Alone [Book 3 of the Life Hearts Trilogy, previously called Lost Hearts]

Secrets

Over the next few weeks, Grian, with the help of Xisuma and FWhip, managed to get Emperors, Hermits, and Evolutionists alike registered for Gateway, with Xisuma as the temporary Admin. Grian, Joel, and FWhip celebrated by murdering Jimmy.

Gem, despite Grian's insistence that her crystals weren't real, went to the Ninth World and grabbed the missing Hermits, including Scar. That shut Grian up, and brought the total of people in Gateway up to 37, including Martyn.

Speaking of him, once Ren arrived he immediately started asking if anyone had seen the traitor so he could "murder him, and then murder him again." Jimmy and a few Evolutionists were completely with him on that, but since only the Admins, meaning Xisuma, FWhip, and Grian, knew where he was, nobody could murder him anyway. Wisely, anybody who knew that Martyn was in Gateway chose not to tell Ren. Otherwise Even More Giga Pies might have turned into a meeting house for a group of angry assassins. I had too much experience with those, thank you very much.

Martyn's trial was pretty much forgotten. Grian, X, and a bunch of the redstone Evolutionists got together to build a prison just for him, and Grian even used his Watcher powers to be helpful and cheated the laws of the world by building with bedrock. Doc was impressed and a little jealous.

Since there were still two Hermits missing, Gem and Xisuma set out to find them with her locator crystal. They came back without anyone, which confused us at first. Then they said that Etho was safe but caring for some family in another world, but TFC was dead. That made the Hermits sad at a fourth death, but they knew it was time to move on.

The pain of Scott and Sausage's loss eventually dulled enough that the Emperors, including me, were able to build things other than tiny starter bases. We decided to leave our past in the Empires behind us and move on to a new life.

Lizzie and Joel settled down together in a tall red house that they built together. Jimmy went there regularly as well, to help Lizzie get her memories back, but we all knew it wouldn't work without another Ocean Orb, which we would probably never find. Joel, FWhip, and I eventually managed to get back into friendship terms as well.

Jimmy, with the help of Gem and Scar, concentrated the magic of the Cod Mask into a crystal that he could wear around his neck. Because of that, he kept his fins, but didn't usually have them on. Now, he mostly used them to keep from drowning in puddles. Rumor had it that his new denim jacket used to be Scott's, but I wasn't so sure. Rumor also had it that Xornoth was still alive in another form. Rumors were untrustworthy. But Jimmy settled in a birch forest - to Gem's delight - with Norman and a new cat (who also hated me), Stanley.

Katherine found a pretty area that bloomed beautifully in the springtime and settled there using her fey magic to help it grow even better. She helped Gem with her magic as well, and the two became close friends.

Shrub and her wolves retreated into the dark forest, and we didn't hear from her again until she died and respawned, then went back into the forest, grumbling about how her dogs were going to be all scattered.

Pearl, being Pearl, adopted an alien-like, science fiction theme for her base. She seemed to have left the Empires behind completely, even dropping her beautiful customized tools, armor, and elytra in favor of normal diamond and elytra.

FWhip kept his medieval style of building and built a village. Not much to it, except all the explosions. I swore that I heard one every two hours.

Gem practiced her plant magic and grew her strength in normal magic so that she could once again cast more complicated spells, although she still needed Scar's help for a lot of it. She tutored him in real wizardry instead of just crystals and magical creatures, which seemed to be all he knew. She lived in her tree, built her cozy home inside the tree, and grew, you guessed it, more trees. So many trees, although none were as big as Scar's tree.