Though she wanted to stay inside, not have to deal with being around the villagers and the iron golem, she also knew she didn’t want to listen to the villagers being slaughtered around her. Cleo didn’t have much in the way of gear though, so regretfully, she knew she was going to have to steal.

With the golem out of the way, she burst from her stolen home and ran towards the armorers. Though it took a few swings, she was able to break down the door to the frightened villager inside. “I don’t care if it’s gold or chain, just hand me some armor!”

At the sight of a zombie breaking in and demanding things, the villager decided it would be better to comply instead of die, so he handed Cleo a full set of iron armor. In a rush, she put it on, then left the house, putting the door back in a way that it would bolt properly. From there, she then ran to the toolsmith and fletcher’s houses to do the same: break in, demand gear, then help fix the door.

By the time she had enough equipment, the raid had nearly reached the town, just barely being held back by the golem who was on its last legs. She raced towards the thing that was the bane of her existence the past week and gave him some iron bars to heal with. Then, she swung her sword at the pillager that had just been attacking, finishing what the golem had started.

From there, Cleo worked on attacking the pillagers until the wave was complete, then getting up to the roof of her house for a better vantage point. When the next group of illagers appeared, Cleo started with bowing them down from afar, grabbing their attention and pulling it away from the village and its residents.

When the ravager appeared over the horizon, Cleo changed her tactics, doing everything she could to lead it away from the village so it couldn’t tear the place apart. The iron golem was able to deal with the pillagers she left behind, but when she finally defeated the beast and returned, there was one illager left. Since it was focused on the golem, Cleo found it easy enough to run in and finish off the evoker, watching as the totem they wore as a medallion fell to the ground as their body turned to smoke.

Cleo waited with bated breath for another horn to sound, but instead the area was filled with the sounds of fireworks as the villagers left their houses. Her next action was to pull her shield out, prepared to be attacked by the golem, but it didn’t swing at her. Instead, the villagers crowded around her in praise, a few of them handing her gifts. She was handed an iron axe, some various wools, clay, leather, even a flower from one of the children. Then, the librarian approached her.

The villager held out their hand, asking to see the totem. Since Cleo was already dead, she didn’t really have need for it, so she handed it over. In trade, the villager fished around in their pockets, and instead of pulling out a book as a gift, they pulled out a clock, it being the best offer they had as a gift.

Not wanting to turn away the hospitality, Cleo took the clock with a thank you. The following days she was allowed to walk around the village freely, helping out where she could, mostly securing all the doors and helping the golem out at night. She was even able to convince a villager here or there to help fight the monsters with her, their only hang up before being the thought of being turned, now more brave from Cleo’s help.

But as the villagers got better, Cleo got worse. After the raid, she preferred to help out at sunset until sunrise, having gotten what was essentially another sunburn. She ended up crafting doors, spreading them around her now official house and tricking herself into breaking them down. Sometimes when she was out at night, she tried with the villager’s doors. Her excuse was testing their locks, making sure any villagers wouldn’t be taken by surprise, but Cleo could tell something wasn’t right with her.

And when the monsters became neutral to her, her worries just strengthened. The next morning, when the mobs were dealt with, she went to the fletchers to confirm all her suspicions. Instead of barging in, she politely knocked on their door, willing herself to not break it down. The fletcher opened the door, glad to see her when she knew they should be scared. She asked, begged for a health or regeneration arrow. Though they were hesitant, they asked her to return later that day for it, so she did.

In the late afternoon, as the sun was on its way down, Cleo took the specially crafted arrow. Not wanting to wait, she pricked herself with the arrow head right then and there. She took barely any damage from the slight prick of the weapon, but then the potion seeped into her. What should have been healing felt like poison running through her, causing her to fall to the ground. She was barely aware of the fletcher helping her up, other villagers coming to her side.

Cleo felt in horror as they picked her up, her hand falling off from the movement. She was carried back to her base and put in bed, the unlucky villager that took her hand placing it on her nearby crafting table. But right now she didn’t care. The villagers feared her before, but now, they were too comfortable around a zombie.

