Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Gem woke up in her bed in Hermitcraft, only seconds after losing consciousness in the Wild Life server, she knew immediately that something was very wrong. There was a growing ache deep, deep in her chest, right between her ribcage and her heart. Her back was burning a little, and when she got the strength to get up and look in a mirror she found small little cuts across her shoulders, weeping blood.

Wounds weren’t supposed to jump servers. Gem had played in one of the death games before and she’d been fine – if a little sore – in the days following her final death. Her wounds never followed her. Wounds weren’t supposed to jump servers. And yet.

And yet.

The ache in her chest was worrying. It was growing now, swelling into a piercing pain. But Gem is nothing but stubborn, so she ignores the pain and pulls herself out of bed. 

First thing on her list: fish.

Scratch that. The first thing on her list is talking to Tango, because any good Hermit would check with their neighbors before building really big fish close to their base. 

The flight aggravated the little cuts on her shoulders, and the landing made her chest ache fiercely, but she ignored it. “Tang–ow. Tango!” She called eagerly, shrugging off her elytra and storing them in her inventory subspace. 

“Woah! You just appeared!” Tango turned around, nearly hitting her with the flaming point of his tail, and grinned at her. “Hey, Gem! What’s–” Tango’s grin disappeared, replaced with a frown. He leaned a little closer. “You doing alright? You don’t look so good.”

What? “ I’m…fine. What do you mean?”

“You’re all…” Tango waved his hands around, gesturing at her face. “Pale. Sickly looking. Wild Life didn’t do that to you, did it?”

Gem waved his concern away. “It’s probably just after effects, I feel fine. Anyway, I need to talk to you about something.” Gem watched Tango’s face closely as she pitched her idea and he gave his answer. His emotions were sometimes hard to read because of his lack of pupils, but the minor shifts in his facial expressions let her know all she needed to. Tango was still concerned, but he was pushing it aside because she was acting normal. Good news for me, I guess, she thought. If she could just pretend this wasn’t happening for a few more days, maybe the issue would resolve itself. 

Well. The best way to act like herself was to be a nuisance.

“One more thing,” she said, grinning toothily. “Got any lapis I could borrow?”

As Gem worked through the day, the cuts on her shoulders and the ache in her chest grew until they were impossible to ignore. The straps of her elytra made the material of her shirt rub harshly against her shoulders and anytime she landed or took off, her chest twinged painfully.

She got lucky that she didn’t run into anyone while she was stocking her shops. Gem wasn’t sure she could hide her pain, no matter how hard she tried.

Tragedy struck, though, when she was in the middle of building her first fish.

Gem made the rookie error of taking off her elytra, hoping to alleviate some of the pain in her shoulders. It worked, a little, although Gem had a feeling there were probably spots of blood on her shirt from the cuts. She was working carefully, enjoying the peaceful Hermitcraft server after the chaos of Wild Life. The sun was shining beautifully and a soft breeze whisked through every once in a while, keeping it just cool enough. 

It was a nice day, all things considered. 

And then, as Gem stretched her arm out to shape a piece of the fish, her chest felt like it tore in two. She screamed through her teeth, stumbling backward. Straight off the edge of her scaffolding.

GeminiTay was doomed to fall by Vex

<impulseSV> uh oh!

<Grian> that’s embarrassing :p

<TangoTek> what are you doing out fighting vexes?

<TangoTek> i thought you were building a fish?

Xisuma frowned as more messages flooded the server chat. He knew he really didn’t have a reason to worry–Gem was one of the most capable fighters he knew. But he knew vexes were evil little things that liked to swarm. And something wasn’t sitting right with him. Gem would’ve called for help if they were swarming her. Not to mention, as a general rule of thumb Hermits didn’t go to woodland mansions alone. 

Just as Xisuma was starting to shake off the worry, there was another dull pop – a new death message. He glanced at his comm, one hand holding open the lid of a chest.

GeminiTay was killed by Vex

<Grian> uhm.

<Skizzleman> c’mon gemmy! 

<Skizzleman> gonna let some vexes get the best of you?

GeminiTay was killed by Vex

<PearlescentMoon> alright. three times is just sad.

