(Forest Clearing, 03:00 Day)

Returning home from another trip in the caves, it was a completely normal day at first. The map he had was a handy tool at avoiding the monsters in the dark, and he had yet again gotten out without having to kill anything. He had a good haul to show for all of his efforts, too, having filled up all eighteen slots of his pack with ores and gems, from simple things like coal to more exotic materials like rubies, sapphires, and even uranium. As was his habit now, he checked the chest on the edge of the treeline to find it empty, meaning his visitor had come by while he was gone, which was no surprise being that he had been away for two days.

Turning his attention from the chest to his clearing, he hummed in thought as he gazed over what was now his home and how it had changed in the past week or so. His home had been expanded into something resembling a house at least a little more. He had added on a kitchen, creating a little L-shape building with a few windows dotting the walls. The corners had been replaced by solid logs rather than just planks, although the roof was still flat as he was intending to add a second floor soon which would primarily house his bedroom. Once I get around to finding sheep, or collect enough string to make wool.

Turning toward his farms, they had expanded somewhat. Rather than a series of farm plots spread out over a very large area, he instead changed to a sort of pillar design, where seven by seven farm plots were stacked three blocks above each other. Supported by plank pillars in each corner, they served no purpose other than decorational, but the overall structures saved him quite a bit of room. Together, he had two of these pillars. One was in use, providing him with his crops as normal. The second was relegated to Mystical Agriculture, but was empty for the time being. In time, each layer would grow different crops for his use.

Approaching his home, Viron stretched his arms out wide as he arrived at the front door, pushing it open. Moving toward one corner, he opened the oak trapdoor and climbed down the ladder, into his storage room. Originally, he had been tempted to turn that small cavern he had found into a massive storeroom. If he had done that, he knew he would never run out of space for chests and drawers and, eventually, a large ME system for easy storage. However, in the end, he had decided that descending a staircase, then a ladder, into a large cave would take too long for each time he wanted a bit of dirt or sand. Instead, he had placed it just four blocks below ground, slightly offset from his house and essentially below his apple trees. Currently, all it contained was two drawers able to hold sixty-four stacks of dirt and cobble, one drawer for each material, and eight chests.

Entering his storeroom, he made his way over to the chest that held his ores and opened it, humming in thought as he busied himself with placing his ores into the chest. The chests themselves behaved strangely in this world, not working like his inventory screen like he first expected. Instead, Viron had to pull the items out of his inventory where they remained small and stacking. When he placed them into the chest, they would naturally align themselves to an invisible grid, creating twenty-seven spaces in each single chest.

When Viron moved to his minerals chest, which contained non-ore, non-ingot materials, such as redstone, ruby, sapphire, coal, and the like, he became aware of something that upset him. Now, Viron had rarely ventured deep enough to gather the hardest to find materials such as diamond and emerald, but he had been lucky enough to stumble across a single diamond during one of his earlier mining trips. The gemstone had remained unused for some time, as he had nothing to craft with it and wasn't going to waste it on a shovel, so he knew for a fact that he still had that diamond. And yet, it was gone. Removed from his chest. Closing the lid to the chest, he moved to another chest he used for ingots, and one directly above it that he used for refined plates and wires. All of his iron was gone. Sure, he still had all of his ores- and not just what he had brought back, all of his iron ore he had before was still present- but the three-fourths stack of iron ingots and quarter stack of gold he had was gone.

"Are you kidding me?" Viron groaned to himself as he closed the door, making his way to the ladder after nabbing a half stack of iron ore. Leaving his home, he quickly tossed the ore into his foundry before collapsing onto a cyan couch, something he had gotten as a quest reward, near the forge. "They stole from me?"

He hadn't cared when it was food that had gone missing. It replaced itself on its own, after all, and they had never taken enough to put his own health at risk. That is to say, he had never come close to starving in his time here. He had always been able to feed himself in addition to whatever was being stolen. But now, this person had come into his home and taken materials that he needed, and were far harder and more dangerous for him to gather. He had been lucky so far, but he was still unable to make armor so a single creeper in the caves could put an end to him immediately. Viron wasn't exactly foolish either, though. He had no way to really track down whoever had stolen from him, and waiting to catch them hadn't worked before. For now, he simply went over to the edge of the forest and destroyed the chest he usually put food in. It wouldn't stop this stranger from stealing his crops, but it would be enough to convey he wasn't happy.

"Of course, this is what I get though." Viron murmured to himself, sighing in aggravation. "Someone was stealing from me and what did I do? Made it easier for them to take what they want by conveniently placing it all into a chest for them."

