Chapter Text
“You know, Verity, you're actually starting to warm up to me again.”
Mob used his gardening hoe to pick out some vegetables, learning his lesson to always have enough food items.
“I knew that already, Mob,” Verity said, “I could tell by your face being 5% softer than yesterday.”
Of course he knew, Verity knew everything.
As they both know, the day before was the day Mob nearly stopped using Verity altogether. That was before Verity offered to help him heal.
Some may believe he should not have taken the offer, and that the two have been acting like nothing ever happened, but now's not the time for such criticism. None of them, especially not Verity, want to dwell on that right now.
“Heh, ‘course you know.” Mob checked to see if there were any more vegetables left in the garden, but Verity answered for him:
“There's 3 blocks worth of carrots on your left!” That was right too, as always.
Mob grabbed the last few carrots and equipped Verity back into his inventory. He checked a full list of what he had brought with him to see what he could do later, but halted and took out Verity instead.
“Hey, Y'know, Verity… I never actually.. thanked you for helping me tie those bandages earlier.”
“No need for that, friend,” Verity replied cheerfully, “It was no trouble at all! Your satisfaction with me is worth a lot more than a simple ‘thank you.”
Mob raised an eyebrow at Verity's strange response, but ended up brushing it aside, anyway.
“Verity, you're a little too perfect sometimes,” Mob said, a little shaky. “Is there anything you can't do?” What he just said, both the comment and question was more of a slip.
“Well, I can't break through your Minecraft world,” Verity answered, “It'd seem impressive, but I feel like I'd scare someone if that weren't to happen.”
Mob looked puzzled, but intrigued, “So… you're saying you can break through the world, but you decide not to because you feel like you'd scare me?”
Verity laughed awkwardly, “Not at all, Mob, I couldn't get out of here even if I tried. But it doesn't matter. The world keeps turning regardless if you're in it or not.”
The peaceful interactions in the garden of his base slowly started to turn slightly eerie. Yet Mob was still curious about what Verity was talking about and why he's so focused on the real world now.
“Hey Mob, Can we go inside? I wanna ask you something.”
Mob shrugged. It obviously meant yes, for Verity knew that. Mob was slowly starting to feel a little anxious about Verity.
Inside the base, Mob placed the ball onto a crafting table. In the meantime, Mob paid full focus onto the furnace.
“I was.. wondering,” asked Verity, somewhat intentionally interrupting Mob's task, “do you… think about me when you're not playing?”
Mob raised an eyebrow, and didn't make eye contact with the assistant talking to him.
“I mean.. I do, yeah... you're kinda hard to forget.”
“...Good.”
“The fuck do you mean by “good,” Mob asked, turning his focus away from the furnace, “realistically, what would be the problem if that weren't the case?”
Verity paused, his usual smiling expression fading a little.
“I just wanted to know, I'm just curious! Nothing wrong with a little Q&A here and there.”
Mob scoffed, “Yeah right,” and turned back to the furnace.
Verity started to feel more and more vexed as Mob was too busy focused on whatever task he was doing with the furnace, and not talking to him or giving him a cheap response.
Was it something he said earlier? Maybe he shouldn't have talked about the real world.
He thought the two had made up after providing him bandages, so why does he still turn away?
What is this..
“Oh my god,” Mob blurted out sourly, “I don't have nearly enough iron for this-”
“500 to 550 blocks north,” Verity interrupted.
“...What?”
“Turn left once you reach solid ground and lava. There's an abundance.”
“Oh. Thanks, Verity,” Mob said in a softer tone, “but I don't.. need it right now, it was just a minor inconvenience. I'll still write this down in a book or something and come back to it-”
“Then what do you need? I can give it to you.”
Mob looked at Verity like he had three heads.
“Look, I'm real glad that you helped me with wrapping the bandages, It really saved my life,” he said, trying to reason with Verity who might be going insane again, “but you gotta consider, some things can be feasible on my own-”
Music. He was cut off by Verity's music.
That same tune he always plays, the low quality jazzy piano.
“I’m.. gonna just go. I'll fight some mobs for XP.” Mob didn't turn around nor shut the door behind him when he left.
Verity remained there, laying atop the crafting table, still playing the music.
Even while Mob didn't face him, he could feel Verity’s grin growing wider.
Outside and a handful of blocks away from his base, Mob considered his option to farm XP. there's plenty of caves around, but there's no guarantee if it's full of spiders and creepers rather than the ideal skeletons.
“I'll just gamble it.”
Deciding between going north, west, and east, he decided to pick north after choosing with his eyes closed.
“I suppose it is right in front of me.” He figured he might as well just go.
Nobody wants to read a super long walking montage, so let's go right to the cave.
Inside, he mined a couple coal bricks just in case. The coal drought is an inevitable problem to be faced in minecraft, so you can never have too much coal.
