the top of the cavern. Green pulled out a torch and pointed. “I see tuff bricks over there! I think that’s it!”

“Do we have a game plan?” Second asked.

Green shrugged with a stupid grin. “Have fun and don’t die?”

Second shook their head but couldn’t help smiling back. They got out their sword as Green equipped her fishing rod. Running headfirst into danger always had that thrill to it. Second often tried to tamp it down around the others, especially when the consequences kept growing. But they couldn’t help but love the adrenaline of fighting, and the fluidity of the group when they did it together. They weren’t made for it like the others, like Green, but sometimes during a fight for their lives, they truly felt like there was nothing else they could be for. Green threw her fishing rod line to a stalactite and swung closer to land on top of the tuff box. Second grabbed their own fishing rod with their offhand and wrapped the string around Green’s stomach to pull her back. 

They managed to run past her, retracting the line as Green recovered. Green retaliated by grabbing the string and using it to help herself up, stunting Second’s movement. The race ended in a tie, Second stopping right in front of the wall of tuff bricks and Green running into it. Green rubbed her forehead, looking at the chamber. It was unassuming, for a dungeon. Second had been to the other structures in Minecraft. They usually gave a sense of something. The air of mystery of a stronghold, the imposing form of a fortress. This was… the corner of a box. Second started mining through the tuff, it broke under their pick like butter (which was always satisfying) and reached the vibrant teal of copper. Green mined next to them, officially opening them to a long, double storied hallway. It was lined with various dusty pots, and the upper level was made of grates swinging on chains surrounding something. Green rubbed her hand on the layer of copper.

“It’s all waxed! God this would be so good for building with so I don’t have to wait.” There was an energy alight in her eyes that Second wanted to keep staring at, but Green moved on quicker than they could. “Let’s fight some mobs.”

Fighting was even better when they worked together instead of against each other. Green climbed up the ladder to the next level, and just as Second joined her, a wooshing sound filled the air. Then the fighting began. It was unrestrained, easy fun. Green sliced the head of the bogged right off its body and Second used their sword to bat it into the next bogged as it appeared. Within moments all the skeletons were gone. A poof of smoke flew out of the trial spawner, revealing two orange keys.

“Hey look, it matches you.” Green held them up to Seconds face.

They lowered her hand away from them. “It looks closer to King’s color if anything. These let us get the mace core thing, right?”

Green nodded. “And the music discs! Just need to find where they fit.”

Apparently their first loot drop was lucky. Green inserted the skull key into it and received various arrows, emeralds, and a music disc. She held her hand in a fist with a smile before throwing everything into her inventory. She tried to put the other key in, but the vault refused to open. Green got down on her knees, looking at the swirling loot in it, trying to figure out how to get everything out. Second took the key from her hand, both of them jumping back in surprise when the vault clicked: working once again. Their loot was less exciting as it didn’t have any other discs that Green wanted or the mace. Just some potions they recognized and one that they didn’t. The two resolved to get more keys and keep trying.

What was one spawner per fight quickly escalated to Green and Second facing hoards of monsters being summoned one after the other with little to no respite. Second would lean against the wall to catch their breath only to be surprised by a baby zombie tripping them. And Green, who wasn’t that practiced with her bow, decided to dedicate to using it in the room filled with nothing but silverfish and spiders. Each time a trial gave them their keys, they’d open the vaults hoping for their promised prizes. And each time they’d be underwhelmed by armor they didn’t need and an insulting amount of shields. It came to the point that they had taken on every single room in the trial chamber with no luck, and overflowing inventories. Second started dumping everything they didn’t need in a random barrel while Green paced the hallway.

“What if we missed something? They wouldn’t just not be in the loot table, right?” Green asked. “We must have just been unlucky. Purple did say that they were really rare.”

Second shrugged, looking over the potion bottles they managed to amass. “If we can’t break into any of those vaults then maybe this trial chamber just didn’t generate with the discs or the mace core. We might have to find a different one.”

Green frowned. “It’d take a lot of time to travel out far enough to get a new map. I don’t want to worry anyone by disappearing. But… what’s that?”

“What’s what?” Second looked around, only to find Green pointing at the potion in their hand. “Oh, just another thing I got from the vault. I don't know what it does but its label says ‘ominous’, which seems suspicious.”

Green grabbed it from Second’s hand and looked it over. “Oh my god I think this unlocks another layer to the trial chamber! Purple said something about ominous trials. They both have the word ‘ominous’ in them! Maybe we drink this to unlock it.”