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Zedaph panted as he followed behind Tango as they trekked through the jungle. The place seemed to be endless, and if it weren’t for his coordinates saying otherwise, he would have thought they were going in circles. Unfortunately, it seemed they were pretty far out from spawn. Since they already had a number of issues with the world, Zedaph wouldn’t be surprised that they also had to deal with one of the rarer worlds with large biomes.

“Zed! You can’t just take your shirt off!” Tango said as the sheep hybrid stopped to do just that, needing some way to maybe cool off at least a little.

“But it’s so hot!” He complained. “It’s not like I’m taking off my pants. And I can always put it back on.” And then he threw it jokingly at Tango, making the shirt promptly catch on fire and all but turn to ash. “Um, or not. Oops.”

“Zedaph!” Tango complained, which just managed to make the shirt worse from his frustration fueling the flames.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Zed apologized. “Uh, look on the bright side! I was thinking I needed a new look anyway and this is an excuse for that.” But as Zedaph talked, Tango stopped listening, instead looking down. It didn’t take long for Zed to notice, so he quickly scolded his friend. “Hey! You’re not allowed to complain about me taking off my shirt if you’re going to start eyeing me.”

“Wh- Zedaph!” Tango replied, eyes snapping back up to Zed’s face and some nearby foliage catching on fire. “No! I wasn’t doing- Just look down!”

Zedaph was a little confused, but he looked down. Even though he was no longer wearing a shirt, his chest was still covered by some wool. “Oh my god! Tango!” Tango looked worried, especially at Zedaph’s reaction, but then the sheep hybrid continued, his tone more clear. “I’ve always wanted to take the time to do this!”

“Wait, what?” Tango asked, now more confused.

“Well, you know how if I don’t cut my hair for too long, we have to use shears because it’s too wooly? Well that’s sort of like… everything for me ‘cause being a hybrid gives me hypertrichosis, and if I really wanted to deal with it, I could not shave for a month or two and just go full sheep!”

“Zed I understood like half of that, and only enough to know it’s been around a week and not a month or two so this is super worrying!”

But the sheep hybrid just brushed Tango off. “Well we’ve got more important things to worry about. Like finding Impulse and everyone else!” And Zedaph started to walk again, only to be stopped again by Tango.

“How can you be so calm about this?!” The blaze hybrid shouted, not caring about a nearby tree catching fire and Zedaph’s reaction to the surrounding temperature trying to rival that of the nether. “We’re stranded and lost with everyone else who knows where! Impulse is stuck drowning over and over again while you’re too focused on getting to him to worry about if you can even do anything while it’s obvious you’re changing more into a sheep! We’ve already got issues with respawning, what happens if you stop respawning altogether?!”

By the time Tango paused to take a breath, the surrounding terrain was all charred and there was the smell of burnt hair from Zedaph’s newly singed wool. A part of him was upset about having hurt the other hybrid, but the other part was glad, thinking he deserved it.

“Tango.” Zedaph spoke in a more serious but also calming tone. “It’s obvious I’m not the only one dealing with… this.” And he gestured to the wool. “I’ve already been eating wheat straight, and then you keep burning things up and are getting far too angry. Hostile even. I know this is worrying, but we’re both dealing with this right now and suck in one of the easiest biomes to go up in flames. We sort of just don’t want to get stuck in a death loop of fire. Well, you might be fine, but I won’t.”

Tango thought it over, then sighed, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down. “Right. Sorry. I’m just… I’m worried about Impulse, yeah, but I’m worried about you too. And it felt like you didn’t care.”

“Oh, I definitely care.” Zed nodded. “I’m just caring about stuff that’s more important. Like is that a birch tree?”

Tango’s head whipped around in the direction Zedaph pointed, and sure enough, in the distance and hidden somewhat by the jungle’s foliage, was the white and black wood of a birch tree, it’s darker desaturated leaves standing out against the brightness of the biome the pair currently stood in.

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Ren had no clue where he was, only that he was in a taiga. After he had killed- After Etho had died, Ren gathered up all the dropped belongings and started travelling towards spawn. And then he reached the edge of a taiga close to night and set up a base, only to wake back up in the morning with a pack of wolves surrounding the place.

Being alone hadn’t felt the best, so suddenly having the company of wolves was a nice change of pace. Plus, with regen bugged, having some extra help would be appreciated. Not to mention that Ren had killed plenty of skeletons while travelling. So he tried taking a few wolves, only to find himself half an hour later with no bones, and no wolves tamed.

