“Nah, he just likes, you know, technical stuff. The games are to convince Dream to do it. He likes competitions.”

That sounds exactly like Dream. "I think it would definitely be worth getting Sam's help with this."

“Cool, ‘cause I already asked. He’ll be over as soon as he’s done with the redstone he’s working on for the prison. —Well, he said it’s for his secret project, but his secret project is the prison.”

"...so we should potentially be careful with what plans we reveal to him, seeing how good he is at keeping secrets."

“I mean, yeah. I can call Fundy instead if you want.”

"If we're going with the story of it being a game, and that's what we tell Sam, he wouldn't need to know anything sensitive."

“—I mean, if he’s going to be making a trap, he’s gonna find out he’s making a trap, it’s not exactly rocket science. The plan is to say the trap is for a prank rather than an execution.”

"You would be the expert here-- but that does sound like a sound plan." The likelihood of  Dream working out the prank is planned to be more deadly than death usually is higher than he would like.

But they are desperately short of man power, and an imperfect ally might be worth the risk. 

“Cool cool cool.”

And eventually Sam—a man who is a creeper the same way Technoblade is a pig—shows up. He and Tubbo talk excitedly (and mostly incomprehensibly, to both Jingyan and me, Tubbo’s author) about trap ideas. Their first attempt is a big wiggly pit hidden under sand that uses what they call piston feed tapes, but it ends up being easy to escape by just placing down blocks, so they iterate— can they add a wiggly ceiling in time while keeping the trap hidden beforehand? Can they do a smaller version and just count on being able to lure the person into the exact right spot? Can you glitch out with enderpearls or other things that Dream’s likely to have? Many questions. Many tests. Very exciting. Tubbo stays up significantly later than usual working on it. 

He has been here long enough to find the concept of a creeper who is both sentient* and friendly** startling, but seeing as Sam has not exploded and Tubbo appears to trust him not to explode, Jingyan will join him in extending that trust.

He keeps an eye on what they are doing, in the hopes of learning more about what they are doing... but the art of pistons and redstone is still a mystery too him. He volunteers to be a test dummy for some of the experiments where leaving Tubbo and Sam both free is useful. (He dies a lot. Somehow, murder has become mundane.)

*Hopefully they are not all sentient?

**He is more confident that this unusual.

Redstone is fun, at least, and Sam’s fun. Normally they’d be killing Ranboo rather than a stranger, but Tubbo’s decided not to have feelings about that, just like he’s not having feelings about Tommy being alive. Later, maybe, when he can get high about it, but right now he has a country to run. 

He does have to sleep eventually. 

They've made progress, at least. The... wiggly pit... can at least kill someone. The question remains whether it can kill Dream.

Not sleeping won't answer that question, though.

The next day, Tubbo calls Ranboo to talk to him privately, before calling Sam or Jingyan.  

It’s— very polite. Ranboo is fucking terrified of him, but Tubbo knows exactly why he didn’t say anything, and he's not interested in making Ranboo spell it out. Plus, Ranboo’s memory is full of holes at the best of times— he has to check his memory book during the meeting, and Tubbo has his doubts Ranboo remembered either Tommy’s supposed death or Tommy’s actual location half the time. 

Still, it leaves him in an awful mood. Fundy's not around, so he can't fuck around by stabbing him a bunch. Normally he'd stab Ranboo but that's out, too. 

He works on the wiggly pit in fits and starts; he keeps getting frustrated and bored with it.

Volunteering to be test dummy is maybe not the most useful thing, but it's something he can do.

(He couldn't help much if this was 'his' Tubbo, and-- he's a stranger he met yesterday this Tubbo. Attempting to help in a deeper way would not work.)

Sam's not around and Fundy's not around. They're both hanging out with George and Karl Jacobs. Under the circumstances, Tubbo gets a little more satisfaction from repeatedly killing Jingyan than he usually would.

He calls it a day early.

... he wonders what people will make of a chat filled with "bleedfierceforever was killed by Tubbo_" especially seeing how new he is. ... then again,  last time he was greeted with repeated murder.

Probably best to call it a day early.

Tubbo spends the night on the docks getting extremely high. The stress relievers help. Makes him feel slow and relaxed, like 80s game show music. Like maybe the week he thought he killed Tommy was just a bad dream, far away and fuzzy. Not to be confused with furry. That's a different thing.

He wants to call Ranboo, have someone to talk to. But Ranboo's probably still mad at him, or maybe he's mad at Ranboo--definitely last time they talked was awkward and the time before that was actively hostile--and Fundy's not around, and Niki's not around, and Phil's mad at him, and Tommy's mad at him, and Dream is going to be mad at him soon if he isn't already--kind of seems like he's the common denominator, here--the point is, he doesn't have anyone to call.

He thinks of Schlatt. He's been understanding him more and more. Here he is, president, getting high instead of going to meetings. Everyone turned against Schlatt, too, by the end.

He takes more stress relievers. His sleep is less like sleep and more like passing out, but that's alright. He prefers that anyway. No nightmares. He's a little less alright with the sun in his face when he wakes up with the next morning, but it's not too bad. Just a headache. Still.

Instead of going to the wiggly pit, he goes to work on the apiary. It's sort of similar, in that the floor wiggles, but it's also better, because instead of murder it's for bees.

Jingyan spends the night mining. L'Manberg could do with the materials, and hopefully the hordes of unread are distracted on the surface.

bleedfierceforever was blown up by a creeper

That afternoon, outside of L'Manberg are two people in enchanted netherite. Well, one person in full netherite and one with partial netherite. They are standing around a small hole in the ground.

The first one to see them is Ranboo.

"I think we may be spotted, Tommy."

"From where?"

From the hole: "HELP!"

"Uh-"

"YOU HEAR NOTHING! YOU HEAR NOTHING!"

By some miracle, they are not, in fact, audible in L'Manberg.

Ranboo can still very much see them, though.

Well, this is awkward.

He watches a bit longer. The person in partial netherite comes close enough that he can be seen more clearly, and it confirms Ranboo's guess: that's TommyInnit. He proceeds to prove this further by building a cobblestone wall between himself and L'Manberg.

A minute later, Technoblade comes around the wall.

Technoblade whispers to Ranboo: get in vc

Technoblade whispers to bleedfierceforever: get in vc