The wool world got surprisingly boring when it was familiar. And considering how small it actually was, that didn't take long to become the case. The only real interesting part of it was that there were levers hidden around, which Jesse was working on. Olivia had practically memorized every aspect of the area, and was now leaning against a "tree" near the wall, watching Axel count how many clouds Soren had put on the far wall. It wasn't actually entertaining, but it was pretty much the only thing she could be doing.

Her gaze drifted away from him and around at the others. Jesse and Lukas were talking quietly on the far side of the fountain, Reuben was just in front of her, eyeing a "pig" made of two pink wool blocks, and Petra was still across the river, leaning against a tree and watching the water. There was a lever barely visible behind the redhead, but it was flipped, so Jesse had already gotten it.

"Thought you could trick me, huh, fake sun?" Olivia's attention flicked back to Axel, who was peering at a glowstone "sun" attached to the ceiling. Jesse was walking up to them as he spoke. "Well it's not gonna work." A pause. "Hey Jesse."

"Hey, y-you guys holding up okay?" Jesse tried a mild smile. Though she was referring to both of them, Olivia could tell she meant her more than she did both. She swallowed a cough.

"Yeah, I think so." Olivia folded her hands under her arms, returning the smile. Jesse's smile widened ever so slightly, before she glanced to Axel, who nodded with a shrug. "How are you doing?"

"Alright, I-I guess." Jesse gave a small shrug. "I'm j-just trying to find this l-last lever… Y-you didn't happen to see it, d-did you?" Olivia shook her head, swallowing down another cough.

"Nope." Axel shook his head. "Sorry."

Olivia cleared her throat. "Is there anywhere you haven't really checked yet?" Jesse blinked, then glanced around.

"Um… I-I don't think…" She trailed off, catching sight of something near the "mountains" to her right. She didn't bother to finish what she had been saying before turning and hurrying towards one of the trees across the little clearing. Olivia shared a confused glance with Axel, then returned to watching Jesse as the other woman pushed on the far side of the tree trunk. Something clicked; she must have found the last lever.

Jesse moved back towards them and hit a button on the wall. Almost instantly, a section of the sky wall lowered away, revealing a dimly-lit entranceway. It didn't seem all that welcoming.

"Oh." Jesse glanced over at them. "I, uh… I-I found Soren's way out, I-I think." Olivia pushed herself carefully off of the tree and moved to look at the entrance. Axel followed her over, and Lukas and Petra approached from where they had been standing.

"Hey, nice work, Jesse." Lukas scanned the entrance with a small smile. "That's awesome." Jesse shot a tiny smile his way. Olivia peered at the entranceway, then slowly began to move through to the dimly lit hall. The others were close behind.

The inside was decorated something like a miniature mansion; right away, there was a fountain right in the center of the hall. It was somewhat difficult to see the exact decorations, as the light levels were so low, but Olivia could see reds and grays mixed with wood in the walls.

She wasn't quite sure what about that had clicked in her mind, but she understood why Soren had the wool freezer now.

"We'll search the rest of the house." She glanced at Petra, who continued as she started past the fountain. "Hopefully we'll find him before he finds us." Olivia's eyes narrowed ever so slightly; she wasn't sure she liked the way that was worded.

Olivia veered off towards a side hall, which really only contained a table and two doors. Some odd noise was sounding through one of the doors, too muffled for her to figure out what it was. Reuben trotted past her to the further door, before pressing his ear against it for a moment, then turning and snorting at her. Olivia moved to the door, and leaned close to it. The noise morphed into music, louder than it had been before. She stepped over and leaned against the wall, listening cautiously.

The music was, by her standards, pretty impressive. Not that she knew much about music; it wasn't a common thing growing up. In fact, the only time she ever got to listen to any was at EnderCon, since they had a DJ there. So, considering what she'd heard, this was pretty nice.

Jesse approached a few moments later, hesitating near the table for a second, then moving close to the door and leaning against it to hear. For a moment, she was silent. Then, she glanced at Olivia.

"The music's definitely louder…" She glanced at Olivia. "Should w-we investigate?"

"Sounds like a good idea," Olivia responded. Jesse nodded, turning and taking hold of the doorknob. She slowly pulled the door open, just wide enough that they could slide through, then did just that. Reuben edged behind Olivia as she followed Jesse into the room, the music much louder than it had been. All three of them were tense.

