Rendog's Double Life: Episode 3

'''CROAK FROG! PET DOG! BURN LOG!''' is Rendog's third episode of Double Life. It was uploaded on July 2, 2022. In this episode, Ren finds out that his soulmate Bigbst4tz2 has a secret admirer, who wants Ren and BigB to break up. When Ren doesn 't find BigB at Box after a trip to the deep dark, he fears the worst, so he and InTheLittleWoods perform a ritual to summon PearlescentMoon, whom they consider to be a demoness. The three form an alliance called the Broken Hearts Club, as Ren and Martyn believe that that's the best way to avoid Pearl' s chaose curse.

When Ren finds BigB back at Box, they both suspect that the other is cheating on them, so they decide to attend couples therapy at Smajor1995's Relationship Ranch. Things seem to be going fine until BigB reveals that he met up with his secret admirer. At the end of the episode, the Broken Hearts Club reconvenes at spawn but has to run due to a warden being loose on the surface. Ren manages to escape the warden, but dies when BigB gets blown up by a creeper.

Plot
The episode starts with Ren in his yellow skin killing salmon for food, recalling how he and Bigbst4tz2 lost a lot of their items at the end of last episode. He meets InTheLittleWoods at the riverside, who tells him that he’s been setting up signs at everybody’s base saying that Solidarity and TangoTek are not the HOA as they claimed last episode, but the HMA (Home Moaners Association), because all they do is complain.

Ren compliments Martyn’s build since it contains blocks from the Nether. He takes a bit of damage and Martyn gives him a golden carrot. Martyn asks Ren to distract ZombieCleo on her bridge, so Martyn can put a sign at the back of her house, and Ren agrees. Ren meets Cleo at her house and rides her donkey inside; Cleo tries to send him away. Ren is impressed with Cleo’s diamond armor and tries to trade fish with her, only for her to reveal she already has fifty steak.

Ren suddenly recalls that Cleo and Smajor1995 stole from him and BigB when they were dead and accuses her of this. Cleo claims that PearlescentMoon gave her items, but Ren states that Pearl would never do that because she’s lovely. Cleo recalls that Ren banished Pearl from Box, and Ren acknowledges he did because Pearl is an evil witch. Cleo gives Ren enchanted iron boots, which Ren realizes were his.

Cleo claims that she has nothing else that belonged to Ren, and that Pearl took everything. Ren states that Pearl is a demoness. Cleo leaves Ren to check what Martyn has done at the back of her house and Ren returns to Box. BigB tells Ren to keep his eyes closed, and Ren puts the salmon he gathered in their furnaces and gives BigB the enchanted boots he got from Cleo.

BigB shows Ren his new skin with sunglasses and dog ears, and Ren loves it. Ren shows off his own yellow skin, and BigB states that the skin reminds him of Martyn. BigB tells Ren he’s been trying to get his stuff back and isn’t sure whether Cleo and Scott were the real thieves.

Ren and BigB hear shouting outside and find BdoubleO100 at their staircase. Bdubs tells them he hates the black horse that Ren traded to him because it’s very slow. He thinks that Ren gave him a bad deal, but Ren reminds him he can’t go back on it. Bdubs tries to ride the horse through the barrier, and Ren asks him what he can do to help because he doesn’t want to leave a customer unhappy. Bdubs asks for one iron ingot for a stonecutter, and Ren gives him one.

Bdubs repeats that he hates the black horse and preferred his old white one, recalling how fast it had been in the horse race. BigB reminds Bdubs that the black horse can jump very high, and Bdubs thanks BigB for reminding him of the silver linings. Ren offers Bdubs some cooked fish, but Bdubs tells him his food situation is fine. Bdubs leaves after telling Ren and BigB that he’s going to make a swimming pool and that they are free to stop by anytime.

Ren and BigB discuss their plans for the day and Ren recalls that he saw an iron vein in the deep dark above the enchanting table which he would like to mine. BigB also wants to go to the ancient city to enchant his pants. BigB tells Ren he has a secret which he can’t hide from Ren any longer because it’s hurting his heart; he reveals he has a secret admirer that left a note for him in Box.

Ren thinks it’s fine since it’s like window shopping; whoever the secret admirer is can look, but not touch. BigB reveals that the note said that BigB should get himself someone who doesn’t die to an Enderman. Ren thinks that’s rude and feels upset since they insulted his skills. Ren appreciates BigB’s honesty on the matter, and BigB states he wanted to tell Ren in case he’ll be gone for some time, which will mean he’ll be on vacation with his secret admirer; he assures Ren that he’ll come back if that ever where to happen.

Ren and BigB decide to go to the deep dark and find Scott building a ranch nearby. They are shocked to notice that Cleo and Martyn have died and Scott leaves to check on Cleo while Ren sees Cleo retrieve her items on the cliffside next to her house. Ren and BigB meet Martyn and Jimmy at the Ranch and ask Martyn what happened, but Martyn quickly leaves to retrieve his own items.

