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< Grian > END OF SESSION
The message appeared in the chat a few times in quick succession (because of panic, if anyone had to guess), and like magic, the snails that had been haunting the group for the past few hours disappeared into thin air. Sighs of relief filled the air as people started settling down, idly chatting as they ate dinner at a small campfire the group had set up.
Despite the nature of the server and the game they played on it, they had agreed to have short periods of peace for people to eat, rest, and talk to each other like normal. They didn’t want any permanent negative effects, physical or mentally, to come into existence. This was, most importantly, a game played for fun, after all.
Unlike other nights, there was still some tension in the air. Some people were, understandably, still on edge after having been stalked by a snail of death all day, and kept looking over their shoulder out of pure habit. Over time however, even those people seemed to settle down, relaxing as they talked with the others. Warm chatter and laughter filled the otherwise cold evening air, the warmth of friendship pushing away the cold of rivalry and bloodthirst that came with the game.
“Hey Skizz?” “What’s up buddy?” “I’m glad you made it through the session.”
“I can’t believe you burned down my tower Scar!” “Well then stop building flammable bases Tango! You should be used to this by now!” “You jerk!”
The chatter and laughter went on for quite a while, yet slowly but surely as the night went on people started heading back to their bases, trying to catch some sleep before the next wildcard. Eventually, all the players had gone to sleep and the campfire had burned out, the server quiet outside of the noises from animals, both wild and tamed.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
The next morning, many were awoken by the buzzing of their communicator, which showed one simple message.
< Grian > gather at spawn
The chat quickly filled up with confused messages. Usually gatherings at spawn were only called at the start of a game to explain the rules of the season, and at the end of one to make sure they all returned to their home servers safely and didn’t get stuck in this one. A gathering being called in the middle of a game was new, and many had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be a good thing.
Despite the shared confusion and the early hour, most of the group had gathered at spawn within an hour. The spawn itself was nothing special — a small island floating in the water with some moss, azalea bushes and a pale oak sapling in the middle. Big enough for the entire group to stand on somewhat comfortably.
Unlike usual, Grian was standing in the middle of the island. He looked around at the group for just a moment, noticing that almost the entire group was present. Grian wasn’t surprised to see those who weren’t present missing — Scar preferred resting longer in the morning as the game was quite tiring especially for him, and yesterday’s wildcard really took a toll on him, forcing him to constantly be on the run. Meanwhile Etho and Pearl simply didn’t like group meetings due to how loud they were, and Jimmy and Bdubs were likely simply sleeping in.
“Hello everyone, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here.” the sentient wooden puppet started. Despite his never changing facial expression (or lack thereof, really) and his confident body language, his voice made it clear that he was at least slightly nervous. “Well, there may or may not be just a slight problem with today's wildcard.” He announced, causing the group to burst out in whispers.
“Now, I don’t know how badly it’s going to change things! All I know is that, somehow, some of the code from the second wildcard got into the code for today’s wildcard. How this affects today's wildcard, I don’t know.” He finished, followed by quiet muttering between groups until someone spoke up with what seemed to be a universally shared thought.
“We’re not going to starve to death again, are we?” Cleo asked, slight annoyance in their tone. Sure, the chaos of being able to eat anything and getting special effects was fun, but the constantly starving part definitely wasn’t. The relief that washed over the server when that wildcard faded was almost as strong as the relief that came after yesterday’s snail of death wildcard.
Grian let out a hesitant noise, messing with his hands a bit before giving the group a proper reply. “Ehhh…. I don’t know..? I hope not.” He shrugged. “We’ve already gone through that once, a second time shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
“I’d rather not starve and die because I ran out of torches or something stupid to eat, thanks. Besides, Skizz starving out of the series because of a coding mistake doesn’t seem too fair. —” “Come on man!” “When’s this wildcard activating anyways?” Tango spoke up, his tail swaying a bit in mild annoyance. The blaze hybrid was obviously not happy to be up and at it this early, likely forced to attend the meeting by his absent teammates. That, combined with the fact there was apparently an error in the wildcard.. It was a surprise the hotheaded hybrid was as calm as he is, for now.
“We should have an hour or so.” Grian replied, though his communicator buzzed right after he spoke. At first he ignored it, disregarding it as a message from one of the absent people, but as he looked around the group, he noticed an air of uneasiness.
“..Grian, you might want to look at your communicator?” Mumbo spoke up, his voice letting through just a slight bit of nervousness, if his fidgeting didn’t make his nerves obvious already.
When Grian looked down at his communicator, he found something he wasn’t hoping to see until he found a way to fix the error in the wildcard. It wasn’t a message from one of the absent people.
