Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long after Grian’s death for Scott to agree to the treaty. 

His eyes itched. Scott hadn’t allowed himself to even consider crying since he received the news. If he started now, he knew he’d never stop, and he refused to be any more of a laughing stock than he already was. The Red King may be taking everything else from him, but Scott was not going to let him take his dignity. 

He couldn’t recall who had even given him the news, likely some nameless soldier Scott had never met before and would never see again. What he did remember though was the numb and terrifying shock that coursed through his veins like ice water. His muscles had seized like he had just been plunged into the lake at midwinter. The breath was forced from his lungs, panic filling up the spaces oxygen left behind, choking him. 

Scott flinched as a quill was offered to him, the silhouette of the dark feather startling him as it came into his line of sight, dragging him back into the present.

The war room was packed. BigB, the Red King’s military commander, stood just over Scott’s right shoulder. Along the walls, high-ranking soldiers, generals, and advisors from both sides stood shoulder to shoulder. They loomed, like sentinels, looking at him like their gazes could pierce through cloth and flesh and stare right into his soul.

Scott briefly locked eyes with Jimmy, his steward. Jimmy was shaking his head slowly, whether in disbelief or desperation, Scott couldn't tell. His cow brown eyes were wide, his lower lip trembling and Scott had to tear his gaze away before the last of his resolve shattered.

The Red King himself, of course, was not in attendance. Scott had thought that maybe the king would have had enough decency to attend the treaty signing in person, but he had left that honor to his commander.

And Martyn? That little rat. Scott glanced around. He must have snuck off as the Red King's Hand was nowhere to be found.

With an herculean effort, Scott dragged his eyes to the document that rested on the table before him. His eyes caught for a second on the Red King’s signature already gracing the bottom of the page. 

It didn’t matter how many times Scott had read and reread the compact lines of dark cursive, the meaning of the words themselves eluded him. They slipped through his grasp as if he were trying to grab fistfulls of sand, becoming more and more meaningless the tighter he tried to hold. Gods, he was tired. 

Scott’s hand tremored constantly as he attempted to sign below the Red King’s coiling, elegant autograph. Dang, why did his name have to be so long? Just the process of writing it out seemed to take centuries. The sound of the quill tip scratching along parchment grated against Scott’s ears. Scott caught his bottom lip between his teeth and did his best to ignore the burning gaze of his victors on him, holding the edge of the paper against the desk so hard that it crinkled around his fingers. 

Scott was the king of Rivendell. He refused to be humiliated. He would keep his head high until the very end. Except… Realization sank into Scott’s bones as he finished his signature with a wobbly flourish. Except he wasn’t the king of Rivendell, not anymore. Now that the treaty was signed, he was nobody. 

Scott drew both of his hands away and folded them in his lap as he stared at his own name. He had smudged it somehow, the letters blurred and difficult to read. In fact, the whole treaty was blurry. The desk was blurry. The quill that he had handed back in a daze was blurry. 

Scott closed his eyes, and for the first time since the end of the war, let himself cry.

Chapter Text

[Grian] Hey Doc? For no reason in particular… what are you doing at the moment?

[Docm77] I’m eating breakfast.

[Docm77] Why?

[Grian] That’s great. That’s great.

[Docm77] ??????

[Grian] Mumbo, what about you? What are you up to?

[MumboJumbo] Spoons.

[Grian] wHat!? I am not!

[Docm77] Excuse you?

[RenDog] Ooh burn!

[MumboJumbo] Sorry, I’m carving spoons.

[MumboJumbo] For Willys Woodyard.

[Grian] So neither of you are working on a giant world eating lag machine?

[Docm77] Not at the moment.

[MumboJumbo] Hey! My redstone contraptions aren’t lag machines!

[MumboJumbo] I’ve only crashed the server once!

[TangoTek] Hah! Sure buddy.

[MumboJumbo] … Ok fine. Maybe a few times.

[MumboJumbo] But definitely way less than Doc has!

[Docm77] That is completely fair.

[TangoTek] Why were you asking, Grian?

[SmallishBeans] GuYs!!!???? WhYt IS THE SKKY GoNE!???!??

[Grian] That. That is why I was asking.

[Docm77] What do you mean the sky is gone?????

[MumboJumbo] Oh my god. The sky is actually gone!

[Grian] I thought maybe it just wasn’t loading in for me for some reason.

[RenDog] No dude, its definitely gone for me too.

[TangoTek] Same here. I’m kinda freakin out a little.

[SmallishBeans] A LITTLE!? THE SKY IS LITERAL ly BLANK!!!

[MumboJumbo] Wait. Grian, is this a prank? Like, did you build a giant void room over our bases while we were sleeping?

[GoodTimesWithScar] Oh good. Its just a prank.

[GoodTimesWithScar] I was getting pretty worried. Good job, Grain.

[Grian] No. Guys. I had nothing to do with this! I swear it wasn’t me!

[GoodTimesWithScar] Oh...

[VintageBeef] I was just about to send a message in chat about the sky. But it looks like you all have noticed.

[EthosLab] Yep.

[Grian] Do you two have any idea what happened?

[EthosLab] Nope.

[BDoubleO100] What are you all yammering about? My coms been buzzing like a bee all mornin.

[ZombieCleo] Bdubs, have you looked up?

[BDoubleO100] HOLY MoLEY!!!

[BDoubleO100] SMY GONE!?

[ZombieCleo] Yep, smy gone.

[Grian] Smy gone.

[MumboJumbo] Smy gone. Really gone.

[GeminiTay] This isn’t going to be like the moon thing is it?

[FalseSymmetry] God, I hope not. That sucked.

[Grian] I feel like we should probably do something about this. Right?

[Docm77] Agreed.

[Keralis] We need to message Shishwammy right now.

Of course it was the one time Xisuma was actually getting some sleep that the world fell apart… literally. Xisuma groaned, a loud annoying buzz penetrating into his previously blissful subconscious. He wanted to slip back under, to ignore the pull of consciousness, but something in the back of his mind nagged at him. Something about that noise was important, even though it was very annoying and very loud.

“Mmmmrrrrhhhh," he moaned again. Xisuma brought his hand up to try and swipe away whatever was buzzing in his ear. Instead, his hand collided with something solid and metallic.

Xisuma’s eyes snapped open with the sudden pain in the back of his wrist, instantly awake. “Wha- oh,” his helmet, that was what he had just so gracefully slapped. Xisuma had fallen asleep with his helmet still on.

He blinked to clear his vision, eyes staring up at the ceiling. He sat up straight, lifting his head from where it lay over the back of his office chair. His neck audibly popped as he did so and he rubbed at it with a cringe. Xisuma was getting to be too old to fall asleep in awkward positions like that, his poor back.

Now, something had awoken him, what was it again? Xisuma’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to recall. Oh! Right! Com notifications. He deftly tapped two fingers on the side of his helmet, pulling up the com logs before stretching with a yawn.

[Keralis] Shishwammy, Not to alarm you or anything but something is really wrong. The sky is gone.

[Hypnotzd] X. You probably know this but if not, the sky is gone.

[JoeHills] Hey, Xisuma! Lovely morning. The sky is missing. Any idea why or how? We would love to know!

The yawn died in Xisuma’s throat as it closed up in panic. He shot to his feet, his office chair shooting out from under him and tipping over on its side. The sky was gone? What did they mean it was gone? How could the sky be gone?

Xisuma ran outside and immediately craned his neck upwards. What he was supposed to see was blue, a dark cerulean blue at the horizon that gradually faded to a light baby blue at the very center. There were supposed to be clouds, white fluffy clouds that lazily drifted across the sky. And a sun, Xisuma was pretty sure there was usually a sun. He had seen it a thousand times, a million times before.

He had come to love the beautiful blue sky of the Overworld, so different from the endless, stretching darkness of the void he grew up with. Instead all he saw was white, a blank, monotonous white hanging over Hermitcraft like a humorless office ceiling. 

[XisumaVoid] Everyone gather at the shopping district. Emergency Hermit meeting, now!!!

Xisuma was trying his hardest not to freak out. Sure, the sky might be a big white expanse of nothing. And sure, he might have no idea how the sky could just disappear overnight. And he’s never even heard of anything like this happening before on any other server ever in the history of time. And trust him he would know because he did so much research into world glitches after the moon incident because he was never going to let his Hermits ever go through something like that again, that he could write at least two books on the subject. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t figure this out. It didn’t mean that Xisuma couldn’t fix it. Because that’s what Xisuma did , he was the admin, he fixed the server code when it went wonky. He patched bugs and sewed up firewalls. Xisuma knew the code of this server better than he knew himself. This was his world, he created it. In a way he was just as attached to the server itself as he was to the Hermits who called it home. To him a server wasn’t just a place to live, it was a living, breathing thing that changed and evolved and grew. So how the hell could something like this happen?

Xisuma flinched as a gentle hand was placed on his arm. Keralis looked up at him with a gentle smile and Xisuma did his best to return the expression, even if Keralis couldn’t see it behind his helmet.

“I got you some tea,” Keralis said, pressing a steaming mug of fragrant smelling tea into Xisuma’s gloved hands.

“Thank you, Keralis,” Xisuma said gratefully.

“No problem,” His friend replied then added, “Everything is going to be okay, Shishwammy.”

Xisuma breathed in deeply, holding the lungful of filtered air before releasing it in a shuddering sigh. “Yeah, you’re right, everything will be fine.”

The Hermits had all gathered at The Kitty Cafe. It seemed like the easiest and most comfortable place to meet up at such short notice.

Some of the Hermits sat in chairs, their own mugs of steaming beverages on the tables in front of them. Others stood nervously against the walls or by the coffee machines passing out drinks. Scar, of course, was on the floor with at least five cats bundled into his lap and a kitten playing with his untied shoelaces.

He cooed at them in a saccharine baby voice, “Whoooo’s a pretty little kitty cat? You are! Yes, you are. And you, and you, and you are too!”

Xisuma walked farther into the room and cleared his throat causing everyone’s eyes, except for Scar’s, to snap to him. “Well, usually I would start off by saying why I’ve called an emergency meeting,” Xisuma cleared his throat again awkwardly, “But I think we all know the reason.”

“Yeah,” Joel said from where he was sat in a corner, arms folded over his chest, “the sky’s fucked.”

“Language!” Several hermits including Xisuma chastised. “But yes, the sky is uh… experiencing technical difficulties?” Xisuma inwardly cringed, but it was all he could think to say.

“Please tell me you know what’s going on and can fix it,” Impulse said, a mug of coffee clutched in his hands. Zedaph and Skizz sat one to either side of him and were looking up at Xisuma with twin pleading expressions.

“Well…” Xisuma tapped his helmet, sending the server code zooming onto the screen in front of his eyes. From a table to his left Joe also had an admin screen pulled up with Hypno leaning over his shoulder to read it.

Cleo sat near enough to Joe that their shoulders touched, wearing a murderous expression. Xisuma was pretty sure she was more upset at the situation than at him specifically, but it was intimidating nonetheless.

Doc stood off to the side with Ren and False, his own code diagnostic screen pulled up. As a man who had the knowledge and power to break the server code five ways to Sunday, Xisuma was confident in his ability to read the situation clearly and pick up on any minute detail he may have possibly missed.

“As far as I can tell,” Xisuma began hesitantly, when it was clear no one else would speak for him, “this isn’t some sort of virus. There’s no way anything powerful enough to do whatever it is that happened could get onto this server without me knowing. I’ve got protections in place and back-up protections and back-ups for the back-ups.”

“So its a glitch then?” Ren asked, his tail swishing nervously behind him, “Like the sorts of things that happened in Season 6?” Doc shook his head slowly, even as his friend asked the question.

“It could be,” Xisuma said doubtingly.

“But you don’t think it is,” Grian said. He was sitting on top of a table, clawed feet swinging back and forth. He stared at Xisuma so intensely it made him feel naked.

“I didn’t say that, Grian,” Xisuma replied, “I’d need to comb through the server’s code line by line to make absolutely sure but…”

“But?” False interjected, she shifted her weight to her other foot, trying to conceal her nervousness, “What but? What else could it be?”

A couple snickers went up from around the room. Bdubs slapped a hand over his mouth, “sorry,” he muttered sheepishly, “she said butt.”

“Children honestly,” Cleo growled with an eyeroll.

“Hey!” Scar exclaimed from his place on the floor, “what’s wrong with a man laughing at a butt joke?!”

“It's not a joke!” False replied, voice barely below a shout, “This is serious. The entire server could be at stake!”

“Hang on now,” Pearl said gently, “let’s not jump to conclusions.” Pearl handed False a mug of coffee. “I’m sure X has everything under control. Don’tcha, X?”

Despite the fact that Pearl was setting him up perfectly to offer confident reassurances to the Hermits, Xisuma hesitated. “W-well…” What should he say? The truth of the matter was, he had no idea what was going on.

Twenty-four pairs of eyes, give or take, all looked up at him expectantly. Xisuma began to sweat under his armor. He took in a long, shuddering breath, steeling himself. This wasn't the time to freak out, his hermits needed him to be the strong, capable admin he was supposed to be. The kind of admin they deserved.

"I-" Xisuma's voice cracked, off to a brilliant start, "I don't think there's any reason to panic. At least. At least not right now." Xisuma cast his eyes over to Keralis who gave him a reassuring, if somewhat shaky, smile. "I'm confident that we can solve this issue before it becomes a major problem. Or um, a life threatening problem. Since you know... the sky is already a-" Xisuma shut his mouth with a click.

Mumbo, who was doing his best impression of a Bavarian pretzel in a chair at Grian's table, spoke up. "So-" Mumbo paused, wilting a bit under the attention of the whole server on him. "So if it's not a virus, and you're sure it's not a glitch" -That sentence was spoken more like a question as Mumbo looked around for confirmation- "That doesn't leave us with very many options does it?" Mumbo fiddled with his fingertips, "I guess we don't know for sure that the sky disappearing is a bad thing? I mean, it could be okay? I like… I like white."

"No it's for sure bad," Hypno said matter of factly, accompanied by a chorus of approval from several of the other hermits. 

"Ah yes, of course. No," Mumbo said, "You're right. Of course you're right. It's probably... Yeah, it's probably, definitely bad."

"Welp!" Tango clapped his hands startling Mumbo and Etho who was standing right next to him, "I for one am tired of sitting around and talking. If the sky is disapearificating, then I'm going to get to the bottom of why."

