Evolved [Book 2 of the Life Hearts Trilogy]

Voice in the Sky - Blue

Don't worry, this whole "watching" thing won't last long, only until the chapter equivalent of Session 5. Hang in there until then.

-Indigo

~~~

The next morning, the Southlands arranged a meeting. Grian suggested that they would pass a life around the circle and if any of them ran away with it, they would be deemed untrustworthy and be exiled. It wasn't a perfect system, but it worked.

Mumbo started it and passed the life to Impulse, who passed it to Martyn.

Martyn ran.

Then he came back. The others laughed, relieved.

Martyn passed it to Grian, who also pretended to run away. Then Grian passed it to Jimmy, who passed it back to Mumbo. Mumbo also ran away.

Mumbo ran back. "Wait, that was my life!"

"Kind of hard to steal a life when t it's yours," Grian laughed.

About the time they finished that, another Boogeyman was about to be chosen. They stared into each other's eyes and waited.

3...

2...

1...

I didn't have any warning instincts. The Southlands was safe. Probably.

But the ideas unfortunately didn't stop at life passing.

Grian also placed a chest and said that anyone who said "AH-HA" without a good reason would have to put something valuable in the box. They called it the "AH-HA JA-HAR" and Mumbo, who had come up with the name, had to put his spyglass inside. Jimmy, who had mined all the copper and amethyst for the spyglasses, was not very happy.

I went to check on Ren. He was at his tower, preparing to go on some adventure. Once he was apparently ready, he went to his Nether Portal and went into the fiery dimension.

My ghostly watch buzzed. A lot of people were going to the Nether at once. That couldn't be good. I used Ren's portal to follow them.

While Grian was nowhere to be found, the other Southlanders were gathered at a bastion remnant. They went inside after arguing about how, and then started the raid.

They mined the gold from the walls and looted the chests. Then the Piglins got angry. And disaster struck.

Mumbo accidentally trapped himself in a room with a Piglin Brute. The Brute hit him into a small pool of lava. Jimmy, panicking, accidentally blocked his escape.

Mumbo Jumbo tried to swim in lava

Hold on... Mumbo Jumbo? That was the other name that had been on Pix's suspicious document, along with Impulse's. I decided that if I ever got home, I would get Pix trapped in a corner and demand answers.

The Southlanders, excluding Grian of course, went home.

I didn't, though. I headed to find him.

Grian was on a very narrow bridge that made me nervous. He ran across it towards a portal, where Etho and Bdubs were.

Was he helping them after what had happened when Bdubs was the Boogeyman? No, because as soon as he got within shouting range, he reminded Bdubs of his grudge.

Etho, despite that, gave Grian some news - Scar was probably the Boogeyman. He had tried to kill both of them right at that spot. Grian thanked them for the information as they disappeared through the portal.

My instincts confirmed that Scar was the Boogeyman, but something felt missing, too. I felt like... Joel? Maybe?

"Hello?" called a deep, confused voice.