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With a sharp inhale, Pearl’s river blue eyes fly open. As soon as her body is in her control again, she slides one foot behind the other in a defensive stance, looking out across the unfamiliar faces around her. They all stumble and raise their hands to the blinding sun. Pearl has to admit that even she is having a tricky time seeing with how bright that ball of fire is. She blinks frantically in an attempt to drive the black dots from her eyes.
A rumbling voice blares from invisible speakers, “Welcome, everyone, to 3rd Life. You have been given three lives. This will go until only one of you remains alive. Good luck.”
A man with brown fringe falling around dark eyes dressed in a red jumper sighs. “Let’s go.” He then turns around and walks into the oak forest surrounding them.
The remaining fourteen, Pearl included, glance around at each other nervously before tentatively turning their backs and setting off into the world around them. As Pearl treks through the lush landscape, listening to the skittering and chattering of nearby creatures, she attempts to process what the heck is going on. First, she opens her eyes to find herself in a circle of people she’s never met before and now she’s walking through a place she’s certainly never been to for who knows what reason!
She can’t remember anything either. She knows she’s a waterbender, healer, and bloodbender, but beyond that there’s not much of anything. Not from before, not who those people are, not where she is, or what that voice was. Three lives? How can they have three lives? Pearl exhales sharply.
What’s even weirder is that she has a vague idea of what she needs to do now. How is beyond her? But she automatically begins punching a tree until part of it snaps off because, yeah… that makes sense. Still, choosing not to question it too much, Pearl gathers the wood and apples that fall from the tree, placing them into a bag swung around her shoulders.
After crafting a sword, it’s quite easy to kill animals for food since she’ll need some soon with how her hunger points are slowly dipping down on her communicator. If Pearl wants to head into the caves soon, she’ll definitely need something to help get her hearts higher when mobs attack. How the heck does she know any of this?
---
Pearl pokes her head out of the staircase mined up from the cave to find herself in the middle of a village. It’s still dark somehow even though she’s been underground for an age. Laughter and chatter fill the air from the edge of the village and firelight peeks over from that direction. Pearl climbs up the final few steps with a grunt. They’re steep, even for her tall height.
Suddenly, out of the darkness, a frightening hiss calls out from behind her. Pearl gasps and draws a long whip of water from a waterskin she’d managed to acquire before heading into the caves beneath the surface and flings it in the direction of the exploding creature. She’d run into quite a few of those monsters underground and she has zero interest in losing her first life to one.
“Ahh!” a male voice cries out as he is viciously attacked. “What’d you do that for?!”
Pearl blinks, squinting her eyes in the dim light to see a blonde man rubbing at the spot on his upper arm where the whip had struck him. “You’re not a creeper?” she observes more as a question than anything else.
“No!” he exclaims.
“Oh.” Pearl pushes herself up fully out of the staircase and looks at the man before her.
He has blonde hair poking out around a headband, light blue eyes, a lime green shirt, brown shorts, and green foot coverings. His eyes shimmer in the faint torchlight illuminating the village and his pale skin is marked by the red slash of Pearl’s water whip.
“So, what’s your name?” the man asks. “I’m Martyn.” He holds his hand out.
Pearl stares at his outstretched hand and slowly shakes it. “Pearl.” She watches him cautiously, not really trusting the man who just approached her from behind and hissed exactly like a creeper. Wait. “How did you make that sound?”
Martyn glances over Pearl’s shoulder at the group laughing boisterously at the edge of the village. “I’m really good at imitations if I listen to the sound long enough. Anyway, I still need to get a few of those guys over there, so I’ll see you later.”
With that, Martyn takes off sneaking down the worn path in the direction of the circle of people. Pearl watches him curiously before carefully taking off after him, keeping to the shadowy border of the village. As she grows closer, she gets a better look at the group. Seven people gather in a vague circle, chatting away with no inclination of the man sneaking up from behind until he lets out a hiss. They all jump, the shirtless man screaming and looking around frantically.
The red-headed woman jolts and whips around, slapping Martyn. “Cut it out!” Still, she can’t help but laugh at his antics.
Martyn rubs his cheek. “Why do I keep getting assaulted?!”
The woman chuckles and glances in Pearl’s direction, eyes locking on her shrouded form. “Hey!” she calls out, waving Pearl over.
Pearl cautiously steps out from around the house she had ducked behind and makes her way towards the group. “Hi,” she greets, giving a small wave.
“I’m Cleo,” the woman says with a smile. “Welcome to the village that everyone seems to have descended upon.”
“I’m Bdubs!” a bug-eyed man with a painfully wide grin steps forward. “I like your cloak.” He nods to Pearl while wrapping his own green cloak around his shoulders.
Pearl glances down at the red cloak she hadn’t even processed that she had been wearing. “Thanks.” She gestures at the blue flowers in Cleo’s hair. “I like your flowers.”
“Thank you.” Cleo reaches up and presses their fingers against one of the petals. “What’s your name?”
“Pearl.” Pearl gives a smile. She likes these two.
Suddenly, there’s another hiss that Pearl automatically believes to be Martyn until it’s followed by a massive explosion, a shout, and a beep from her communicator. The remaining players look at their small tablets to read a new message:
GoodTimeWithScar was blown up by a creeper
---
“What else do you need?” Pearl shouts up to Bdubs where he stands atop the beginnings of the crastle, hands on her hips.
“Stone!” Bdubs’ voice barely reaches Pearl’s ears with how high up he is. People have been teasing him about the height of their build, so Bdubs decided it was a good idea to make the verticality portion of their base first even after Cleo and Pearl both warned him it wouldn’t end well.
“What did he say?” Cleo turns to ask Pearl, their brows furrowed.
“Stone,” Pearl relays. She sighs and leans the pickaxe to rest on her shoulder. “I guess I’m going back to the mines.”
As she says her goodbyes to Cleo and shouts up to Bdubs that she’ll be back soon with the stone, Pearl trudges down the steps into the makeshift mine under the beginnings of the crastle. They’re a good duo. Cleo’s definitely a smart person to make an ally of and Bdubs will be fun. Still, who knows what’ll happen?