Work Text:
[PearlescentMoon was slain by a zombie]
-
It was a fairly normal night on Hermitcraft, except for the zombies.
Tango knew that zombies came out at night, obviously. There were just... a lot more than usual! The outside of Decked Out 2 wasn't that poorly lit up, right?
He rustled his coat and a cloud of loose redstone dust came off. It shimmered in the moonlight like fireflies, daning and scuttling with uncanny precision.
He had been stuck in the noodles of his mechanics for weeks. The original Decked Out had been complicated enough, but now that skulk had been introduced onto Hermitcraft his life had gotten much harder.
But it was fun. He enjoyed the reactions of his servermates to the games he made and getting lost in the noodles cleared his brain of the annoying visions of those weird death games. Yeah, he willingly kept going to them. If he won, he'd get the honor and all of that! But the memories... the blood...
Anyways! Back to the problem after hand.
The zombies.
From his perch on the front wall of The Citadel, he could spot at least two dozen of the buggers around the front entrance.
Tango pulled his bow out of his inventory. He took a deep breath and his hands steadied.
With a THWIP the arrow struck into one of the zombies. The creature tumbled over, and its companions immediately filled in the gap.
"Shoot..." He huffed. Now they knew he was up here. They seemed to be pawing at the wall with their decaying hands, reaching for him with every bit of their strength.
Well, too bad for them. Tango had an elytra and 2 rockets. They had none of that.
Yet, if he didn’t get a great glide and fell down, he'd crash into the horde and die a painful death.
It was worth the risk, he decided. Waiting out the night here would suck, and he was sure the phantoms would start swooping him soon.
Tango slipped his elytra on over his cloak. His connection to the insect-like wings was strong, even through the thick layers of fabric he wore.
And so he took the leap of faith.
-
Gem was in quite the predicament. She had been filming a short building tutorial, so all of her gear was in a chest. That wouldn't usually have been an issue. It was right there in front of her.
But because of the zombies, she couldn't reach it. She had made a small pillar out of stone and sat on top. Without her sword or armor she didn’t feel comfortable fighting off the monsters. So she'd have to wait until daylight came
.
It should only be an hour or so until the zombie is started burning. There were masses of them at the base of her pillar, clawing at the rocks. Their hands made a fleshy slapping noise as they grabbed on.
Gem shuttered. She hated zombies. It was some sort of a trick from whatever beings created these worlds, to make them look so similar to players. With skeletons and spiders you could pretend they were just mindless creatures. But zombies had an intelegence behind their eyes that she had a hard time ignoring. This zombie even looked a lot like Pearl! It was all a cruel joke, really. Even though these things were trying to kill her, she still pittied the humanity in their faces.
Gem pulled out her com. Maybe she'd be able to chat with somebody to pass the time, or see if anybody else was noticing the strange spawn rates.
"Gem... Gemini..."
Her head whipped back towards the zombies. The voice she heard was raspy. It made her think of a record player. Noise being forced out, bumping along, not real. Not alive.
Yet she'd recognize that voice anywhere. "Pearl?"
Gem searched the crowd for the one she picked out earlier. Was this some sort of prank? Had Jevin or another one of the server pranksters convinced everybody to paint themselves like zombies to scare her?
After a bit of searching, her gaze fell on the Pearl-like zombie. Everything about it was dulled. It's skin seemed a sickly grey-green in the moonlight and it's hair fell stick straight down its back. Her back. Her hair. It was Pearl.
Gem sat down on the pillar and leaned down. No, that was definitely her friend.
"Gemini..."
"Stop calling me that. My name is Gem and you know that." Her old title felt weird coming from Pearl's mouth. She didn’t know why her friend would be dredging up old memories on purpose.
"Get up here. Stop this, it's not funny. I'm not having fun."
With her first stroke of luck of the night, Gem discovered she had been keeping a pack of ladders with her as she built. She dropped two down the side of her pillar, ready to remove them as soon as her friend got up so nothing would follow.
Pearl's hands extended shakily towards the rungs and she began climbing.
Voids- what was that smell? Was it coming from Pearl?
"Hury up! They're gonna get up if you don't!"
Gem quickly extended her pillar into a small platform so both her and Pearl could stand on it.
Her costumed friend reached the top, and stuck a hand out. She needed help getting up.
Gem kneeled so she could get a better grip and pulled Pearl up with all of her might.
Another wave of the smell washed over her. It was putrid. It was rot. It was decay. Gem almost gagged as she yanked Pearl's hand again.
But she pulled too hard. Without warning, Pearl let go. Gem tumbled backwards with all of her built up momentum. She crashed off the platform and down several meters until her back crunched against the ground.
It was all wet. Why was it wet? What had crunched under her?
She scrambled to push herself upright. She needed to bolt to get out of the crowd, otherwise she'd be dead within seconds.
Gem whipped her head around to see where she could run to. Her build! She could climb and she bet they couldn't follow.
But- Pearl! Voids. Pearl was still here. Gem bet she had fallen too.
Her eye caught something. White.
Gem flung herself forwards to get off of the thing she'd fallen on. As her gaze fell on it, her breath hitched in her throat and she suppressed another gag.
It was a corpse. It had been crushed under the force of her fall.
As a player, it was rare to see this much... gore. Players instantly respawned when they died and zombies burnt when they were slain. It had been a good long time since she'd seen the inside of somebody like this.
It was clearly a zombie. The rotting flesh gave off the distinct odor of decay, and it easily fell off the chest so the cavity was clearly visible for the world to see. Yet as the broken ribs she had crunched with her fall dug into the creature's deflating lungs, she couldn't feel anything but true and utter horror.
Something grabbed her ankle.
Gem screamed. She screamed as the zombie bit down, tearing into the flesh of her leg. She screamed as Pearl gargled her name one last time before digging into her chest with her fingernails. Gem screamed as she died. She only stopped screaming as her body ran out of blood to pump. Her hitching breath stopped entirely.