Jimmy admires Ren and BigB’s glasses, stating that he’s jealous of them. Jimmy asks them for help in taking down the remains of the Ranch, but they inform him they’re heading to the deep dark. They invite Jimmy along but Jimmy declines; he values his life and expects Ren and BigB to be red before long.

Ren and BigB go down the staircase into the ancient city and find ImpulseSV down there. BigB gets to enchanting and Impulse tells Ren about the pact to keep the enchanting table in the deep dark. Ren asks Impulse about the iron vein and Impulse reveals that there’s a little left, but that SmallishBeans and EthosLab took all the good stuff already.

Ren and Impulse notice that the sculk sensors around them keep picking up sound despite them not moving. They realize that they are activated by the sound of their voices, which wasn’t the case yet during last episode. Impulse experiments and finds that they don’t get activated when he’s crouching.

The three go up to where the iron vein was using a ladder made by Impulse, and Ren and BigB mine the remaining iron while Impulse leaves. Ren and BigB hear Pearl beneath them, and Ren tells Pearl to stay quiet, but Pearl tells him she’s crouched. She tells them she already set off a shrieker two times.

Ren offers Pearl iron ‘to appease the demoness’ and Pearl asks him and BigB if they’re looting chests as well; Ren tells her they’re not that brave. Pearl claims to have seen BigB in the ancient city before, but BigB denies this. Ren and Pearl discuss which of the two of them is evil and Pearl dares them to walk off the platform.

Ren and BigB mine and smelt iron while Pearl sneaks around in the ancient city below them. Martyn meets Ren and BigB on the platform, who scares them with a reverb voice. He tells them he came down Impulse’s staircase which Impulse himself had show him the location of. Ren and BigB tell him they’re mining iron, and Martyn reveals he’s there to enchant some gear and retrieve a skeleton skull that he spotted at the other end of the city.

Ren instructs BigB to go home with the iron, while Ren goes into the city with Martyn. Ren tells Martyn that he thinks there’s black magic on the server. He elaborates that he saw Pearl and GoodTimesWithScar doing some kind of ritual in the forest last episode, which led to Pearl later visiting their base and him and BigB dying. Ren thinks that wherever Pearl goes, badness seems to follow.

Martyn thinks that this explains why Pearl built her base so high up in the sky; to hide her practices. Ren believes that Pearl is the common denominator in all their troubles, including the broken-up couples of Pearl, Scott, Cleo, and Martyn. They reach the pillar where the skeleton skull but find it missing; Martyn is sure that Pearl has taken it.

Ren tells Martyn about BigB receiving a package from someone who tried to convince BigB to leave Ren. He tells Martyn he saw something bad sparkling in BigB’s eyes, indicating Pearl’s influence. Martyn mentions that even Impulse had noticed that something was weird about Pearl because he’d caught her singing in the ancient city.

Ren then reveals his ultimate plan to Martyn; he tells him that the best ally they could have is the demoness of chaos herself. Ren proposes that if he comes to the surface and finds that BigB has abandoned him, Ren and Martyn should go to Pearl and propose an alliance to her, a ‘broken hearts club’. Martyn thinks that it would be an awkward conversation since he abandoned Pearl after their soulmates broke up with them.

Ren knows that Pearl is lonely and needs people by her side, and if she is the demoness that Ren believes her to be, then he wants to be the one by her side. He and Martyn sneak out of the ancient city and Martyn proposes that Ren goes to Box to see whether BigB has left while Martyn gets lapis and goes back down to the city to get enchanted; they will then meet at a nearby birch mountain afterwards.

Ren goes to Box and expresses his fears that BigB has left him for the secret admirer, but states that he wouldn’t blame BigB for it, since he’s infected and cursed by Pearl. He thinks the best way to break the curse might be to align with it. He reaches Box and finds that BigB is missing, as he suspected.

Ren meets Martyn at their meeting point and Martyn tells him people where griefing his base; he hasn’t even gotten the chance to enchant his gear yet but plans on doing so later. Ren isn’t surprised that Martyn is getting bothered by other people since he just spotted Pearl passing by. They decide to sneak into Pearl’s sky base but find it very unassuming; Martyn believes it might be a decoy.

Ren and Martyn decide to have a parlay with the demoness herself, but don’t know where she is. They leave her base and decide to do a ritual to summon her at the bottom of the ladder; Martyn kills a frog to ‘croak a frog’, Ren pets Pearl’s dog, and the third step is to burn logs. They dance around the burning logs chanting ‘croak/poke the frog, pet the dog, burn the log’, until they eventually get the words confused. `

The ritual doesn’t seem to be working, and Martyn swaps the oak logs with birch logs. Quite some chanting later, Pearl finally returns to her base and is utterly confused about what’s happening. They tell her they were summoning her and point out to her that what all three of them have in common is that they have no friends; Ren reveals to her that BigB ditched him.

Ren apologizes to Pearl for blaming for his death, and Martyn apologizes for leaving her at the end of the first episode. Ren states that the three of them are the same and proposes an alliance as ‘the broken hearts club’, stating that he’d rather be aligned with the demon within Pearl than with anyone else. Pearl asks whether this means they’re friends now and Ren says they are. Pearl introduces them to her dog Tilly and Ren feeds Tilly steak.

