Awesamdream - His Beloved Warden [Fic 1]

22. Escalation

When it came time for Sam's meeting, he and Dream headed through the Nether toward spawn together. It was a peaceful walk, both had remembered to put on a piece of gold armor so the piglins left them alone, and they were lucky in that no ghasts came near them either.

When they reached the other side, Dream had Sam lean down so he could kiss his cheek, then wished him luck at the meeting.

Sam wagged his tail. "I'm sure it'll go fine. Curious to see what kind of stuff Quackity wants me to design. I'll message you when I'm done."

"Sounds good. I'll be hanging out with Puffy."

They parted ways, Sam following the path toward Las Nevadas while Dream went to meet Puffy. They were going to go for a brief walk and then return to her house to hang out.

She was waiting for him at the community building. He greeted her and offered her a pumpkin pie he had brought.

"Sam did some baking, I wanted to bring you one of his pies," Dream said.

"Aw, thank you. I love Sam's cooking." She accepted it and took a deep breath of its aroma, then smiled. "Mm. Maybe we can eat it after our walk."

Dream nodded. She put it in her inventory and they walked along the path that led toward Eret's castle, planning to go through the main hall and keep following the road on the other side.

"So how are things?" Puffy asked.

"Pretty good," Dream said. "I want to start building a parkour course soon so I can get some of my agility back, and maybe I'll open it for other people to run too, if they want."

"That sounds fun. I'm sure people will love that."

"Yeah. I lost a lot of my fitness while in prison, but I've been working on it. I like to fight mobs, and I'll spar with Sam. I need to arrange fights with some other people, though. It's good to have variety. Techno said he'll fight me, but I think in my current condition he could actually beat me," Dream said.

"Hasn't he already beaten you in fights before?" Puffy asked.

Dream smiled awkwardly. "Yeah but it was super close. Now he could probably do it easily. Imagine how big his ego would be then."

"Nah, Techno is a perfectly humble man," Puffy replied. They both laughed at that.

"Doing some off-server competitions could be fun too," Dream mused. "It's been a long time. I wonder if the same old people are still champions, or if there's some new blood."

"There's certainly a lot more people competing these days, and lots of spectators," Puffy said. "People have missed you."

"Aw, really?"

"Yeah. You were a pretty big name, and then you just stopped showing up. None of us really talked about it with outsiders, but we said you'd return eventually. But it was a private matter. So people just left it alone. But if you start competing again, people will probably ask."

"Mm." Dream nodded. "I don't know if I'd tell them. I don't want to talk about the things I did, or what happened to me in prison."

"And you don't have to tell them. People are usually pretty good about respecting private server matters. I'd like to see you in those games again. It would be a lot of fun."

"I need to train some more, but then I'll return," Dream promised.

They talked casually as they walked, sometimes greeting others, but there weren't too many people around. It was a pretty quiet day. Dream was enjoying Puffy's company and it was nice to be back in this area of the server.