Gem would not wake again as a player.
-
It was really quite a beautiful night, and even though the zombies were annoying Tango was sad to see that it was almost done. The sun peaked above the horison and the first golden rays licked his face.
Tango had unfortunately lost momentum quite quickly. His leap had gotten him about a quarter of the way to Gem's base, with the first rocket bringing him only a little closer. He now held one rocket while sitting in a tree and overlooking a new group of zombies.
Tango usually enjoyed the warmth of the sun. In previous seasons, he hated night because of its cold temperature. But this season after spending so much time in his Citadel his flames had become a little cooler. They took on a blue hue to match the ice around him, and his body temperature lowered slightly. Hermitcraft had a way of changing people to fit who they were inside, a bit. If a person identified in a new way, the server would change them to fit with their mental image a little better.
It’s not like the sun hurt him though. He wasn’t like one of the zombies in the clearing below him. Gem’s castle was right there. He bet he could make it with the final rocket. But it was better to just wait out daylight so they’d burn away and he’d return to the Citadel (where he’d make sure to grab an appropriate amount of rockets for future mishaps). He was far enough away that if he died, he wasn’t sure if he could make it back in time to grab his gear.
So he’d just enjoy the sunrise!
The sun rose.
And rose.
And finally it was morning.
Tango looked down. He expected to see them beginning to collapse into piles of ashes, with their final grunts fading away.
But they weren’t. The zombies, now in full daylight, were continuing to try to get to him. They grabbed at the trunk of the tree. Sometimes, one would fall over and another would step on its back to get a little higher towards Tango.
That wasn’t right.
Zombies not burning in daylight? That was like chickens not liking seeds. It was just a basic fact of the way the world worked, broken for seemingly no reason.
Tango pulled out his com and looked at the messages. While he had been flying, it looked like he had missed a bit. The first thing he spotted was a server message from about half an hour ago.
[GeminiTay was slain by a Zombie]
Uh oh. That meant this problem probably wasn’t local. Below that were a few more messages.
[Grian] Where’d you die? I can get your gear back
[BDoubleO] Anybody else having sleep issues
[ImpulseSV] Gem where are you
[Grian] what’s up gem
[Grian] where are you?
[ImpulseSV] can anybody find gem?
There were a few no's from other hermits. Nobody could find Gem, it seemed. Just another weird thing to add to his weird night.
Well, since the zombies weren’t going anywhere that meant he would have to be the one to move.
"Allright. I just have to make it to Gem's place and then I'll be okay!" Tango muttered to himself half-heartedly.
Tango fluffed up his elytra to prepare it for another flight. The lone rocket reflected the gold light of the mostly risen sun. If he fell, if he didn't make it, then he'd be zombie food.
He took flight. The wings attatched to his back launched outward and he immediately activated the rocket below him. He flew!
This lift-off was much better than the other one. He had hight and he had speed. Gem's base was right within reach, so he glided onto an upper balcony easily. He only stumbled for a second or so before gaining stability.
The castle was gigantic and almost rivaled the size of Tango's Citadel. A truly gorgeous feat of Gem's building skills. He was glad to have met her, even under the horrid experience of the death games. The two of them were good friends now.
Yet whenever he looked at her, he couldn't forget the look in her eyes durring the games. The games changed people. They had changed Tango. The flashes of blood he saw when he closed his eyes for too long...
He wondered if Gem and the other players from that side of the world felt the same echos.
Tango shook away the thought. He should go see if she was somewhere in her home. The inner halls of the palace were just as beautifully designed as the inside of the outside, yet a little under decorated. This wing of her build must be not quite finished.
Further down the hallway, he heard distant noise.
"Gem?"
Tango's voice echoed across the bare halls. Once the echos of his voice faded out, the other voices were also absent. There were no noises other then Tango's footsteps for a few seconds, until a more distinct shout could be heard.
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
"It's Tango! Where are you?"
"Stairwell!"
He couldn't make out the voice's owner. It sounded masculine but he couldn't gain more information. Tango followed where he thought the voice was from until he came across an open door on his right.
Tucked inside of the brightly lit stairwell was Impulse and Cleo. Impulse stood up and rushed towards Tango to embrace him in a tight hug.
"Imps, what's up?" His shoulders were tight and his hands shook slightly as they grabbed at Tango's back.
"Gem's missing. Cleo and I have been looking, but i was messaging X and he said that- that she's missing from the Player list- but there's no records of her leaving for anything so- so-"
"Hey! Hey, its gonna be okay. Take a deep breath."
Tango pulled out of the hug a bit, so he could press his forhead against Impulse's and look into his friend's eyes.
"This'll be okay."
"Are we going to finally adress the elephant in the room?" Cleo piped up. They still sat in the corner with their back against the wall. Their expression was one of frustration and anger.
Tango shot them a look. He didn't need to be discussing anything bigger than this, when he was already just trying to comfort Impulse.
"The zombies. Yeah." Impulse chimed in, still holding onto Tango but looking over at Cleo.
If it was possible, they looked even more sour at this.
Tango disregarded this strange tension. He needed answers. "The zombie thing is here too? I was at The Citadel- er, Decked Out 2, and they just started swarming me. I came here to get away, and to see if Gem was around."
"We haven't seen her at all. Impulse and I were planning on doing one more sweep, before heading to Xisuma and seeing if he can clear out the zombies."
Impulse seemed to finally notice the hostile air around Cleo. "He can't just do a full mob clear. That'll take you out with it, right?"
"...Yeah. Just a part of the horde, in the eyes of Hermitcraft."
"Cleo-" Impulse fully turned around and kneeled in front of them. "Don't say that. You're not 'just a part of the horde'. You're a Player, whether the code says it or not."