3
2
1
A Wildcard is now active!
The messages flashed in the chat for a moment, before the entire world flashed in white for just a second. Confused murmurs filled the air, which quickly changed into more panicked whispers. As the group looked around they found that the world looked different, trees were replaced with candy, the grass they were standing on felt weirdly sugary, the water surrounding the spawn island was no longer water. Not only the world was different — the people themselves looked different. Cleo’s skin was weirdly gummy-like, Impulse’s tail was made of licorice, the coral on Martyn’s body was replaced by hard candy, most of the group had at least some form of change to them.
Some changes were less harmless. Ren was quick to note that his hearing had decreased at least a little bit, and sent Pearl a message asking her if she was suffering from the same. To this, he soon got a reply that yes, she too lost at least a bit of her hearing, and that she was on her way for answers as to just what was going on.
At the same time, Skizz, Lizzie and Joel all seemed to have realised that their wings were unusable. The former's wings had turned into white chocolate, while the latter two had wings made of molten sugar — whether they liked it or not, they wouldn’t be able to fly until the wildcard was fixed. Not that they were allowed to use them during the game anyways as it’d give them an unfair advantage.
Alongside that, Lizzie and Joel both also seemed to realise they at least partially lost their sense of smell, for Lizzie even entirely, since their antennae were now made of sweets too. For Joel this was less of a problem as his nose was still able to pick up some smell, but Lizzie was less fortunate.
The person who had it the worst amongst the group however was BigB. The creaking hybrid seemed rather upset as he looked around, yet none of his eyes seemed to actually focus on or register anything. “Guys, what happened? Why can’t I see anything?” he had asked, before letting out a pained groan from moving too much. The hybrid’s skin, that was previously tree bark, was replaced with chocolate bark — something less flexible, and more fragile. Scott had urged him to sit down and wait until Pearl was here, who might’ve been able to help him as she’s not unfamiliar with being blind.
And amongst all the chaos, one of the few people with little to no changes to themselves, with a voice oozing of nerves, called out; “Hey guys..? Where’s Grian?”
The group went eerily quiet upon hearing that, looking around in panic and even more confusion — and sure enough, Grian was gone. The only trace of him was an unusual message in chat that seemed to make the group more nervous than any wildcard ever could.
Grian was kicked from the game
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Grian joined the game
Grian looked around confused as he was forced into a different server. Something had happened for sure. What had happened to bring him here, he didn’t know. Everything had flashed white, several waves of nausea had washed over him.. And now he was in the Hermitcraft server instead of the Wild Life one. Something that wasn’t supposed to happen for another few days.
Grian wasn’t the only confused one. One of the few hermits active on the server had greeted him, somewhat confused on Grian’s fast return.
< joehillssays > howdy Grian! bad season?
< Grian > no. somethings wrong
< joehillssays > hope you can get it fixed soon!
“I hope so too..” the sentient puppet grumbled, before typing out a message to someone else. After he sent the message, a quick “i need your help”, he started making his way over to his potential saviour’s base. Grian knew he wouldn’t be able to fix the wildcard himself, so maybe one of the smarter people on Hermitcraft would be able to help him. Especially one of the smart people who happened to know a lot about inconvenient stuff on the side.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
It didn’t take too long for Pearl to arrive at the world’s spawn, Tilly following right behind her. Before she could even ask what had happened, Scott called out to her, signaling her over for help. “Pearl, I’ll explain the situation to you in a bit, but for now I need you to take care of BigB, okay?” the koi fish hybrid asked, seemingly not too bothered by the fact all his fish features were made out of pudding now.
Pearl nodded, deciding to ask questions about the general situation later, and turned to BigB, crouching down in front of him. “BigB, I’m gonna take you to our base, okay?” When her only reply was a small nod, she stood up, gently taking his hand. “Think you can stand up and walk or do I need to carry you?”
BigB took Pearl's hand and attempted to stand up on his own, before letting out a pained groan and a small “sorry Pearl”. Pearl herself didn’t seem to mind it though, carefully picking the man up before starting to make her way towards their base, Tilly following right after the two. “Alright BigB, I’m gonna need you to stay calm, okay? I know it’s scary, but everything will be alright.”
BigB remained silent, but Pearl could tell he relaxed at least slightly now that someone was with him. She knew how scary it could be to deal with at least partial blindness out of nowhere — she deals with it every time she gets closer to her last life ever since her (literally) blind rage in Double Life. If anyone was able to help BigB through the day, it was Pearl, and Scott was very likely aware of that.