“It's too dark in here,” Mob said, despite placing and replacing multiple torches. “Wait, I still have. The flashlight mod installed.”
Turning the corner, he finally found it, a fleet of skeletons. It wasn't too far off from the cave's entrance, too, which was a bonus as well.
“Holy gamble, dude! I should go to Vegas someday.”
Skeletons were no problem for Mob. Just a handful of bones with bows and arrows, what could go wrong?
Starting off with a sneak attack, He equipped a crossbow and aimed at one of the skeletons.
“Not so hard.” He was about to equip his shield-
“Wait, shield..”
He forgot to craft one.
“Oh, that's what I needed iron for…! And I was supposed to make armor, oh my god, I'm so dumb for that."
It's not a problem, it wouldn't be the first time he fights a fleet of skeletons without a shield. It's practically a rite of passage.
“I could probably just keep sniping them from here,” He whispered, hiding further behind a few blocks.
Things were going surprisingly smooth so far, no sneak attacks or misfires, he'd already taken down two of the skeletons.
Perhaps he celebrated the third kill too early, for he didn't pay attention to the creeper.
“You've gotta be kidding me.”
He had no time to escape the detonation radius due to his late reaction, and the impact exploded his hiding spot, pushing and exposing him to the skeletons.
That's not a problem either, even his his health was tanked a few, because he had an iron sword-
“…Sword? What the- Where's?!-”
That wasn't there either. Which was also strange, he remembered not ever unequipping his sword ever since the chase a few days ago.
“Whatever, I don't care, I have a pickaxe anyway!”
He confidently ran to the group of skeletons, trying to deal some damage, but he ultimately got his ass beat ever further, sometimes switching to the crossbow, but he still aimed terribly.
Multiple arrows pierced his skin, and to make matters worse, the chaos conveniently brought in more monsters: zombies, spiders, and a couple creepers on their way, too.
“Alright, come on, this is just deliberate!”
He's too weak to fight them, so he just booked it right out the cave. He tried to avoid stepping in , and tripped from slightly high places that took off a couple health, too.
That wasn't a problem, got he had his food-
Nope, all of those are gone too. Which he literally grabbed so much with Verity this morning…
Now isn't the time to worry about disappearing items, the fleet of mobs were no longer the problem, but more so the chance of not surviving to the base once again.
He didn't want to admit it, but he needed help here. When he reached the end of the cave, he frantically searched his inventory, looking for Verity.
“Verity! Where's my- Oh.”
He forgot that Verity was left back at the base, still on the crafting table.
“Fuck this! I don't need Verity to get home anyway, I'm not dumb.”
If things weren't bad then, they got even worse. He was 3 and a half hearts away from death, and it had just turned night in his world the minute he closed his inventory.
“I'm so cooked, man.”
The walk home was painfully agonizing and eerie, with a few intervals of being bit by spiders and hiding behind trees and objects.
Eating raw meat from killing animals on the way home wasn't all that efficient, but it kept him alive anyway.
He started to remember when that.. thing.. chased him. It was supposed to be Verity, but there's no way he recognized that as his friend.
Thinking about it too hard, he almost vomited.
Survived, but disheveled, he finally made it to his base, sprinting inside and dodging the lava trap pit. He slammed the door shut and leaned on the wood, holding his head.
“Hey, hey! Welcome back, Mob!”
Verity greeted him warmly, but inspected Mob's look. Most of the bandages were torn or drenched in blood, and a few wounds were exposed.
A piece of a skeleton's arrow was stuck on his back, too, with bite marks from spiders and zombies. He might've been in a worse look than the previous chase.
“Wowie! You're not looking too great, Mob! I wonder what happened-”
“Where are my items?” Mob had a feeling Verity had something to do with this.
Verity looked confused, “Do… you not have them?”
“I did,” Mob hissed back, “but right when I needed certain items, nearly everything in my inventory was gone.”
He tried his best to speak clearly though the throbbing injuries.
“I.. I couldn't heal, Verity, I couldn't protect myself.”
“You never made a shield, though! Maybe you would've had a few more hearts if you did.”
Mob glared coldly at him, “This isn't about the fucking shield.”
“Calm it down a little, won't you,” Verity requested lightheartedly, “I have easy ways to get you your weapons back, maybe even better weapons!”
“I'm not dumb, Verity,” Mob said, gritting his teeth, and you're not dumb either. If you know everything, then you must know where all of my stuff went-”
“Here, catch!”
If Mob wasn't in a severe amount of pain, he'd be able to. Instead, the item tossed at him rolled at his feet.
“Ta-da!! I get to teach you how to wrap bandages again!” Verity sounded more excited saying that than anything else.
“I'm not doing this again, Verity. Just tell me what happened to me items-”
“You sure you don't want to? If you go off without tying those, you'll be in so much pain that you'd have to endure until the morning!”