"Sure." They avoided his eyes and pulled themself up to standing.
"I can help with a final sweep, if you want. I'm looking for an ender chest. I'm fresh out of rockets, and I'd rather not head back on foot."
"That would be great! Come with us." Impulse offered a hand to Cleo to set off, and they rejected with a dismissive nod. They pushed past the two guys and began heading down the staircase.
Cleo had always been a bit salty when zombies came into the equation. It was definitely understandable. Jimmy hated the phrase "canary in a coal mine," Bdubs encouraged people to sleep so his fellow phantoms didn't have to die, and Tango himself tried his best not to kill his distant insect relatives. Even if he barely counted as a hybrid he still felt bad.
Everybody's origins changed how they viewed things and that was especially evident with Cleo. Occasionally somebody would slip up and call zombies pests, or mention an extermination. Tango didn't know how Cleo had been turned, but he knew that they were originally just a human player. The zombies outside, however, were villagers-turned-zombie. They were mindless. But it still made sense to Tango that Cleo would hate to see them killed.
He tried to give a look of reassurance to Impulse, but the demon had already turned to follow Cleo downstairs. Tango hopped over to the stairs as well. He had a Gem to find.
-
Joe really missed Nashville.
Nashville was a normal, respectable place. As the only real human on Hermitcraft, he could say with certanty that this place kinda sucked sometimes.
It was weird calling himself a player. He was just a person. A guy. But to blend in, he was a player.
The others didn't believe him, of course. Why would they? He had told them everything, which basically boiled down to 'I'm real and you guys aren't, I want to go home and leave you all!'
The best part about Nashville was the complete and utter lack of zombies. When he had entered Hermitcraft the monsters had been quite a shock. Sure, there were legends back home. But he never expected to come face to face with a walking corpse that looked too much like a human to disregard but too little like a human to see himself in.
He had stopped in a village for the night. But now, as the sun rose, he needed to get going. One problem, though.
His horse was outside of the village house, in the midst of the crowd of zombies. And unfortunately the zombies were not following the natural order of things and re-dying a fiery re-death.
Joe pulled out his sword and approached the door. The zombies noticed his movement and crowded around it. He was pretty sure that they couldn't break through the door, but he didnt want to take any chances. He flicked through his inventory and located some spare andesite. Joe piled it in front of the door. He could just wait it out and see if the zombies got distracted by something else. The iron golem of the village would surely take care of them soon.
He sat back on the bed, fiddling with a new rip in the hem of his shirt. Ugh. He'd waited all night, and now had to wait even longer.
Maybe he could get some entertainment from seeing the villagers run around in panic. Joe stood back up and walked to a window where he could clearly see the main square of the villiage. He was just propping himself up by his elbows in the windowsill when he spotted it.
His stomach lurched and his chin slipped from his hand, dropping his face into the glass in front of him.
Joe blinked the stars out of his eyes as he tried to focus on the corpse of the iron golem.
When things died here, they vanished! That was another basic fact broken. Zombies burnt in daylight, dead things left no trace.
But the golem was splayed out on the dirt with its robotic limbs contorted into inhuman shapes. The metal frame holding it's redstone heart up had been torn open with a violence he didn't think zombies were capable of. Maybe it was a good idea to stay inside, if they could do that. The complete lack of villagers outside supported that plan.
Unfortunately, the zombies had other plans for him.
Joe had been too busy looking further out that he had stopped keeping an eye on the zombie crowd outside of the village house.
The creatures had made their way from the blocked off front door to the window. Glass shattered in his face and he threw a hand up to cover his eyes, but it was grabbed by a rotting green hand.
Joe yelped and pulled his hand out of the grasp, but instead of just pulling his own hand back he fell into the village house with a putrid hand in his grasp. The weak joints of the zombie given out. Hopefully this was a sign that he could fight them.
The stump belonging to the hand he held reached through the window. It dripped with something that might have used to be blood and stained the wood paneling of the floor.
He rushed against the other wall to get away from the smell but as his back colided with the rough rock the glass in the second window cracked as well. Shards rained down on the top of his head and a decaying hand reached down and gripped his hair. Despite the last zombie being easily ripped apart, he couldn't fight the grasp slowly pull him upwards and towards the window. He flailed against the grip and reached up to attempt to pry the hand away, but a second hand grasped his wrist. As he struggled, the window in front of him was being filled with limbs and faces. Maybe if they had tried going one-by-one they would be able to have fit a body through. But with all of the flesh mingling and shoving up against itself there was no way he would have to worry about them.
The zombie gripping his hand, however, was still an issue.
Joe's neck ached as he cranied to look at his situation. The monster was digging it's nails into his skin. The stench made him gag, but he couldnt stop fighting.
Another deteriorated hand gripped at his face as his head was pulled level with the window. His arm was twisted painfully as the corroded creature pulled it towards him.
Okay. Fine. Everything was fine. He'd let it kill him and then just come back with re-enforcements.
Joe stopped craning his neck and just let the zombies do what they wanted. It'd be done fairly quick if he just let it happen.
Maybe he should mark down his coordinates, though. If his whole plan was to retrieve his gear later, then he should actually be able to find this place again. He pulled his com out of his pocket, flinching as one of the zombies holding his arm dug it's teeth into his skin. It wasn't too bad, though. But-
Oh.
That didn't look good.
There was some chatter in the main chat logs about zombies acting funny. He could have guessed that.
But what Joe didn't guess was that something was wrong with the respawns.
He felt his health tic down and down, and he struggled with a new vigor. He ripped his chewed-on arm away from the zombie's grasp and tumbled forwards into the middle of the room. Joe let out a gasp of pain as his arm started to throb. God- this hurt. This hurt a lot.
He was almost dead, he could tell. Maybe- maybe he could wait it out until somebody came.
Joe remembered his com. He flicked through menus to find where he could send out a distress signal or message Cleo or something. Anything.