Eventually they arrived back at the G’s base, and Pearl got BigB comfortable in a bed that was now made of whipped cream instead of wool. “Alright BigB, I’m sure Scott can explain to the both of us what’s going on exactly, but until then, you wanna talk or you wanna rest?”
The creaking hybrid seemed to hesitate for a moment before talking. “..I’m scared Pearl. The wildcard activated and since then I can’t see anything and it hurts to move? And apparently Grian’s gone?”
Pearl looked at BigB, actually properly looking at him. His eyes seemed to.. not be eyes. “Mate, I’m not sure what happened, but I think your eyes are made of candy.” “What?” “However! I can stay with you till the wildcard fades and you get your vision back if you want, that sound good? Besides, Tilly’s here too, she’s a good girl. We can stay here with you so whenever you need something, you don’t have to get up and hurt yourself.” Right after Pearl spoke, Tilly carefully pressed her nose into BigB’s leg for a moment. It was a gentle touch, enough to make BigB aware of Tilly’s presence without startling him.
“..Thanks Pearl.”
“Anytime, BigB.”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
“Oh dear.”
The group had settled down slightly after Pearl and BigB left, enough for the group to properly talk.
“What’s wrong Lizzie?”
“Scar just messaged me, his wheelchair is gone.”
“WHAT?!”
Some people seemed to panic again at that, while others remained calm and thought of a solution.
“If all our equipment is gone, we just need to make new stuff. So, what if we just made a new wheelchair for Scar?” Impulse suggested, his licorice tail twitching slightly, betraying his stress.
“That should be doable if we find the materials for it, right?” Mumbo offered, looking around for materials. “We could use lollipops for the wheels maybe? They’re round, so it should be quite simple.”
Impulse let out a confirming hum, still in thought. How he had fallen into a leadership role, he didn’t know, but with Grian gone someone had to handle things. Especially when things seemed to be going way, way worse than they were supposed to.
“Tango, you should check up on your teammates. If they’re okay, shoot me a message, we could probably use some help getting Scar a new wheelchair, take Etho with you if he’s feeling well enough. Lizzie, make sure your teammates and the elevator up to Mt. Bam are all okay. I know the elevator is protected against griefing and all that, but still. Mumbo, you and I have some gathering to do.” the demon ordered, his tail swaying slightly.
Without protest, the group scattered. Some were helping their teammates and friends who had trouble adjusting to their at least partially candified bodies, some started exploring to see how much of the world really was candified, and Mumbo and Impulse started looking around for materials they could use.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Tango grumbled to himself as he made his way back to the Tuff Guy Towers. “Stupid wildcard.. Turned my hair into a burny melty marshmallowificator..”
Once the Tuff Guy Towers came into view, his mood only soured more, his tail, now with melting marshmallow instead of fire at the tip, lashing wildly in the air. The towers seemed to be made out of caramel, nuts and small bits of shattered lollipop where oak wood once was. They looked even less tough now, no way people weren’t going to make fun of them.
“Honey, I’m home!” Tango mockingly yelled at Etho and Bdubs, the latter of which popping out of his tower with a “hi Tango! I see both you and Etho decided to get a makeover!”
The moss on Bdubs’ arm seemed gone, replaced by patches of sugar. “Very funny, mr. sugar spice and everything nice.” Tango grumbled bitterly, before making his way over to the caramel tower. “You awake, sleepy jerkface?”
From inside, Tango could hear Etho make a pathetic little sound. “Oh Tango..! It’s so bad..!” the man pathetically cried out.
“It can’t be that bad, you big baby.” Tango simply replied before entering Etho’s tower and searching for him. “I’m sure you’re fine and you’re just over exaggerating again, not very Tuff of y..ou…..” Tango trailed off when he saw Etho. The breeze hybrid’s usual more wind-like hair was replaced with solid marshmallow hair, and it was longer than Tango had expected it to be. The marshmallow hair reached until around Etho’s waist, and if anything it made him look even more breathtaking than he already was.
Tango shook his head, trying to get his mind back on track and, most importantly, trying to push back the slight blush that had made its way to his cheeks. “AHEM! Hey jerk, Impulse said he needs both of us to help Scar get a new wheelchair, so get your lazy butt up and at it.” he grumbled as he grabbed Etho’s wrist and began dragging him out of his tower.
“Tangooo.. Do I have to?” Etho tried to get out of the situation, mainly because he just didn’t want to be out and about now. His movements felt sluggish without his breeze traits and he missed being able to hover above the ground just slightly, going out now was the last thing he wanted.
