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It was a normal day on Hermitcraft—
Well, relatively normal?
Not even remotely normal?
Doc doesn’t know anymore. What with all the Hermatrix stuff he’s been getting up to, his definition of “normal” isn’t what one would expect, really.
But hey, it could’ve been worse!
(That’s Doc trying to be optimistic, if you couldn’t tell. Because one does have to try to be optimistic when they’re in the room with a bunch of children ranging from ages five to seven.)
When ones friends die in a world cursed with becoming children at a respawn, they are needed to act as a responsible adult. That being said, the people who he was with were as follows: Beef, who while still healing from a previous death (at age fourteen) was tested on by Zedaph and died while being tested on; Bdubs, who had gotten himself hurt with over-aggression toward Pearl and Keralis for stealing his clocks and ended up getting in a war with the latter; Etho, who had been on his own personal server, so when he came back he was reset to the age of six; and Ren who had “coincidentally” let his wolfish instincts take over and fought monsters roughly one night after knowing that Doc was going to meet up with the NHO the day following as their “sitter”.
Honestly, he wouldn’t be so frustrated with this if Ren hadn’t purposefully put himself in danger so he could accidentally die so he had an excuse to come along and act like a kid (or what was now his age). But one against four… this was going to be interesting, to put it lightly.
Well, if Doc learned anything from already being on this server for over two months now, it was that children needed to get their energy out or else. So hypothetically, it would be a good idea to take them out for a walk (it sounded like he was treating them like pets, but really, if Ren was going to act like a dog, he would be treated like one… to an extent).
By some way, somehow, Bdubs convinced Doc that he could safely ride Lulu on the trails. The pony wasn’t too huge and too fast, and Doc assumed Bdubs would complain about his feet hurting halfway through, so doing this couldn’t be the worst idea… right?
“You didn’t tell me we could bring our horses.” Etho huffed, seeing the unfairness of his situation.
“I didn’t know what we were going to get up to today,” Doc reasoned lightly.
“What if you let me and Etho ride on the pony too!” Beef suggested.
“No.” Bdubs responded pointedly.
“What about meeeee?” Ren whined nearly the same time. “Don’t forget about me!’
“It’s not like someone can really miss out on your presence,” Doc grumbled more to himself. What had he gotten himself into?
Things such as this went on for quite some time. Eventually the group got fairly quiet though, and there was finally a moment of peace in the group.
Of course, that didn’t last long.
“I’m tiiiiiiired!” Bdubs complained.
“You’re always tired,” Etho pointed out.
“Suck it up.” They had only gone about ten minutes and Doc wasn’t sure if he could take any more of this. “We’ll find somewhere to take a break in a bit.”
They stopped at one of the Pass and Gas stations (Bdubs of course mentioning that the shops were his and he did recommend buying something from there, and Etho wanting to get something because it looked cool, but Doc not willing to spend any diamonds, knowing full well Etho hardly had any more). The place had a good map of the server, giving Doc the full idea of where some of the bigger bases were that the group might be able to stop at. Boatem was a pretty big, high traffic place that perhaps they could stop at, but at the same time it would be easy to lose one of these crazy kids in there. After thinking on it for a moment, they were fairly near the place and the pros outweighed the cons.
<Docm77> - - - > <GoodTimeWithScar>, <Grian>, <ImpulseSV>, <MumboJumbo>, & <PearlescentMoon>: Any of you have a place big enough for five people? Four of those being pint-sized.
<PearlescsentMoon>: That be a lot of tiny hermits. You ok?
<Docm77>: Surviving
A crash came from inside the shop. A splash potion fell on the horse along with experience orbs falling on Bdubs and Ren. “Etho! What are you doing to my shop?!” Bdubs ran up to the place after all the experience was off of the ground.
<Docm77>: Barely
<ImpulseSV>: I’ve got a few rooms of my factory finished. It’s cold in there, but it should be big enough?
<GoodTimeWithScar>: I have a bunch of houses on wheels. May be a bit tiny for all of you, but your welcome to stop by!
<GoodTimeWithScar> was killed by “Swaggon Security”
<PearlescentMoon>: Welp. You guys know where I’ll be. I’ll take Bdubs off your hands, though between him and Scar it may be a handful.
<Docm77>: Scar’s place it is
<PearlescentMoon>: See ya! :D
At least if all else failed and they had to stay the night somewhere else, they were welcomed into Boatem. “Alright. Everybody round up!” Doc called, counting heads as they came back from their individual spots. He only counted three… “REN!”
“Coming!” he called from the woods. “I found a fox, and went to go pet it. It was really pretty! And it likes berries,” he told the group.
“I wanna go see it!” Bdubs said.
“No. Not right now. We can see foxes later. Right now we’re going to meet up with Pearl and Scar.” Doc led the way, now having to pull Lulu on a lead because apparently Bdubs wasn’t tired anymore and wanted to race Etho and Ren to the entry way of Scar’s mega-starter base. Beef stayed behind, walking slowly and petting the pony and keeping Doc company as they lagged behind.
“Did I tell you I made a new friend while meeting Zed?” Beef asked with far too much energy.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I met this girl, Celia. She’s really nice. She watched over me while I was in the chamber. It was really fun.”
“Who now is Celia?” For all Doc knew, this could be some sort of make believe character he’d come up with while Zedaph was messing with his brain.
“Celia’s the ceiling. Could say she’s Zed’s daughter.” The way Beef said that—as if it weren’t the weirdest sentence ever spoken—if they were in a cartoon like world, Doc probably would’ve been spitting out a sip of water.