The muscles in his bitten arm contracted and he dropped the communicator.
Ow.
Ow, ow, ow.
It felt as if his flesh was about drip right off of the bone. He'd died unpleasant deaths, sure. For god's sake, he'd died in the vacuum of space last season.
But this was torture.
Joe's eyes trailed down to his skin where the crimson bite marks stood stark against his pale flesh. Ringed around each puncture was a green sheen of saliva. It seeped into the wounds and the stinging sensation made his eyes water. His fingers twitched with a mind of their own.
What was this? Was he in a shitty horror movie, where he'd get bitten and turn into a zombie? That's not how Hermitcraft worked. You get bitten, you die.
But this wasn't right at all.
He needed to get help.
His steps were jerky as he pulled himself towards the door. He held up his com in his un-injured hand and began to type out a shaky message, but paused to push away some of the stones at the door. If he ended up collapsing he wanted to be able to be rescued quickly.
Joe was a few words into his mayday call when the muscles in his arm spasmed. His bad arm was quickly going numb, but he could feel the tips of his fingers in the other arm start to get that tingling static feel as well.
”No…” Joe tried to react to his new predicament but all that came out of his mouth was a croak. His fingers twitched again and his com fell from his hand. The human flailed like a cartoon character as he tried to catch it.
But it fell. And it shattered.
And Joe was alone.
He couldn’t get anybody to get here in time. He was going to die.
Ok- ok. Maybe he’d respawn normally. It was probably a false alarm.
But just in case, he pushed the rocks back up against the door with his last bit of strength. The static spread to his legs.
Joe crashed backwards to the floor. A small foot movement had caught a piece of glass from the broken window, and with his weakened state there was no way for him to keep himself steady.
A hiss escaped from his mouth as he touched down. More shards of glass caught his back and palms. He couldn’t quite feel the ones in his hands right now, but they’d sure hurt later.
Woah. When had the world started spinning?
God. Joe missed Nashville.
He missed Nashville the entire time he laid in a pool of black-green ichor and his own blood, watching the ceiling go dark.
It was funny. It was daytime, but between whatever was going wrong with his eyes and the zombies groaning outside of the windows, it made him feel like he was an hour earlier.
There was no reason to fight this all. He could ride the static to the end. That was fine. It was a little peaceful, actually.
As Joe died, he thought about Nashville and how he’d never go back. However, in his last moments, he forgot about his old home.
His last thought was about his hunger.
-
[JoeHills was slain by a zombie]
"FUCK!" Cleo shoved their com back into their pocket and whipped around to face the wall.
Impulse shot Tango a concerned look, which the insect reciprocated. There were three people dead now, which was already bad. But with Cleo’s closest friend gone, it was going to be a bit harder to focus.
“How the fuck did they get him? He’s way better than that.”
”It’ll be ok, Cleo, we’ll-“ the zombie turned around to face Tango and he let his words trail off.
“Don’t. Just don’t, okay?”
They walked in silence for a few moments. The trio was in the last wing of Gem’s castle, and they hadn’t found any trace of her yet. Tango was ready to give up and just wait it all out, but Impulse still held hope. The two of them weren’t really sure why Cleo was still here, though.
Their expression was angry, sure. But underneath it was a deep sadness. They were frustrated and hurt and tired. And Tango had no idea how to comfort them.
With each step, the air between them became more awkward. It wasn’t thick like when a metaphorical elephant sat in the corner, it was like an air lock had been open and taken the three of them (and the elephant) into a suffocating fate.
“Uh…” Tango tried conversing again. “I think after this last stretch I’m gonna head back to the citadel. It’s safe enough there, and if we should be staying indoors then I’d like to get some work done.”
Cleo stayed silent, and Impulse let out a laugh that he could tell was a bit forced. “Busy bee. Tango, we haven’t seen you for ages! Everybody's always so excited when you come out of hiding.”
“Oh, boo,” Tango shoved Impulse playfully. “You know that when I’m done you’re going to be playing the heck out of it. Nobody’s gonna be seeing the light of day for a bit.”
”This’ll be Gem and Pearl’s first go at it! Decked Out one was great, I’m glad they’ll get a chance to play.”
”You flatter me. Well, maybe once we find Gem I can give her an invitation to playtest."
A few steps ahead of them, Cleo pushed open a pair of elaborate double doors that led into a short hall. It was a dead end. This was it. No Gem. No more lying to themselves that maybe she was just around this next corner.
”…oh.”
Cleo’s voice was quiet.
“Okay. That’s… okay. Fine.” They turned to face the others. “You guys should go. Tango wants to go back to the citadel, and I want to look for Joe. Impulse can entertain himself for however long this takes, right?” The zombie sighed and pulled out their com again.
“Wait- I want to come with.” Impulse flicked through his inventory and pulled out his elytra. “I want to make sure Joe is okay too.”
Tango nodded. That all sounded like a great plan. He could work, they could look, everybody was happy. He followed Cleo in grabbing his com.
“I’m gonna try to contact Xisuma again. The connection is really good at the Citadel, so maybe I can reach him easier. He hasn’t responded to anything- his connection is probably just shoddy. In the End, or something.” Tango was really grasping at straws. Xisuma hadn’t died, so why hadn’t he said anything to the server so far? He’d surely have noticed all of the disappearances. Tango typed a quick command in his com that would alert him to serverwide announcements more aggressively than usual. He liked ignoring his com while he worked, so the light buzz got turned up to a borderline electrical shock if it actually mattered.
“Go for it. Cool. This is a decent plan. You keep watch online, and we’ll go there ourselves.” They handed a few rockets to each of them and hesitated. Their eyes locked with Tango's.
"Be careful."
Deep within their gaze, he could see fury he remembered from the death games. The monster within each and every one of them was starting to pull itself out of Cleo.