“Yes, you do, now stop complaining! You’re fiiine.” Tango waved Etho off as he continued to walk, yelling a quick bye towards Bdubs before making his way to Impulse and Mumbo.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Impulse and Mumbo started scanning the area, looking for things that could be used for Scars temporary wheelchair as Tango joined in, followed by Etho who seemed to have a harder time moving around compared to normal. The man walked around like a cat dipped in water, having lost the ability to move around almost like the wind. That, combined with the fact that he was getting dragged around by the much shorter blaze hybrid, made for quite the pathetic display.
“I bring you one Etho!” Tango announced as the duo approached. “Bdubs is fine, by the way. If anything, he’s got it the easiest out of the three of us.” Tango informed Impulse as he let go of Etho’s wrist, seemingly still annoyed at the whole situation. “The only thing he’s got going on is that the moss on him is replaced by sugar. How is that fair! My hair is replaced by this…. Stupid burning melting marshmallow thingificator! And Etho lost his breezificating stuff!” The blaze hybrid sputtered while waving his arms around in annoyance, leaving behind his never ending trial of melting marshmallows as the group walked.
“I’ll be fine Tango-! Woah—!” The breeze hybrid tried to respond, before tripping over his own feet and almost falling flat on his face. He had tried to seem tough in front of other people, and he messed it up almost instantly. Tango raised an eyebrow at him in response. “Uh huh, you’ll be just peachy, yeah. Surely you wouldn’t fall flat on your face every five seconds.”
“..Anyways, now that all four of us are here, we should go look for materials. I don’t want to keep Scar waiting for too long.” Impulse changed the topic to stop the two from arguing. Just to be sure, he shot Scar a quick message so the vex hybrid was aware people didn’t forget him.
impulseSV whispers to GoodTimeWithScar: we’re working on your wheelchair
He didn’t have to wait long for a reply; not like he had expected to wait long anyways, seeing as Scar was basically unable to do most things at the moment due to not having his wheelchair.
GoodTimeWithScar whispers to impulseSV: Thanks!
Unfortunately, said reply was followed up by something else almost right after. Some people, apparently, still felt a need to play the game even now.
“A team betrayal? Now? Oh no!” Tango laughed in surprise, looking at his communicator. Etho, looking over Tango’s shoulder, let out an “oh snappers!” as Mumbo let out a nervous sigh.
“..Well, we should definitely go collect resources for Scar’s wheelchair if his teammates are killing each other. I don’t want to make him wait too long and become a victim himself.” Mumbo nervously said, looking around before rushing towards a candy cane tree. The rest of the group soon followed, splitting up and heading off to gather resources.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Lizzie was walking up the stairs to Mt. Bam as she shot a message to Impulse. She had checked the elevator and was, thankfully, able to confirm it was still there and functioning, unlike almost everything else in the world.
Before Lizzie even reached the top of Mt. Bam, she was met with the voice of one of her teammates. “Lizzie! Look at this!” was all she heard before a loud thud behind her, followed by laughter. “Wh— Jimmy! You could’ve died! Actually, how didn’t you die?” Lizzie turned to face the goat hybrid, before looking up to see where Jimmy had fallen from. It was a drop he most definitely should have died from.
“That’s what I wanted to show you! Look!”
Before Lizzie could even tell the goat hybrid to stop doing that, he was up high again and dropped down with zero hesitation. “BAM!” “J-Jimmy, I really don’t think you should be testing your luck here.” She managed to get out before the man was off to drop himself down again. “How did you even find this out anyways?”
“So you see! I.. did not fall down by accident! I just had a hunch, yeah!”
“..Jimmy.”
“..Maybe I did fall down Mt. Bam.” The man sheepishly admitted.
“Of course you did.” Lizzie let out a sigh. She knew what to expect with Jimmy so she shouldn’t have been surprised, really. The goat hybrid always found the weirdest ways to die. “Wait, so do we just not take damage at all? Are we like- immortal now?”
Jimmy seemed to think about that for a moment. “Well, we don’t take damage, I dunno about dying though. Wanna see if stabbing me kills me?”
“Jimmy, you’re on your yellow life. Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Lizzie reminded him, though he didn’t seem to care much, pushing an improvised weapon made of sharpened candy cane into her hands. “I can just get the life back if needed! Don’t worry Lizzie, it’s fine!”
“Are you really sure? Wait, why do you even have this in the first place?”
“Yes, Lizzie, I’m sure! I have it because you never know Lizzie, you know people want me dead!”
“..I guess that’s true. Don’t be mad if you end up on red again Jimmy, I warned you!”