“What do you think we’re trying to do here, Top?” Skizz asked a little bluntly, and then added, “Uh, no offense buddy. It's just I think we should give our admin time to say his piece is all.”

"He's said his piece," Cleo argued. "Look, X," She said turning towards Xisuma, "You know I love you, but it's clear you're way out of your depth. We handled the moon in Season 8, we'll just deal with this ourselves."

“W-bu-“ Xisuma tried and failed to interject. Season 8 was Xisuma's biggest failure and while the hermits had assured him time and time again that they didn't blame him for what happened, he had promised himself he would do better. Be better. He had to. "Cleo I-"

"Maybe let the guy finish what he was trying to say for goodness sakes!" Ren barked, ears held tight to his head, "Instead of just assuming he can't do it."

Tango's fiery head of hair intensified as both he and Cleo simultaneously shot to their feet. "All we're doing is wasting time we could be using to solve the problem!" He shouted. The cats, startled by the raise in volume skittered away from a disappointed Scar and into the back room.

“That’s what we’re trying to do here, homie buddy if you would just-"

"Look, Skizz," Impulse said, not yelling but still authoritative, "I’m not trying to pick sides here, but Tango's right, talking about it isn’t going to solve the problem.”

“But we need to know what the problem is before it can be solved, right?” Mumbo asked, eyes flicking nervously from person to person.

“Arguing isn’t going to help anyone right now,” Pearl began, wings twitching and betraying her apprehension, “Now if we all just-“

“Just because you’re out of your depth here, Mumbo, doesn’t mean the rest of us are!” Tango snapped, his flame-tipped tail lashing wildly enough that Etho had to step out of the way to avoid being singed. Instead of flinching, Mumbo froze, fidgeting stilling as he kept his gaze trained on the floor between Tango's feet.

Grian, for his part, did all of the moving for Mumbo, wings flaring out as he looked poised to pounce, "You don't get to talk to Mumbo like that!"

At the head of the room, Xisuma balked, he hadn't expected things to get so out of hand this quickly. He needed to say something, as their admin, he should be able to get his Hermits under control. Instead his mouth bobbed open and shut like a fish on a boardwalk or an Xisuma without his helmet.

"EVERYBODY NEEDS TO JUST SHUT UP!" The order shook through the cafe like a bomb had been dropped. The voice reverberated off the walls and made Xisuma's ears ring. Grian immediately plopped back down on the table and Tango's flames sputtered in surprise.

Gem put her hands on her hips and stomped her hoof on the ground like a judge with a gavel. "I mean seriously what are we, twelve!?" An air sucking silence filled the room, no one daring to even breath after Gem's reprimand. 

"Uh, guys?" Scar's voice drifted up.

"Scar!" Gem said like she was the mother of a particularly troublesome toddler, "what did I just say?" 

"Oh yeah, uh huh, totally," Scar nodded like a bobble-head, "I'll shut up in just a second. Its just that, wasn't Wels' castle over there just a moment ago?"

Chapter Text

Xisuma stepped out from the portal onto the lush, green grass of spawn. Holding his helmet under one arm, he held his breath for a moment as he let the slightly chilly, early spring breeze blow through his hair.

The grasses around him swayed gently in the wind, mimicking a calm ocean lapping at the shore. While it was still too early for most flowers, tiny pink spring beauties poked up here or there and Xisuma knew that by late summer, the field would be absolutely blanketed with a variety of different blooms.

Nearby, rolling, forested foothills gave way to unassuming mountains. Xisuma could hear the sound of water rushing over uneven stones from the river that ran its way through the landscape. In the fall, the river would be filled with salmon migrating from the ocean to their spawning grounds upstream.

With a small satisfied exhale through his nose, Xisuma put his helmet back on and smiled. It was perfect.

It had taken Xisuma a couple of months to find a world suitable for his Hermits to inhabit. Season 9 had been amazing and Xisuma wanted Season 10 to be even better, hence the need for the absolutely perfect world seed. Xisuma had found this one a few days ago and had been spending that time making sure everything was in order for the Hermits’ arrival. 

It had been a peaceful few days, weaving code and constructing the best protections Xisuma knew how to make. It may have been a little overkill, but Hermitcraft wasn’t your usual server after all. His Hermits had complicated pasts and deserved to feel safe in their own home. Even if it took a bit more time, Xisuma was more than happy to provide them with that sense of security. This time, Xisuma felt as though he had outdone himself. This world was perfect. He couldn’t wait for the Hermits to see it.

Xisuma was watching all of that hard work dissolve right before his eyes. Well no, not dissolve, that wasn’t what was happening, not really. It was more accurate to say that the world of Hermitcraft had existed one moment and now it simply didn’t. 

All that beauty—the sky, the flowers, the little fish in the river, the grove of blossoming cherry trees that had crowned Magic Mountain - not to mention all of the Hermits’ hard work, their amazing bases that they had only just begun work on. All of that, swallowed by the indifferent white nothingness. Xisuma felt like someone’s hands were wrapped around his throat, crushing his windpipe. How could this have happened?

From behind him, he heard someone whimper. In the distance, the outer walls of Wels’ castle, clipped through the monotonous white like a poorly rendered video game. The Hermits, gathered together like a flock of sheep outside of Cleo’s Cat cafe, watched as the final blocks of Wels’ base slipped into the still, blank nothingness that was the rest of the Hermitcraft server.

Wels drew his sword like the disappearing of the world was something he could stab.

He looked incredibly small, standing there with no monster to fight or home to protect, only the endless white abyss that had just stolen everything from him. Wels’ jaw worked, like his voice was an animal that he didn’t want to let escape. 

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Xb, the first one of them to speak, said quietly in what was probably the understatement of the century. He pulled at the end of his scaly guardian tail until Keralis gently pulled his hands away. 

“You’ll hurt yourself, Princess,” he said, slipping his own hand into Xb’s instead and squeezing it tightly.

Zedaph seemed to snap out of the shock that was holding most of the other hermits captive. He let out a panicked bleat, taking a few shaky steps backwards before his legs gave out and he went toppling. Impulse caught the sheep hybrid with an oof, supporting his friend’s trembling form against his chest as he stared numbly into the growing white abyss.  

“This- This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. It's not real,” Zedaph said with a forced laugh. His usually cheerful face was an ugly mess of fear and mislaid hope, “good prank, r- right guys?” 

In response, Skizz wrapped both Impulse and Zedaph up in his arms. On a normal day, Impulse likely would have been uncomfortable with all the contact, but he sank his face into Zedaph’s wooly hair as Skizz whispered reassurances to the both of them.

“Wh- how could this happen?!” Ren shouted, ears pulled back and tail between his legs, “All of our bases. All our stuff, it's just, it's just gone?!” He looked around, desperate for an answer. After a moment, Ren locked eyes with Xisuma. Xisuma had never been more glad that his face was hidden behind his visor. “Xisuma?” Ren pleaded, “Please.”

Xisuma wanted to reach out and comfort his friend but hesitated, wrapping his arms around his own torso instead. “I don’t know,” Xisuma admitted, his face hot with shame, “I don’t know! Nothing about this makes any sense.”

There hadn’t been any signs in the code… right? Right? The world couldn’t just disappear without leaving a trace in the server code somewhere. Even without going through the code with a fine toothed comb - which Xisuma hadn’t, not yet, he was going to after the meeting - something that could affect the world at this magnitude should have been as obvious as a neon sign in the middle of a desert on a cloudy night.

“Doc?” Xisuma’s voice cracked but he ignored it as he turned toward the creeper hybrid. Doc was standing, staring out into the white space. His large, curled robotic horns hid his eyes from view, but his head snapped up when Xisuma called out to him, revealing his troubled face. “Doc, if I missed something, anything then you would have seen it. You've forgotten more about code than most people will learn in a lifetime.”

“There wasn’t anything,” Doc said with fierce conviction. His deep voice was underlaid with a hiss and the smell of gunpowder filled the air when he spoke. “There wasn’t anything wrong with the server,” the aperture on Doc’s bionic eye twitched and shuddered as his heightened emotions messed with his circuitry. The fur on his hackles and along his back raised as he said, “Something’s not right here, X. This should not be happening.”

The Hermits all looked at Xisuma expectantly. He wrapped his arms tighter around his stomach, fighting back nausea. Xisuma screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to see the desperation in his Hermit’s gazes. “This is all my fault,” he whispered.

A hand tapped Xisuma’s shoulder and he opened his eyes. Joe Hills stared back, still wearing that dumb blue puppet on one of his hands. The man’s expression was inscrutable at best. “We can all play the blame game later. Right now, it's time to go.”

“Go?” Joel protested from his position near the back of the group, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if we try to go off world and end up in that?” Joel gestured wildly all around at the white empty space as if to prove his point.

“Would you rather stay here by yourself?” Grian replied, “Because I’m pretty sure staying on world has a one-hundred percent guaranteed chance of death.”

“You make a good point, Bird Boy. A very good point.”

“I’ll take us all back to Season 9,” Xisuma said, already pulling up an admin screen, “It’ll be safer, I think, if I take us all together. That way no one can get left behind.”

“I’m all for not getting left behind,” Scar pipped up, rolling up beside Xisuma and placing a hand on his arm. “Group-hug time everybody!”

Xisuma gave a weak smile, appreciative of Scar’s attempt to lighten the mood. The hermits gathered round, placing a hand on Xisuma or on each other so that they were all connected in some way. “Is everybody ready?” Xisuma asked. 

“As I’ll ever be,” Cleo answered. She had one arm around Xisuma’s shoulders and the other around Joe.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice here, X,” Cub said, then added with a cheeky grin, “besides, if this doesn’t work, we’ll all just become primordial soup.”

“That sounds awful,” Jevin muttered, “Who would want to eat Jevin soup? Gross.”

Xisuma nearly laughed despite the situation, “Just remember, keep hold of one another. Don’t let go.” 

Xisuma closed his eyes, opening himself up to the ebb and flow of the code that made up the server. It greeted him like an old friend, still seeming somehow intact despite the quickly growing abyss. The code flowed through him, like oxygen, surging with every breath, or like blood, pumping through his veins with every heartbeat. It felt complete, healthy even, without the ragged pieces or jagged edges Xisuma would expect from a server deteriorating so quickly. But Xisuma didn’t have time to dwell on that. 

He reached forward, not physically, or even psychically, but something in between, pushing his fingers between lines of code. After a moment of resistance, the code parted, a small slit forming that Xisuma began to widen. He felt like a surgeon, using a scalpel to part skin in precise ways that did the least amount of damage to the overall body. In a moment, he had a tear open large enough for himself, and then one large enough for all of them. 

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with Seasons 10’s air one last time, then Xisuma stepped through the code of the server and into the void beyond, dragging the Hermits with him.

Whatever the opposite of infinity was, this was it. 

Xisuma supposed that the opposite of infinity might have just been infinity in reverse. Or perhaps it was zero. One of his Hermits probably knew the answer and could explain it to him incredibly scientifically. But at the moment, that didn’t really matter, because the Hermits didn’t exist.

Xisuma didn’t exist.

Nothing existed.

Everything around Xisuma was white or something along those lines. Certainly it wasn't dark, not like the void. Xisuma was familiar with the void, had grown up with the void as his backyard. The void had potential. It may not have been anything itself, but it connected everything. All the worlds that had ever been or ever will be came out of the void. This - whatever this was - was empty. Nothing had ever come from this place things went in to it. Xisuma had a feeling that whatever went in never came out again. 

Xisuma felt as though the longer he was here, the more pieces of himself never were. Whatever things that made him Xisuma - whoever that was - were being stripped away from him, like tears, blown from his eyes by strong winds. Xisuma wasn’t sure if he should care. If he had never existed in the first place, why should he fight for survival?

And then suddenly, nothing was something again.

The change was so sudden, so extreme that Xisuma felt like he had just been the epicenter of an explosion. Thoughts hurt. The fact that Xisuma had a body, hurt. It felt like something had taken him apart atom by atom and then assembled him again with all the atoms in slightly wrong positions so that their edges rubbed up against one another. The edges of Xisuma’s vision began to fade as the shock and pain of existence shut his body down.

Just as Xisuma was about to slip into unconsciousness, it hit him...

The opposite of infinity was oblivion.

Chapter Text

Scott watched the storm roll in from his place sat atop the roof. Situated in the crook between the cedar shake shingles and squat red-brick chimney, he tracked the dark clouds that had gathered at the west horizon. Thin, fingering tendrils of yellow-white lighting zig-zagged across the sky every few minutes. Occasionally, an errant bolt would shoot straight downwards, striking the churning ocean beneath. Despite all of the lightning, it took several minutes for the faint sound of thunder to reach Scott’s ears. The storm was quite far away, but when it got here, Scott knew it would be a bad one.

“So are you just gonna spend all day up there or what?” a voice called up. Scott sighed and leaned forward to peer off the edge of the roof, brushing his teal hair out of his eyes as he did so. On the ground, a stocky man with a wave of thick brown hair and a dark beard tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. Compared to Scott, who wore a pair of dusty brown trousers and a plain white shirt, the man below looked impeccable.

He was dressed in well tailored leather pants and a sapphire waistcoat embroidered with golden roses. The chain of a golden pocketwatch could be seen trailing from his breast pocket. He looked up at Scott with an annoyed expression. Scott grabbed his multicolored jacket, the only article of good quality clothing he owned, and elegantly jumped off the roof. The man jumped back, startled, as Scott landed in front of him.

“Hello, Sausage,” Scott said, dusting himself off though it did little good. Everything on the farm was always covered with a fine layer of dust.

“Have you seen that storm?” The man, Sausage, asked, pointing at the ever closer thunderclouds.

“I’ve seen it, yes,” Scott replied.

“And you were just hanging out on the roof?” Sausage asked indignantly. He looked at Scott like he had grown two heads, though, admittedly, that was how Sausage often looked at Scott. “Were you tryin’ to get struck by lightning or something?”

“Not really, no,” Scott began to lead the way into the small, quaint farmhouse. “Would you like something to drink? Lemonade perhaps?”

“Ooh, lemonade sounds lovely, thank you,” Sausage said happily as he trailed behind Scott into the house.

Inside the farmhouse itself was really just one large room, sectioned into different uses with a loft above for sleeping. Beside the door was a brick stove, which Scott used for cooking and heating the house in the winter months. In the small open space in front of the stove were two armchairs, mismatched, and a small table and oil lamp for reading. In the far side of the room sat the modest kitchen table and there were cabinets along the wall for storage.

