Tom ran around for a long time in his half aware state. He cut down the occasional creeper or spider with his pickaxe if they got took close to him.

"Jordan!" was his only shout for hours; he didn't realize his voice was getting sore until he tried to yell and all that came out was a crackly squeak.

He kept circulating around two particular mountain peaks, scanning the surrounding land but never going too far from them. There was something about it, with the left's more organic shape and the boxy look of the rightmost one that felt... right.

Tom knew he was extremely close to finding his friend, but none of his shouts or searching yielded a response. The zombie man stomped his foot, stabbing the ground as a rush of anger shot through his veins.

Finally he stopped for a short rest, his chest heaving and hands on his knees. His mind wandered back to the night before, with certain moments carefully censored.

Specifically, he recalled his dream and the strange clarity it had in his mind. Normally, he either didn't remember his dreams at all when he woke up, or they faded within an hour.

But the fiery image of his dead god was vivid enough to give him chills. Words echoed in his mind. "This world is in ruins." No shit Sherlock. "Together, we can bring it back under control." "Don't abuse your power."

The thing was, Tom didn't feel powerful. No, in fact, since the moment he woke up this morning, he'd felt more powerless than ever. First Jordan nearly drowned, then his friends had nearly been torn apart by a pack of wolves and their weird golden-eyed human leader. And top that all off with Jordan nearly having his neck snapped by said golden-eyed human leader.

Something at the edge of his conscience pulled Tom back into reality. He squinted as he looked around, as if that would help focus his hearing.

"-llo?" He recognized the voice floating down from the mountain peak.

"Jordan!"

"-om!" Tom yanked the pickaxe out of the ground and shoved it hastily into his belt. He ran up the mountainside like a goat.

"Where are you?" He called.

"I'm here!" The zombie man altered his course towards the sound, and he kept his eyes skyward, trying to catch sight of his friend at the summit. He gasped after parkouring across a large gap. How did Jordan manage this climb, with him being hurt?

"I'm almost there!" Tom shouted, wincing as his voice echoed.

"Be careful!"

"Of what?"

Tom cleared the edge of the cliffside and looked around. Jordan wasn't anywhere in sight. He took a few steps forward and stretched his neck to attempt to see further.

The world decided at that moment to stop making sense, and the ground below him gave out beneath his foot and he fell through the world.

The drop wasn't too deep, but it did knock the wind out of his lungs. He sucked in a deep breath as soon as his body allowed him to.

"FUCK!"

"Nice to see you too."

"Jordan! What the hell!?" Tom pulled himself onto his knees and looked around in the dim, green-tinged light that was seeping in through the layers of carpet. Without thinking he stood up and gasped when the carpet above his head bent, then gave and let his body pass through like he was a ghost. "Shit! Did I fucking die?"

"Hope not. If I'm dead, I'm in hell cause my head's killing me." Jordan's voice was muffled through the wool, and Tom redirected his attention to vaguely where the sound seemed to be coming from.

"Where are you?"

"Over here." A fuzzy gray shape waved at him from the wall, and he waded towards it. Tom shuddered as the carpet passed through his body with every step, cool and soft but completely wrong.

"Jordan, what the actual fuck?" Tom asked once he stood in front of the gray shape that was his friend. He motioned to the ghost wool all around them. "What is this?"

"I don't know, why are you asking me?" Jordan's voice pitched up defensively, and Tom rolled his eyes. "Do you have any food?"

"Yeah, here." He dug through his pockets and handed over some bread, watching as the gray blob in front of him writhed as Jordan chowed down. "How the hell did you manage to get up here? Your head-"

"I'm not bleeding or anything! I don't even think I have a concussion!" He announced happily, mouth full of half-chewed bread.

"But the mountainside! That climb took the wind out of me!"

"And we both know how in shape you are." Jordan snickered.

"Jordan!" Tom whined. "I'm in shape!"

"Yeah, the path up here was sooooo tough to walk, wasn't it?"

The zombie man stopped. "Wait, what?"

The fuzzy gray shape grew as Jordan raised his head and looked up at him. "The path? You know, the one you came up?"

"There was a path!?" Jordan snorted and started laughing.

"You climbed up the mountainside? Oh my god, Tom!" The gray shape fell sideways and Jordan's laughter echoed as Tom's ears turned red with embarrassment.

"Shut up! I was trying to find you! I didn't see a path!"

"Well, here I am!" Jordan opened his arms in a wide gesture with what Tom assumed was a huge grin on his face. "Now, uh, do you have a way to get us out of here?"