SolidarityGaming was slain by LDShadowLady
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Grian stood at the edge of the ravine, trying to catch a glimpse of the person living in it. After waiting for a bit without seeing anyone however, he called out a loud yet nervous “hello?”, hoping for a reply. Or any sort of sign of life, really. Getting kicked out of his own server, not knowing what’s going on or what exactly went wrong, and then being on a usually active server where nearly no sign of life shows itself now.. Added together, it was all pretty unsettling. Even if a quieter Hermitcraft server was nothing new.
After a few moments of waiting, a familiar face popped into view from the ravine. “Ah, Grian! Hello hello! Sorry to keep you waiting!” He greeted the sentient puppet with a wave. “You said you needed my help with something?”
Grian nodded, gliding down into the ravine and landing near his fellow hermit. “Do you think you can help me with a server-related problem? Some code got changed and I can’t figure out how to change it back. Thought that if anyone knows about unusual and inconvenient stuff, it’d be you.”
“You’ve come to the right address, I’ve got quite some experience with doing silly stuff! So, can you show me what the problem is exactly? Simply ‘some code changed’ isn’t gonna help me much, server code changes all the time.”
Grian simply nodded, showing the other hermit something on his communicator. Upon seeing it, the hermit sighed.
“Oh dear, how have you managed to do this exactly?”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
< LDShadowLady > guys
< LDShadowLady > we dont lose lives
< Smajor1995 > you killed your teammate just to be sure of that?
< SolidarityGaming > no
< SolidarityGaming > figured it out after i fell
< SolidarityGaming > think we just dont take damage
< PearlescentMoon > interesting
< PearlescentMoon > we should let each other know when we find things like this out
< PearlescentMoon > maybe in less lethal ways next time
< Skizzleman > LOL
Smajor1995 whispers to PearlescentMoon: im on my way
Smajor1995 whispers to PearlescentMoon: is bigb doing ok?
PearlescentMoon whispers to Smajor1995: he’s hanging in there
PearlescentMoon whispers to Smajor1995: are you almost here?
Smajor1995 whispers to PearlescentMoon: yes
“Alright BigB, Scott should be here soon to explain everything.” Pearl informed BigB, who was idly petting Tilly. The creaking hybrid had calmed down significantly compared to when the wildcard first activated, only his confusion about the whole situation remaining.
Right on time, Scott arrived at the G’s base. “Hi!” He nodded towards Pearl before looking at BigB, his look a mix of worry and relief. The creaking hybrid had seen better days for sure, but at the same time Scott was glad nothing else bad had happened to him.
“Hello Scott. So, mind explaining what happened and why we’re made out of candy now?”
“Right. So, basically, Grian told us something went wrong with today’s wildcard, he didn’t get the chance to elaborate if he even knew what exactly was wrong outside of some code being messed up, and now he’s gone. I think the whole server is bugged, Jimmy and Lizzie confirmed we don’t take damage and don’t lose a life when someone murders us, so that’s nice.” The koi fish hybrid explained, sitting down on one of the chairs in the base. “So, that’s kinda what we know.”
“Soooo.. We’ve just gotta wait until Grian fixes this?” BigB spoke up.
“Pretty much, yeah. Some people are out exploring, Impulse, Mumbo, Tango and Etho are working on getting Scar a new wheelchair since that’s gone too..” Scott told BigB. “I don’t really have much planned, I can stay here with you two for today if you want?” he added, to which the other two both nodded. “The more, the merrier.” BigB smiled. He couldn’t see where Scott was, but he was able to make a pretty accurate guess anyway.
“Well.. Until this all is fixed we should do something to burn the time, yeah?” Pearl offered, to which the other two nodded.
“So, what’s new in your guys’ home servers? I can tell you guys about Hermitcraft if you want..”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
“That should do it.”
The group settled down, looking at their combined work. The candy wheelchair, while not the most optimal and possibly missing a few parts, was just a temporary replacement, enough to get Scar through the day. Or what remained of the day — the sun was already starting to set.
“Well, now all we gotta do is get this thing up Mt. Bam, right? That can’t be too hard!” Tango exclaimed, looking between the wheelchair in front of him and Mt. Bam. in the distance.
“..Right, I’ll leave you guys to that, I’m gonna check up on Skizz so he doesn’t accidentally find a way to eliminate himself anyways.” Mumbo sighed, waving at the group as he started heading back to the Spanners’ base.
“Bye Mumbo! Tell Skizz I said hi!” Impulse called after him, before turning his attention back to the remaining two people in the group. “Alright. Tango, you and I will carry the wheelchair, Etho just makes sure we don’t fall, that sound good?”