GeminiTay was killed by Vex

GeminiTay was killed by Vex

GeminiTay was killed by Vex

The death messages were constant, coming in so quickly that the notification was a consistent drone of noise now. “That’s definitely not good,” X said, just as his comm started ringing. X answered the call and set it down so he could start strapping on his elytra. 

“X!” Grian’s voice was frantic and X could hear the beating of wings. “I’m on the way to Gem’s, something is seriously wrong.”

“Yeah Grian, I can tell. Any ideas?” X strapped his comm to his wrist and leaped from the wall of his base, lighting a rocket to keep him in the air. 

Grian muttered something to himself that X didn’t catch. “I.. I don’t know! Wild Life, maybe? But, I was so careful. After Scar–”

X sighed softly. He didn’t know a whole lot about the death games Grian hosted. The participants were voluntary, of course. A way to keep his Watcher blood docile, Grian explained, because he got a bit homicidal otherwise. Grian made the servers, hosted the event, and he always made sure to double and triple check the code. But accidents happened sometimes – the occasional memory loss, Scar getting stranded in Secret Life, and now something going on with Gem. X was seriously gonna have to start helping Grian with his code when this was all over. “Let’s worry about the code later, birdie. Let’s focus on helping Gem first, yeah?”

“Yeah…yeah, okay. I’ll meet you there.” Grian hung up and X glanced at the comm. His blood froze at the newest death message. 

GeminiTay died due to soul fracture

<Skizzleman> cub

<cubfan135> im on my way

“Oh shit.”

The closer X got to Gem’s base, the more clear the screaming got. Between deaths, Gem was screaming – that high pitched, bloodcurdling one X had only ever heard when it came to excruciating pain. It was something he’d never heard from Gem and he never wanted to hear it again. 

There was a small group of people lingering at her door. Impulse and Pearl were standing together, Impulse biting his lip so hard he was drawing blood. Grian was next to them, macaw feathers so puffed up that he looked like a little ball of fluff. Scar was at his side, trying to smooth his feathers down and whispering to him. Two rockets fired behind X and then Skizz and Cub landed frantically behind him. “What’s going on?” Impulse asked, whipping around to them.

“Soul fracture is not good,” Skizz said, trying the handle to her door. It was locked. “Why did she lock her door?”

“She probably knew something was going on and wanted to handle it herself,” Pearl said, putting her face up to one of the windows. “She’s got shutters pulled over the windows, too.”

Skizz started ramming his shoulder against Gem’s door, trying to use his body weight to break the latch. “What is soul fracturing?” Grian asked, wings fluttering under Scar’s hand. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s really rare,” X said, watching Skizz as the angel probably ruined his shoulder. “It’s a very rare injury in which a Player’s soul, that small bundle of code and Void-magic that makes up who they are, is tied between two servers. One half of the soul is pulling towards one server, and the other half pulling to another, so the soul starts to fracture.”

Skizz rammed the door one more time and finally it splintered into bits. The group spilled into Gem’s base and rushed upstairs to her room. She was in her bed, face contorted in pain and screaming her throat raw. Her legs were tangled in the blankets and one hand was fisted so tightly in the sheets that her knuckles were white. 

“Skizz, can you see her ties?”

Skizz kneeled by Gem’s side, one hand instinctively smoothing over her hair. “She’s tied to the bed. I can’t see what servers she’s tied to, but she’s definitely fracturing. The edges of her soul are jagged and the very center is dull. Cub?”

Cub was next to her, too, staring intently. “Vex magic, alright. Those jagged edges are from their teeth. Did a vex kill her recently?”

Impulse scoffed. “Have you seen the chat?”

“Not here, Impulse,” Cub snapped, giving him a stern look. “Off server.”

“Oh, uh…on Wild Life! Her final death was to a vex.” Grian said. He clambered onto the headboard of the bed. His talons dug into the wood for support so he could lean over and get a good look at Gem’s face. “But I thought wounds and stuff didn’t traverse servers?”