There was a small window in the wall over here, that sat above a currently empty washbasin. Bundles of herbs hang from the squat ceiling above the basin to dry in the sun. Almost all the furniture in the house sat on a large, fraying rug in a variety of browns and tans. It had taken Scott the better part of a year to weave, but the rug was the first thing he could say he truly made himself. 

Sausage sat in one of the chairs at the table while Scott went about pouring lemonade for the two of them. One of the cabinets on the wall had been infused with a minor enchantment to keep whatever was inside of it cold. It was one of Scott’s little luxuries. 

Once Scott had poured the drinks and taken a seat himself he asked, “What brings you out here, Sausage?”

Sausage drained half of his glass in one gulp and Scott refilled it. “I’ve come to check up on my investments of course.” Sausage’s “investments” were 29 alpacas that lived in the pasture behind the farmhouse. 

Sausage was the richest man in Blue Water. His family owned most of the town and the land surrounding it, including the alpaca farm. That was until Scott won the farmhouse off of him in a poker game four years ago. However, the alpacas themselves weren’t included in the deal, so if you wanted to be technical about it, they still belonged to Sausage himself.

Scott had agreed to the condition that he look after Sausage’s alpacas while living in the farmhouse, as long as they agreed to split the profits from the fiber. Scott, the newly dethroned king of Rivendell, had no idea how to take care of a modest sized herd of alpacas, but neither did Sausage. Somehow, it had worked out, and Scott had only lost one alpaca since becoming their caretaker.

“Your “investments”, are doing fine,” Scott said using air-quotes, “Matilde is due to give birth in a couple weeks. I think it might be twins.” In all honesty, Scott had been worried about Matilde, since alpacas weren’t designed to carry twins to term, but she had always been large for an alpaca and seemed to be doing fine. 

“And what about Owen?”

Scott narrowed his eyes. Owen was the farm’s most valuable alpaca because he had a beautiful coat of red fiber, which was a rare color. Owen was also the farm’s most difficult alpaca.

Alpacas themselves weren’t particularly intelligent creatures, but at least they had self preservation instincts. Owen did not. He was constantly doing things that put his life in danger and Scott was constantly having to save him. Sometimes Scott could swear he was doing it on purpose. Eating too fast and choking on food or eating things that weren’t food. Getting his delicate legs stuck in things like holes and fences. Trying to make friends with a wild dog that one time.

“Owen is fine,” Scott eventually muttered. 

Sausage broke out laughing, “You should see your face right now!” 

Scott just rolled his eyes. He stood up from the table, grabbing the two glasses to put in the washbasin for later. “Speaking of Owen,” he said, “I need to put the herd in the barn before the storm hits.”

“I can help!” Sausage said with a wide smile. 

Scott raised an eyebrow at him as he started for the door. “By “help” do you mean stand outside the fence and watch?”

“I can also shout encouraging things at you from time to time.”

Scott led the way out to the pasture around the back of the farmhouse. As long as he didn’t get in the way, he didn’t mind having Sausage around for company.

The town of Blue Water sat on a large plateau overlooking the ocean. The town’s wealth was in limestone mining rather than fishing though, so while it was on the coast, the town itself had limited water access. Instead, a steep limestone cliff cut the town off from the ocean. Wooden stairs and scaffolding were the only way to access the small cove below where the town’s small number of ships were docked.

The alpaca farm was on the outskirts of town in the opposite direction of the water. On this end of the plateau, the east side, the sides of the plateau sloped downwards gently instead of dropping off as a cliff. The alpaca pasture started at the large barn next to the house and followed the gradual downward slope for a couple acres. The pasture was bordered by open fields to the north and an old growth forest to the south. Technically, the forest was the very northern edge of the Undead Forest and Scott wasn't super thrilled about living so close to it, even if monsters hadn’t been seen in these parts in over 30 years.

“Phew!” Sausage said, holding his hand above his eyes to shield them from the overhead sun, “look at them all!” He had climbed up on the bottom rail of the grey timber fence to see the herd gathered at the bottom of the hill. Scott could see over without climbing, but just barely, the top of the fence came to about his nose. Alpaca fences had to be tall, otherwise they would jump over them.

Due to the salty winds that blew across the plateau from the ocean, the grass that grew at the top of the hill, closer to the barn, tended to be tougher and reedier than the grass that grew towards the bottom, so Scott was used to trudging down the hill to chase the herd into the barn.

“You sure you don’t wanna actually help?” Scott asked as he tied his jacket around his waist.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Sausage replied, shooing Scott away with a flick of his wrist, “go on and do your farmery things.”

“Right away your Lordship,” Scott gave Sausage a mock bow with an unnecessary amount of flounce to which Sausage gave in an indignant noise.

Scott started his trek down the well worn footpath that led to the bottom of the hill. If it had been four years ago, he couldn’t have imagined ever bowing to another person, even as a joke. If it had been four years ago, Scott wouldn’t have been trudging down a hill to get his alpaca herd to safety before a storm hit. If it had been four years ago, he wouldn’t have been living in a tiny, one room farmhouse, cooking his own food, or sleeping on a mattress stuffed with straw. But four years felt like a lifetime ago to him now.

At first, Scott hated life in Blue Water. When he had first stumbled into town, it had only been a few weeks since the end of the war. His feet hurt, his clothes were torn, and he was in desperate need of a bath. Worst of all, a group of bandits had ambushed him on the road, leaving him with nothing but the signet ring that he had hidden in his mouth when they attacked.

He had entered the tavern that night planning on asking where he could charter a ship, hoping that his signet ring would afford him a ticket far, far away from here. Instead, he left the owner of a tiny farmhouse and caretaker to a herd of alpacas.

The first few months involved a lot of crying and whining. Taking care of animals was sweaty, stinky, back-breaking work. As a king, he had someone to do everything for him, he didn’t even dress himself and now he was shoveling poop. Him, the former king of Rivendell. Many nights he was sure he would have cried himself to sleep if he had not been so exhausted that he passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

But then, inexplicably, Scott started to actually enjoy the work he was doing on the farm. Sure, the work was hard, but it wasn’t thankless, he could tell that the animals appreciated the care he was giving them. He started to learn more about the alpacas, their likes, dislikes, and their cute little personalities. As the blisters on his hands turned to callouses and the muscles in his shoulders and torso became more defined, Scott found that he didn’t feel quite so empty anymore.

During the day he took care of his alpacas, made sure they were fed and safe. In the evenings he would read a book by the fire, or go have drinks with the locals in the tavern and beat Sausage at cards. He had even woven a rug! Back when he was king, Scott had never made anything with his own two hands. Yes, it was a simple life, but it was a good life too, and Scott was content.

Scott reached the herd at the bottom of the hill and was greeted by several curious faces. The alpacas nuzzled into his chest, hoping he had treats hidden somewhere in his clothes. “Well hello, everyone,” Scott said with a quiet laugh, he slipped through two of the rails and into the pasture. After realizing he didn’t have any treats, most of the alpacas went back to grazing. Scott clapped his hands, causing all of their heads to shoot up at the sudden noise, “Come on now, we all gotta get into the barn. A storm’s a-brewin’.” 

Scott worked his way to the back of the herd, keeping his arms out wide to either side, he shouted and whistled to keep the herd moving and occasionally, he’d clap his hands. Alpacas hated loud noises and did everything they could to move away from them. Scott wasn’t sure if this was how you were supposed to do it, but it was the method he had figured out over four years of trial and error. Thankfully, taking the herd up to the barn was a pretty common routine, and it wasn’t too hard to make them move to where he wanted. 

“Lookin’ good out there!” Sausage shouted as Scott passed him. Scott gave him a little wave in return. In a few more minutes, Scott had every member of his herd safe and accounted for in the barn. He leaned against the fence and let out a long sigh, swiping his arm across his forehead. With the approaching rain, the day was becoming more and more humid and Scott was slick with sweat.

“Well, I’m off, all that hard work really works up an appetite,” Sausage said when Scott had finished.

“All my hard work you mean,” Scott said, shaking his head.

“Something like that, yeah,” Sausage agreed. “Gotta get home before all this rain lets loose. Good job taking care of my investments!” He called as he started down the path towards town. 

The storm was closer now, Scott reckoned it would make landfall by sunset. Scott watched Sausage go and then, with one last sigh, headed inside to get cleaned up and find something for supper.

The rain battered hard against the roof of the barn. Outside, the wind howled like a trapped animal while thunder and lightning went off in tandem. Scott, who was worried about leaving the herd alone for the night in inclement weather, had decided to bed down in the barn with them. He wiped off the drops of water that were dripping onto his head and tried to find a drier spot in his mountain of hay. Unfortunately, hay always looked softer than it was and it poked at him no matter which way he moved. It may not have been the most comfortable sleeping arrangement, but Scott would choose to sleep in a bed of hay over laying directly on the packed mud floor of the barn any day.

The inside layout of the barn was largely open, since alpacas didn’t require individual stalls like horses. There were a couple stalls for quarantine purposes, and a sectioned off closet for farm tools and the like, otherwise the animals were free to roam the quite large open interior. On an empty barrel beside him, Scott had placed a lamp, which was the only source of light other than the lightning which flashed through the upper skylights. The skylights were open gaps in the very upper part of the barn roof, but they were situated under an overhang and angled in such a way that rain didn’t pour through them. Though, as Scott more than aware, they still allowed some rain to trickle though.

Every once and awhile, one of the alpacas made a noise loud enough to be heard over the sound of the wind and rain. They had an odd sort of noise that Scott had trouble describing, somewhere between a hum and a yell, or a scream when they were really agitated. When he had first seen the animals, he had assumed they would make bleating noises like sheep. Scott had nearly wet himself the first time an alpaca screamed at him, an event Sausage liked to laugh about as if he hadn't had the exact same reaction.

A couple of the young alpacas made their way into his alcove, drawn by the light and his comforting presence. They laid down next to him, pressing up against him with their soft, fleece-like fiber.

Scott frowned. "Oh thanks," he muttered. It wasn't that Scott didn't like the alpacas, he did, certainly. What he did not like, however, was two ovens deciding to lay down in his personal space when the barn was already unbearably hot. It was comparable to wearing a wool sweater on the hottest day of the year. Scott shoved at one, half-heartedly trying to get it to move, but he stopped when it hummed at him and looked like it might spit in his face. Scott had been spit on before, not pleasant.

With a small grumble and a sigh, Scott tried to make himself more comfortable. He had a feeling that this was going to be a very, very long night.

A loud BANG ripped Scott from the jaws of sleep. He shot instantly to his feet, then swayed, disoriented from waking so suddenly.

"Huh, what?" Scott stumbled out into the main open space of the barn. Something was wrong, the barn around him was lit in an ominous, dim orange glow. In the light, Scott could see the alpacas running wild, tripping over their gangly legs and crashing into each other and the walls. The air was filled with the sounds of their distress calls and something else... the smell of smoke.

Scott's heart dropped to the bottom of his feet. Angry red flames engulfed the roof of the barn, already licking down the timber pillars and beginning to catch the hay in the hayloft. The barn had been struck by lighting. "Oh, shiiiiii- oh crap - oh shit!"  Scott cursed. The alpacas screamed, echoing his sentiment.

Tripping over his own feet in a panic, Scott rushed to the large doors that opened out onto the pasture. Grabbing onto one of the looped leather handles, Scott pulled back against it. The door swung open, not all the way, but enough that the herd could escape. Before he could call out for them, a clap of thunder loud enough to shake the building sent them all running for the door as one mindless surging mass.

"Crap!" Scott shouted again, barely avoiding getting trampled. A large furry body slammed into him and nearly knocked him to the ground as he stumbled outside behind the herd. 29 alpacas rushed from the barn like water from a broken dam, running wildly into the pasture, crazed by fear. 

The barn going up like a tinderbox should have been the biggest of Scott's issues. It should have been. Instead, his biggest issue - a stupid, incredibly valuable alpaca named Owen - fueled by terror and adrenaline, hopped the fence right in front of Scott's eyes.

Scott blinked, dumbfounded. "Oh you have got to be kidding me." Scott just stood there for a moment - in the pouring rain, in front of a flaming barn, completely soaked to the bone - and locked eyes with Owen. As lightning split the sky overhead, man and alpaca stared each other down.

"I swear, Owen. Owen, I swear. Owen." Scott muttered under his breath. Owen turned and ran into the Undead Forest. And some reason, without a single moment of hesitation, Scott went after him, squeezing through the fence and running headlong across the field, slipping on wet grass and puddles while he went.

“Oh no you don't! You are worth so much money!”

Chapter Text

Pain and relief flowed through Xisuma in equal measure as he opened his eyes. He was lying on his back - which was good, it meant there was a ground to be lying on - staring at the sky. At the blue sky. Xisuma could almost cry just looking at it. 

Xisuma started to sit up slowly and winced. The pain seemed to be centered at the base of his skull and it radiated outwards through the rest of his body with every pulse of his heartbeat. He reached an unsteady hand to the back of his head, fingers coming back warm, slick, and red. That… wasn’t good. 

Xisuma guessed that he must have landed hard on his back, causing the hard bottom edge of his helmet to dig into the flesh at the base of his skull and tear skin. On the bright side, had he not been wearing his helmet, the damage would probably have been a lot worse. And luckily, he hadn’t landed on his face and damaged his visor screen or respirator. Xisuma shuttered at the thought of having damaged his resporator and suffocated to death in his sleep being none the wiser. 

Xisuma looked around, spirits sinking as he took in his surroundings. This wasn’t Season 9’s spawn. In fact, there wasn’t a single build in sight, only untouched natural landscape.

Xisuma was in the center of a field of thick, yellowish grass. The field stretched out to the horizon in front of him but was bordered by a dense forest to his left and right. The landscape was completely unfamiliar to him. Xisuma didn’t even recognize the sorts of trees that made up the forest. A modded server then? But that didn’t make any sense. Modded servers had to have admins. What sort of admin would let a stranger drag a group of 20 people into their server uninvited?

“Is everybody alive?” Xisuma called out. His voice, surprisingly, sounded hoarse, like he had just spent a lot of time screaming. Maybe he had, admittedly, Xisuma couldn’t remember much from before waking up.

“No,” someone, Scar, groaned in reply, “owie owie ow ow.” 

“Youbetcha,” Etho said in a daze, he squinted against the sun as he pushed himself up on his elbows. Joel and Bdubs, who had landed on top of him, tumbled to the ground in a twin moaning heap. 