The room they entered had a sort of indoor garden just in front of them, though the entrance was to the right side of the room. There was a second garden on the other end of the room, and one parallel to them on the opposite side. There was a balcony over the far end of the room, and purple glass taking up most of the far wall. Though, she couldn't tell where the music was coming from.

A muffled voice suddenly sounded over the music, saying something she couldn't quite catch. She blinked, sharing a startled glance with Jesse. "Is that…?"

"I-I think…!" Jesse glanced towards the center of the room, then hastily moved towards the source of the noise. Olivia followed close behind.

There was a jukebox against the wall, with four item frames above it, each containing a disk. The jukebox itself was producing the music, as well as the talking. "What the-?"

"I-it's a recording?" Jesse let her tense stance melt away, looking at the jukebox with a mix of disappointment and thoughtfulness in her gaze. The recording continued.

"... hope I'm not imagining things. Goodness knows, it's happened before." The voice on the recording began laughing oddly.

"After all that, he's not even here?" Olivia sighed, folding her arms.

"Ahah, I'd better… Eat something…" The recording continued.

"We came all this way, and for what?" Olivia huffed, resulting in a couple of coughs. "We're no closer to Soren than before."

"W-well, the record hopefully didn't t-turn on by itself…" Jesse glanced at her, trying a small smile. Olivia blinked, mulling over her words for a moment.

"... Good point." She glanced back at the jukebox. "I guess he really likes the sound of his own voice, then." Jesse shrugged, glancing at the jukebox.

"M-maybe if we can figure out what he's s-saying, we'll know where t-to look f-for him?" Jesse watched the jukebox, folding her arms. Olivia watched it for a moment, then glanced around as she listened.

"I've worked up a simple set of building instructions to… 'inspire' them." Reuben made a noise. Olivia watched the window. "I will disguise myself and hide among them in order to observe them more closely."

Olivia realized there was something moving on the other side of the glass. She peered through at it, taking a good thirty seconds to realize what it was that was moving, and immediately tensed.

"'Hide among them'...? H-hide among who?" Jesse put a hand to her chin. Olivia tried to speak up, but all that came out was a terrified squeak. She cleared her throat as Jesse glanced her way.

"D-do you think he was talking about them?" Olivia motioned shakily to the window. Jesse followed the movement.

Outside of the window, at least what was visible to them, were hundreds of Endermen. And Olivia would bet money that there were more.

"Then again," Olivia glanced at the other woman, "everything else about this guy has been pointing to crazy…"

"I-I guess… I guess everyone needs h-hobbies…" Jesse glanced warily at the window. "Even if they a-are really, really, really d-dangerous…" She glanced back at the engineer. "D-do you think he's actually t-training Endermen to build s-stuff?"

"I think he thinks he's training Endermen to build stuff." The engineer folded her arms. Jesse watched her a moment, then shot a final glance towards the window.

"W-we should look around. See wh-what we can find." Olivia nodded, and the three of them spread out. Olivia found a double chest across from the jukebox, and moved to examine it. Jesse and Reuben had moved to the far side of the room.

The chest didn't have anything of interest in it; a couple of rarer items, sure, but nothing they needed. Though it was pretty interesting to see golden apples.

She wasn't sure what that had reminded her, but she suddenly remembered items in her pockets. Her hands dug through, locating the small mesh bags. She pulled the little bags out, eyeing them carefully. The necklaces were still intact, thankfully, and she pocketed one of the bags, bouncing the other in her hand thoughtfully.

"H-hey, Olivia." She glanced up to where Jesse stood at the far end of the room. The other motioned to her, and Olivia moved over to her. She was standing next to some sort of black bodysuit, Reuben beside her, eyeing the suit warily. "Ch-check this out."

"Is that…" Olivia peered at it. "Is that an Enderman suit?" Jesse nodded slowly. "Either Soren has a really unique fashion sense, or…" Realization hit her as Jesse added on.

"Th-there's two stands, a-and one of the suits is m-missing." Jesse glanced at her. "Soren must be o-out there."

"We don't have time to wait for him to come back. How are we supposed to get to him?" Olivia watched Jesse glance at the suit.

"There's still a suit." Jesse's voice was so quiet that Olivia almost couldn't understand her. Her eyes widened.