“Vex magic is a little tricky.” Scar edged forward, fingers dancing a little pattern in the air over Gem’s chest. Light grew under Gem’s skin until her soul was quite literally leaking out of her skin. It coalesced into a little ball under Scar’s fingers and Gem’s body went unnervingly still. The edges of her soul were jagged and the dullness in the center was spreading slowly. “Whenever a Player dies to a Vex, they leak into the skin and attack the soul. The magic that allows us to Respawn kills them before they can do much damage. Since Gem didn’t respawn on Wild Life, where the Vex killed her, the magic couldn’t do its job. The vex from Wild Life are anchoring part of her soul there, while the tie to her bed is anchoring the other part here.”

“So it was Wild Life,” Grian said anxiously, rearing away from Gem so quickly that he smashed his head into the wall. “It’s my fault.”

Impulse reached forward to put a hand on the back of Grian’s head when he started rocking softly. “Not at all, birdie,” X said, pulling off his helmet and wrapping his hands gently around Gem’s soul. Her Player body had gone shockingly quiet and still now that her soul was not inhabiting it. He had to be very careful. “Vex are dangerous, feral little creatures–” X paused, glancing at Cub and Scar with an apologetic smile. “No offense. And their magic is still pretty unknown to us. We’re lucky Scar and Cub are here to help.”

“So how do we help her?”

X hummed softly, focusing on the code side of her soul. Binary mixed with Galactic danced across his vision, telling the story of her death and respawn. He sighed gently. “She knew the wounds traveled with her,” he said disapprovingly. “If she’d come to somebody before it killed her, this would’ve been solved a lot sooner.”

Pearl shook her head fondly, grabbing one of Gem’s hands in one of her own. “Sounds about right. She probably thought they’d go away after a respawn.”

X curled his fingers around the edges of Gem’s soul, trying to soothe the jagged edges. “I can cut her tie to the Wild Life server, but that won’t fix the Vex magic. We’ll have to force a respawn, but we’ll have to be very careful about it.”

“Here, let me see her.” X carefully passed Gem’s soul to Skizz without complaint. While X was good with the code side of a soul, Skizz was the authority on everything soul. Period. Skizz curled his fingers until the light of Gem’s soul was completely hidden in his hands. “If you cut the tie now, my divinity should keep her soul together.”

Impulse hissed anxiously. “Should?”

“Sorry buddeh,” Skizz said, smiling weakly at Impulse. “I’ve never actually practiced this before, so it’s a…..very strong hope.”

X glanced at Cub and Scar. “How dangerous is it to cut the tie to Wild Life while vexes from that server are gnawing on her soul?”

Cub wrinkled his nose, glancing at Scar. “I mean, I don’t really know? Theoretically, snapping the tie will kill the Vexes in her soul, but the magic remains. Hence the respawn.”

X nodded, taking a deep breath. He knelt down in front of Skizz and covered the angel’s hands with his own, focusing in on that well of Void-magic that only voidwalkers can access. Binary, Galactic, and stars rushed up to meet his fingers, eager to help. With soft persistence, X shaped the finicky material into something resembling scissors. “Skizz, can you show me the tie?” X felt more than saw Skizz’s head nod and then there was a soft presence at his side. Like fairy lights, a string of small golden lights lit up. Even though he couldn’t really see the Hermitcraft world anymore, hidden as it was behind the wall of magic, X knew without a doubt that the shorter strand of lights was the tie to her bed on this server.

That left the other one.

Now that X was focused on it, he could tell the difference. The lights that tied Gem to Wild Life were tinged red, like blood. The edges of the lights, too, were sharper and more defined compared to the lights tying her to Hermitcraft. X mentally lifted the void scissors, adding in a little bit of urge . With a resounding snap, the thread to Wild Life snapped. “Thread is snapped,” X reported, dropping his Void magic so he could properly see the world again. His friends were still there, looking at Skizz and X in varying degrees of awe.

“I’ve never seen an angel and a voidwalker work like that before,” Impulse said, swaying forward. “It was like looking at a galaxy of golden stars!”

Skizz chuckled, slowly uncurling his fingers so they could get a look at Gem’s soul. The creeping veins of dull light had stopped and began creeping back towards the center until her soul was bright like it was supposed to be. “Awesome! That’s how it’s done!”