“Not one of your best landings, chief,” Joel said, laying on his back and not bothering to get up off the ground, “I think I would have broken less bones had I jumped off a cliff.”

“At least you didn’t - weren’t the one who - didn’t get,” Etho stopped trying to string words together and groaned, placing his head into his lithe, gloved fingers. 

“You got your noggin bonked pretty good, huh Etho?” Bdubs asked, looking at his friend with gentle concern. 

“Excellent way to kill brain cells," Joel told him.

“Don’t say that,” Etho said pitifully, “I need those.”

Xisuma frowned, that was worrying. He knew from experience that concussions weren’t easy things to deal with. Though, based on the amount of blood coming from Xisuma’s own head, he probably had his own mild concussion. Once they had all gotten their bearings, maybe Xisuma could summon some golden apples and regen potions, but until then, he had to make sure the rest of the Hermits were alright.

Around the meadow Hermits started struggling to their feet, helping up their friends who had landed near them. Xisuma watched as Wels hefted Hypno to his feet as if he weighed nothing. Being clad in full battle armor, Wels didn’t look as worse for wear as some of the other hermits, Hypno on the other hand had his entire face covered in blood. 

“Oh my stars! Hypno, your face!” Xisuma yelped. Hypno looked more concerned at Xisuma’s reaction than he did about his apparent injury. He reached a couple fingers up by the edge of his bandana and winced before turning to Xisuma with a smile. His sharp teeth were stark white against the red on his face.

“No worries, X, it's just a scratch. Head wounds, ya know?” He said with a nonchalant shrug. 

“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” Wels added and then the two of them looked at each other like they were sharing a joke Xisuma didn’t understand.

“OH NOOOOOOO!” The sudden wail from Scar made Xisuma jump, he left Hypno and Wels and rushed over. “Scar, what is it?!” Xisuma asked, panicked, imagining all of the horrible things that could have happened, “What’s wrong!?”

Scar was still sitting in the grass where he had landed. He pointed at something lying a few feet away and let out a miserable moan. “My wheelchair is completely smashed,” he whined, “I mean just look at her!” 

Xisuma let out the breath he had been holding. He was relieved that it had just been the wheelchair and not Scar himself. Xisuma could understand Scar’s pain though.

Scar’s chair wasn’t an ordinary wheelchair, it had been modified and tricked out by every redstoner on the server, each adding their own personal flair to it. The chair itself was ingrained in Scar’s player code so that it respawned every time Scar died and even traveled with him across servers. While Scar wasn’t completely dependent on his wheelchair, Xisuma knew he still considered it an important part of him, and now it was ruined. 

“I’m sorry, Scar,” Xisuma said sympathetically, “Once we figure out what’s going on, I’m sure we can get it repaired.” Xisuma bent down and helped the other man to his feet before passing Scar off to Cub who was standing nearby. Cub graciously let his friend lean some of his weight on him. While Scar did still have his cane, Xisuma doubted he would be able to walk in his current condition.

“Thank you,” Scar muttered. 

“No problem, friend, the least I could do,” Cub replied with a smile. Cub himself only seemed to have a few knicks and bruises, Xisuma noted with relief. 

“Hey, we didn’t… we didn’t get turned into soup,” Scar said with a weak smile, "hooray."

“Indeed we didn’t,” Cub replied, “but ya’know, I’m not a huge fan of being beat-up and stranded either. Zero out of ten would not recommend.”

“Service was terrible,” Scar added, “One star.”

Cub raised his eyebrow at him, “Why one star?”

“Well, because leaving a review with zero stars just seems mean. Coulda been worse, I mean just look at Cleo, her arm fell off.” Scar blinked rapidly as he did a double take, “Whaho! Oh my goodness! Cleo’s arm fell off!”

Cleo just nonchalantly picked her arm off of the ground. “It's fine, ” she said, “happens all the time.” She busied herself securing her severed left arm to her back for safe keeping, “Just need some needle and thread and I’ll be golden.”

Xisuma barked out a laugh, startling even himself. “Sorry it’s just-” He giggled, “You look ridiculous.”

“Oh, I look ridiculous?” Cleo scoffed with a dramatic, but affectionate, eyeroll, “Bdubs looks like he got into a fight with a weasel and lost.”

“I heard that!” Bdubs called. "Weasels are vicious." He muttered under his breath, "I'd like to see you fight a weasel."

“That sucked!” A loud voice interrupted from across the field. It was Grian doing one of the things he did best, loudly complaining to anyone who would listen. “What the heck just happened?! That was awful! Where even are we!?” 

Grian trudged up to where most of the Hermits were gathered, Mumbo, Pearl and Gem hot on his heels. His iridescent blue and green feathers were puffed up and agitated. Xisuma noticed with concern that one of Grian’s wings stuck out a bit farther than normal, as if it couldn’t fold all the way against his back. 

"I have to agree with G-Man on this one,” Skizz said, joining the gathered group with Impulse, “That sucked , dude!”

“Are you all okay?” Xisuma asked, giving them a once over, “anything other than cuts and bruises?”

“I think Skizz and I are okay for the most part,” Impulse replied, “Just bruised and sore. I haven’t seen Tango and Zed though.”

“Grian, is your wing okay?” Gem asked, she had blood trickling from one of her ears, “You’re holding it a little funny. Does it hurt?”

“It's just a sprain,” Grian sighed heavily, “I’ll need to let it rest for a few days. Not that it matters since I don’t have my wing extenders.”

“Hmmm, yeah, making new ones might be a little tricky since we have no idea where we are,” Mumbo said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. 

“That’s okay, Mumbo. I have my old pair back on Season 9.” Grian looked up at Xisuma, his gaze, as it often did, sending a shiver down Xisuma’s spine. “Which is where I’m sure X-I Suma is taking us as soon as we’ve all met up.” 

Xisuma didn’t know why he was nervous. Of course he was still taking the Hermits back to Season 9. This was just a temporary detour. There was no need to stay longer than the time it took to gather everyone up and get them ready to go. Dread creeped up Xisuma's spine. He ignored it.

“There you dudes are!” Ren called, “Geez these hills are deceiving, made you look way closer than you actually were.” He walked up to them, tail slowly wagging, more uncertain than happy. One of the lenses in his sunglasses was broken and he had bloodstains on his pantlegs.

“Ren got us lost in a valley for a while,” False said, “If it weren’t for Grian’s yelling we would still be down there somewhere.”

“What?! I did not!” Ren protested, “I have a perfectly developed sense of direction thank you very much!”

“Valleys? Hills?” Xisuma repeated dumbly.

“Uh huh, yeah dude, this whole field is super wavy!” Ren made a wave motion with one of his arms, “The grass just makes it look flat.” 

“Maybe that’s where the others are?” Gem reasoned, “Down in a valley and they can’t see us.”

That made sense. Doc, Joe, Keralis, Xb, Jevin, Beef, Tango, and Zedaph were all still missing and Xisuma couldn’t see them by making a cursory glance around. 

“Couldn’t we just message them? Send them our coords?” Pearl asked. She reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out her communicator, a palm sized rectangular device. “Oh, it's dead,” she said after a moment of tapping at the screen to no avail.

Xisuma’s com was connected to his helmet, he tapped on the side of it a couple times but the screen in front of his eyes remained stubbornly blank. “That’s odd,” he said.

“Mine’s dead as well,” Mumbo added, “I know I charged it not long before we left.”

“So coms are a no go then,” Cleo said.

“We should go and look for them!” Skizz suggested enthusiastically.

“Hold on,” Xisuma shook his head, “We can organize a group to go, but some of us are in no shape to go traipsing around in unfamiliar territory.” He turned to the group at large, “Raise your hand if you hit your head during the landing, or at least think you did. And don’t you dare think about lying.” Xisuma just hoped no one would notice his own injury. So what if he was being a hypocrite? He was the admin, it was his duty to find his missing server members, concussion or no concussion.

Hypno and Gem raised their hands almost immediately. After a little prompting from Joel, Etho did as well. Skizzleman sheepishly raised his hand while staring at his shoes. 

“Skizz? What! Why didn’t you tell me, dude?” Impulse scolded. 

“It's just a little goose egg!” Skizz replied defensively, “I didn’t want you to worry about it! I feel fine, honestly. The headache isn’t even that bad.”

“Cub, would you mind watching over the injured?” Xisuma asked, “The rest of us will go and find the others.” 

“No problem,” Cub saluted, somewhere between genuine and indifferent, “You can count on me.”

“I’ll stay with Cub,” Cleo said, “I might not be the most useful with only one arm.”

“I’ll stay as well,” Wels said, “We don’t know how long you’ll be gone or what kind of mobs might be around. They’ll need somebody who can fight to protect them.” Wels patted the sword at his side. 

Wels’ sword, unlike normal swords that players crafted, was ingrained into his player code so it traveled with him between worlds and respawns, just like Xisuma’s helmet or Scar’s wheelchair. Most players had one or two personal items, beyond just their clothes, that were intertwined with their code, Wels had an entire suit of armor and a longsword.

“Hey!” Gem protested, “I can fight too! Just find me a big stick.”

“You can use my arm,” Cleo offered.

That comment made the rest of the group crack up. It was good for the hermits to laugh and release some of the tension that had been building up since the sky disappeared. 

“Alright,” Xisuma said, nodding to Wels and Cub, “I’m trusting you.”

They left the injured group at the top of the hill, Cub and Wels already beginning to administer first aid the best that they could.

Tango prided himself on being a reasonable guy. 

Sure the other Hermits may not have thought that about him. And yeah, maybe he did get so lost in his projects that he sometimes forgot to eat or sleep for days. And maybe the redstone he made for his games was just a little past this side of insanity. And maybe he had just a little bit of a short fuse and a fiery temper… literally. But Tango was nothing if not a reasonable guy. And in this situation, the reasonable thing to do was freak the absolute frick out.

For one, Tango had broken both of his arms. Yes, both of his arms. He didn’t remember breaking them, which was probably for the best. What he did remember though was waking up with his face in the dirt and his ass in the air, pain exploding through both of his wrists.

Secondly, Tango had no idea where he was. Once he had gotten to his feet - which had taken an enormous amount of effort and lots of cursing- all he could see was still prairie grass in all directions. It was practically no different than the view he had laying on the ground. “Oh what the!?” Tango growled, hair and tail sparking, "Where the hell am I!?”

“Tango?” 

Tango’s head snapped up, he knew that voice, “Zed!?”

Zedaph’s face appeared from over the crest of a grassy hill to Tango’s right. “It is you!”

“Zed!” Tango exclaimed, relieved, “Are the others with you? Do you know where we are?”

Zedaph shook and nodded his head in tandem which made it look like he was moving it in a figure eight motion, “Yes some and no not at all.”

Tango started scrambling up the hill towards his friend clutching both arms to his chest.

“What’s wrong with your arms?” Zedaph asked once Tango had reached him.

“Everything. Everything is wrong with my arms," Tango replied.

Zed whistled, “That’s a lot of things.”

From on top of the hill, Tango could see a bit farther. To his right, the field seemed to continue endlessly, to his left and front, Tango could see the edges of a large, shadowy forest. A little ways in front of the two on another hill, Tango could make out a small group of hermits. He followed Zed as they worked their way over to join them.

“I found Tango!” Zedaph announced happily.

“Any sign of Shishwammy and the others?” Keralis asked, he had cuts all over his face and the blood had dried on his cheeks like warpaint. 

“Uh no, sadly,” Zed replied, “But hey! It's Tango!”

“You don’t look so good, Tango,” Jevin said. Jevin looked absolutely fine because his body was made of slime.

“Yeah, well, some of us have bones. Breakable bones.” Tango muttered.

“Would you let me take a look?” Doc asked. He wasn’t standing on his hind legs like he normally was, so he wasn't quite as tall, but he still towered over Tango. Tango noticed that his LED horns were glowing bright lime green and he wondered what that meant.

He let Doc carefully inspect his arms, muttering to himself occasionally in his native language which Tango didn’t understand. 

“My eye was able to take rudimentary scans of your arms,” Doc said after a couple minutes, “There do appear to be small fractures in the radius and ulna of both arms towards the wrist. They’ll have to be amputated.” 

Tango jumped back, hair flaring white hot for a moment, “W-what! Amputated?!”

Doc burst out laughing, “No, I was just joking. Man you should see your face. I totally got you! Boom! HA HA HA!”

“Doc, you can’t do that to a man! I nearly had a heart attack and died!” Tango exclaimed. 

Doc took off his lab coat and swiftly tore it into pieces. “Here, this will work as a makeshift sling for now.” He said, tying two pieces of the cloth around Tango’s arms and securing them at the neck.

“Now that that’s settled,” Beef pipped up from where he stood off to the side with Xb, “We have a decision to make. Do we try to find the others or stay here and hope they find us?”

“I really would like to find Shishwammy and the others as soon as possible,” Keralis said, “But I’m afraid we’ll get lost. Especially because of this tricky, tricky field.”

"Can we not just message them?" Tango asked. He figured the others had probably tried that already, but maybe they had forgotten about coms. Tango knew he sometimes did.

Joe shook his head, "None of our coms are working, so that's a no go."

“If we make it to the woods we can set up a camp,” Xb suggested, “With all of us working together it won’t be too hard to get a campfire started, then the others will be able to see the smoke.”

“Good idea,” Doc said. He turned to Tango, “Can you walk, or do you need Beef to carry you?”

“Huh!? Why me?” Beef protested, “You are so much bigger than me! Why don’t you carry him?”

“Nobody rides on the Goat,” Doc said with a sly grin.

“I don’t need any rides from goats or otherwise,” Tango said, starting towards the closest edge of the forest, “are you all coming or what?”

It wasn't until they reached the woods that the real freaking out started. 

“Okay,” Joe said, listing things out on his fingers, it seemed he had lost his blue hand-puppet at some point since they left Hermitcraft. “We need wood for a pickaxe so we can get stone for a furnace so we can make charcoal for a campfire.” The rest of the group nodded and got to work. 

Since both of Tango’s arms were broken, he plopped awkwardly on the ground resigning himself to watch and feel useless. 

Xb walked up to the nearest tree and punched. A resounding CRACK echoed through the air, the sound made Tango wince. For a second, nothing happened, then Xb let out a heart stopping shout and stumbled backwards, clutching his hand to his chest, his tail curling around his body defensively.

“What is it!?” Keralis immediately rushed over concerned, “What happened!?”