“Yeah, I-I'll be the.. the judge of-”
His body was betraying him as a few exposed wounds were starting to sting uncomfortably.
Verity was right, he was in a lot of pain, but he was also likely keeping secrets from Mob, who's too stubborn to let Verity get To the best of him. Even through the worst pain.
Yet Verity was still determined to shatter Mob's confidence in not needing him.
“Mob! You could barely finish your sentence without nearly falling over!”
“Verity,” Mob outbursted, “will you just let me do what I need to do?!”
“Maybe,” Verity replied, “but I wonder, who was the first one you came to about your items?”
Mob groaned, “This is a solo world, Verity,”
“Yes, but you still came to me first! You could've gone to a village, or started again from scratch! You could've gone out on your own, but deep down you remembered that I'm your helper friend, and can give you those things for you!”
Mob had no objections. Verity was right yet again.
He glared at Verity, “...Fuck you.”
“You're my favorite person, too, Mob,” Verity replied in excitement.
Verity cleared his throat (If he had one,) “Now, let's pick up that roll of bandages and I'll guide you, just like last time!”
Mob was not thrilled to go through an agonizingly long lesson of tying bandages, especially not from Verity.
He was still concealing the secret behind his disappearing items, Mob could tell. He'll find out a reason why, one way or another.
“Here, now, I wanna quiz you, Mob! Why is it best to lay down the cloth on the wounds flat-”
“I don't have time for this, Verity! Will you just do this whole thing in silence?!”
Mob instantly regretted his outburst, covering his mouth with his hands. He looked at Verity, whose expression faded quickly.
There was a long, ominous pause, the cold stare shared between the two caused the atmosphere to thicken, it almost felt physical.
Verity was not thrilled at Mob's sudden display of wrath.
“Mob… What's so bad about me talking to you.. helping you.. healing you..”
Mob almost said something, but closed his mouth.
“I thought we were having a good bonding time, weren't we, Mob?”
Silence.
“Do you want me to leave you bleeding out? Is that what you want?”
Silence again.
“Answer me, Mob.”
Mob could feel his entire body fill with fear. Yes, he's scared of a yellow ball right now, but remembered what that ball turned into the last time his mood changed.
He's the one who knows everything, who can do almost anything, can transform into a monster and eat him alive, and he's the only one who can help him right now.
Verity could sense the fear in Mob, it could be read all over his face, the trembling of the spheres in his eyes, and the ever-so slight shaking of his fingers.
He noticed every time Mob backed away in intimidation.
It's not the fear that Verity gets happy at, but more of the aftermath.
He wants Mob to realize how much he needs Verity. It doesn't matter if he's a ticking time bomb to keep sane, or a helper friend as advertised.
The overall end goal is to have the two never feel the need to split apart.
“My bad, Verity,” Mob apologized, “I'll avoid doing that.” He spoke in a low, almost hollow voice.
“Okay!”
Verity’s mood quickly changed back to the jolly friend personality as quick as a light switch, acting like nothing ever happened. He smiled genuinely at Mob, who was starting to look more confused than defeated.
“Maybe I'll lay off on quizzing a little bit,” Verity said, “I'll just do mostly guiding! After all, I'm here to help you, always and forever!”
The two worked to bandage up Mob’s wounds a second time, wrapping around the limbs carefully so the injuries don't sting, in addition to even bandaging up parts that were not taken care of in the last round.
“I wonder, Mob,” Verity said, interrupting mid-procedure, “What would you do without me? If you never had me in your world?”
Mob just shrugged nonchalantly and went back to work. Verity took this as him not knowing what he would do. He'd be dead if Verity wasn't there to help him.
Verity could heal Mob, provide as many facts and information as his system allows him to, and he'll never get tired of it.
The only concern is.. the lack of Mob's faith in him. He's recently been too assertive, talking back to his helper friend, the one he needs.
Sooner or later, this problem will happen no more.
“I think this is good enough. I'm gonna head off to bed,” Mob stretched and a popping sound could be heard from his back. “Yeowch, I need to stretch my back more.”
Getting up from the bed, he went upstairs, and walked to look out the window. To his surprise, he could see a small chest placed inconveniently in the distance.
“Was that.. always there?”
He snuck past Verity to make sure he didn't see him, and silently exited out the front door to get a closer look. The creaking of the floors might've given something away, but it didn't matter at that point.
Tiptoeing, he made his way towards the small chest, checking if anything was nearby first.
“Who the heck just leaves the chest out here?” I guess the only way to find out was to see what's inside.
Yet what was inside, shocked Mob beyond belief.
“Holy shit...”
He cut himself off, covering his mouth in shock and almost gasping out loud. He couldn't tell if this feeling was triumphant, or rage-inducing.