"Are you thinking of…?" Jesse's gaze snapped to her, as if realizing what she had said. "Are you sure?"

Jesse could only shrug and shake her head. "Of course not. W-would you be?" Jesse swallowed. "... We can't wait f-for him."

"I know…" Olivia eyed the suit warily, then dropped her gaze to the necklace in her hand. She then looked up at Jesse again; the other was warily sizing up the suit, hand on her other arm. A sigh escaped her. "Then here." Her hand extended, and Jesse's attention was torn from the suit. She looked at Olivia, then at the bag in her hand.

"Wh-what?" Jesse's gaze was back on her.

"I meant to give this to you at EnderCon, but didn't get the chance." Olivia half shrugged. "At this point, I guess it could be like a good luck charm or something." Jesse blinked, then looked back at the necklace, hesitating a few seconds to take it. Olivia was pretty sure she consciously avoided touching her hand as she took it. Jesse shot a final glance at Olivia, then looked down and opened the bag, pulling the necklace out.

There were a good several seconds of silence before Jesse spoke again. "You found it." Olivia tried to hide the slight confusion behind a smile. "I-I thought these weren't sold this year."

"I mean…" Olivia rubbed the back of her neck. "Maybe by the time you got there they were gone?"

"I-I guess…" Jesse let out a tiny laugh, grin pushing onto her face. "I just… Thank you." Honestly, this was the happiest that Jesse had looked since they had finished their build at the competition. And that felt like forever ago.

Jesse moved her hands around the back of her neck, clasping the necklace chain shut. One hand dropped to her side while the other found the amulet charm, and for a moment, her smile didn't waver. Then, it fell. "D-did you get anything for y-yourself at EnderCon?"

"Well," Olivia reached into her pocket for the other necklace, "I wound up with two of those, so… That counts, I guess."

"Ah." Jesse nodded slowly, then returned her gaze to the was silent for a moment. "... I don't want to put that on."

"We could find another way to get his attention?" Olivia offered. Jesse shook her head.

"We- we're wasting enough t-time as it is." As much as she didn't want her to go out there, at this point, there wasn't time to think of another plan. She was right; they had wasted so much time already, and there was no telling how much time they had until the world above was completely destroyed.

"... Let's at least get some kind of plan for what you'll do to find him." Olivia folded her arms. "You can't just walk up to every Enderman and ask if it's Soren. Not that I'd recommend that anyways."

"Soren said h-he had instructions, right?" Jesse's gaze lit up thoughtfully. "I-if we found those, I-I could pretend t-to be an Enderman a-and build what he wanted them t-to." Olivia nodded slowly.

"Yeah, that could work…" Her brow furrowed. "But are we sure he even wrote them down? What if he was going to just… Tell them somehow?"

"He p-probably has them somewhere." Jesse glanced around. She suddenly moved past Olivia to a different chest, pulling it open and looking inside.

"Find them?" Olivia moved to look over Jesse's shoulder as the other dug around.

Jesse hummed. "Uh…" There was a rustling of paper. "I-I think…?" She pulled a blueprint from the chest, Straightening the slightly crumpled paper. The design was simple enough; an L-shape with a single block in the opposite corner of the three-by-three square. "I-it's so… Simple."

"Well, gotta start somewhere when teaching an Enderman how to build." Olivia made a face. "That's a start, but… Do we even have anything to build that with?"

"It says… I-it needs six clay blocks. Where a-are we gonna get clay b-blocks?" Jesse glanced at Olivia, then around the room. Olivia glanced around as well.

"There are probably some around. He wouldn't have the instructions without the materials." She motioned to a pale pink block on a nearby shelf. Jesse eyed it carefully, then pulled it from the shelf. Reuben made some soft snorting noise, butting his head against Jesse's leg and glancing towards a set of metal doors across the room. Jesse followed the movement.

"I-I guess he does h-have them all here." Olivia followed her gaze to another pink block across the room.

"That makes it easier." She folded her arms. "At least it's not all out there already. You can just gather it up and do your thing, rather than deal with the Endermen." Jesse nodded slowly. "Let's see how many there are in here."