Tango responded, "I will be."
He hoped that the creature inside of him wasn’t going to reveal itself. He had done things he'd never condone. He knew Cleo was a good person. Of course he did.
But that glimmer in their eyes told him that Joe's death had snapped something in them.
Tango broke away from their eyes by turning to tighten his elytra. He couldn't have it acting up on the way back home, not right now.
Impulse put a hand on Cleo's shoulder, trying to reassure them. For the first time he'd seen today, they smiled. Their grin glowed in the dim castle light.
It glowed with fury.
Without another word Tango turned to the window and climbed onto the windowsill. He needed to get out. The memories of the games were flashing in his head. Impulse and Cleo reminded him of it all, just their presence made him remember Jimmy and how much the ending had hurt. It reminded him of the
blood.
As he lifted off with a reasonable amount of rockets in his possession, he laughed dryly to himself. His mind wasn't the only one thinking of blood today, assuming the chorus of zombies below could really 'think'.
It took him two rockets and a decent amount of gliding to get from the Citadel to Gem's place earlier, so he could easily assume that the dozen or so he held would get him back with some to spare.
He'd go through a top tower to avoid the crowd below and head down the inner redstone noodles to the area he'd been working on before.
He was about halfway through his flight when a new challenger decided to show up and spice up this already incredible day.
Xisuma has messaged the Hermits. This was a good thing, yes. But the buzz in his back pocket had perfectly matched up with a downward flap of his elytra. The extra energy he had added to make sure he noticed it caused the vibration to catch on the metallic wings and shake something in it loose. A connecting piece on the inside, most likely.
Augh- now was not the time to investigate the science side of this.
His newly imbalanced wings shook violently. Tango used a rocket to give himself a little more height. At this point, if his wings didn't give out, he'd be able to glide straight into the player enterance of the Citadel.
Like everything today, the world had planned differently.
A screech came from below the treeline and Tango was knocked off course with a sharp pain against his chest. The creature was, gladly, burning to death. He wasn't sure how the phantom had lived this long but if he could just survive this, he'd be okay.
The phantom swooped in for another bite at Tango so he slammed a rocket into the air and shot off. His vision shook with the sudden increase of velocity and he didn't know which direction he was going. Away from the ground, at least.
The feeble squeak followed by crackling behind him let him known that it had died. Good. He could take maybe two more hits max, at his current state.
Okay. Back on track.
Where was he?
Tango twisted around mid air in an attempt to get his bearings.
His heart was racing and sweat dripped down his face. The sun beat down on him. His low health and fear and the events of the day crashing down in his memory all came together in a horrible mental hurricane that he fought with all of his energy.
It took a few seconds to fully right himself in the air and activate another rocket. Tango barreled forwards.
The loose section of his elytra made a concerning flapping noise, but Tango ignored it. It wouldn't be an issue. He was so close.
The wind around him grew colder as he reached the citadel gate. It stung his eyes, making him blink away tears. Tango reached up with his rocket-less hand and wiped them away to clear his vision.
This was fine. He was fine. He could get into the game itself, where it was lit up enough that no new monsters spawned. He knew how to avoid the ravagers and wardens. He could just sit in an area without them and wait this whole situation out.
Home stretch. Tango glided down and landed shakily on the ground right of the grand entrance to the Citadel. This was where Decked Out started, with player rooms and the waiting area being just around the corner inside. This area was quiet. Where this area had been crowded when he left for Gem’s, it was all empty. This had to be a good sign. His luck was finally looking up.
The halls of the citadel echoed every one of his steps back to him. This initially made him jump, since the sound made a chill run up his back and it felt like there was somebody following him.
Oh- his com. It had buzzed. What was that all about?
[XisumaVoid] Hello, all. I'm working on fixing the current issues. Please avoid dying at all costs. There may be a respawn bug. Stay safe, stay inside, and set your spawn in an easily accessible location.
Cool. Coooool. Not too much new info, but it re-enforced his anxiety about this whole day. Something was terribly wrong, and now Xisuma was aware. This meant that he didn’t really have to hold up his side of the plan with Cleo and Impulse, since Xisuma had figured out everything himself!
The minecart into Decked Out was in its spot at the top of its rail line.
Tango tucked his damaged elytra into his inventory. Future Tango could deal with that. His health was a little low, though, and that wasn’t something future Tango could deal with.
Dammit. A quick look through his inventory told him that he was out of food, and he knew that the berry bushes scattered around Decked Out wouldn’t be able to sustain him for a while.
Next to the game entrance were the little player rooms where Hermits could put their gear while they played.
The first room on his left was Pearl’s. Or, it would be Pearl’s in a few weeks once he finished the game. He’d been keeping some of his own items in here while he worked, so he rummaged through the chests that would one day belong to Pearl for a few pieces of beef.
He shook his cloak slightly at a chill that had settled around him. This had all really started to hit him in the last few minutes. What was he doing, hiding while his friends might be dying forever? Had Hermitcraft been switched over to a permadeath server, somehow?
His flaming blue eyes trailed over the empty rooms. Would they ever be filled? Would they all die before he got a chance to show off his creation?
As Tango got attacked by a zombie that had creeped up on him, he thought to himself that maybe he wouldn’t even get to finish it. The creature lunged in his direction, and Tango fumbled to pull out his sword. It slipped from his hands, which felt stiff from the shift into the cold.
Shit. Oh voids. Oh shit.
Tango shot out a hand, which collided with the zombie’s forehead. His palm was flat against its balmy skin. He kept his arm stiff, which made a sight he would have thought was funny in other circumstances. It reached forward at him with its limp arms, struggling comically against his strength. His sword was still out of reach, unfortunately. Tango flicked through his inventory with his unoccupied arm and located a hopper. It wasn't much, but it was metal and would smashificate this zombie well enough.
