A/N – Hello, dearest reader! I'm glad you've decided to continue reading my fanfiction. Please leave a review if you enjoy reading this! I'd love to see what you think.

Disclaimer – I don't own Minecraft or The Bartimaeus Trilogy. I only own my interpretation of both and the plot of this fanfiction.

Enjoy!

Chapter 2

He ran his fingers against the wood of the bookcase and closed his eyes. It had been many years since the last time he was away from the Other Place. There were birds happily singing their melodies outside the room he was in; they weren't the birds he had learned the names of so long ago. This wasn't the world he had grown to love. There was no doubting that fact. He couldn't explain why, but his heart told him that his observation was the truth.

He opened his eyes and turned to face his summoner. There was fear in the girl's eyes – which were a dark brown – as she stared up at him. They're afraid, Anda had often told him. They're afraid because they know we're different. Humans don't like different. Was that the reason for the fear she now possessed? Prior to this moment, she had seemed extremely friendly for a magician intent on enslaving him.

Though he tried to tell himself that she was the only one afraid of something different, he knew he was as well. Thoughts of whatever the magician might force him to do terrified him, and the unknown was a frightening thing.

"There's a mistake," she finally said, her voice high and tense. "You saw it. It was exactly where you were looking before." She continued to keep her eyes trained on him, though her trembling hands revealed her true emotions. "Why didn't you do anything about it?"

Because I don't want to hurt someone! he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs. Because I'm not like the monsters magicians make us out to be! Because even though I'm different than you, I care!

But he remained silent, knowing that she would never believe his words. She was a magician, and he was a spirit. Trust was something that magicians, according to Anda, rarely gave out – especially to spirits.

She stood up. She opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it and looked back at the chalk circle. He kept his eyes trained on the floor. "What is your charge?" he quietly asked once more. The quicker this was over with, the better. He missed the chaotic fluidity of the Other Place. Being forced to face his pain instead of easily ignoring it was a difficult task, one that he wished he didn't have to deal with.

"It's not really a charge, per say..." She nervously made her way over to him. The mistake still seemed to be on her mind as she stopped in front of him. "I want to be your friend, Herobrine. I don't want to force you to become my friend, or anything like that. If you don't want to be my friend, I'll dismiss you right now and you can forget this ever happened."

He wasn't sure how to respond.

Anda had said magicians were supposed to be cruel, and that his first summoner and her summoner were exceptions to that rule. She had told him to take the first opportunity to leave a magician's servitude, even if it meant devouring the magician who had summoned him when they made a mistake.

But she had never once said what to do if a magician offered him friendship.

"You're a magician," he said slowly, trying to reaffirm what he had assumed.

She nodded. "I am, but I'm not like other magicians. I can summon spirits if I want to, but I never make them do my dirty work and I'm always incredibly polite to them if I do summon them for any reason whatsoever."

He thought for a minute. It was an unexpected proposal. Anda was usually right about things, so it would make more sense if he turned down her offer altogether and returned to the Other Place. Yet he, though he was young and inexperienced, understood how rare a friendship between a human and a spirit was.

"I'm alright with becoming your friend," he answered.

A grin spread across her face. "That's great, Herobrine!" She was silent for several seconds before asking, "Do you have any nicknames that you prefer instead of Herobrine?"

The birds continued to chirp outside the window. He shook his head. "No." Suddenly, curiosity clawed at him. He had to find out where he was, and if he really was on a different world. He walked over to the window and slowly pushed back the blinds.

His eyes widened.

There was a gray, horizontal pathway out in front of the building they were in, and strange metal contraptions with people inside went down it. There was little metal boxes on big sticks in front of each house. One of the metal contraptions pulled up in front of one of the boxes, opened it, and slipped something inside.

He turned back to her. "May," he managed to get out, "where are we?"

"We're on Earth."

He looked at her blankly for several seconds. It sounded faintly familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard of it.

"You don't know about the Dimension Laws?"

When he didn't reply, she seemed to take it as a yes. "There's a lot more worlds than the world you were first summoned on, Herobrine...By the way, where were you first summoned?"
"Minecraftia."

"That makes sense," she said, but he didn't understand exactly what made sense. "The Dimension Laws state that there's multiple dimensions, and also multiple worlds. Magicians on this version of Earth tend to be more knowledgeable about the Dimension Laws, for example. A spirit who was mainly summoned on a different Earth once told me that the Earth there was ruled by magicians, so we know that histories often play out differently on other versions of Earth. It's impossible to say where Minecraftia fits into the equation. It may be an alternate form of Earth, an entirely different world, or another form of that different world. The only thing that connects all of these worlds is where you come from – the Other Place."