“Tree - didn’t - break," Xb ground out through gasps of pain. 

“Huh?” Zed cocked his head curiously as he examined the tree. Other than some blood from Xb’s busted knuckles, there wasn’t a mark on it, it certainly hadn’t become a meter sized block like it was supposed to.

“Did you do it with intention?” Joe asked.

Xb looked up at him incredulously, raising an eyebrow. Although Tango figured Joe hadn’t said it to be condescending, he didn’t blame Xb for the reaction.

"Did you do it with intention” was a question almost every player had heard throughout their childhood when they were learning how to interact with, place, and destroy blocks. You had to really mean whatever it was you were doing or the action would have no effect. Trying to break a block without intention would result in nothing more than sore knuckles and bruised pride, like Xb had just experienced.

“I’m not a child, Joe,” Xb said, “Of course I ‘did it with intention.’”

“That’s weird,” Jevin said, “Maybe someone else should try? Or try a different tree?”

Beef walked up to an adjacent tree and, much more gingerly than Xb, hit his knuckles against the surface. Other than the soft knocking sound, nothing happened.

“That’s double weird,” Tango said, echoing Jevin. 

Joe reached down, placing his hand against the ground. He started to hum like he was preparing to launch a ball of energy from his chest. After a moment the hum crescendoed and then died out. “Nope, can’t break a dirt block either,” Joe said, sitting back on his heels.

“Well this is just great! ” Tango shouted. He would have thrust his arms in the air had they not both been in slings. Instead he settled for drumming his tail on the ground in agitation. “We’re lost who knows where, we have no food, no water, and we can’t even break blocks!?”

“That about sums it up, yeah,” Doc said. His horns were pulsing now, changing between purplish black and lime green. Those things really should have come with an epileptic warning.

“So whatta we do? Do we just sit here? Do we try and go back to find the others?” Tango asked, he could feel his temperature rising. The tip of his tail made sizzling noises every time it connected with the grass.

“Why would this even be happening?” Zed asked curiously, “This whole server is strange. I mean, it's modded for sure and yet, no whitelist? Plus the no breaking blocks thing. Not to mention our coms have been dead since we got here.” One of his soft, sheep ears flicked as he thought, “Do you think it's been archived?”

“I don’t think you can access an archived server from the void,” Joe said, “Not unless you’re the server’s admin.”

“Archived servers are inaccessible,” Doc agreed.

“Not to be the bearer of bad news or anything,” Jevin said, “But we still have no idea where we are and no plan.” 

“When you’re lost, you’re supposed to stay in one place and wait for rescuers to find you,” Joe suggested, sounding like a little boy in cub scouts.

“Yeah but, we’ve already moved, like a lot," Xb said, “I have no idea where we even started from at this point.”

“Shishwammy and the others are sure to be looking for us by now,” Keralis added.

As the group started to argue about whether or not they should leave or stay, Tango started freaking out in earnest. 

Tango wasn’t very good at doing nothing. He was a doer. A fixer. He wasn’t a do nothing and sit arounder. Maybe that was because Tango’s brain never sat still, it was constantly active, always looking for stimulation. If Tango didn’t run away with it, his mind would run away with him instead. Usually, Tango could harness the unique ecstatic energy of his brain. He was very good at solving problems actually. And if there was something he couldn’t figure out, he didn’t stop working until he did . But this? Tango had never faced a puzzle quite like this before. 

He could feel the anxiety welling up in him. His mind running in circles like his skull was a cage. Without the use of his hands, he couldn’t even stim to get his nervous energy out. It piled up inside him, like a stone rolling down a mountain and creating an avalanche. His lungs were constricting under the weight of it.   

What if Xisuma was looking for them, but in the wrong direction? What if they went back out into the field and got even more lost? What if this server was just as broken as Hermitcraft and everything was going to disapear? What if? What if? What if?

As his pulse rose so did his temperature, his fire flaring white hot as it shot from his scalp. Tango drummed his tail faster and faster against the ground listening to the fisst, fisst, fisst, sound of the grass singeing. He couldn’t take it anymore, he had to do something before he was buried alive in his thoughts. He could come up with a solution, he was Tango Tek. Come on, Tango! Think! Think! THINK! 

… Wait a second.

Out of nowhere, Tango opened his mouth and let his frustrations out in a full chested shout which caused everyone else in the group to jump in surprise. He then turned and plunged his head into a thicket of grass. The dry, yellow stalks went up like a powder keg, fire instantly spreading and producing a thick column of black smoke. 

“I am a genius!" Tango shouted.  

Chapter Text

The group hadn’t even been searching half an hour before Pearl spotted the smoke. She was flying about twenty feet above the Hermits’ heads, making use of her large, speckled wings to give them an aerial view of the landscape. Despite their size, Pearl’s wings flapped silently, occasionally ruffling the Hermit’s hair and clothes with downdrafts of air. She seemed to be having fun, despite the situation the group found themselves in. She rose and fell with the currents of the air, using their momentum to help propel her flight.

“Whoo-whee,” she said as she took in their surroundings flying in a circle around the group, “these plains are massive! They go on for miles!” She beat her wings again and rose even higher in the air. Her wingspan cast a pleasant shadow on the Hermits below.

Grian, however, was not having as good a time as his sister. He stared at her enviously as he walked, kicking at the grass with his taloned feet. His expression reminded Xisuma of a petulant child, impatiently waiting their turn to play with their sibling’s toy. Occasionally, his iridescent feathers would ruffle in agitation before he forced them smooth again.

“Stupid Pearl,” Grian muttered under his breath, he had been complaining about just about everything since waking up in this strange server. “Stupid big wings. Stupid field. Stupid sun. Stupid-” Grian seemed to run out of things to call stupid and settled for making an unhappy noise. Xisuma supposed he didn’t really blame him. A lot had happened within the last 24 hours to be unhappy about. 

“Hey man, look on the bright side,” Ren began in an attempt to cheer him up.

“Ren," Grian replied in a voice so sweet it was poisonous, “I will bite you.”

“Don’t test him, dude, he will. I’ve seen it,” Joel warned seriously.

“I’ve been bit,” Mumbo added with a nod. 

“Goodness gracious!” Ren exclaimed, “Come on G, it's a beautiful day. The sky is clear, the wind is blowing through the grasses. Little birds are singing in the trees. What’s there to be grumpy about?”

“Well -” Grian took a deep breath, about to launch into a whole list of reasons why he - on this particular beautiful day- was feeling grumpy.

Oh boy.

“Any sign of them?” Xisuma interrupted, calling up to Pearl as they crested yet another hill. It was about mid-day now, and the bright over-head sun glared into Xisuma’s visor, forcing him to squint.

“No, not yet… wait,” Pearl paused and flew down a little lower until she was directly overhead, “Okay, I see something.” Pearl pointed off to the east towards where the field bordered up against the forest. Xisuma followed the line of her finger and saw the pillar of smoke rising above the hilltops. It coiled into the air like the body of a giant black snake.

“I reckon that’s gotta be them, right?” Pearl said. She came in for a landing, dropping down gracefully next to Xisuma.

“I reckon you’re probably right,” Xisuma agreed.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s probably a Tango,” Impulse said, a note of fondness and concern in his voice.

“And that’s a lot of smoke,” Mumbo added, “Yeah, wow, that is a lot of smoke. Probably too much smoke in my opinion.”

“Campfire don’t make that much smoke,” Bdubs spoke up, a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun.

Behind his visor, Xisuma frowned. They were right, a simple campfire wouldn’t produce that much smoke. As they watched the smoke kept rising and Xisuma could make out what he thought was the orange glow of flames on the horizon. What had they done, set the whole field ablaze? 

“X, it smells like trouble to me, man,” Ren said, his ears were pulled back, uncertain. It was a hard shift from his cheerful demeanor just moments ago. 

“We’d better move,” Xisuma said, breaking into a run, “I think our friends are in trouble.”

It took mere seconds for Tango to realize his mistake. His successful shout died in his throat as the fire, instead of sitting in one place, burning a singular clump of grass until it expired, leaped onto the next one… and then the next, and then the next. It spread quickly though the dried stalks like… well, like a wildfire. All varieties of summer insects took to the sky to flee the growing flames.

Oh. This server had fire tick enabled. Tango watched in horror as the fire ravaged the grass like a hungry beast.

This server had fire tick enabled.

“Uh, whoopsie?” Tango mumbled. What had he just done?

“Tango!” Beef rushed forward, grabbing Tango by the armpits and yanking him away from the quickly growing flames. Tango yelped in pain as the sudden movement jostled his injury, then yelped again as he narrowly avoided lighting his pants on fire. Beef backed away from the fire, Tango still dangling from his arms like a limp cat.

“T-thank you,” Tango croaked. Behind him Beef just grunted, his eyes transfixed by the flames in front of them.

“What do we do!?” Xb yelped, the gill flaps on the sides of his neck flared open and closed in rabid succession, a visible representation of hyperventilating. “What do we do!? It's gonna set the whole field on fire!”

“I’m sorry!” Tango shouted back, “I wasn’t using my thinking!” 

“Can we put it out?” Joe asked. The orange glow from the fire reflected off his sunglasses and obscured his eyes from view, but his eyebrows were pulled tight across them.

“We need to find water,” Keralis suggested unhelpfully.

“We need to get upwind, out of the fire’s path,” Doc growled in return. On all fours with his clothes shredded and his labcoat missing, he looked absolutely feral. “This way, follow me!” He began running -or galloping or whatever it was giant creeper centaurs did- along the edge of the forest. Beef shifted Tango into a bridal carry and barrelled after him, the others close on his heels.

The fire continued to grow, pressing them closer and closer to the edge of the forest. Above them, the smoke began to blot out the sun, throwing the group into an artificial twilight. The haze made it difficult to make out the nearby trees, but Tango could hear them groan and pop as they recoiled from the growing heat, their leaves shriveling and scorching. 

“Doc!” Beef shouted, “What about the others? If they’re in the field somewhere-“

“We have to worry about ourselves first,” Doc called back without turning his head. His voice was nearly lost in the roar of the flames and the sound of the group’s own labored breaths.

Tango was a Nether-born, he was built for the ash and the heat, but the others… Tango looked up and watched as Beef furiously tried to blink sweat out of his eyes. The cow-hybrid was sodden with it, and it stuck his thick brown hair to his forehead. 

Xb, who was part aquatic creature, had it worse, every breath he took came out as a pained wheeze. His gait lurched and stumbled as he tried and failed to keep up with Doc’s pace. He was slowly but surely falling behind the rest of the group. 

As they scrambled down a steep incline, Jevin cried out in alarm. It was practically a scream, his voice breaking at the end. Doc stumbled to a stop and turned back. Beef and the others doing the same.

“XB!” Tango cried out. The guardian hybrid was on the ground, holding himself up on trembling hands and knees. He tried to rise to his feet, but his legs gave out and he tumbled back to the ground, coughing in a way that sounded painful.

Jevin stood nearby, frozen by indecision. Unsure of how to help, he just kept desperately glancing between Xb and Doc. The heat was causing Jevin’s gelatin-like skin to crack and peel. Tango could see the flames at the top of the hill they had just descended, and they were gaining ground quickly.

“Scheiße!” Doc cursed, turning back for Xb. “Keep running!” He instructed the rest of the group, “We’re nearly clear of it!” 

Doc reached Jevin and Xb and lightly shoved the sentient slime out of the way, startling him out of whatever stupor he was in.

"Go! You idiots! I’ll be right behind you!” That seemed to be all it took to get Jevin moving again, and he raced past Beef and Tango in a mad dash for safer ground. Tango caught one last glimpse of Doc hauling Xb onto his back before Beef followed Doc’s instructions as well, leaving the two of them behind.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the heat and roar of the fire began to fade behind them. The group emerged from the danger zone, coughing and covered with soot. Beef stumbled to a stop and put Tango down before furiously wiping at his face with a sleeve of his flannel. 

Tango began to pace anxiously. “We should go back for them, shouldn’t we?” He asked nobody in particular. “We can’t just leave them.”

“I don’t fancy becoming a roast leg of lamb,” Zedaph said, trying and failing to brush the ash from his wooly hair. His small furry tail shook and his ears were flat to the sides of his head. “Doc said he’d be right behind us. I trust Doc.” His lavender eyes were hollow and glassy, a look that seemed completely out of place on his normally jovial face. “I can’t afford not to hope, Tango.”

Something in Tango’s chest tightened at those words. He lowered his gaze to the ground, not meeting Zedaph's eyes. He opened his mouth but found no words waiting for him. What was he supposed to say? He remembered Zedaph shaking like a leaf in Impulse’s arms as the world fell apart around them and oh void that had only been hours ago. And now Tango had gone and almost burned one of his best friends alive. 

Tango fixed his eyes on the burning prairie just willing Doc and Xb to appear from the flames like a phoenix reborn.

When he was young, Docm77 fought a god and won. It wasn’t a pretty fight, and he certainly hadn’t come away unscathed, but if a god couldn’t kill him, there was no way in the Nether or any other Hell that a measly wildfire would. If it did, Doc didn’t think he’d be able to survive the embarrassment.  

Xb lay on the ground, chest rising and falling rapidly as he desperately gasped for a breath of air that wasn’t poison. He made no move to stand, just curled in on himself like he was waiting for the inevitable. In any other circumstance, a respawn may not have been a bad choice. To simply succumb to death’s soft touch and wake up in bed safe from whatever may have killed you. But, Doc thought back to the group’s inability to break blocks, if such a basic game mechanic was broken, there was no guarantee that a death in this world wasn’t permanent. No friend of his was going to permadie on his watch.

Doc leaned down and grabbed Xb by the arms, pulling him up. “Come on, Xb,” He said, “nap time’s over.”

"Just leave me," Xb blinked up with half-lidded eyes. He looked awful, a sickly, gray pallor in place of his normally sun-kissed skin. "Save yourself."

In response, Doc just rolled his eyes and hefted Xb onto his back, "And you all call me dramatic?"

Despite Doc’s affinity for goats, creepers were actually more feline in nature, which was kinda ironic if he thought about it too hard. Their long lythe bodies and large paws were built for sneaking and pouncing, not for supporting the weight of a rider on their backs, and Xb nearly immediately slipped off of Doc's sloped spine and soft fur. Doc caught him, mechanical arm hissing and whirring at the sudden movement. The growing heat was not doing his hardware any favors. "Hold on to something," He hissed. The fire was closing in, soon their only exit would be blocked off and they would be surrounded. They had to get going now.