“Whgh— why am I the one carrying?! You’re way taller than me you jerk, the wheelchair’s gonna be held up all uneven! Etho should be the one carrying it with you!” Tango protested, tail lashing behind him.
“Tango, Etho should focus on properly putting one foot in front of the other. He’s fallen like, what, seven times now? At the very least.” Impulse skeptically replied, giving Etho a quick look before focusing on Tango again.
“Hey! I’m a Tuff Guy, I can carry things just fine.” The breeze hybrid protested before shaking some of the molten marshmallow Tango had left behind off his foot.
Tango thought for a moment, watching Etho before he let out a sigh. “..On second thought, maybe I don’t mind carrying this with you Impulse! Let’s go before Etho picks it up and drops it! I really don’t want to do this a second time!”
And just like that, Impulse and Tango picked up the candy wheelchair, starting to make their way towards Mt. Bam with a protesting Etho on their tails. The man insisted he was tough and capable, but all the protesting made him look pathetic, like a soppy wet cat. To think that a few seasons ago people truly believed this was the guy to be scared of, it was weird to think about now.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
“Hey Joel? Do you think I can say hi to Bdubs, or would he freak out?”
The question left Gem’s mouth before she could even properly consider it. Sure, she’d wondered if the short man was still going to freak out upon seeing her even without her connection to plants and him being a walking moss generator, but she never wondered it out loud.
“Maybe, maybe not, who knows. It’d be pretty funny to see the idiot freak out though. If you go, take me with you. I want to see it happen.” Was all the response her teammate had as he ate a chunk of cookie crumblefied dirt. Of course he wasn’t going to stop her, what did she expect?
“..In that case, c’mon Joel, we have a tough guy to visit.” Gem sighed, before the duo started making their way towards the Tuff Guy Towers.
“You know, the weirdest part about this candified world is the milk rivers. It looks so weird!” She noted as they walked.
“Really? For me the weirdest part is not being able to smell almost anything. Genuinely, it’s so weird. Does the world smell incredibly sweet now with all this blummin’ candy?”
“Hmm, kinda. It doesn’t smell as sweet as you’d expect though!”
“Huh. Wonder why. Maybe it has to do with what the wildcard was supposed to be.”
“Maybe! We should ask Grian about that once he returns.”
Joel simply hummed at that, letting a comfortable silence wash over the two as they walked for a bit, before finally arriving at the Tuff Guy Towers.
“Well this doesn’t look very tough.” Joel noted upon seeing the towers made of caramel, nuts and lollipops.
“HEY! Despite our towers, we’re very tough, thank you very muahAAAAA— STAY AWAY FROM ME!!” Bdubs yelled the moment Gem appeared in his vision, appearing and disappearing again at the speed of light.
“Bdubs, stop being a big baby, I won’t hurt you, there’s no moss on you that I can overgrow right now, calm down.” Gem nearly scolded Bdubs as if he was a little kid and she was his mom.
“Yeah you stupid idiot, calm down, it’s just us and we won’t hurt you.” Joel added.
“NO! Stay away from me! How do I know you’re not lying to me, huh?!” Bdubs barked back from inside his tower.
Gem shared a look with Joel before sighing. “I don’t know, maybe by the fact that I’m not surrounded by flowers right now?” The elf offered, to which the short man seemed to think for a while.
“....Huh. That’s a really fair point actually.”
“Besides, you’re not even covered in moss, you’re covered in sugar.”
“Okay, okay, alright, I get it! Jeez..”
“Get out of hiding before I kill your horse, Bdubs.” Joel threatened, starting to make his way over to Bdubs’ horse, standing just outside of his tower. Whether he did it to lure Bdubs out or just to kill a horse was anyone’s guess.
“MY HORSE!!” Bdubs sprinted out of his tower to his horse, standing between it and Joel like a protective mother. “You keep your hands off my horse!”
Bdubs’ horse was no exception to the candification. It seemed to be made out of hard candy now — sour, if Gem had to guess.
“Alright, alright, I will. For now.” Joel raised his hands defensively, backing up to stand next to Gem again.
“Anyways! What can I help you guys with today?” Bdubs smiled as if nothing happened. Despite the whole situation, he seemed cheerful as ever.
“Oh, nothing. Gem just wanted to see if you were gonna f—” “JOEL! Nothing, Bdubs, we just wanted to see how you and the towers were doing.” Gem cut Joel off before he could say anything too insulting. “Yeah, your towers look stupid.” Gem's attempt proved to be in vain.
“Oh yeah?! How’s your car lookin’, huh?” Bdubs bounced back.
