Jennifer knocked on the inn door cautiously. "Destiny, are you in there?" she asked.
When there was no response, Jennifer sighed, opened the door, and went inside. Steve and Fristad stayed just outside of the door, looking into the room with worry.
Destiny lay on the bed on her side, with her arms curled around her knees, staring outward silently. Her face was red and wet with tears.
"Thinking about David?" Jennifer asked.
Destiny nodded.
"You cared about him very much," Jennifer said.
Destiny sniffled and nodded eagerly, as a new tear streamed down her face.
"It's not easy, losing someone you love like that," Jennifer acknowledged.
"You don't understand!" Destiny said. "We weren't just close. We were inseparable. We fought in wars together. Our love stretched back so far and so deep that it was before we even existed."
"I may not understand completely, but at the very least, I know you are in pain," said Jennifer, her voice becoming firm. "And there are two things you can do in that situation. You can either be by yourself, and try to figure out how to deal with the pain on your own, or you can reach out for help, knowing that people maybe don't understand completely what you're going through, but usually have the best of intentions."
"Thanks, I guess, but I don't really need some generic advice about how to cope with loss. It should be pretty obvious I've already chosen to deal with it on my own."
"Okay, then," said Jennifer. "If you want to deal with it out on your own, then I won't ask about it again. Actually, the real reason I'm here is because I wanted to ask if you'd like to join us for some scouting of the land around the village. Steve is coming along," Jennifer pointed toward Steve. "He's my usual partner in crime; I've known him for years. And that over there is Fristad. He's…" Jennifer hesitated for a moment, thinking of how to describe Fristad without mentioning that mysterious book. "...from a different world from ours. But he's pretty nice once you get to know him."
"So what do you think?" Jennifer continued. "Want to blow this village potato stand and explore the outdoors?"
Destiny gave an exasperated sigh. "If David were here, he'd say yes, so I guess I'll go."
"Great!" said Jennifer, with a wide grin.
Steve, Jennifer, Fristad, and Destiny descended the inn stairs and entered the streets of the village. Their appearance and demeanor were sufficiently different, that if one saw them walking separately, one would never suspect they knew each other. Steve and Jennifer walked with the sense of purpose and physical fitness only experienced adventurers could have, and their bulky, full suits of iron armor gleamed like new. To be fair, in this case, they were rather new, although Steve and Jennifer had already spent several days mining underground. Fristad walked with somewhat less grace, still not used to the weight of his new black diamond armor, and his eyes stared out cautiously through the holes of his helmet. Destiny walked more or less normally. The tears on her face were starting to dry and her cheeks losing their redness, but there was still an intense look in her eyes, as if she was searching desperately for someone hiding in the distance.
"By the way, Destiny," Steve began, "I've been meaning to ask you, would you like some new iron armor? We still have a surplus of iron left over from our mining trips the last few days."
"Thanks, but I'm fine," Destiny replied in a rushed voice.
Once both the village and the surrounding farms passed behind the four explorers, Jennifer advanced ahead and began to zigzag between various landmarks, crouching down to a stone here, feeling the bark of a tree there. Meanwhile, Steve whistled a favorite tune that he used to sing with his friends back at home. When his song ended, he turned toward Fristad.
"Do you have any songs you like from your world, Fristad?" Steve asked.
"I've got a few," said Fristad.
"How does one of them go?" Steve encouraged.
"Like so," Fristad said, as he began to whistle a tune.
"That sounds nice," Steve said, after Fristad stopped whistling. "Is it some sort of classical music?"
"I don't know," Fristad said. "I learned it in school when I was a little kid."
"That's interesting," Steve said. "Back at home, me and my friends used to make songs together, mostly just for fun. We even went through a phase where we invented a bunch of musical instruments to go along with them. Well, 'invented' is probably the wrong word. Most of them were based off of musical instruments that already existed, and the rest were sufficiently terrible that we discarded them afterward and never spoke of them again. What about you, Destiny? Do you have any favorite songs?"
"Sorry, I'm not in the mood," said Destiny.
Steve and Fristad continued their conversation for a while. But then, out of the blue, Steve sprinted away from Fristad, cheering triumphantly.
"Steve, what are you…" Fristad trailed off.
"Finally, another cave!" Steve proclaimed.
"What are you so excited about?" asked Jennifer. "We already have plenty of resources."
"Yes… but do we have diamonds?" Steve asked rhetorically.
"I thought we already established that this world doesn't have any," remarked Jennifer.
"That may have been true at the place we were before, but remember, this dimension is a patchwork of many other dimensions, some possibly with diamonds."