Xb coughed dryly tightening his legs around Doc's ribs and grabbing fistfulls of his fur in an attempt to anchor himself in place. Doc suppressed a shudder at the touch, unused to the sensation, but without his lab coat, Xb had no other hand-hold. As soon as it felt as though his passenger was secure, Doc took off at a run. The aperture of his eye whizzed as it scanned his surroundings, analyzing the best path though the flames and smoke. The wind hadn't shifted, good, that meant the two of them could still clear the danger zone… with a little luck.

Doc could just see the end of the flames up ahead when he heard something nearby give way with a loud Crack! A tree, weakened by the extreme heat of the flames, toppled directly in his path. With a cry he skidded to a stop, paws digging into the dry grass beneath him. Xb jerked forward and slammed his head into Doc's back. Doc bit back a curse, saving it for later when he wasn't in immediate danger of dying. The now downed tree was completely engulfed in flames and it was blocking their only path to freedom.

Doc may have been a godkiller, he may have been a genius inventor with a pension for bending the reality of space and time, but Doc wasn't fireproof. In fact, Doc was so not fireproof that if he did catch fire he would explode, which was bad news for both him and Xb.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Doc growled, pacing the length of the tree like a lion in a cage. He cast his gaze around, desperately scanning for another way out of this mess.

"-oc."

Doc's ears perked up and he frowned. He thought he just heard…

"Doc!?"

No, it couldn't be. Why would that idiot put himself in unnecessary danger?

"Xisuma?" Doc called out in disbelief.

A figure stumbled into view through the flames. Green body armor streaked with ash and a visor hiding their face from view. "Doc, thank the stars we found you!"

"Xisuma, are you crazy?!" Doc exclaimed, staring at his admin like he'd just grown two heads.

"Yes, probably," Xisuma replied.

"You just ran into a fire!" Doc said, stating the obvious. "Why did you not just turn fire tick off?"

Without light to pass through Xisuma's visor, his face was completely obscured. Doc had no idea what kind of emotions his admin may have been feeling, but it sounded like his teeth were clenched when he said, "I can't. I'll- I'll explain later. I'll explain everything - what I can- later."

A weak voice floated up from behind, "How is Xisuma gonna move that tree by himself?" Xb wondered.

"Oh, I didn't come alone," Xisuma answered, "I brought back up."

As if on cue, another figure ran through the flames. He looked ridiculous, lanky frame hunched over and the collar of his suit jacket pulled over his head like a nun's habit. The very edges of his large, impressive mustache were singed. Doc couldn't believe what he was seeing, "Mumbo Jumbo?"

Xb let out a noise that may have been a laugh, but was more likely a painful coughing wheeze.

"Out of all the-" Doc bobbed his mouth open and closed searching for words, "why Mumbo?" He was about to burn alive and the final face he would see was that of one Mumbo Jumbo.

"My suit is flame retardant," Mumbo said as if it made all the sense in the world to wear a flame resistant business suit as your everyday outfit.

"Now let's get out of here," Xisuma said determinedly. He braced his arms against the tree, the flames licking at his body armor but unable to reach his skin. "Mumbo, help me push."

One thing Doc did know about Mumbo was that, despite his string-bean appearance, the man was deceptively strong. Mumbo quickly pulled his sleeves down over his hands to protect them from the flames, and pushed against the tree with Xisuma, muscles rippling beneath the fabric of his suit jacket.

Slowly, the pair managed to push the tree enough out of the way to open up a path through the blaze. As soon as the way was clear enough to pass, the group wasted no time and raced through the narrow opening. Doc could feel the fire on his heels as he finally cleared the danger zone and stumbled out into open air. Up head he could see the rest of the Hermits blinking down at him in apprehension. It seemed as though none of them were quite sure what they were looking at.

Then, a cheer went up. Tango, standing at the front, let out a holler that made Doc's ears ring. "They made it! I told you! I told you!"

"Nobody doubted you, Tango," Impulse said gently, patting his friend on the back.

"No fire is a match for The Goat," Doc said with a grin. He wiped a hand across the bridge of his nose, smearing soot across his face. "Or Mumbo Jumbo, apparently."

"You know," Mumbo said, coming up behind him, "Sometimes I amaze even myself."

Chapter Text

The thing about owing someone an explanation, is that you had to actually have some answers to give. It had taken Xisuma and the rest of his group a little over two hours to find the missing members, save Doc and Xb from the fire that Tango had started by being a genius, and return to the hilltop where they had left the injured.

Xisuma trudged along behind the group, both mind and body heavy, an unconscious Xb held securely in his arms. The guardian hybrid's face was tucked against Xisuma's neck and he could feel the steady warmth of his breath against his throat, a reassuring sign that his friend was - in fact - still alive. With every step he took, Xb's long fish-like tail slapped Xisuma in the side of the leg. 

Xisuma had been briefed as best he could from the group that had escaped the fire. Apparently the whole thing had started because they were unable to break blocks. That was - at the very least - concerning. But what was more concerning was the fact that Xisuma couldn't access the code to turn off fire tick, or summon in healing potions for Xb or Tango’s twin broken arms. He tried his best not to dwell on the disappointed faces of his friends when instead of using his admin powers to help them, like he should have, all he could offer were stuttered apologies.

Xisuma was useless. More than useless really, he was the cause of this whole mess. If he had only been better at his job, he probably could have saved Hermitcraft and spared his Hermits all this pain and fear.

What did you think was going to happen? You really thought you could lead them, could protect them? The small voice that sounded a bit like him and a bit like his brother said, They should have deposed you as admin after the moon incident. Better yet, they should have never made you admin at all.

Xisuma kept his head down, watching his steps and Doc’s heels in front of him, as he turned their situation over and over in his mind like a potato in a microwave. Only, with potatoes and microwaves, eventually the potato had to pop. The problem in Xisuma’s mind offered no such sudden, violent conclusion.

No matter how many angles he considered it from, how hard he thought about it, only one thing was certain. He had no idea what was going on. Xisuma was so focused on his thoughts and the soft thwap, thwap, thwap of Xb’s tail that he almost didn’t notice when they joined back up with the others.

Now the Hermits were gathered back together on the hilltop clearing, waiting expectantly for answers Xisuma didn't know how to give. Most of the Hermits sat or laid around in the grass, exhausted by the day's ordeal. Xisuma had laid Xb down as gently as possible and he was now being watched over by Keralis and Hypno. Wels, who had been on high alert since they'd first arrived, stood off to the edge of the group. He kept an eye on the fire on the horizon, ready to sound the alarm if the wind shifted and the blaze began to make its way towards them. Even at this distance, the air was hazy with smoke.

Tango sat tucked away between Impulse and Skizzleman. He pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his two broken arms on top and looking dejected. His normally blazing head of hair was all but a flicker, revealing the blonde locks normally hidden underneath. Clearly he was feeling guilty about what had happened, Xisuma would have to talk to him… but later.

Holding his breath, Xisuma took off his helmet and rubbed at the lenses. His brown hair, sweat slicked and greasy, fell into his eyes, obscuring the Hermits from view. Even so, he could still feel their gazes boring into him. He was mostly stalling, Xisuma knew, but the action helped give him a little more time to put his thoughts in order and still his racing heart.

His head still hurt, but the pain was lesser now and - Xisuma guessed - more due to dehydration than his previous wound. He was careful not to reopen the scab as he placed his helmet back on and took a deep breath.

"Are we going to talk about it?" someone, Grian, asked. He was standing nervously in a group with Pearl, Mumbo, Scar, and Cub, shifting from foot to foot in the world's most anxious dance. "I mean, people almost died and we don't know what's going on."

Xisuma let out his breath in a shuddering sigh, "I think we should start with what we know." Starting at the beginning was as good a place as any, he supposed.

"Okay," Joe spoke up, "I'll summarize for the group." He walked to the center of the group, as if he were about to perform a monologue or burst into song. "As we all know, this morning, the sky disappeared on Hermitcraft. We evacuated, rightly so because the rest of the world had also begun to disappear. When we got off world, however, we got sent to-" Joe paused and looked up, casting his gaze curiously around the group. "Everyone else experienced the soul-sucking white vacuum right?"

The rest of the Hermits silently nodded in agreement, many of them casting their gaze away, faces going pale. Xisuma heard someone audibly gulp.

Joe nodded, once, twice, "right, just checking." He continued, pushing up his glasses, "When we got off world, we were sent to a soul-sucking white vacuum for an indeterminate amount of time. After the vacuum left, we all spawned into this world."

After the vacuum left… Xisuma's eyebrows furrowed at the way Joe phrased it. Why didn't he say when we left or when we escaped? Joe personified the… the - even now Xisuma couldn't describe it- the space or whatever it was.

He tried to think back to that experience, to floating in the blank white expanse. It was a difficult thing to picture, like trying to recall a memory that had gone smooth and fuzzy around the edges, blurred so that you weren’t quite sure you were remembering it correctly at all. Was it a thing? Had it been some sort of entity, with intelligence, and life, and will? Xisuma didn't know. Xisuma wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"-unable to break blocks." Xisuma startled back to reality at Joe’s voice, aware that he was still going through his explanation.

"After setting fire to the nearby grass and subsequently escaping said fire, we also learned that Xisuma was unable to access admin commands. After that we all met up here and-" Joe briefly paused, making sure he hadn't left any important details out. "And I think that about covers it," he concluded.

Suddenly, everyone's gaze was back on Xisuma, his already dry mouth got drier.

"You said you would explain everything," Doc said, not unkindly, but certainly sternly.

"Yes, I did say that. I did," Xisuma replied nervously. "It's just that, I don't actually know how." He gulped a couple times instead of speaking.

"Start with why we can't break blocks maybe?" Keralis piped up.

Scar shot his hand up in the air like he was answering a question in class. "Or access our inventories!" He shouted. "I tried and it did not work."

"I can only make a guess," Xisuma started. His hands had begun to sweat. Xisuma didn't like being put on the spot at the best of times, but being put on the spot when he only had crazy hypotheses about what was actually going on was a thousand times worse.

"What's your guess then?" Cleo spoke up.

"It seems - at least to me - like this - this server…" Xisuma screwed his eyes tight so he wouldn't have to look at anyone. Usually, the level of anonymity his helmet provided buffered him from the uncomfortability of the spotlight, but even that wasn't enough to ease his nerves in this case. "Idon'tthinkthisserverhasanycode," Xisuma blurted out as one word. Good going. The perfect explanation.

There was a long stretching moment of silence and then…

"Excuse me?" Grian asked. Xisuma opened his eyes, the small Avian was looking at him with his head cocked and a confused expression on his face. Clearly Grian had either not heard or not understood what Xisuma had said. The rest of the Hermits looked similarly confused.

Xisuma took a deep breath and tried again. "When I try to reach out to the code," he explained, "it's like reaching into empty space. When I type commands, nothing happens, I don't even get an error message. It's like-" Xisuma paused then, trying to think of how to explain what he meant to those less familiar with code than he was, "it’s like shouting into a canyon and expecting an echo but only getting silence in return." He took in another long, wavering breath and said, slower this time, "This server has no code."

Most of the Hermits just stared blankly at him.

"What do you mean, has no code?" Mumbo asked, bewildered.

"You can't access the code you mean?" Impulse guessed, "This server must have an admin after all."

"No," Xisuma replied, "That's not what I meant. It's… geez this is harder than I thought it would be. When you try to run a command when you're not an admin on a server, what happens?"

"You get a message that says you don't have permission," Zedaph piped up, glad to be helpful.

"Exactly," Xisuma said, relieved that they were finally starting to get it, "Have you ever once, once run a command and nothing happened at all?"

Xisuma looked around at his Hermits, seeing trepidation begin to replace the confusion on their faces. "If this was simply a matter of me not having admin perms on this server, I would know, the server would tell me. Besides, this being an admin problem doesn't explain how we're unable to break blocks or access inventories."

"Xisuma, code is the fabric of reality.” Doc said each word like it was a final verdict. His LED horns were glowing a yellow-green so bright it hurt Xisuma's eyes even through the visor and he was pawing the ground with his claws, something he only did when he was truly anxious. "There can't be a server with no code. It's not possible."

"That's not necessarily true," Cub spoke up then. He had an interesting expression on his face that Xisuma found hard to place. It was almost like intrigue or even excitement. "The manipulation of code is the fabric of reality. Life comes from the available changes in code, not from the code itself. And since we know that, theoretically, code can be manipulated in an infinite amount of ways. Then technically it is possible - though slightly paradoxical - that life can exist without code. It's all very interesting stuff, ya know?"

"Facinating," Cleo said in a voice so deadpan that it was the dictionary definition of the word, "What does that mean exactly?"

Several of the Hermits nodded in agreement to Cleo’s question while Scar mumbled under his breath, “I don’t get it.”

"It means we can’t do anything in this world that requires code," Xisuma summarized, "That means, no communicators, no breaking blocks, no admin commands, and…" Xisuma couldn't help looking in Scar's direction, "no respawns."

“Ok so, no dying. Got it,” Scar, who died on average five times a day said, “easy peasy.”

"Big deal," Gem spoke up, startling the group with her offhand comment, "So we can't use commands and we can't respawn. That's no different than a true hardcore world, it'll be fine."

Xisuma rocked back on his heels as he considered her statement. It wasn’t that she was wrong exactly, but comparing their situation to a true hardcore world didn’t make it much better.

Hardcore worlds themselves were not at all a rare occurrence. Most players Xisuma knew had tried a handful of times to survive in one. Some of the Hermits themselves, Gem included, were actually quite experienced with hardcore servers. But, the thing was, hardcore worlds weren’t actually all that dangerous. Sure, the world’s code got permanently deleted when you died, but the player’s code was simply sent back to their home server where they respawned safe and sound.

True hardcore worlds, where a player's code was deleted alongside the world's when they died, were a different story entirely. Not many people attempted survival in a world where permadeath was an option. Those crazy enough to try were never heard from again. In fact, Xisuma had only known one person who had come back from a true hardcore world and he had literally seduced death herself to do so.

"Hang on," Skizz spoke up and Xisuma could almost see the gears turning in his head. "Doesn't leaving a server require the use of code? If there is no code then-” the gears clicked, “Dude! We could be stuck here forever, man!"

Xisuma shook his head. He had thought of that, had nearly had a panic attack over it actually, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily. “We had to get here somehow,” he said, “if it was possible to enter, then it must be possible to leave. We just… we just have to figure out how.” Even that was probably an impossible task.