Tango grabbed the lip of the hopper and slammed it down over the zombie's head like a bucket. He let go of both the zombie and the hopper and allowed the monster to stagger backwards away from him.
This would, he hoped, give him enough time to sprint past it and get into the minecart. They couldn't follow him there.
A fistfull of one hand and a sword in the other, running for his life into a game he designed specifically to kill people.
He was truly a genius, he thought sarcastically.
The minecart's dull shine was magnified by the torches on either side of the door entrance. He was ready to go. He could do this. Tango could do this!
A clatter rose from behind him. The greenish creature had escaped it's hopper related torment and was angrier than before, if these things could experience emotion.
It lunged at him with arms outstretched, and this time Tango didn’t have time to push it back. His sword- dammit. He’d left his sword back in the room.
His only chance at escaping was to get in the minecart. Tango barreled for it and leaped into the top like a cartoon character. His weight made the whole cart tip dangerously, but it fell back onto the tracks with a loud CLANK.
The zombie reached a hand out and grabbed the back of the minecart, and with dismay Tango noticed two more quickly approaching from the Decked Out entrance.
Tango punched at the zombie’s shoulder and let out a yelp as his fist started to sink into the flesh. The smell hit him like a typhoon making landfall. The rotted muscle collapsed around him. It took him a few seconds to get his mind together enough to recover from the horrid sight, which the zombie took advantage of. Its head tilted down and bit into his arm.
It stung, yeah. But he finally had a quick reaction and yanked his arm away. He slammed down a redstone torch and entered Decked Out.
It was finally quiet. He finally had peace. He could stay down here for as long as he needed.
Tango dismounted as the minecart rattled to a stop.
The ice caves were the most beautiful part of Decked Out. Sure, he loved the lower levels. But this part reminded him of the original Decked Out the most. His boots had ice spikes in the bottom so he could walk without slipping, and he knew every nook and cranny of this place. He’d built it and treasured it like a child.
The cold here felt nice, now that he was adjusted to it. It soothed the fresh tooth marks in his arm, and hopefully would speed up the whole healing process. Zombie bites weren’t that bad.
However… the red-green bruise around it did not seem to be shrinking. On the contrary, he felt like he could see it inching outwards. But since it didn’t hurt that bad, it would probably go away as he healed and got safe.
Tango made his way towards the crypt of the first level. He heard a sniffling sound around the corner, and decided it would be a better idea just to wait for the ravager to move on than try to outrun it in his current state. Broken elytra, no sword, damaged armor, the whole shabang.
His arm ached. The bruise, if you could call it that at this point, let out a pulse of pain every few seconds that ricocheted through his whole body.
A second buzz came from his com.
[XisumaVoid suffocated]
That couldn’t be good. A few other hermits sent out messages asking if he was okay, but as usual there was no response from the recently deceased.
Tango was probably alone now. It was okay, he could handle himself. He would just… wait. He’d stay here while his friends got eaten and died, possibly dying himself. With Xisuma gone, there was no chance for rescue from above. Sure, Doc had some admin powers. But Tango heavily doubted that he’d be able to heal all of the afflicted players and maybe raise the rest from the dead.
He felt sluggish now. He needed to sit down.
He needed to rest his head.
-
Hermitcraft was definitely, certainly, 100% acting up. The server itself was corrupted in a way Xisuma couldn't really understand.
Pearl, Gem and Joe were all missing from the player list after their deaths, yet without any evidence of them leaving the server. Pearl had died early the night, Joe had just died minutes before, and Pearl had died somewhere between them. Maybe an hour ago?
He pulled up the logs again. Yeah. 64 minutes ago.
Voids. He was supposed to be better at this. Admins were supposed to know their servers inside and out, to be able to find anything anywhere in the Code.
But the two were just gone.
Maybe it was a death glitch. It's probably just a coincidence they all died by zombie, so maybe respawn was just messed up.
Xisuma closed the logs and opened the serverwide chat.
[XisumaVoid] Hello, all. I'm working on fixing the current issues. Please avoid dying at all costs. There may be a respawn bug. Stay safe, stay inside, and set your spawn in an easily accessible location.
[ImpulseSV] Thanks for the heads up!
[GoodTimeWithScar] thumbs up
Maybe it had to do with Grian's Rift. He had given the hermit permission to make it because it would be a fun way to subtlety introduce the others to Players that Xisuma was planning on inviting to Hermitcraft. Empires was a fun place and he had been communicating with Joel about hopping over to Hermitcraft when he was done with Empires. Fwip was suprisingly fine with Xisuma taking one of 'his' players for his own server. Joel would go back eventually, but Hermitcraft 10 would be glad to have him.
The Rift was going to be very useful to Hermitcraft, but it had already been messing with things. Maybe it was causing this? It had brought back Mumbo after what happened to him durring the 8th Hermitcraft world mishap.
Xisuma closed the chat. He needed to figure this out, now. Before anybody else died.
With a swipe of his hand, he pulled up the virtual Admin tab in his helmet. He wouldn't usually use commands, but this was a different situation.
Teleportation sucked. It felt uncanny and addicting at the same time, with your code being messed with like that. But within seconds Xisuma was right in front of the rift.
It was his visor filled with the eerie purple light that he realized he had made a horrible mistake.
Of course there were zombies here. It was dark, and the stone floor was a perfect spot for them to come into existence.
He scrambled towards the rift. There was a button in front of it- maybe it would shut it down?
A horrible noise came from behind him. Xisuma whipped around to see a zombie aproaching hin. It tilted its head back and its chest shook. The noise that came from it's stagnant mouth was a crude imitation of a human laugh.
The monster seemed familiar. It was heavily decayed, yet he recognized the features on the face of the cresture in front of him.
"Gem?"
Her ginger hair was patchy at best now, and parts of her face seemed to be melting off of the bone. If she'd just died earlier, how had her body decayed this fast?