The room let out a collective sigh of relief as Scar took Gem’s soul and lowered it back into her body. X watched closely until her chest started moving again. Her face was still screwed up in pain, but her grip on the sheets had relaxed and she wasn’t thrashing anymore. “Alright,” he said tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face and putting his helmet back on. “I’ll force the respawn. She’ll be out for a few hours, but I want to have someone around to keep an eye for any complications.”

To no one’s surprise, everyone in the room attempted to take that role. Grian beat them all to it. “Me!” He squawked, leaping off the bed to X. He grabbed X by the shoulders, bracing his taloned feet against X’s body armor and looking straight into his visor. “If you give this job to anyone else, I will never forgive you, Xisuma.”

X laughed. “You heard the birdie! Everyone else out!”

GeminiTay was killed by Xisuma due to [Intentional Game Design]

<joehilssays> dont see that everyday

<SmallishBeans> what does that mean?

<Keralis> that, my friend, is what we call a forced respawn

<SmallishBeans> …….

<SmallishBeans> this server is so weird

When Gem finally became aware again, her whole body was aching. She groaned quietly. “Gem!” Someone exclaimed, and a hand was placed gently against her back. “You gonna open your eyes?”

“Gods, Grian, just give me a second,” she said, flapping her hand weakly in his direction. Grian chuckled softly, but mercifully stayed quiet. Gem took the moment to take stock of herself. Her body felt tight and achy, a sign of a bad respawn, and her chest was smarting something fierce. “What happened?” She asked, finally peeling her eyes open. Grian was at her side, looking at her anxiously. 

For a moment, he just stared at her. Then he exploded into words. “You are the worst! Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Gem reared back in shock. “Pardon?”

“You had wounds left from Wild Life,” Grian said accusingly, pointing a finger in her face. “And your soul was fracturing. And vexes were eating your soul. And I hate you and I’m sorry, gods don’t do that again!”

“.....what?”

Grian threw his one free hand up. Gem noted absently that, even though he sounded furious, Grian didn’t move his hand from her back where he was supporting most of (if not all) her weight. His eyes raked over her, across her chest and down her arms. “How do you feel?”

“Like I crashed into a mountain.”

Grian laughed, reaching over her to the bedside table. “X thought that might be the case. He sent a strength potion.” Oh, yes! Gem made grabby hands until Grian passed it over and she downed it in one go. “Did you know you had wounds from Wild Life?”

The question was like a punch to the gut. Gem had forgotten all about the vex wounds. Now that she thought about it, though, the burn in her shoulders was gone. "Uh…well, yeah,” she admitted slowly, itching at her chin. “I didn’t think they were bad though. I thought after that first respawn they would be fixed. And then…well…” Gem trailed off, unsure how to go about telling Grian about how it felt to realize that something was terribly wrong. That feeling in her chest, like it was being split in two, and how agonizing it was to respawn again and again with no real reprieve from the pain. “I got stuck in a death loop. By the time I realized, I couldn’t really ask for help.”

Grian sighed quietly, shaking his head. “Next time a wound travels, tell someone. No matter how small. Because it could be nothing, but it could also turn into something a lot bigger.”

Gem raised an eyebrow, trying valiantly to ignore her growing exhaustion. “Are you really lecturing me on asking for help?”

“I– you– shut up!”

Gem grinned in satisfaction as Grian dissolved into giggles. She giggled with him, leaning into his shoulder. Eventually, they wound down until she was blinking tiredly at her wall. “You’ll be pretty tired,” Grian said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “X had to force a respawn, and those take a lot out of you. Not to mention the death loop.” Gem blinked blearily at him. “You’ve got no clue what I’m saying. Here, lay back down.”

Grian helped her lay back again, his hand a comforting weight against her shoulder. “I meant what I said, though, Gem. Hermits help each other, no matter how small.”

Gem smiled, grabbing Grian by the arm and dragging him into the bed with her. “I promise, G. The next time I’m hurt I’ll tell someone. Now, shush.” She smushed a hand against his face and mimicked snoring. Grian grumbled, but eventually settled next to her with one wing slung across her stomach.

Warm and finally, finally pain free, Gem fell back asleep.