“..Alright Gem let’s go back home.” Joel flatly said, turning to leave. The sight made Gem burst out laughing. “Y-you really can’t take people’s hatred for your car, can you?” She managed to get out while laughing.
“Everyone keeps insulting it, Gem! I was so proud of it too! It’s a good car!” Joel lamented. “I know Joel, I know. Oh well, bye Bdubs!” She waved the shorter farewell as she followed after the beetle hybrid, who was still ranting about his car and how much people hated it.
“My car looks amazing Gem! People just don’t recognise greatness when they see it!” Joel continued on as they walked away.
ʚ𖦹ɞ
After a small walk and a small but tiring climb, Mumbo found himself back in the Spanners’ meeting room. Calling it a room was rich, it was simply a platform with a hole in it and some chairs around said hole, but it was better than nothing.
On the edge of the platform he saw Skizz sitting, simply watching the sunset. The sight of it was enough to make Mumbo nervous. What if Skizz fell to his death (despite fall damage not existing now, apparently)? What if Grian returned with one of his teammates gone? How was he going to explain that?
“Hey Mumbo! Come sit down with me buddy.” Skizz spoke up, eyes still pealed to the sky.
“Wh— how did you know it was me Skizz, I didn’t even say anything!” the elf hybrid sputtered, though he didn’t object to Skizz’s words, carefully sitting down on the edge to watch the sunset.
“Well, because nobody else has any reason to be here, obviously!” Skizz pointed out, and Mumbo had to admit that was true. Nobody would try to come up here unless they had to — the falling hazard was enough to drive most people away pretty fast.
“Fair enough. So um.. What are you thinking about Skizz?” Mumbo tried to start the conversation. Sure, he had no idea about if something was bothering the angel, but seeing him this calm was odd. Even people who didn’t know the angel well would be able to tell that much.
“..Man,” the angel started, “I can’t help but worry about G! What if he’s not coming back and we’re stuck like this forever! He’s the only one who can get us in and outta here!” He explained. Mumbo could understand the worry, really, he wondered about that himself for a bit too, though he never gave it too much thought. Partially because he was busy with helping others build Scar’s temporary wheelchair, partially because he didn’t want to think about losing Grian forever.
“Or,” he continued, “what if he got kicked from the server and wasn’t put in another server! What if he’s just stuck in the void now! I know his eyes are little windows into the void, but I don’t want his entire being into the void dude!”
Once Mumbo was sure Skizz had calmed down a little, he spoke up. “I’m sure Grian’s fine. You know how chaotic he can be, but he always seems to make it out fine, right? Surely that’ll be the case now too.. Besides, between the three of us, he is the one with the most survival skills. Even if he is in the void, he’d find a way out.”
Mumbo hoped he sounded confident enough. Just like Skizz, he had no confirmation about where Grian was, and just like Skizz, he was worried. He could only hope his nerves didn’t come across too much.
“..You’re right dude. How does Grian stay alive so well anyways, everything feels like it’s out for me dude!”
“Well, staying alive is quite simple, really.” Mumbo offered. Sure, there was truth in that, but he mainly said it as a joke to lift Skizz’s spirits.
“You say that about your redstone too dude!” Skizz retorted.
“Because that’s also quite simple, really!”
“No it’s not!”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
“And then copy this.. And paste that there.. Aaaand done! The server should be good again in a few minutes!”
“Really? It was that simple?”
“Yeah man, are you sure you weren’t overthinking it, Grian?”
“Well- I mean-... Maybe. I just didn’t want anything bad to happen to the rest of the group, you know! What if I changed something and messed some player data up!”
“Fair enough! Anyways, you should be good to enter the server again in a few minutes, and the effects should be gone by then!”
“Great, thank you. I’m hoping that when I return I don’t find half of the server dead.”
“Are they that bad?”
“..Maybe, you should see some of the deaths in there dude, it’s insane! Anyways, I gotta get going now, thanks again for the help Zed!”
“No problem Grian!”
With one last wave Grian took off, the sound of rockets filling the air as Grian flew back to his base, mentally preparing himself to return to the Wild Life server again. He really hoped Skizz and Mumbo didn’t get themselves eliminated.
< Grian > bye guys, see you all in a few days
Grian left the game
ʚ𖦹ɞ
“Hello gentlemen! What a thoughtful gift you’ve brought with you today!” Scar watched as the trio entered his room, carrying in a wheelchair made of several kinds of sweets. It wasn’t a proper wheelchair, sure, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Anything was better than being stuck in his room for the remaining bit of the day.
“Sorry for taking so long Scar, finding materials right now is harder than you’d expect.” Impulse sighed as he put the wheelchair down in front of Scar’s bed. “It’s not the best job, but it should get you around for now, right?”