"Ooooh," Jennifer replied in realization. "But don't get excited yet! Let me take a look at it. We don't know if this cave even goes anywhere."
"Trust me, I know the beginning of a big cave system when I see one," Steve insisted, already pulling some torches out from his pocket.
"Even cave systems from other dimensions?" Jennifer grinned. She approached the wall at the beginning of the cave, cupped her hand, and leaned her ear against it. Then, she picked a rock off the ground and threw it down into the abyss, listening to the sounds of the echoes as it fell.
"You're right, that is a big cave!" Jennifer said.
"Alright then, let's go!" Steve said.
"Now, hold on…" Fristad said. "Don't me and Destiny get a say in this? After all, you're basically asking all of us to go into a dark cave full of monsters on a whim."
"Let's go in the cave," Destiny replied deadpan.
"I... guess I'm outnumbered," Fristad said.
"Hey, you're the one wearing enchanted diamond armor!" Jennifer pointed out. "We have to catch up to your level of armor protection."
"Yea. Don't remind me."
"You're falling behind, guys!" Steve said, his voice echoing in the mouth of the cave up ahead. Already, the entrance to the cave was lit with splotches of torchlight.
"We better catch up to that guy," Jennifer said, smiling and shaking her head. "Or else… who knows what trouble he'll get into."
The three caught up with Steve in the cave tunnels. Already, the tunnel they were in was massive.
"These tunnels are mined out completely," Steve noted. "Someone must have been very careful to clean up all their torches when they left. Or maybe they just carried one torch with them the whole time? Seems inefficient."
"The musings of a guy with infinite pocket space," Fristad declared.
"I was starting to get the impression that it's the exception rather than the norm," said Steve.
A few cave turns later, and the ground ahead of Steve gave way to a huge ravine.
"Wow!" said Steve, peering down into it. "I've seen quite a few ravines in my time, but this one is massive. I can't even see the bottom. It seems to be covered by some sort of unilluminated fog."
As Steve observed the ravine, he reached back into his pocket to pull out a water bucket, then placed the water source against the cliff face. The source expanded into a veritable flood of water as it poured down into the ravine
"I'm dropping into the ravine to take a quick look at what's down there. Would anyone like to join me?" asked Steve.
"Are you sure that's wise?" asked Fristad. "A deep ravine from another dimension is bound to have dangerous monsters."
"It's only a quick look," argued Steve. "Besides, any diamonds we find are going to protect us from danger in the future."
"I'll stay up here," said Jennifer. "If Steve does find something dangerous, we always have the radio."
"I don't have a death wish," said Destiny. "I'll stay here."
"Very well," said Steve. "I'll see you all in a short while, which is significantly longer than a jiffy, but hopefully less than twenty minutes."
Steve jumped down into the ravine, just in front of the stream of water, and his iron-armored body hurtled down until it vanished into the fog.
As Jennifer led the way into a closed-off cave, Fristad couldn't help but look back behind him and wonder if Steve fell to his death.
"Hey guys," Steve said, about fifteen minutes later, startling Fristad and Destiny.
"How was the ravine?" asked Jennifer.
"Not bad," said Steve. "I found enough diamonds for all of us. I also got a couple ender pearls, a half-stack's combined of creeper, skeleton, and zombie drops, and restocked on redstone."
"What?" said Fristad.
"Yes, exactly," said Steve. "Oh, and I almost forgot, I found this strange, glowing, blueish purple ore." Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out a sample of the stone, which had an irregular, wrinkled shape. "I have no idea what it is. I haven't seen this kind of ore in my world before. Any ideas, Fristad and Destiny?"
"No clue," said Fristad.
Destiny shook her head to convey the same.
"I'll add that to my list of unsolved mysteries, then," Steve mused, as he slid the glowing rock back into his pocket. "Anyways, now that we have diamonds, shall we continue our survey of the surface?"
"Sure," said Jennifer, grinning. "But save some treasure for me next time."
Steve, Jennifer, Fristad, and Destiny returned to the surface, and as they continued exploring they would occasionally stumble upon a lone hut. Sometimes when Steve would knock on the door, there would be no answer. Other times, its weary inhabitant would open the door from the other side and answer politely, but beyond that the inhabitant would reveal little. But nothing in the course of that trip could compare to the mystery that still hung over everyone's heads: How did they all get here?
In the mid-afternoon, Steve and the others stopped by the village to sell some of their extra resources. The crowds had died down at this point, the quantity of pedestrians, merchants and cobblers more closely representing the number of buildings the village could sustain. In the distance, Steve swore he could hear Kay yelling about something.