(Forest Deep, 11:00 Night)

"You did what?" He shouted, staring at his friend in an adrenaline-inducing mixture of shock and fear. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. The pale-skinned, gray-cloak wearing chick in front of him had just admitted to stealing from a Settler. A fucking Settler! People already treated them badly enough, he didn't need a Settler chasing after them for missing iron and gold! He could deal with ordinary folk pretty easily, usually a punch was all it took for them to change their mind, but if a Settler wanted them dead, then by the Father they were dead last week.

She flinched, starting to understand that she had done something very wrong. But… still, it wasn't that bad right? He had been taking food from the house for days now and nothing had happened, the person who lived there had even taken the hours to craft a chest and set it by the forest for them. She had even left three rubies in the chest, and that sold at a town better than some iron, or even gold. Honestly, she thought it was a fair trade. Three rubies for forty-something iron and less than twenty gold, he had made a profit out of the exchange, not her. But still, she had to defend herself and Zach was scary when he was angry. "I d-don't see what the issue is. You've been taking from him for a week and I left him some rubies as payment. I left more than I took. And don't say we could have sold the rubies in town, you know they wouldn't give us a fair deal! He'll get full price for the rubies, at least, and we could use the iron and gold."

Zach paused at her retort, openly staring at her. He slowly twisted his hoodie's string between his fingers, a nervous tick he had developed years ago. D-does she not understand who he is? There's no way. There's sooo many Settler artifacts in that house, you have to walk past one of their crafting things just to get to the trapdoor. Is she that dense? Or just in denial?

"Amy, just… just who do you think he is?" He had to be sure. He had to find out if she knew that the man was a Settler. If she didn't realize, they could go to him and beg for mercy. It had to mean something if they brought it all back, right? Right? He shuddered as nausea overtook him, thinking about what would happen if it didn't. Settlers already loved to kill the monsters of the world, using their very flesh and bone in their Recipes. He didn't want to imagine just how his own flesh would be put to use.

"I don't know!" Amy responded, her voice quieting as Zach had lowered his own voice. "Just some dude who wants to live alone and moved a few days away from a town. L-look, if it really bothers you this bad, I'll sneak back in and put the iron and gold back, and even leave the rubies I gave him. I don't see why though, this isn't the first time we've stolen."

"He's a Settler." Zach replied.

For a moment, Amy had nothing to say to that. Her blood ran cold, and her already pale face paled even more, almost stark white. There was just no way that was true. The Settlers had all vanished from the world well before she was born, everyone knew that. They had arrived, tried to teach their ways to the inhabitants of this world, and then left when it became clear the natives couldn't learn to manipulate the world the way they did. Right? "T-that's not possible."

"But he is!" Zach insisted. "You didn't see the crafting things? They looked exactly like the old stories! His house expanded to add an entire second section overnight! Those are things only a Settler can do. And you just stole from him!"

"We can't go b-back." Amy said suddenly, her voice shaky. Understanding had hit hard, and now her fear wasn't just from Zach's anger. "He'll kill us."

"We have to go back." Zach responded. "If he has to chase us down to get his stuff back, the Father himself wouldn't be able to protect us from damnation. But if we bring back his stuff, and beg to be spared, he might let us off easy."

Amy gave him a sidelong glance. People already hated them, and things had only barely progressed to the point that they wouldn't be attacked on sight. But the Settlers… they were different. They actively sought the flesh and bones of monsters. Hybrids didn't exist back in the days of the old Settlers, but she didn't want to think about the fights that would have broken out between them over a scrap of their mixed flesh. "How easy?"

Zach audibly swallowed, his fear palpable. "Probably a limb or two. But if we don't, you can be sure we'll be killed. We've stolen from a Settler, Amy."

"Y-you're right. How should we do this? D-do we just walk up to him?" Amy asked, gently biting her lip. She really didn't like the idea of going back to his home, especially since she was the one who stole the things that really mattered. But, she could still appreciate that Zach was saying we stole, when it really seemed like he was giving food to Zach. "W-well. You can tell when he leaves, right?"

"Yeah. It's pretty easy to tell." Zach murmured softly, looking over to Amy. "The world goes, well, quiet, whenever a Settler is nearby. The land itself both fears and respects them, and you can always tell when one is nearby just by listening to the world. The wind doesn't blow. Wood doesn't rot. Animals don't age. Crops don't wither and die."

Amy wasn't so sure about that, but she couldn't necessarily argue. She hadn't been at the house when he was near, so she could hear the birds and animals just fine. The wind had rustled the leaves, the birds chirped, bees buzzed, and the world had been normal. "What if I go back? Put everything back where I found it and leave. We could wait a day or two for him to relax, then go and apologize."