“Mhm! Thanks guys, it means a lot, genuinely.” Scar replied. “Hey, mind helping me get in?”
“Oh! Right, right, of course!”
With a little bit of trouble, Impulse and Tango managed to help Scar into his wheelchair. “We couldn’t find anything for you to push yourself with, so someone will have to push you around, sorry.” Tango added. It was clear he was frustrated about not being able to make a proper wheelchair.
“That’s no problem, I’m sure one of my lovely teammates would be more than willing to help!”
“You sure? Because your teammates seemed pretty excited to kill each other earlier.”
“What? Oh! Oh, that’s nothing. Just bambusiness, you know how it is! Sometimes you just have to give each other a good BAM!” Scar told them as if killing your teammate was your average thursday afternoon activity.
Considering how often Scar and Jimmy died, it just might be a normal activity for them.
“Riiight.. Should we call them for you or..?”
Right on time, Jimmy walked into the room. “Scar! My man! You need to see the view, right now!” He called out, walking towards Scar in his wheelchair. Calming a bit of his energy, he looked at the vex hybrid before doing anything without his permission. “You feeling good enough to go out?”
Scar nodded. “Yeah dude, I’m tired of being in my room all day! What are we waiting for?!”
Impulse nudged Tango softly, whispering a small “we should probably leave them alone”, to which Tango nodded. They waved the two bamboozlers farewell, leaving with the excuse of going to find Etho — the breeze hybrid had slipped away at some point, which came in very handy right now.
Once Impulse and Tango left, Jimmy started pushing Scar out of his room, into the fresh air of Mt. Bam. It took a moment for Scar’s vision to adjust to the remaining bits of sunlight, but once it did, the view amazed him. “Woah..”
The view was beautiful, especially to someone who had been stuck in his room all day. Trees in the distance were replaced by lollipops, candy canes and cinnamon sticks, animals were candified in ways Scar couldn’t see from up here. Mt. Bam itself had its bamboo replaced by peppermint sticks, and its trees were replaced by strawberry pocky and strawberry cotton candy. It was a sight to behold, and Scar was looking around in amazement for quite a while as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end, and this was no exception. After a few minutes of peaceful silence the world flashed white, just like it did when the wildcard activated.
A wildcard has faded…
ʚ𖦹ɞ
It was like the entire day hadn’t happened. The server was normal again, the group was normal again. BigB was able to see again (the first thing he did upon regaining his vision was hugging Pearl and Scott, who had accompanied him the entire day), Scar had his normal wheelchair back, and the rest of the players were all back to normal too. Bdubs was avoiding Gem like the plague again (much to Joel’s amusement), Tango was freed from his trail of molten marshmallows and Etho no longer had to trip over his own feet. And most importantly..
Grian joined the game.
< Grian > gather at campfire?
The message triggered a mass of happy messages, possibly simply due to how much people missed the normalcy of the server. Hanging out as a full group again after that wildcard gone wrong was relieving, especially to those who got hit with the more negative effects of it.
Grian had spawned in back at the Spanners’ base, despite getting kicked out of the world while on the spawn island. This, however, also made him spawn back near his two (thankfully not eliminated) teammates, who tackled him into a hug the moment the sentient puppet made his return known.
“G!” “Grian!”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
The chatter around the campfire was even cheerier than usual, some people chatting about the weird candy mobs they saw — “I’m telling you, I saw a bubblegum pig, I’m sure of it.” — while others listened as Grian explained what exactly went wrong with the wildcard — “so, what was supposed to happen, was that our weapons turned into candy. I thought, ‘oh, this will be a nice way to wind down after the snails!’ but no, parts of the code for the hunger wildcard somehow got into today’s wildcard, which changed everything into candy!”
Some of the people were calmer, sitting a little further away from the campfire, quietly talking.
“Hey Pearl, Scott? ..Thanks for sticking with me all day. Means a lot, you know?” “Anytime mate! Glad you’re feeling better now.” “Yeah BigB, no need to thank us.”
“Thanks for helping me get a wheelchair, Tango. Even after I burnt down your tower.” “Yeah, yeah, you jerkface. Don’t mention it.” “Mind passing my thanks to Etho too?” “....Sure.”
ʚ𖦹ɞ
Despite all the peace and calmness on the server, there were two people who sat in complete silence away from the campfire, the tension of unspoken words hanging in the air. It was light, yet so suffocating at the same time.
Renthedog whispers to InTheLittleWood: Martyn
Renthedog whispers to InTheLittleWood: we need to talk dude