It really frustrated Ren. Sure, maybe he had kept a few of the bones for himself, but he had nearly a full stack when he started trying to tame the oth- the wolves, and none of them decided to listen. So, with all that time wasted, Ren frustratedly put away his items, getting what gear he would keep for the day, and started walking.

He had only travelled about a chunk or so when Ren realized that the wolves were following him. He double checked, seeing that none of them were truly tamed, no collars having appeared, but Ren wondered if that was just another odd feature of this world. If it was, he wasn’t complaining too much, especially since there were more wolves following than he even tried taming.

When night fell again, Ren didn’t really feel the need to bother setting up a base. He and the wolves easily took down any monster that appeared, only having slight issues with creepers. But Ren had killed so many skeletons, he had a decent bow and plenty of arrows, which made quick work of the exploding monsters. Then, once all the monsters were dealt with, Ren set up a new bed and tried to get to sleep, all the wolves joining him until they all just looked like a giant pile of fur.

When the sun rose again, Ren just started following the wolves around. At some point he dropped his communicator, but didn’t really notice, just happy to have another pack to hang with. And if they stayed in the taiga, he wasn’t all too disappointed. For all he knew, he was getting closer to spawn anyway, the wolves helping him along. And it did seem like the biomes were pretty large, so who knew how long it would be until some new scenery.

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Gem stopped brushing at the loess as she heard movement nearby. The already loosened block crumbled under her abrupt stop, along with whatever had been encased in it, but Gem was too focused on the noise to care. As she looked around, trying to hear anything else, she stomped her foot loudly a few times, letting whatever was know she had heard it.

Another noise let Gem pin down where it was coming from, and she set down her brush to move towards it, sword in hand. There was another sound, and this time Gem realized that it sounded like another person, so she threw most of her caution to the wind to see who it was.

As she finally reached the source of the sound, she was disappointed to not immediately see anyone nearby. Instead, she was just met by the pillar that had appeared near her spawn. She was about to sigh and chalk it up to her imagination from being lonely, when something new caught her eye.

Walking over to the pillar, Gem kept her eyes on what now sat on the ground in front of it, that being a dark red feather. It was unusual for three big reasons. The first was that those only really belonged to parrots, who hung out in jungles and not wherever she was now. Second, this wasn’t quite the right color for a parrot of any color. Then the last unusual thing was the fact that the feather was much too large to belong to a parrot.

Gem picked the feather up and was surprised how it seemed to turn a brighter red as she picked it up. It definitely was much closer to the color she was used to parrots having, so maybe it was just from the lighting. She put it back down to check, watching as while it did get darker again, her hand didn’t react the same way.

While she wanted to try and learn more, there was the snap of a branch nearby, and Gem quickly looked over in that direction, alert for whatever had caused it. A moment later, an arrow flew past her, causing Gem to run in the other direction, agile as a deer. As she ran, she dropped the feather, not noticing as it fell against the pillar, now a purple color instead of red.

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Doc had finally gotten rid of all the goats. For the most part, they were all just further down the island and not completely dead, but for him, that was enough for now. It had taken long enough that he was able to learn more about the thing that appeared at his spawn. Apparently goats weren’t the only thing that would be punished if they attacked the pillar as a skeleton shot it instead of Doc and seemed to be killed by an invisible enderman, or something that had similar particles.

With further testing, Doc was able to get other mobs to accidently attack the pillar and also have similar reactions, which really told him it was something he didn’t want to mess with himself. But in testing the pillar, Doc learned something new and also a bit worrying. In testing if he could actually keep a skeleton from being killed by whatever was killing it - a skeleton because they were the easiest to get to attack the pillar - it ended up shooting and killing him.

At first, Doc wasn’t too concerned about that. He wasn’t losing much, only a goat horn or two, plus he was just respawning the same place as always. But when Doc got rid of the skeleton and grabbed his horns and experience, Doc was surprised to find something new on the ground. A music disc.

