Han flipped the switch, then dove behind her cobblestone wall. A few seconds later, the explosive went off, and she noted with satisfaction that there wasn't a whole lot of smoke. When the ground stopped shaking, Han took her hands away from her ears and walked out from behind her wall.

What little smoke there had been had already dissipated, so she walked through the crater, picking up the dirt blocks that had dropped. She looked back and frowned- her cobblestone wall had taken some damage. If she was going to set off anything more powerful, she would have to move it back or get blown up herself.

Trying to work out how long a time delay she would need to run any farther, Han climbed back out of the crater towards her wall.

Some distance beyond the other side of the crater, a door slammed open on a small house. A boy with dark brown hair stomped out, then stomped over.

"Han, can't you tell me when you'll be setting off TNT?" he demanded.

"Sorry, Clark." Han said, starting to destroy her cobblestone wall. "And it's not TNT. TNT doesn't give that big a bang. And it gives way more smoke."

"Han, please?" Clark asked. "Why do you feel the need to blow stuff up, anyhow?"

"I'm designing better explosives. And why do you feel the need to make weird things out of Redstone?" Han asked, putting the last of the wall into her inventory.

"They're not weird."

"Neither is making things that go bang."

Clark sighed and went back into the house.


"Am I the only sane person in this goddamn world?" Lewis demanded of no one in particular. No one answered, as he was alone in his cabin.

"Han blows things up, Clark can barely craft, Jun makes potions and he's probably on a couple, and Taylor's a psycho, mob-killing griefer!" Lewis said, pacing back and forth in his cabin.

"And I talk to myself." Lewis said. "And I'm about a foot tinier than anyone else. I'm still saner than everyone else, though." he paused.

"That is really sad."


Taylor walked through the night forest, sword out. A slow-moving zombie walked out from behind a tree, and he stabbed it over and over again until it ran out of hit points and died.

"Eff yeah!" he shouted, even though killing a zombie wasn't a major accomplishment. "Take that you mobs! Taylor's gonna whup your asses!"

Then a voice behind him said "Oh, bugger."

Han hadn't planned to run into Taylor when she'd gone out into the forest to test her newest batch of explosive blocks against mobs. She hadn't planned for him to walk into range of one of her more powerful explosions. She also hadn't planned for him to do it right when she was setting it off from a distance away.

Taylor was far enough away to not die, but the force of the explosion threw him some distance, right into a tree. Fortunately for him, Han designed her bombs to produce a minimum of shrapnel, so he didn't bleed too much.

"What the hell?" he demanded as soon as he'd gotten his breath back. Using the sound to find him in near-complete darkness, Han ran over.

"I am so sorry-" she started, but Taylor cut her off.

"Sorry? Who the fuck let you set off TNT in the forest?" Taylor asked.

Han looked a bit hurt. "It's not anyone's forest, so I can set off as much explosive as I bloody well want, as long as I stay far away from anyone's house." She paused. "And it wasn't TNT. I'm making my own stuff, and it's way better than TNT."

"Well I don't need any help. I'm fine." Taylor said, struggling to get to his feet. Han was reasonably sure that he would have accepted help from anyone but her. Taylor had a pretty big ego, and needing help from a girl would no doubt injure his pride pretty badly.


"Han? You're back early." Clark said, looking up from his desk, upon which there was a bunch of Redstone stuff.

"Yeah. I was setting off stuff to test it on mobs, and Taylor got caught in one of the explosions." Han said, sitting down across from Clark. "The guy refused to let me help him, and he swore a bit."

"Sounds like Taylor. Will he live?"

"He was alive and conscious when I left, so probably, unless the mobs do him in."

Clark sighed. "I was kind of hoping you'd killed him." he said sadly. Then he shook his head, focusing back on his Redstone device-in-progress. "Taylor is such a jerk."

Han snorted. "You think I don't know? I was there in June, alright?"


Taylor stumbled through the trees, barely managing to stay on his feet. He was swearing under his breath, cursing Han and her hobby, as well as Lewis for letting her play with TNT.

Finally, he saw a light ahead. When he reached it, he found that it was a torch on a fencepost. The fencepost was one of several, forming a complete fence that surrounded a garden attached to the side of someone's house.

The garden was lit by several torches placed along the fence, and there was somebody in the garden, harvesting melons.

"Jun!" Taylor gasped. He fell and grabbed the fence to stay upright.

Jun straightened up, a pair of shears in one hand. Jun was tall and thin, with very short hair and an Asian look. He pushed his glasses up his nose and said, in a bored sort of voice, "Hi."

Taylor tried to stand upright, but it wasn't working. "Healing potion." he gasped.

Jun stood there, the torchlight flickering on his face, for a few moments, while Taylor started to register the pain in his back. Burning, like he was missing skin. He closed his eyes, trying to take deep breaths. Of course, given the nature of his injury, he probably was…

"Do you want it or not?" Jun asked, and Taylor opened his eyes. Jun was standing there, still not smiling, but now he was holding a potion bottle.

Taylor let go of the fence with one hand to grab the potion bottle. The side effect of this was that he fell, landing on his back. He gasped and swore, because his back hurt the most and now he'd landed on it, then he yanked the stopper out of Jun's potion bottle and drank the whole thing.

The potion fixed him, but it left him light-headed and just a bit dizzy. He got to his feet- properly, this time. Jun was standing there, watching him.

"Thanks, man." Taylor said.

"Don't mention it." Jun said flatly.

"I will." Taylor said. "When I go tell Lewis about this."