They each moved to different areas of the room. Jesse went to gather the one that Reuben had pointed out, then turned and climbed up to the balcony. Reuben sniffed around the doors cautiously. Olivia moved to look by the garden tables, quickly finding one in the corner. Reuben gave a little snort, catching her attention, and drawing it to one next to the garden table at the far end of the room. She moved to grab the one beside her, then approached the other and picked it up as well. Jesse was quick to clamber back down the ladder.

"There was one u-up there." Jesse turned away from the ladder.

"There were two more down here. I think that's all of them." Olivia held out the two pink blocks, which Jesse quickly took.

"Th-this is only five, though. W-we need six." Jesse shot a final glance around, hesitating as her eyes caught the purple window. She approached it, pulling herself up to look through it for a moment, winding up on her tiptoes. "... A-and I found the last one." Olivia moved to stand next to her, peering out the window.

One of the nearby Endermen had a slightly pink block pinned between its hands.

Shit.

"Please tell me there are more." Olivia's voice took on a sort of whine. Jesse just shrugged, dropping back to her flat-footed stance. "You can't take a block from an Enderman; just touching that would be a death wish." Olivia stepped away from the window, coughing a couple of times. Jesse didn't really respond to that either, simply moving towards the suit again. The brunette let out a long, shaky sigh, then reached forwards and pulled the suit from the stand.

Putting the thing on took almost no time, considering it only had two parts to it. Jesse fit in the thing, surprisingly- it looked a lot bigger on the stand- and was quick to pull the gloves and helmet on. She looked ridiculous, but Olivia wasn't about to say so. She turned and looked out at the many endermen on the other side of the glass, watching them cautiously for a moment. Jesse did too, but not for as long.

"O-okay." Olivia turned her gaze back to Jesse as the other spoke up. "I'm gonna go out there."

Olivia nodded. "Try not to die, okay? I'd hate to have to watch that..." She glanced outside again. "From behind this protective glass."

"Thanks for the... vote o-of confidence." Jesse turned, starting towards the doors with Reuben beside her. Olivia hesitated, then quickly reached forwards, grabbing hold of Jesse's hand. The other woman flinched in surprise, turning to glance back at her.

"Just..." She hesitated, unsure whether to let go and change her mind or make something up. She hadn't actually had anything to say; her hand just shot out and grabbed her's, despite the pain it ultimately caused. "Just... Come back alive, okay? I mean it."

Jesse blinked at her, staring for several seconds. Then, she smiled behind her helmet. "Of course."

Olivia released her hand and took a step back. Jesse hesitated, holding her smile for a second longer, then turning and opening the doors to the outside. Reuben trotted after her as she exited the safety of the lab, though his trot slowed to something of a crawl the second his hooves met the End floor. Olivia placed a hand on the lever to close the doors, but hesitated as Jesse paused near the opening to the outer clearing.

Reuben suddenly flipped around and darted back inside as an Enderman teleported right in front of them. She quickly hit the lever, more out of instinct than anything. Olivia peered through the holes in the door, watching to make sure Jesse wasn't trying to get in as well. She was frozen in place, the Enderman leaning close to her, before it straightened and walked away. Jesse visibly relaxed, then slowly made her way out into the clearing.

Olivia moved away from the door, watching the window as she moved to peer out of the window again. Jesse was easy to spot; she was much shorter than all of the other Endermen. Jesse was creeping around, cautiously avoiding eye-contact with Endermen, despite the fact that she was safe. She approached the Enderman holding the clay block, watching the block a moment, then glancing around the clearing.

Apparently there weren't any other blocks around, as Jesse looked back at the Enderman's block, shoulders slumping slightly.

Oh boy.

Gloved hands carefully took hold of the block, before slowly and carefully pulling on it. The movement seemed to last ages, before the Enderman's hands finally fell away from the block. Jesse froze as the Enderman looked at its hands, shaking as a muffled hiss sounded through the glass. Jesse hesitated, then quickly hurried to the far end of the clearing.

Olivia didn't really get to watch what Jesse was doing, as a coughing fit bubbled up. She backed away from the window, doing her best to cough into her arm. Reuben's hooves clicked against the floor as he peered at her worriedly, and she waved a hand slightly. She struggled to swallow down the coughing, and it took her a good few moments to actually stop coughing.

She looked up just in time to watch an Enderman slam it's arm into the side of Jesse's head.


AN: holy shit this is over a week late i am so sorry i have no excuse

also this is a long chapter oops

until next time!