“We don’t have to drink the random thing I picked up-”

She had already downed it, scrunched her face together in distaste. The glass shattered in her palm, a rushing air current wooshed through the chamber as a distinct teal hue surrounded Green. The two sticks looked around for any obvious changes. When no loud sounds or movements happened, their shoulders slouched.

“Let’s just… get back to the PC.” Green muttered, starting her walk to the beginning of the dungeon.

Second frowned and sped up their pace to be next to her. “We can always try again after doing some more research. That way we know for sure how to get everything.”

Green smiled at them. “Yeah. Yeah! This isn’t giving up. We’re just being tactical.”

“Yellow will be so proud of us.”

The two laughed, making their way into a two storied room. The spawners rushed back to life, glowing an ominous teal. Green stepped back, readying her fishing rod. The husks from each spawner appeared at once, now they were covered in shining diamond armor with intricate copper trim. She started her elegant dance to fight back everything as if she practiced with them beforehand, but it was stunted. It wasn’t as effective with stronger foes who seemed to be able to predict her every move. As Green tried to fishing rod her way out of the hoard, one husk grabbed her leg and pulled her down. Second fought their way through the monsters, slaying some but mostly just damaging them, and helped her up. They stood back to back and killed the overwhelming avalanche of undead.

“Were they this smart before?” Or this geared?!” Second yelled, blocking a husk with their shield before stabbing it.

“No!” Green denied, using her trident to impale two husks at once and tossing them aside. “Maybe… Was it the potion?”

Second killed off the last one, wiping sweat off their brow. They looked at the onslaught of enchanted weapons and armor that the zombie husks had left behind. It did seem more intense. Their thoughts were interrupted by the triple ding of the spawners, awarding them with cooked steak, a regeneration potion, and two blue keys. Second picked them up, handing the additional key to Green. 

“I guess this is the new layer,” Second said, giving Green a smile. “Ready to run this dungeon again?”

After many, many more fights and many, many more vaults: Second and Green had gathered the loot they were after. Almost. It took a couple of tries to get another music disc and the heavy core, and they were lucky enough to get some enchanted books to go with what would soon be Second’s mace. But they couldn’t get the final disc. They searched through the chambers, looking for any vaults they could’ve missed, killing any wayward mobs to get as many keys as possible. But the potion effect on Green ran out, and the entire dungeon had been emptied. So the two decided to go home with their partial victory.

Green dedicated the next day to listening to her new music discs and freestyling additional beats over them, and messing with the tempos. She was brainstorming a way to personalize the songs that still showed appreciation to the original artistic intent. That’s what she had told Second, at least. Second thought all of it sounded good, but stopped fully listening once Green started playing the same few seconds of Creator over and over. They were doodling in the left hand corner of a photoshop tab next to her. Second was trying not to fully finish or realize any of the doodles, so they had to take it slow and avoided closing any of the lines. Alan had dealt with quite a lot of shenanigans that week. One quiet day would be kind, if the gang could ever manage it. That didn’t stop Second from looking at Green and frowning when the Creator disc started making static, the song long since stopped but not taken out the jukebox.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get the final disc that you wanted,” they said.

Green glanced at them, before looking back, putting the disc back in her inventory after a beat. She sighed and jumped up to sit at the edge of the tab, next to where Second was standing. They joined her, crossing their legs.

“It’s okay.” Second must’ve made a face because Green immediately looked offended. “I mean it! You were right from the start, I could’ve grabbed all of them from the Block at any time. I just wanted it to be an adventure! I wanted to earn them, y’know? And besides, I was mostly just looking for an excuse to hang out with you.”

“Really?” Second asked, leaning close to her face. Suddenly Green’s hue shifted darker. “I know you’re a real perfectionist. Quality time with me makes up for an incomplete collection?”

She stuttered. “Uh. No, actually. I would trade you to the trial chamber for that disc in a heartbeat!”

Several seconds passed before Green relented. “I wouldn’t actually do that. But yeah, I had a good time hanging out with you, even though I didn’t totally get what I wanted.”

Second grinned and pulled her into a hug, which Green immediately reciprocated. She leaned against them with the same weight they leant against her. Second spent a few moments just basking in the serenity. The comfort of holding and being held. Then- “Great, because according to the Minecraft Wiki all we had to do for the last disc was break all the big pots that were in there.”

Green threw them into the taskbar.