"Gods, I need to do everything around here!" He moaned jokingly, groping in front of himself to find the wall. He swung his pickaxe and made quick work of creating a staircase back out into the world. Jordan took his outstretched hand after a bit of fumbling and was pulled to his feet.

They squinted against the sunlight and Tom immediately grabbed Jordan's shoulders roughly and pushed his friend's head down so he could look at it.

"Oww!" Jordan yelped, ducking away from Tom and gingerly holding the back of his head. "What was that for?"

"I wanted to see how badly she bruised you."

Jordan sighed and let his hands fall. "Could have just said so..." he mumbled. Tom took that as an invitation to take another look, though he was a little more careful this time around.

The man flinched when Tom lightly brushed his fingers against his hair to part it, to reveal the skin underneath. "Be gentle!" he hissed when the zombie pressed against the large purple mark covering the entire back of his skull.

"I barely touched you!" he argued back, stepping away. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Jordan took a moment to stare at him. "Why do you care so much?"

"Cause you're my friend! And I'm gonna kill that crazy girl if she shows her face again!" Tom promised, swinging his pickaxe wildly in emphasis of his words. Jordan ducked as it whipped too close to his face for comfort.

"You're gonna kill me! Calm down, Tom, I'm fine." Jordan flashed him a smile. Then his eyes diverted past him and to the summit of the mountain, and his face took on a curious expression. "Hey, Tom?"

"What?"

"Does that look familiar to you?" Jordan raised his arm and pointed behind Tom. The other spun around on his heel and cocked his head sideways, then back, observing the mountain peaks as many ways he could think of.

"No." Tom concluded.

"Are you sure?" Jordan sounded slightly worried. Tom took another glancing look.

The mountains were strangely shaped, but he'd already noticed that. Nothing about the taller mountain now on his right, with its mushroom like shape casting huge shadows onto the land beneath it, or the smaller peak on the right with a box of colorful blocks sitting on top of it rang a bell...

Until something inside him struck a sour chord and he physically jolted. "Jordan..."

When he turned around with wide eyes, his friend was gone.

"Jor-dan!" he called, his voice cracking on the second syllable. Tom turned back to the peaks and saw his friend racing towards the summit. He rolled his eyes and took off after him.

The back of Jordan's head send stabs of uncomfortable pain down his spine with every footfall, but he was too focused on his goal to care at the moment.

He hadn't been thinking when he was running away from Star earlier, and he'd just let his feet take him far, far away from her. The turns he'd been making were nothing short of random at the time, but now that he's here, maybe they hadn't been.

Maybe something was bringing him here.

Jordan stopped in front of the front of the box at the top of the mountain, staring at the leaves in front of him. Faintly behind him, he heard Tom huffing and puffing his way up the path.

"Can you stop running away from me? I thought you loved me!" Tom whined, hands on his knees as he recovered. Jordan ignored him and started pulling at the leaves and vines.

"Jordan, I know you just hit your head, so maybe you're a little off. But you can't honestly be thinking that this," Tom waved his arm at the boxy shape his friend was pulling at, "is your-"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just gotta see." Jordan cut Tom off as he punched through that last bunch of leaves and ducked inside the box.

The air was much cooler, and the light seeping in from the glass to his right and the glowstone forming the wall in front of him illuminated the dust particles floating lazily in the air. The filtered light gave the empty inside of the structure a surreal quality, like Jordan was staring at an image that refused to let his eyes focus on it.

He took a few more steps and wiggled his nose as the dust tickled his nostrils. He rubbed at it vigorously to try and avoid sneezing. He didn't want to break the mesmerizing spell the shadows dancing on the ground was casting. As he watched, memories and long buried thoughts started bubbling up.

The shadows undulated and morphed and became the image of tree branches, full of leaves dancing gently in a breeze that didn't exist. He stared until his eyes burned but he couldn't look away. Then the dark images changed again, and one tendril shot forward towards him.

He yelped as his foot burst into painful pins and needles, and he jumped backwards and blinked hard, looking back at the sunlit floor. The shadows no longer moved, cast in harsh lines as the blocks in front of the glass blocked out the light.

Jordan heard footsteps and soon Tom was standing in the doorway, his face impossible to read due to the shadows cast on his face. "What happened?"

"My foot... I stubbed my toe on something," he lied smoothly, standing awkwardly with one foot braced against his hip as he tried to massage some feeling back into the appendage.

"What an idiot!" Tom teased, and Jordan managed a small smile. He flexed his toes and decided the needles could be ignored. He put his foot down and turned his back on the window. He was sleep-deprived, and the uncomfortable pain in his foot was just a coincidence. He'd been standing still too long and cut off a nerve. It had nothing to do with the dancing shadows. Jordan was just hallucinating, seeing things he wanted to see.

