I'm sure there are shakkets* somewhere. I just have to find one. How do I know this? I was born in one. I went to the frivolous school long enough in Prisseters to know that every world, of course, in theory there were other worlds, were spawned with at least three shakkets, and at least one of every shakket prone biome. But there could be villages, which usually belonged to one tier. Prisseters was an exception because it had people from every village, meaning it was Ranked Universal.

Cities (as that was what they usually were) that were Universal were very famous and desirable to live in. The tiers were the different professions ranked. There were cities of Redstonists or cities of Griefers or cities of Potionologists or Mages but it was all tiers or one. Not just two tiers or three. The tiers went; Farmer, Warrior, Builder, Griefer, Redstonist, and Potionologists and Mages, which were considered the same tier technically.

Shakkets usually had one or two of each profession besides mages and potionologists, but shakkets were, well... undesirable. They were nameless and behind the times and usually had rules which had long since evaporated. And they did not take kindly to new ideas or change. And I would know, I was born in one.

When I was little and lived in my small, homely shakket, one of our neighboring shakkets brought us an iron golem. They were one of the few shakkets who had accepted them from Thaytos, the nearest but still far away universal city. I heard the griefers, mages, redstonists and builders worked very closely on that project.

I later learned from the traders in Thaytos how the builders had crafted hundreds of iron blocks and created a special shape. Then the griefers and mages had worked together to create a mod which is made with some kinds of enchantments and advanced redstone contraptions, but somehow they made the world recognize a specific form or shape. The griefers worked hard but their attempts made no real impact on the golems. In the end all they could do was set off fireworks at the grand unveiling and work as witnesses to how they were made.

When the ambassadors came with six iron golems, four for our Shakket, the mayor shooed them off with foul language and anger. Not gratitude and joy as we should have shown. If we had accepted the selfless gifts we would have survived. But we didn't and now I am the only one of us left. But I don't count myself as one of them, anyway.

In a strange way, their demise was my making. I was forced to learn to mine and craft and survive, and I was not stopped from making the journey to Thaytos and becoming an influential trader, for it is there that I learned many things. I learned nothing in my shakket because they knew nothing. And the little they did know about ores and building was only shared among the male residents. Girls framed pictures and... and potted flowers and cleaned up after their husbands, which, by the way, everybody had to have. Not that husbands had to have wives, of course.

So I would go and find a shakket. Somewhere to board for a bit and do some trading and... well, stuff like that. Maybe I could start a small trading business like I had in Thaytos. I'd start with little, but I'd work my way up until I had enough to find her friends with absolutely no threats. And if I stay long enough, maybe they'll have the same idea too and find the same shakket! What am I thinking, of course they'll be looking for a shakket!

I think I'll start packing up all my things again. My sign in this bunker is still standing so I'll just pop over to my new bunker and grab all my other things and make another sign for Ay and Jules and Arjay just in case they do find my camouflaged bunkers. Ha, unlikely! But I do it anyway.

I have just finished packing everything up besides my bed. I'll leave first thing tomorrow morning just to give me some time. I run outside and quickly harvest all my sugar cane. I've had about eight block plots that I've been growing and harvesting since over twenty days ago. And then I just fish whenever I get hungry. No enchanted books yet, though. This time I harvested everything, even the bottom stem because I'm picking up base permanently. Adding it to my stock, I realize I have sixty-four canes. Time to craft.

Re-placing down my crafting table again, I craft five compasses with five handfuls of redstone dust and twenty iron ingots. Then I craft sixteen pieces of paper, basically using way too much of my sugar can stash, and pulling out my compasses I craft two maps. I keep the rest of the compasses for future maps... and, well, compasses. Even though I've done this hundreds of times before, I watch with fascination when rich colors begin to fill the seemingly small grid that opens up a whole world for me.

But even so, I have no idea where I'm going. At least when I was stranded right after I fled my shakket back in my world I knew where I was going-ish because of the basic geography everyone knew. Another shakket to the north, another shakket to the south, and Universal city Thaytos to the west. Not that anybody ever visited any of those places, but sometimes ambassadors came from there and the usual hubbub surrounding visitors always watched them come and go with eager fascination. That's how I had eventually found Thaytos.

That's when there was another flashback. I half-felt myself falling onto the grass just outside my doorway before the vision totally took me over. This time I was walking through the twilight, night darkening around me. But I could see a light. It was still very dim, but as I broke into a jog I could see it closer and as the darkness took over the light began to fill up my vision. The lights of the city Thaytos. I'm still sprinting when I suddenly skid to a halt, gasping and shaking. I stand at the edge of a cliff. A cliff overlooking the great gates of Thaytos. From here I can see every building, every light, every single doorway. Yet if I had gone a step closer I would have died, gone forever, never to see Thaytos... never to reach safety.

When I come to it's dark but thankfully no monsters have spawned near enough to sense me. Breathing with relief I throw open the doors of my hut and slam them shut behind me, sinking into my soft white wool bed that I have only obtained four days ago from catching the uncommon stray sheep wandering around the marshes. What did that vision mean? Usually it reflects something going on that's similar. But I was just thinking about the journey to Thaytos and then... maybe it's telling me I need to find my safety! What, no. That's stupid.

Then... a realization dawned on me. What if I wasn't in a new world!? What if, unlike the nether, this portal had just transported me to another side of my world!? What if the others had already found their way back to Prisseters and were waiting for me!? Prisseters could be the safety I needed to reach! Then another realization dawned on me. Ay had opened up the subconscious**. A dark, hidden part of you that allowed you to do... dark things. Things nobody understood.

I once sneaked into the restricted section of the library with Ay and we found a moth-eaten book about The Subconscious. To access it your thoughts had to be totally willing to die, and you had to be completely decided. Then a vision field of some sort would show up, and you'd see... things. Commands. There we had stopped reading for fear of being caught. But when we came back the book pages from then on had been violently ripped out and removed. Those pages had instructions to navigate the field.

Ay probably has those instructions. She had ripped them out later, I knew she had gone in earlier than me - and that's when she got them. How else had she opened it up? She had to have them! And then she could bring them back to their world! Because, S had realized something, a flaw in her original thought. You could only teleport through the subconscious to familiars***. Ay's familiars included anybody who shared her blood. And all Ay's family had either been wiped out... or in Prisseters.

So Ay had figured out the transfer. The hardest of the subconscious. Because you really had to be all in and ready to leave your past behind you forever. Ready to clear your thoughts, memories, and world forever. I could never manage that. She must have been... really distressed. Like, really. S frowned. If Ay was really that ready to leave... and even die forever... than how could they ever get back?

Minecraft Words

* - Shakket, Tiny primitive village whose residents never leave or are forbidden to do so

** - Subconscious, The minecraft menu that we escape to

*** - Familiar, A still-living person who shares the same blood as you

Author's Note

This has to be the longest chapter yet - eighteen paragraphs!

Wow, there are a lot of minecraft words today! I wanted to make a name for the type of village we typically see that doesn't have a bunch of tiers and the cool advanced adventurer-villagers that I like to make.

Also adding in the subconscious added a fun, dark twists that leaves readers wondering and longing for the next chapters (I hope). 

I don't usually ask questions, but I have to ask a few this time. 

Who is Ay? What is the mysterious void that S jumped into and where has it brought her? And finally, what is the mysterious subconscious and can Ay find a way to undo it? And does she want to undo it even if she can?

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