But instead, Doc knew not to laugh. Beef had shown himself, especially while younger, to be very sensitive. While he wouldn’t get angry like Bdubs, it was likely he’d cry if embarrassed or teased. Doc didn’t want that on his hands.
“Is Celia nice?”
“Yes, she is. She didn’t interrupt me like all the others and she made me feel safe while I was there. Even when the lights went off, she wasn’t even the tiniest bit afraid. And it going dark was very scary.” Beef nodded his head, as if that added any emphasis to his words.
“So is she like, I dunno, like a girlfriend of yours or something?” Doc chuckled, but kept it low enough that Beef couldn’t evidently tell.
“No. She’s my best friend, but that doesn’t mean I like her!” He folded his arms, and marched along, no longer speaking to Doc.
“I’m sorry,” he said when Beef continued to act in such a grumpy manner.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
At that, Beef didn’t waste time not going back to give Doc a hug. “I didn’t like being mad at you,” he said, fully honesty in his voice. “I don’t know why Bdubs likes feeling like that. It makes me sad.”
“It makes me sad too,” Doc said while picking him up and continuing their walk. Boatem was a lot closer, and now he could hardly see the other three, but thankfully Pearl and Impulse stood at the front, waiting on them.
“Mumbo exploded Grian with a crystal a few minutes ago,” Pearl said as the first piece of bad news. “Then as to be expected, Grian respawned old enough to understand the concept of placing an End Crystal over obsidian and blowing someone up when they least expected it… so now we have a five-year old Mumbo and an eight year-old Grian.”
“Please don’t die on us while you’re here,” Impulse told Doc as they continued to walk up to Scar’s place.
“We’re going to move over to Impulse’s base since it’s so much bigger. Right now the rest of them are upstairs. You five go on ahead,” Pearl said while climbing the ladder. Doc watched while walking on as the two tried to get the group in boats and to row off so they wouldn’t have to fool with falling down ladders and dying again. The process was amusing to say the least.
After much more work than it was worth, the group made it to the factory, in the large room where the iDimpy bar was still being tested on and the air conditioning pumped hard.
“It’s cold in here!” Bdubs complained, never stopping for a moment to talk about what pained him.
“I’ll keep you warm!” Ren said, wagging his tail, running up to the smaller with open arms. Beef joined the two, and the three of them made a pile of cuddles on the floor, trying their best to share heat.
Etho stood back from the group, instead sitting with Mumbo who at the moment was quiet. The two played rather peacefully with some cars Mumbo had brought with him. Pearl oversaw the two, making sure there was no fighting, while getting out some other toys and things for them.
“I’m hungry.” Scar pulled on the cuff of Doc’s lab coat sleeve.
“Of course you are,” he said while pulling out some snacks from the black backpack he had on him. It probably wasn’t enough for this entire group, as he realized he only brought enough for his group of four. “Do we have enough food to survive? I’m not listening to these kids complain all night about being so called “hungry”.”
“I’ll see what I have,” Pearl said while zipping open the duffle bag she seemed to keep on her all the time. “I think we’ll be fine,” she said after a moment of searching. “I’m usually pretty prepared.”
For a little while, everyone was in their own world. Grian, Scar, and Ren were playing pirates; Beef was curled up next to a sleeping Bdubs (now on top of a bed instead of the cold floor); and Etho and Mumbo were messing around with child-safe redstone circuit (not the real thing, as redstone dust could be toxic if not carefully handled). That left an easy job for the three supervisors, as the only thing to worry about was breaking up the fights that got out of hand, and very easily Doc felt himself start to edge closer and closer to dozing off.
“Take a break,” Impulse said—in such a way that almost commanded it, but in a very kind way. “We’ve got the rest of these guys handled.” Doc looked up at him like he was crazy, but not saying a word. “It’s starting to get late anyway,” Impulse went on, not bothered by the look. Of course, maybe just looking into his eyes alone revealed how exhausted he was after dealing with all this nonsense. “And somebody’s got to be with those two when they start to stir anyway.”
Doc didn’t know what exactly kept him from going over to the many beds and just resting. Maybe pride? He knew it wasn’t the case of trying to be helpful, because he really couldn’t care less what those rascals got up to that ended up causing a slight inconvenience. And perhaps it could be attributed to how at peace and how relaxed one could get while being asleep. Anything could happen and one wouldn’t know about it. Of course, he didn’t like just falling weak to something some called “necessary”… especially if he didn’t have to.
Beef looked up at him with tired eyes. Slowly moving as to not wake Bdubs, he got out of bed and started to lightly pull on Doc’s arm. Doc got up, knowing that once this happened there was no getting out of it. Between the three of his friends, they could make Doc the weakest man on the server, whether that be physically or emotionally… really just depended on the situation. “Fine.”
He ended up in the middle, Bdubs partially laying on top of him on one side while Beef held on to his arm on the other. It wasn’t long before the two beside him were fully asleep, and the others there were told to clean up after themselves.
A calm waking up of the three later, and they all ate a small dinner and then got into their rows of beds and pulled out a movie they collectively agreed upon. If in different circumstances and Impulse was also one of the kids, it would be likely that they would watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but thankfully they didn’t have to worry about his opinion.
It was nice, curled up with his best friends (even if they were quite a bit smaller than usual) watching a movie and eating popcorn and letting them put him to sleep with their hugs and heavy breathing. It was nice. For now, the craziness of the day was over, and he could gain a bit more energy for whenever they would inevitably wake up at six in the morning, claiming that it was high time the group got up.