If this is what Gem looked like, what state was Pearl in?
And was Xisuma next?
"Gem?" She mimicked him. Her eyes were blank and little recognition was descernable in her gaze.
"Gem, what happened to you?"
"Gem, what- you?" She parotted back at him.
She scratched at a cut on her leg. It was a sickly green and dripping a green ooze that made Xisuma squirm.
"You shouldn't- oh, voids. Um. Are you here to kill me? Or do you want help?"
The zombie took another step forward. She ignored the liquid that Xisuma hoped was blood coming from her leg.
"I'm gonna press this button, and then fly out of here, okay? You should stay in the dark until i figure out how to turn you back."
Gem didn’t respond this time. Her eyes, which had previously been locked on his, flicked to the left for a split second and then back to Xisuma. He felt like she was drilling into his head with her eyes, even though the visor between them surely obscured her view.
What had she been looking at? Was there something coming from the-
“Ack!” Xisuma yelped as he got pushed to the ground by something from his left. His helmet was pushed against the floor so he was unable to turn and see what, but a sinking feeling in his stomach told him it was probably not a friend. Xisuma could barely see Gem walking up towards him and he could see even less when the creature that had pushed him down flipped him onto his back and kept him on the floor with hands against his shoulders. Why was it so strong? It had to be a zombie. Unless this was his brother, and all of this was just a sick plot from him.
Xisuma highly doubted that, though. His brother usually let himself known, because he wanted credit for all of his plans. He wanted Xisuma to know exactly how and why he was punishing him every time.
While he was lost in his train of thought and struggling against his captor, Gem came over and kneeled in front of him. She looked down at him for a few seconds. Even though her face was expressionless, he felt like he could feel a slight bit of pity in her eyes while they darted around his helmet. This was strange. Why hadn’t they killed him already? He would surely be an easy target in this position, just a few attacks through his exposed back plate.
Gem reached for his helmet. He could feel the tips of her fingers through the rubber connectors between his chestplate and helmet. What in the world was she doing?
“Gemmm.” She hissed out.
Xisuma tried to look up at her but the zombie holding him down slammed his helmet into the ground. His face hit the visor, and his nose cracked against the glass. As he pulled his head back up inside of the helmet a drop of blood fell from his nose in front of him.
“Yes, Gem. That’s you. Can you please let me go? I’ll get this all fixed.”
There were a few moments of complete stillness. Gem hadn’t moved, and Xisuma hadn’t fought back in fear of more punishments.
Unfortunately, this time of pondering wasn’t for long.
There was a click.
And there was a hiss.
And Xisuma’s helmet unlatched from his chestplate.
If he was able to look back on the moment, he probably would have felt guilty for referring to the zombie’s laugh as crude. He was really not one to be talking.
The sound that came out of his mouth was something he thought was quite shameful. It landed somewhere between a gasp and a gurgle.
His hands flew up to his face, desperately trying to re-latch his helmet or cover his mouth or something. The air was flooding to his face and he was choking and he couldn’t breathe.
His origins kept him from being in the overworld or the nether without protection, because he couldn’t breathe the much thicker air here.
This moment was a rough reminder of what happened when he did try to experience this place without help.
Xisuma spluttered as Gem tossed his helmet across the floor. The zombie behind him backed off. His cheeks burned not just from the struggle of moving his lungs, but also from imagining how stupid he looked. He was just twitching and curled up, clawing at his throat and trying his best to make any noise Gem may interpret as a plea.
“W-why-?” He managed.
She just watched. Her blank expression was even more haunting now that he was dying from something that was out of his hands. If her and the other zombies had attacked her, he would be able to fight back. But with his helmet this far away he’d never be able to get to it, and he’d die here.
Wait- the rift. The whole reason he’d come here. If Xisuma went through it, his death would be on Empires instead of Hermitcraft. There, the re-spawn wasn’t messed up. He could cobble together a new helmet, come back, and save the others.
He would save them. He just had to stop feeling so sleepy first.
The violet light was drilling into his head. The numbness that came from whatever you could call a voidborn’s version of asphyxiation only dulled the pain in his eyes to a degree.
Xisuma gripped a rough spot in the stone floor with a clink from his gauntlet. He was a few feet away, which would only take a few pulls across the floor. He could do this. He could get there.
Reach. Grab. Pull. Scrape
The light was dulling now. Further panic rose inside of him. The rift was closing. Why was it closing? That didn’t make sense.
Oh. No. That was just his eyes, giving out.
Reach. Grab. Pull. Scrape.
The dying admin grabbed one last stone. He was right there. He could reach it. He could almost taste the fog emanating from the portal.
His hand reached the glassy surface and went through. He would be saved.
Everything went dark. Four seconds. Four seconds was all he needed to get through. Four seconds was the delay time for a portal.
Four...
Seconds...
-
[XisumaVoid suffocated]
"That can't be a good sign." Impulse sighed and switched his com off. They were probably alone at this point, so he should just stay focused on the task at hand.
Cleo didn't respond, but their own hard expression told Impulse that they'd seen his death message too.
Cleo had gone through older messages between them and Joe to find the relative area he was in. They'd come up with a village, so that's where Impulse and Cleo were headed.
Lights came into view in the distance. Impulse shot one last rocket behind him before putting the stack of them away, intending to just glide the rest of the way. Cleo kept their rockets in one hand and their sword in the other.
Impulse would admit that he was anxious. This was really out of his depth. Cleo might be brave enough to stage a rescue mission for their friend that may be dead in a crowd of flesh eaters, but Impulse wasn’t that.
He was caught up in his thoughts and almost missed Cleo changing their flight path downwards. Impulse flapped his elytra and turned around quickly to slow his momentum enough to catch them. They were floating down onto a village house. Impulse was careful to plant his feet firmly when he landed to avoid the large quantity of zombies in the village below. There were several normal ones, and several zombie villagers. The golem was nowhere to be found. It had presumably been killed by a player to get the few little bits of iron they dropped when they died. Maybe Joe himself had killed it! It could be a good sign for their search.