"Find the door," Joe said quietly.

Xisuma nodded, "Find the door."

"That's great man," Doc said, his face was still stormy, "But we have bigger problems to deal with. We have no food, water, or shelter, and in a few hours it'll be dark. And don't think for a second I'm buying this whole "no code" junk, there must be a better explanation. Like lag or something. Or I accidentally ate redstone again and I’m hallucinating."

"Doc's right," Xisuma said, "Uh, not about eating redstone, about the other stuff. We're not going to last long here without basic necessities. And we need somewhere safe to treat our wounded."

"We can help with that," Impulse spoke up.

"Yeah!" Skizz added, "Dipple-dop and I are top notch survivalists!"

"Oh yeah, that's right, you two do this sort of thing for fun," False said, "uh, bare and afraid, right?"

"It's naked and scared, but yeah," Impulse replied, "though the no breaking blocks thing is a new challenge. And the threat of impending death."

"Threat of impending death! Let's go!" Skizz hollered loudly, pumping his fist in the air.

"Wow, Skizz, you're really into this, huh?" Bdubs observed.

"No!" Skizz shouted in the exact same upbeat tone, "I'm terrified! But if I think about it too hard I'll totally curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out, dude!"

"I think our best bet is to find a village," Impulse said, getting the conversation back on track, "This seems like a plains biome, so there should be one close by."

"If we can assume generation follows the same basic rules as it does back home," Cub interjected, "But, based on what we've seen so far, that seems to not be the case.” 

Xisuma had a feeling that Cub was the only Hermit who was actually enjoying this whole experience. Theoretical physics was right up Cub’s quite niche alley and Xisuma felt as though they were all part of some strange, twisted experiment.

"There's always the woods," Bdubs suggested, "We may have better luck finding food and shelter there than out in the open plains which, in case you forgot, someone lit on fire."

"Whatever we do we need to do it quickly," False said, "My vote is for finding a village. I don't even want to know what kind of mobs might be in those woods at night."

"Ooh, yeah, that is true," Bdubs muttered.

"I flew for quite awhile over this area," Pearl interjected, "I didn’t see the end of the plains, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a village somewhere out there. Although, I can’t guarantee that we’ll find shelter before nightfall."

Xisuma hummed in consideration. Neither option sounded particularly pleasant. "Running into mobs in the woods might be dangerous," he said, "but so would being surrounded on the open plains if we can't find shelter in time. I say we put it to a vote."

In the end, the Hermits voted to find a village. While no one was particularly keen on being stranded in a seemingly endless field at night, the thought of being ambushed by unknown mobs in the shadow of the forest was worse. 

“Besides,” False had said, “We’ll make it much farther through the plains than trying to pick our way through a forest that dense."

"Alright, it's decided," Xisuma said to the group, "We’ll go through the plains, try our best to find a village or some sort of shelter before dark. Someone will need to carry Xb and-" Xisuma turned to Scar, "Do you think you can walk, Scar?"

Scar pulled his lips into a thin line. Using his cane to support his weight, he struggled to his feet, wincing and breathing heavily. He stood uneasily, like a fawn who was just learning to stand on its own four feet. Scar looked up at Xisuma, his smile pinched with pain, "I think if I try to move any more I'll be eating dirt."

"That's alright, Scar," Impulse said, walking over to him. He turned around so his back was facing Scar, "I gotchu, buddy."

Scar gasped delightedly, "Oh my goodness! A real genuine Impulse piggyback! I can't believe what I'm seein' right now!"

"Aww! What!" Skizz exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips and sticking his lip out in a pout, "You never offer me piggy back rides!"

Impulse bent down and helped Scar clamber onto his back, wrapping his arms around his legs to make sure he was secure. "That's because you're perfectly capable of walking yourself," Impulse replied and then added under his breath, "plus you'd probably crush me."

Scar giggled. "Yay to being incapable!" He exclaimed as he loosely put his arms around Impulse's neck.

"I can carry Xb for a while," Wels offered. When there were no objections he reached down and - with an amount of care that contrasted with the action - hefted Xb over his shoulder like he was a sack of potatoes.

Hypno made a wheezing sound. " Wels!" He chastised.

Wels spun around and looked at him, "What?"

"Be careful, dude!" Hypno exclaimed, gesturing animatedly at the man Wels had just slung over his shoulder.

Wels just blinked at him confused, "This is how you're supposed to carry an unconscious person to safety."

"Remind me to never ask Wels if I ever need someone to carry me to safety," Ren said with a grin.

The statement caught Xisuma off guard and he choked on a laugh. He bent over, equal parts giggling and wheezing as he tried to get air back into his lungs. He could hear his Hermits’ laughter around him.

"You jerks," Xisuma chuckled, "what if I had actually been dying, what then?"

"Then Wels would carry you," Keralis said with as straight a face as he could muster.

"I do have two shoulders," Wels added.

Pearl was right, the plains did stretch on for miles. The Hermits had been walking for a few hours, west, into the sun, forcing them to keep their gazes down and sheild their eyes with their hands.

Slowly but surely the group left the edge of the forest and the wildfire behind them. It reminded Xisuma of sailing into the ocean. Soon there was nothing but shifting waves of amber grass in all directions. It felt as though he could be swallowed up by it and never be seen again. The enormity of the plains made him feel small… insignificant… unimportant. Occasionally, he cast nervous glances to the horison, unable to shake the unnerving feeling of being watched. He couldn’t say he was enjoying the scenery. 

At times, the group had to literally wade through grass as tall as their waists or, in some cases, chests. For the first couple hours Pearl had gone airborne and tried her best to point out where the grass was taller or the terrain steeply dipped, guiding them on the easiest path she could find. Eventually though, she became too fatigued to fly and joined the rest of them on the ground.

Luckily they had come upon a stream cutting through the landscape and stopped to get their fill of water. The small babbling brook was clear and cool and Xisuma was sure he’d never tasted water that good in his life.

After drinking until their tongues no longer stuck to the roof of their mouths, the Hermits washed their wounds and rebandaged them with fabric harvested from Hypo's sacrificed overcoat.

They even splashed a bit of water on Xb, which - thank the void - brought him back to consciousness. Wels still carried him though, only this time on his back instead of slung over his shoulder. With no way to carry water with them, they continued walking.

Scar, on Impulse's back like a baby koala, had managed to fall asleep. His cheek was pressed into Impulse's shoulder and a small spot of drool was slowly seeping into his black t-shirt. Impulse had his hands firmly around Scar's thighs to insure he didn't topple backwards in his sleep.

"Ah man!" Skizz snickered, "Too bad coms don't work. I'd love to get a picture of that."

Impulse grinned at him with a smile that implied bad things were in Skizz's future if he didn’t shut up. "You wouldn't dare do that to me would you, buddy?"

Skizz chuckled and scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "no no, of course not."

Impulse's grumpy facade quickly crumbled as he grinned at his friend.

A low, wet growl emanated from somewhere in the field. “Wha! What was that?!” Bdubs jumped, he cast his gaze frantically around the grass, frozen in place, like a cornered prey animal waiting for something to jump out at him.

“That was my stomach, Bdubs, sorry,” Etho said sheepishly. He reached down and patted his belly like he was quieting a restless animal. “Turns out the whole ‘getting bonked on the head and stranded’ thing makes you really hungry.”

Xisuma was incredibly relieved that Etho looked a bit more coherent now. While Xisuma and the others had been away, someone had removed Etho's usual headband and wrapped his head with strips of cloth instead. There was a dark stain where blood had seeped through the makeshift bandages at Etho's left temple.

Bdubs placed a hand over his heart, “I thought I was a goner for sure!”

Suddenly, something launched itself out of the grass to Bdubs right. Bdubs screamed as he and whatever had attacked him tumbled head over heels into the grass.

Several alarmed shouts rose up from the Hermits. Wels drew his sword, prepared to defend his friend. A small, blue and green winged Avian in a red sweater sat on top of Bdubs chest and cackled like a lunatic.

“Grian!” Bdubs screeched, “You can’t do that!” 

Mumbo grabbed a still cackling Grian by the arms and hauled him off of Bdubs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Grian wheezed. He reached up and wiped a tear from his eye, “The opportunity was too good, I couldn’t resist.”

“For no reason! Attacking me!” Bdubs crawled to his feet and dusted himself off, “For no reason!?” He repeated. 

“To be fair,” Beef said, flicking his tail behind him, “He’s been sneaking around in the grass for thirty minutes, I can’t believe you didn’t see him. He wasn't exactly being quiet."

“Well maybe I was paying attention to more important things,” Bdubs said, crossing his arms. The group began to move again now that the excitement was over. Mumbo quietly chastised Grian who was widely grinning and wiping at his nose with the oversized sleeve of his sweater.

“Oh yeah?” Gem interjected, “Like what?”

“Well, if you gotta know,” Bdubs blushed, “I was lookin’ for horses.”

Joel barked out a laugh, “Of course you were.”

“Listen, you - you listen here!” Bdubs stuttered indignantly, “Wouldn’t all this walkin’ be so much better and faster if we had horses?”

“I’d rather see a pig,” False said, “Or a cow. Something we could eat.”

“Technically,” Joel said smugly, “You can eat horses.”

“Shut your dirty mouth,” Bdubs shouted. Joel just laughed mischievously at the outburst.

“You know,” Gem said thoughtfully, “I thought we would have seen at least some animals by now. But I’ve not seen anything but bugs.”

“Technically bugs are edible too!” Grian supplied. 

Gem shuddered from her antlers to her hooves, “Ew, no. Gross.”

"Even if we did find a pig or a cow and managed to kill it with our bare hands, how would we cook it?" Beef asked, "We can't make a furnace."

"We'd roast it over Tango's flaming noggin, duh!" Skizz said with a wide smile.

"Hey!" Tango replied, running over and shoulder checking the bigger man.

Skizz jumped away with a giggle and rubbed his shoulder, "Too soon?"

"Way too soon," Tango replied.

Aroused by the commotion, Scar sat up blearily, causing Impulse to stumble a few steps to keep his balance. "If only blueberries didn't have leaves," He mumbled sleepily.

Scar reached up and rubbed at his eye, licked his lips a few times, then grimaced. "My mouth tastes like sand."

"Well, that's what you get for sleeping with your mouth open," Grian chirped in reply.

Scar wiped at his lips, "Oh no! Impy did I drool on you!? I'm so sorry! Here you are giving me the best piggy back ride in history and I'm drooling all over you."

"It’s no big deal," Impulse lied through a forced smile. He quickly changed the subject, "what was that you were saying? Something about berries and leaves?"

“Oh, I was just having a little dream about blueberries! I know they don’t grow on an average server, but they were everywhere where I grew up," Scar answered.

“You were having a blueberry dream?” Gem asked curiously, coming up alongside Scar and Impulse.

“Yeah! Except the blueberry bushes had so many leaves, that you couldn’t get to the actual berries! It was the worst !" Scar threw his arms up in the air.

"Steady there, Scar," Impulse grunted.

"I just kept reaching for blueberries and grabbing handfuls of leaves!"

“Ooohhhh,” Grian moaned, “stop talking about berries, you’re making me even hungrier, Scar!”

Etho's stomach rumbled again. "Me too," he sighed.

Xisuma rested a hand on his own stomach, at this point, it seemed like his guts were trying to eat themselves or perhaps somehow escape from his body.

He glanced up, the sun was low in the sky, already beginning to stain the horizon gold. Pretty soon it would be too dark to see and mobs would begin to spawn. If there even were mobs in a world without code. He was beginning to face the reality that they’d have to spend a long, hungry, sleepless night in the middle of an open field.

Just as Xisuma was about to call for them to stop. To try and make some sort of camp before it became too dark to see, Ren let out a shout.

He was standing on a short rise, pointing straight ahead, ears perked and tail wagging wildly.

"Look!" He shouted happily, glancing over his shoulder at the group with a large toothy grin, "It's glorious !"

Xisuma and the others hurried up the hill, stopping by Ren's side. 

A collection of buildings, rustic and quaint, sat nestled in a small valley. As the sun set behind them, golden streams of light peeked throught the gaps between the buildings making them dark sillowhets against the sky. A modest river wound its way along the edges of the buildings and turned a large wooden water-wheel attached to a mill.

A chorus of cheers rose up from the Hermits.

"That ladies and gentle-hermits," Ren said triumphantly, "is a village."

Chapter Text

Before Xisuma could even open his mouth to speak he was sent toppling to the ground as, out of nowhere, Joel crashed into him full force. The admin let out a surprise yelp as the smaller man immediately scrambled off of him and down the hill, nearly scampering on all fours.

"Sorry mate! My bad," Joel called back with an apology that didn’t sound particularly sincere. Xisuma continued to sit bewildered on the ground. He furrowed his brows as he watched the shape of Joel continue its mad dash down the hill.

“Joel!” Gem stood with her hands on her hips, hoof beating the ground in agitation. "You just trampled Xisuma!” She scolded, “What on earth do you think you’re doing!?"

"I'm winning!" Joel hollered with a delighted laugh, "See you there slowpokes!"

Etho pushed his way to the front of the group and stood at the precipice of the hill. Xisuma couldn’t see behind his mask, of course, but he would bet that Etho was slackjawed, appalled that Joel would start a race without telling anyone. 

"Hey! What? No fair!" Etho whined as he took off after Joel, footsteps somehow making no sound even in the dry grass, "You cheater!"

Joel simply laughed in reply. He looked over his shoulder and stuck out his tongue. "Try and keep up, old man!" Then, because he wasn’t looking where he was going, he faceplanted, going down with a surprisingly high pitched screech. 

Xisuma couldn’t help but chuckle as Joel crawled to his feet and shook the grass from his hair. Served him right.

"Better hold on tight, Scar," Impulse said.

Scar looked up, confusion evident on his face. "Huh? Why would I need to hold on ti- ahhhhh!" Scar scrambled to wrap his arms and legs around Impulse as he sped off after Joel. "Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Impuuuuulssseeee!" Scar babbled in what was probably a mixture of fear and delight as Impulse made up the distance to first place, running faster than Xisuma thought he could. 

Xb sat up a little higher on Wels' back. "Don't let them beat us, Wels!" He said looking down at his ride with a shark-toothed grin. He pointed over Wels' shoulder to the village in the distance, "Charge!"