Ren goes back to Box while Martyn goes enchanting; they agree to meet again later. Ren finds that someone added a hand to one side of Box and is surprised to find that BigB has returned. He asks BigB where he has been, but BigB doesn’t elaborate and instead says that Ren has been gone for so long that Box has grown a mouth and an arm. Box supposedly even said its first word: ‘Ren’.

Ren confesses that he’d thought BigB had abandoned him because he couldn’t find him after returning from the deep dark. BigB still doesn’t tell Ren where he was. Ren confesses that he started an alliance with the other people on the server who’ve had their hearts broken. BigB shows that he got a horn from Scar, who wants sunglasses in return.

Ren states that he joined a support group because he has a feeling in his heart that BigB is going to leave him. BigB tells him he could never do that and that he’d told Ren about his secret admirer; he confesses that he thought Ren might leave him for Martyn when they stayed in the deep dark together.

Ren feeds the cows and tells BigB he’s formed a group with Martyn and Pearl; he explains his idea that joining the demoness will get them to survive until the end of the series. He explains that by sending love to Pearl, he hopes that her curse will go in a different direction.

BigB tells Ren about Scott’s relationship ranch, where soulmates can strengthen their bond, and the two decide to go there. Scott explains that there’s different activities they can do that will determine whether their bond is growing stronger or weaker; Ren in the meanwhile spots Pearl sneaking behind the wall. Scott is about the introduce the first activity when Ren mentions that BigB got a box of chocolates from a secret admirer.

Scott puts Ren and BigB in separate spaces, with a goat in BigB’s space. He explains that BigB will have to dodge when the goat is charging at him to avoid hurting his soulmate, while Ren in the meantime can talk about his feelings. Scott guesses that Ren is jealous he doesn’t have a secret admirer himself and is upset that BigB doesn’t give him gifts like the secret admirer gave to BigB; Ren admits this all to be true.

BigB pops in stating that Ren sometimes lashes out, but Ren defends himself saying it’s just passion. BigB lets himself get hit by the goat, which Scott notes is interesting. He lets Ren and BigB out of their separate spaces and concludes that the main problems with their relationship are jealousy and insecurity; Ren adds that it’s because BigB’s glasses aren’t yellow like his own.

BigB defends himself, stating that he didn’t know his glasses were supposed to be yellow today. Scott notes that BigB changed his appearance for Ren by wearing dog ears and glasses, but Ren’s not wearing anything of BigB’s; BigB thinks that Ren looks more like Martyn now. Ren feels ashamed.

Scott leads the two to the second activity. He explains that BigB is going to stand in powder snow while Ren’s going to have a bucket; Ren is to either trust BigB to leave the snow on time for them to not die, or call quits and remove the snow himself. The two take their places and discuss their feelings again as BigB freezes; Ren mentions that he was very happy to see Box with a hand, a mouth, and a mole. BigB knew that Ren would like the hand, but Ren questions whether the mole means that BigB thinks that Ren is ugly; BigB then leaves the powder snow with one-and-a-half hearts left.

Ren and BigB recover while Scott states that it’s good that Ren trusted BigB to leave the snow in time. They make their way to the last activity and Ren apologizes to BigB for not wearing anything of his and for not trusting him to put a disgusting hand on Box; BigB forgives Ren. Scott explains the last activity, ‘trust fall’; Ren is to jump of a cliff with BigB at the bottom, and BigB is to place water in time while Ren is already jumping.

Ren jumps down and BigB places water, but he wasn’t in time to prevent Ren from taking damage. Scott notices that BigB seemed slow to place the water, but Ren forgives BigB for it. BigB gives the water bucket back to Scott and Scott leaves to consult his notes to decide what his verdict is on the relationship.

Ren and BigB reflect on the session and apologize to each other; Ren apologizes for starting an alliance with others, and BigB apologizes for meeting up with his secret admirer. Ren is shocked to hear this last part while Scott returns. Scott states that this changes his verdict; he thinks that BigB isn’t fully satisfied with Ren if he met up with the secret admirer. BigB tries to defend himself, stating that his admirer came to him. Scott states that his expert opinion is that BigB and Ren should take a break from each other, and Ren disconnects in shock.

Later, Ren is in Box and decides to summon his allies from the broken heart club to end the session. He sends a cryptic message through in-game chat, stating that they should meet at spawn. The three meet at spawn, and Martyn and Pearl warn Ren that there’s a warden loose in the forest. They run as they spot the creature coming closer and lead it to the Ranch.

Everyone at the Ranch runs away, and the warden eventually leaves the Ranch through the gate in the perimeter wall. Ren rides away from the Ranch before suddenly dying; BigB got blown up by a creeper, making both him and Ren red.

Description
Minecraft Hardcore SMP: Rendog and Bigb head to the Deep Dark on the hunt for iron and enchanting before Ren's suspicions that his soulmate has betrayed him start to take root... Rendog and Martin summon the Demoness herself before complete chaos breaks out on the server!