He didn't like that. Sure, it was a good plan. It was probably their best bet, too. But he couldn't let Amy just walk back into the Settler's land after what they had done. It was a thin edge, they needed to give the Settler time to calm down, but the longer they waited, the higher the risk of him finding them. Looking around the worn out wooden shack they lived in, Zach sighed softly. They were far from him, easily a half day walk if you knew exactly where to go. They should have some time. Not much, but some. "No. It's a good plan, and we'll go with it, but I think we should wait a couple days first. We're kinda far from him, so he shouldn't find us quickly, and it'll give him time to cool so he's less likely to kill us as soon as he sees us."

"But if we wait, he might get angrier. If we return quickly, it'll show that we quickly regretted what we did, instead of taking days to decide." Amy countered, her shoulders slouching as the weight of the situation slowly started to press down on her. She hadn't even been home for an hour, so proud of herself and getting some materials for them to survive just to have all of this thrown at her. Was it really so bad she wanted to make some armor for them and a couple golden apples?

"That's why we'll sneak into his home and return his stuff first, then come back after. By the end of this week, it should be over."

"One way or another." Amy added darkly. Zach couldn't help but agree to that, their chances didn't look good, but running was no better. If the old stories could be believed, they would be found. "Let's head to bed, Zach. I just want this to be over with."

Sharing her sentiment, the two moved to the corner of the rotting building, where two thick pads of leaves sat. It wasn't much, but it was their beds. Laying down on the hard ground, slightly cushioned by the plant fibers, the two of them slowly drifted off to sleep.

(Forest Deep, 14:00 Night)

Two in the morning. That would be good enough. Her heart was beating quickly, and fear made her palms sweat even as she laid on the cool ground, but the last couple hours had given her time to make peace with her decision. She couldn't wait a week, he would find them and it wouldn't be pretty for her or Zach. Amy slowly rose from her bed, as quietly as she could when she slept on leaves. Fortunately, Zach snored, and that helped cover up some of the sound she made. Quickly but quietly, she gathered all of the iron and gold, and pulled the diamond from a hidden pocket on her cloak, and placed it all into a leather bag. It would suck to lose this, but their survival meant more. Leaving home, she made sure to close the creaky door almost painfully slowly before running off in the direction of the Settler's home. Zach had said that it was a half day's walk away, and that was true, but Amy could run, and run far. It would only take her two hours to get there.

True to her estimates, she had arrived by four in the morning. Crouching on the edge of the tree line, she peered into the clearing the Settler had created. The first thing she noticed was the chest Zach said he put food in was gone, obviously moved or even destroyed as a sign of his unhappiness with them. That sent a small pang of fear down her spine, but she forced it down. If she was caught and killed here, at least she died on her own terms trying to right her wrong, rather than caught hiding in a rotting box like a rat. Plus, Zach would be free as long as he didn't try to come here looking for he-

"Fuck." Of course he would. She wouldn't just abandon him, and he wouldn't abandon her either. She should have left a note or something. Well, she just had to make sure she didn't get caught. Nothing seemed off about the clearing, it was just like the last time she had come. The wind rustled the leaves, but no birds chirped. It was the middle of the night, after all. Taking that as a sign that the Settler wasn't here, she sprinted across the clearing to the house, opening the wooden door with ease. Glancing toward the door to the back room, she crept across the grass floor as quietly as she could, peeking in. It was empty, recently built by the looks of it, and just like the main room, the floor hadn't even been changed and was still grass.

Moving to the trap door, she opened it with no issues and started climbing down the ladder. It wasn't long, just a short four meters, but every creak of the wood made her heart pound. She could hear blood rushing through her head. Had she been paying closer attention, she would have noticed that the bottom meter of the ladder was gone. Had she been more perceptive, she would have seen a small, barely raised square of stone on the floor below the ladder, just where she was about to step. But she didn't.

Reaching the bottom and stepping off the ladder, Amy had only a second to wonder why the bottom meter of the ladder was gone before she heard the soft click of a pressure plate activating. Her heart stopped as she imagined the redstone signal rushing through the floors and walls, priming the largest amount of explosives she had ever imagined. She imagined the walls opening up as dispensers fired arrows and spit lava. The floor collapsing and revealing a hundred block fall onto solid obsidian. No, what happened was far worse. With a soft sound, a piston hidden in the ground moved. The ladder shattered as the block it was on broke, and compressed stone sealed the gap where she had climbed down. The room was plunged into darkness, and a second later she heard another piston move right before hearing a third activate. Then all was silent, and she was left sealed in a dark, solid stone tomb. She didn't have a pickaxe, having left it behind in favor of being lighter. She didn't have any tools at all, beyond a plain copper sword.

All Amy could do was collapse to the floor like a doll with her strings cut, soft sobs filling the air. She wasn't going to die in some genius trap. She was going to die at the hands of the Settler himself.