Stunned, the creeper hybrid stared at the item. In the past he had been killed by skeletons and this hadn’t happened. But thinking it over, Doc realized how creepers had been ignoring him, and he had been hissing more often than normal. He thought the latter was just stress, but with the behavior of other creepers and now this, maybe something else was going on.

Before he could think about it more, Doc suddenly looked up as water started to pour from above. It wasn’t from rain, he was just a little too high for rain. Instead, it was a stream of water, like a waterfall. It landed right nearby his ledge, meaning it was something that he could reach and use for a way down. And then he watched as something floated down it.

The blue water was tainted with red, glittering as it swirled around in the current. Doc thought he barely heard a yell before suddenly something much larger fell. Recognizing it as a person, Doc quickly jumped after whoever it was, knowing that the water would keep the fall from killing them.

Doc reached the puddle left at the bottom of the fall and ran over to the person collapsed in the water, only to find it wasn’t really a person. Instead, what he was faced with was a very recognizable robot. Before he could try to shake them awake or say their name, he suddenly was hit from behind, and knocked unconscious.

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Jevin frowned as the walls shook again. It was very annoying. He just wanted to hang around with his axolotl friends and eat more glowberries. But whatever was making that noise didn’t seem to care. He tried to ignore it, but then the walls shook enough that some nearby gravel got disrupted and fell. For the most part, that wouldn’t be too bad, but part of the pond he was in was lined with gravel which apparently had nothing below it and also collapsed. For a moment Jevin was worried about sinking into the sinkhole that appeared, but he instead found he was very buoyant and didn’t have to really think about floating.

Looking down into the newly formed hole, Jevin was able to see something glowing, and his first thought was that it could have been one of the new glow squids. When his axolotl friends swam down to nibble at whatever it was, he thought that had to be the case, but then he watched as the form below hit them away.

While he knew the mobs were just playing dead, when Jevin saw their small bodies floating down, he worried about what had been his only friends for the past week and tried to swim down to them, only to find he couldn’t. It was like he was stuck in a bubble stream that was pushing him up and keeping him from reaching the mobs.

As he watched helplessly, the thing that looked like a glow squid slowly rose to the top of the pond, having swum up. As they finally surfaced, coughing a bit, Jevin didn’t give them a moment before attacking them. Whatever it was didn’t like that, and attacked back, slamming Jevin into a nearby wall. The initial hit hurt his health enough that hitting the wall was enough to take away the rest of his health, but surprisingly, Jevin didn’t feel like he had respawned. And Jevin didn’t feel like he had respawned.

A noise made Jevin look up again, and a noise made Jevin look up again. Standing in the pool was what looked like some sort of new mob and it seemed to be looking between Jevin and something to his right. And to him, it looked like the mob was looking between him and something to his left. With it not attacking back immediately, Jevin looked to his side to see whatever the mob was focused on, only to see one of the last things he expected. Himself.

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Noah watched Grian as he followed behind Pin who currently held seeds in his hand. The writer seemed to be playing some sort of keep away game, with the avian trying to get the seeds for himself. As Noah continued to watch, Goofball walked in, looking just a little flustered and trying to deal with a folder of loose papers that were trying to escape. “Sorry it took so long.”

“It’s fine, Pin kept him distracted.” Noah replied, making the other Watcher realize what was going on. “Yeah I don’t know either.”

“I mean, he’s not still in the experiment, so maybe that’s making his instincts get advanced too much?” Pin spoke up, finally dropping the seeds, which Grian launched himself at. “Did you manage to find Yus or Zem and tell them anything?”

Goofball shook his head. “No, they’re too busy dealing with the hub world fallout. You’d think it would be better than this after Evo.”

“Well, that was a while ago. And not as many people really watched it. I mean, we weren’t even official back then.”

Noah was about to speak up when he was suddenly dealing with a hefty amount of feathers as Grian plopped himself on the couch next to him, letting one wing smack the Watcher in his face. As Noah struggled with the feathered appendage, Pin and Goofball watched as Grian started summoning lots of hay bales, then started spreading them across the ground. “Oh void, is he turning this place into a nest again?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to stop it before it gets as bad as last time, right?”

“Not if we can’t get help from Zem and Yus to send him back to the experiment.” Pin replied, but then he got corrected as suddenly the folder Goofball had come in with was taken from his hands.