Cleo's hands fidgeted with their com for a moment before setting it beside them and peering over the edge of the roof.
"Be careful, please. I don't want you to get hurt." They responded to him with an eye roll.
"They won't hurt me. I'm one of them." Cleo set their sword down and sat on the edge on the roof.
Impulse reached out a hand and placed it on their shoulder. "Cleo, wait. They aren't right. They don't burn in daylight and are more interested in us than the villagers. We don't know if they're going to hurt you."
Cleo rolled their eyes. "I haven't been touched by a zombie since I was human. I think I know that I'll be safe."
With a sigh, Impulse pulled his hand back. He wouldn't win this argument even if he had the energy to push on Cleo's ego.
Cleo grinned at their friend and slipped down off the roof into a clearing between zombies.
"Allright. I'm down here safe. I'll find Doc and-" their voice was cut off by a yell. "Fucker! You just bit me!"
Impulse wrang his hands and peered down.
"Cleo? Is everything okay?"
Silence met his question.
"Cleo?"
A horrible ripping noise came from the ground, making Impulse supress a shudder. He didn't want to state the obvious but this was not going well.
A light buzz from beside him caught his attention. Cleo's com screen lit up.
[ZombieCleo was slain by a Zombie]
"Dammit!" Impulse sighed and leaned back away from the roof edge. They'd died. If respawns were working, then they'd be all of the way across the world.
The least he could do was try to get their stuff.
His movements were hesitant as he moved towards the edge step by step. There were several zombie heads just reaching the roof height and more spread across the ground, probably from Cleo's kerfuffle.
Imlulse's heart leaped to his throat and he almostt fell forward into the crowd. One of the corpses on the floor wasn't just a zombie. Sure, it was a zombie. But they had ginger hair and a blue hoodie that Impulse wouldn't miss.
Cleo was dead. But they weren't dead and somewhere else, they had died and left their body behind. Impulse had seen corpses before, yeah. The Life games gave him enough sights to last him a lifetime.
But on Hermitcraft?
No.
It was just wrong. The thought felt gross.
He couldn't do anything, though. If Cleo was dead, then Cleo was dead. His friend was gone.
He couldn't do anything.
Impulse sat down on the roof and pulled his knees tight to his chest. He shivered in the wind, sunlight not warming his skin in the slightest.
Voids. How would they fix this all?
Could they?
-
Dying was a horrible sensation, really. Tango felt like Players didn't discuss it enough. They all got so desensitized to dying that each individual death never weighed in their memories for too long.
But now that he knew he would die and never come back, it was a different story.
The great TangoTek, mastermind redstone coder, was going to die.
The bite marks on his arm ached. They weren't that deep, but they were sure there. Whatever this awful zombie curse was, it was seeping through his bloodstream.
He could feel it. The ache reached his heart first. Naturally the cold nature of the Citadel would slow one's heart rate. This was not that.
His heart had began pounding out each beat like it was a foe on the other side of a door, slamming its strength against an impermeable and inevitable fate.
Where was he going? Did it really matter? Did anything matter, at this point? He was going to die, why was he trying to make it deeper into Decked Out?
Once his heart had slowed, he felt the venom attacking his stomach. Hunger is a dormant feeling that pops up when your body needs sustinance. But not when you're a zombie. Zombies always have a deep, aching, hollow hunger. It claws at your insides like the dulled nails of the creature itself.
Step by step, Tango made his way to the back of the first level. Here, the ice cleared a bit. The cold thinned out and he was in a crypt.
Ironic. Dying in a crypt. No need to bury him. He was already here.
But he wouldn't be burried, would he?
He'd rise, and kill his friends. He'd kill the others like how Pearl and Gem and Joe and Xisuma and Cleo had died.
It reached his brain next.
Tango had always wondered why zombies ate brains. Maybe it was because their own minds felt like they were fighting with a waterfall of molasses and honey. His thoughts were muddled. The urge to eat was rising from his stomach up to his mind. It groped at his thoughts and attempted to pull away any concious thought.
A snowflake fell in front of Tango's face.
The insect giggled and let himself fall onto one of the crypt's tables.
It was pretty. He was pretty. Pretty alone.
The last thing the infection reached was his throat. Well- maybe. Maybe it was the zombie bite, or maybe it was from the tears welling up in his eyes. It burned his throat and kept all of his words down. He was crying. Tango, in his last moments, could only cry.
And that is how TangoTek died.
Bitten by a simple zombie, with his friends either dead or fighting for their lives. Alone. Hiding. Crying his eyes out, because he failed.
He failed.
[TangoTek was slain by a zombie]
-
He woke up with a gasp. What- huh? Tango was dead. He was dead for good. He shouldn't have woken up.
But... this was his bed. He was laying under the covers, staring at the ornate ceiling. He reached up a hand to cover his mouth and felt wet streams running from his eyes.
He stifled a sob. He had just died. He- he failed. He was dead. They were all dead and Tango couldn't save them. What was happening?
The insect pulled out his com and looked over the chat log.
It was around 4am. The last message was from Beef the night before asking if anybody could spare some glowstone and a few people offering amounts.
No mention of zombies.
Oh.
"Oh," he echoed his mind quietly.
It wasnt real.
The sick, twisted part of his mind had made it up.
The part of his mind that hadn't left the death games was still here and it was punishing him and showing him how he was truly a monster. Tango was a monster.
He had failed, even in his dreams. He was a monster, even in his dreams.
Tangotek whispers: Are you awake?
Zombiecleo whispers: well i am now
Tangotek whispers: can i come over and chat with you?
Tangotek whispers: i just had the weirdest dream.