His friend ventured further from the door and looked to his left. "Have you gone downstairs yet?"

"There is a downstairs?" Jordan's heart sped up, and he stepped towards Tom.

"Ladies first!" Tom joked, shoving his friend. Jordan threw his arms out and braced against the tight walls around the stairwell, masking his gasp with a growl.

"How kind of you," he droned, taking the steps carefully. Though there may have been actual stairs here long ago, now there was nothing but cold obsidian. He shuddered as a chill ran down his spine. The cool air flowing up from the basement raised the hair on his arms and neck.

The stairwell twisted to the left about halfway down, and at this point he couldn't see two feet in front of his face. Blood rushed in his ears as his heart raced.

"Tom? You're coming, right?" His voice sounded loud, too loud, and he felt a burning urge to turn around and bolt back into the sunlight. Something was wrong. He hated it, he hated it here, but he also felt safe, and his feelings whirlpooled around inside of him until the twang of a loosed bowstring brought him back to reality, and he dove past the last step as an arrow buried itself in the wall behind where his head had been a moment before.

"Tom! Help!" Jordan shouted, rolling to the side as he heard the unseen creature nock another arrow. His brain went into primal mode as he came up on a crouch, swinging his leg out in a wide kick to sweep his attacker off their feet. The edge of his foot hooked around the other's ankle, he pulled it back and heard the rattle of bones as the attacker stumbled.

Skeleton! Jordan puffed out a sigh of relief. It was just a skeleton. He could fight that.

The man rolled again as the skeleton loosed another arrow in his direction, then kicked out again, this time higher. He glances off the side of its leg, doing no damage. He stumbled and landed hard on his back. Jordan scrambled to get back on his knees and looked up and the dim light coming from the stairwell now across the room from him highlighted the monster in front of him.

"Tom!" he called again, and its head swiveled and followed his movements with scary accuracy. It lifted its bow once more and drew back an arrow. The skeleton aimed, and released its arrow just as a shadow raced down the stairs and Tom loped the monster's head off with his pickaxe.

Adrenaline pumping and heart racing, he took Tom's outstretched hand and stood up on shaky legs.

"You ok? Here, lemme put a torch down." Tom told his friend, placing a lit torch in the beside them. Then, seeing how unstable his friend was, took Jordan by the shoulders and sat down, effectively bringing his friend down with him.

"Does your face hurt?" Jordan's hand flew to his face, bringing it away sticky with blood. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, he started to notice the burning pain in his right cheek. Jordan opened his mouth to reply that yes, his face did hurt, when Tom's face twisted into a shit-eating grin.

"Cause it's killing me!" Tom shrieked with laughter as Jordan glared harshly at him for a moment. He dabbed at the blood that was now dripping off his chin and wiped it on his friend's sleeve.

"Eww! Jordan!" He squealed, crab walking back towards the stairs. Jordan snickered.

"You asked."

"I did not ask for you to wipe your body fluids onto me!"

Jordan rolled his eyes, now using the edge of his sleeve to apply pressure onto the wound. He took a deep breath, then another, letting himself take in his surroundings.

The basement they were in was just as musty and dusty as the rest of the place, and the smell was even heavier. The torch Tom had placed illuminated the walls to his right, flickering yellow light bouncing across them.

"Tom, look." Jordan raised his free hand and pointed. Tom turned his head and furrowed his eyebrows. He stood up and investigated the line of chests along the walls.

"Nothing good. Just a bunch of random shit." Tom announced, hefting a dented iron sword out of one and sliding it across the floor to Jordan. "There, you won't need me to save you next time."

Jordan deigned not to respond, attaching the sword onto his hip for easy access. Tom took out a couple more iron tools that had seen better days and stowed them away.

"Should we be stealing those?"

"Nobody's been in here for years, Jordan. I think we'll be ok," Tom smirked, hands on his hips as he showed off the leather chestplate he'd found. "How do I look?"

"Like a noob."

Tom gasped dramatically, miming being stabbed in the chest. "You've wounded me! I think I might die!"

Then his eyes shifted, and he stood up tall again, joking demeanor gone. He took steps towards Jordan, then past him. He seemed to shrink as he descends a few steps, staring at the slanted ceiling in awe.

"You were right," Tom muttered in disbelief. "You were fucking right, Jordan..."

"Huh?" But as Jordan took the torch and stood up, he realized what is was that Tom was so silenced by.

The signs on the top of the wide stairwell shouldn't be anything special. The words themselves weren't even aggressive, but they sent chills down both their spines.

"The Vault. No block breaking or placing."