Xisuma watched from his place on the ground as Hermits of all shapes and sizes raced down the gently sloping hill. Some egging each other on or becoming obstacles in each other's way. How they could suddenly have so much energy was beyond him, but if there was one thing Xisuma knew about his Hermits, it was that they loved a friendly competition. Xisuma winced as Mumbo seemed to trip on nothing but air and go tumbling in a mess of limbs. 

Gem gracefully bounded over him like a deer over a fallen log. On her swift, agile legs she was quickly overtaking most of the group. Her long red curls bounced behind her, set aflame by the setting sun. "Sorry boys!" She winked as she passed Joel and Etho who were doing more pushing and shoving than actual running, "But I don't lose."

A shadow passed by the group overhead. "Are you sure about that?" Grian's voice called down. He grinned impishly from where he dangled from Pearl's arms as she swooped over the Hermits.

"Oh what?" Doc gazed up with a sort of half smile, "Now that has got to be cheating."

"Can't cheat if there are no rules!" Grian crowed.

Xisuma supposed he couldn't argue with that but, he shook his head, "You're gonna scare whoever lives here half to death!" He trotted up behind the group, a bemused smile on his face.

"On the bright side," Hypno replied, his long stride keeping up with Xisuma at only a brisk walk, "If they were going to shoot at us, they probably would have by now."

At the small stone bridge that served as the entrance to the village, Grian let out a victory cheer, "Yes! Take that, losers! I win!"

Joel leaned heavily on the short cobblestone railing, his chest heaving, sweat plastering his brown and green bangs to his face. "I - want - a rematch," he wheezed. He squeezed his eyes tight, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Technically, Griba," Pearl said with a smirk as she folded her wings neatly behind her, "my feet touched the ground first. So actually, I think I won."

"I mean if you were going to be pedantic about it," Grian replied with a nonchalant handwave. He turned away from the gathering group and curiously peered down the path between buildings. "But I think everyone will agree that I-"

Grian stilled, staring into the semi-darkness of the village, voice trailing into an eerie silence. As the seconds ticked on, the rest of the Hermits began to notice, staring at him with concerned expressions as they caught their breaths.

"Um, ok, who broke Grian?" Scar asked worriedly, "He's really freaking me out you guys."

Mumbo stepped forward cautiously, placing a long fingered hand on his friend's shoulder. "Grian? Bud? What's going on?" Grian turned towards him slowly, his dark eyes as deep as the void.

"Something's not right here."

"Hands down, creepiest village I've ever been to. By far," Etho craned his neck up at the gaping emptiness of a passing window. "I mean we've been here, what, five minutes and haven't seen a single person?"

The Hermits walked down the packed dirt path as a single entity, mood sufficiently dampened by Grian's ominous comment. Their footsteps echoed off the tightly grouped buildings and across the empty street.

Cedar shingled buildings with thatched roofs lined either side of the walkway, neighbors crowded in each other's spaces. Most were one story and squat, eaves sagging over entryways, but a few taller buildings loomed ominously as they passed. Set a little apart from the village proper, the gristmill sat, its water wheel churning the river below with a chug chug chug.

"I've seen worse," Xisuma said almost absentmindedly, his attention drawn by their eerie surroundings. He kept his eyes wide, bouncing his gaze from building to building, trying not to jump at the shifting shadows cast by the rest of the group. The dread that he had felt earlier returned full force, sitting like a stone in his gut. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Xisuma could see Grian, his feathers constantly ruffling with nervousness. Had Grian seen something? Or had he simply sensed the gloomy atmosphere that hung over this place like a veil, it was hard to tell. Either way, Xisuma was no fool, he knew not to take a warning from Grian, of all people, lightly.

Not for the first time since arriving, Xisuma felt a strange sense of… exposure. The lack of flowing code around him made him feel naked, as if he weren’t wearing his body armor or helmet. He knew some of the other Hermits, those with admin abilities, could feel the strange absence as well. The thought that Xisuma wouldn’t be able to do anything if danger presented itself weighed heavy on his mind. His fingers itched to pull something from his inventory, a sword maybe, or even a torch to cut through the growing darkness. Instead he balled his hand into a fist at his side.

"Have you actually, or are you just saying that?" False asked, she was standing just to Xisuma's left and also looked like she wanted a sword.

"I have. Before Hermitcraft," Xisuma didn't elaborate, he didn't need to.

The sun finally set, plunging the hermits into twilight and leaving Tango's flames and Doc's horns as their only sources of light.

"Where is everybody?" Skizz asked, "They saw us coming and ran or what?" He sauntered up to the nearest house, faking bravado while staying within the ring of orange light provided by his friends.

Skizz raised his hand to knock on the door, "Knock knock is anybody ho- woa-ahhh!" He leaped backwards, raising his fists as the door swung outward, creaking loudly on its hinges like it was acting in a horror film. Xisuma watched with bated breath, staring into the dark gaping entryway beyond the door.

Merrow?

Scar sat up straighter on Impulse's back. "Jellie?" he called out, clicking his tongue, "hey baby is that you?"

A small, black and white tuxedo silently padded out the front door, blinking at them with large reflective eyes. Skizz lowered his arms dumbfounded as it hissed at him. The rest of Team Z.I.T.S laughed uproariously at him as the cat scampered off into the darkness.

"It-that-" Skizz pouted, "Not funny, guys!"

Scar deflated with a sigh. "It wasn't Jellie," he muttered.

"Do you think Jellie will be here?” Xisuma asked, looking up at him, "In this world I mean."

Scar flashed him a grin and shrugged, "Why not? Wherever I go, Jellie finds me. That's just a fact."

"Its one of the great mysteries of the universe," Cub nodded sagely.

"Hey, Top?" Skizz called, half swallowed by the shadow of the doorway "Can I get a little light? I wanna check out this house."

"You were just scared to death by a little kitty cat and you want to go check out an abandoned house?" Tango raised an eyebrow.

"Absolutely," Skizz smiled, "Now come on!"

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Skizz," Xisuma said, apprehension heavy in his voice, "We don't know for sure it is abandoned, you might be tresspassing."

Cleo looked at him curiously. In the dim light her eyes reflected yellow and Xisuma had to force down a shudder out of habit. "We raid villages all the time back home," she said matter-of-factly, "why are you worried about trespassing all of a sudden?"

"It's ‘cause this is a player base right?" Gem piped up, "I mean, shingle siding, thatched roofs, and a water wheel? There's no way Villagers built this."

"If anyone was living here we would have seen them by now," Beef reasoned, "I mean, there aren't even any torches. Who doesn't put up torches around their base?"

Without looking Grian muttered, "put your hand down, Scar."

Scar lowered his hand.

"So, can we trespass or not?" Tango asked, tapping his foot impatiently.

Xisuma sighed, "Fine. But be careful. And don't touch anything that looks dangerous or you don't recognize."

"Yes, Dad," Tango snickered as he followed Skizz into the house, the flaming tip of his tail disappearing beyond the doorway.

"I'm serious, Tango!" Xisuma called back. He worried his lip behind his helmet and hoped he wasn't going to regret his decision.

The first thing Skizz did when he entered the house was trip over a chair. There was a loud crash as the wooden chair hit the edge of a table and then clattered to the floor. Skizz yelped and grabbed his shin where he had made contact.

"Why didn't you wait for me to come in, ya' dummy?" Tango asked with an eyeroll. 

"Is everything okay in there?" Xisuma's muffled voice called from outside.

"Yes!" Skizz and Tango replied in tandem.

Skizz then dropped his voice down. "That hurt!" He yelled in a whisper.

Tango smirked at him, bumping his head into his shoulder, affectionately but quickly so he wouldn't be singed, "So what are we looking for, Skizzy-Wizzy?"

The two of them surveyed the dim surroundings, shapes of furniture looming out of the shadows. The room seemed to be a small kitchen and dining area. A modest table and set of chairs sat in the center of the room, other than the one Skizz had knocked over. 

Skizz walked up to a countertop and ran his finger along it, leaving a clear line in the dust even in the dark. He wiped his finger on his shirt, "I dunno, evidence or something."

They walked past the kitchen and into a small living room where Tango could make out a stone fireplace and a couple of plush arm-chairs. The whole place smelt stale, like dust and unuse.

"Evidence of what?" Tango looked around the small space. He couldn't see anything of note, just dusty furniture and a few old books on a coffee table that Skizz was rifling through.

Skizz set the book down and peered into an oval mirror on the wall, in the darkness only his eyes and teeth reflected. "Evidence of what happened here for starters," Skizz replied, "I mean, something had to have caused all these people to leave right?"

Tango wandered over to a wall where a few paintings hung and Skizz trailed him, unwilling to step too far out of the ring of light.

"Hey look!" Skizz pointed to a family portrait hung on the wall. It showed two parents and a smiling little girl in a blue dress. The people in the photograph had small upwards curved horns and bovine-like ears. "They were hybrids," Skizz said, "Proof that this village was built by players."

Tango curled his tail around his leg as he stared at the portrait. Thinking that something horrible may have happened to such a happy looking family made him sick to his stomach. He hoped wherever they were they were happy, or at the very least still together. Tango tore his eyes from the painting.

"There's still a couple rooms to explore," He said, heading for a darkened doorway off the living room.

"Right behind ya, Top," Skizz replied.

The room Tango entered was clearly a bedroom. There was a modest sized bed, big enough to fit two sleeping adults but only barely, a small closet, bookshelf, and nightstand.

Tango stepped aside as Skizz pulled open the modest closet. A small papery winged moth fluttered out, it spied the flames atop Tango's head and almost immediately burnt itself into a puff of ash.

Inside the closet was mostly empty, a couple of dresses - not the most lavish Tango had seen, but nicer than the clothing the family had been wearing in the picture - and a couple of pairs of slacks. Tango would have reached out and fingered the material had his arms not been bound in slings.

 "Hmmmmm," he hummed.

"Hmm?" Skizz echoed, turning his head to look at him, "Whaddya mean? It's just some clothes in a closet. That’s where clothes are supposed to be."

"Yeah, dude, nice clothes," Tango replied with an eyebrow raise.

Skizz simply blinked at him in the darkness, not comprehending.

"They took their clothes with them, Skizz," Tango explained, nodding at the empty space in the closet. "Left behind what they didn’t need and took everything else. Whatever happened here they had enough time to pack."

Now that he knew what to look for, Tango could see more evidence of items missing in the home. The bookshelf had a few gaps where tomes were missing. Dust had settled unevenly on the nightstand, like a picture frame had once sat there. The bed itself had only lightweight covers, the larger comforter having been removed.

"At least they could take their things," Skizz said, his voice somber, an unusual tone for him.

"Yeah," was all Tango could say in reply.

The two of them walked across the hall to the second bedroom. They stopped at the door and peered in. This was clearly the little girls room. Paintings of cute animals and children's stickfigure drawings covered the walls.

Skizz reached down, picking up a Teddy bear that had been discarded face down on the floor. He made a sad little noise as he held it in front of him, pondering. The two of them breathed in the quiet for a moment, the only sound the gentle crackling of Tango's flames.

"Tango, what do you think is going on?," Skizz was nothing but a silhouetted shadow in the doorway, "I mean, do you buy what X said about the code and all that?"

Tango stared at the back of Skizz's head, a little taken aback by the question. "I-" His eyes tracked their shadows, dancing across the walls as he considered how to answer. "Not really." He finally said, "But he doesn't have a reason to lie to us, ya know? And it does explain why we can't break blocks. And… and some other things." Tango hoped that was a good enough answer. Tango hoped he was right.

Skizz stood with his back to him, still looking at the teddy. He ran a finger over one of its ears.

Tango shifted his weight awkwardly. Skizz was normally an open book, you could always tell what he was thinking by the expression on his face, and if you couldn't he would tell you. Seeing him like this, contemplative and quiet, was just another jarring reminder of the situation they were in. "Skizz?" Slowly, gently, Skizz placed the little bear back on the bed, but he still didn't turn to look at Tango.

"I don't trust any of it," Skizz's voice was thick, emotion crammed into it like a cardboard box full of unwanted junk, "It's all just been so weird!" Skizz took a shaky breath, "I was so happy that I finally got to come live with you guys on Hermitcraft. All those years of Impulse hyping it up and just hoping that one day…"

Tango watched as Skizz reached up and wiped tears from his eyes before they could fall and found himself at a loss for words.

"I thought that finally, finally, I had a real home," he said barely above a whisper.

Tango didn't say anything. Tango didn't know what to say. How could he comfort his friend who was clearly hurting? With his arms in slings he couldn't even give Skizz a hug.

"Whoooo!" Skizz let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to face Tango, "Look at me, cryin' like a big dumb baby.

He walked past Tango back out into the living room. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Top. Uh, no I'm not, emotions are good. They're healthy! Yes, I am. I am sorry you saw that."

Tango just stood there. He opened his mouth, thought for a second, then closed it again. He ran over what Skizz had said in his head. I thought that finally, I had a real home.

Tango had been friends with Skizz for a long time. Not as long as Impulse, of course, but still, a long time. Even so, Tango realized that he didn't actually know much about Skizz's past. He knew it wasn't good but everyone on Hermitcraft had pasts they'd rather forget. Tango wondered for the first time what exactly Skizz's life was like before they met. Before he joined team Z.I.T.S.

“Whatever happens, we’ll be together,” Tango said, “As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”

Skizz’s expression was indistinguishable in the shadows. “Yeah,” he said, “together.”

Chapter Text

Well, it’s official. I’ve tried to power through and ignore it, but I have officially lost my Hermitcraft hyperfixation. We had a messy break up and it took everything in the divorce. Despite this I have been trying to at least get Chapter 8 out for you guys, but it’s been like trying to dig a tunnel with a plastic spoon.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for reading, leaving kudos and comments, and generally for being kind awesome people. As my first attempt at a multi-chap fic, I am actually very proud of what I was able to accomplish. I have struggled with severe ADHD all my life, and never before have I been able to stick with a creative project as long as I have Echoes.

That being said, I am going to try my absolute best not to completely abandon this fic. There is still so much more story that I want to tell. It may take awhile, but I will update when I can. I ask that you will be patient with me and continue to show Echoes your love and support.

Unfortunately, I do not control the hyperfixation, but believe that it will come back. I don’t know when, but considering I’ve had a Hermitcraft hyperfixation on and off for the past four years, I’m pretty confident it will return.

Therefore, Echoes of Oblivion will return. It is not over.

Thank you again for reading my silly little Minecraft fic. I’ll see you when I see you. Until then, take care of yourselves!