Work Text:
Very few individuals have ever heard about the treasures stashed away by the Ancient Builders, and even fewer have attempted to obtain them. Legends say these treasure hoards include fantastical items such as spellbooks, potion recipes, or magical armor, all of which are no longer obtainable in the present day. Those who have sought to find the treasures were never heard from again— thus, after millenniums, the contents of these ancient treasures remain a mystery.
But today, after hearing enough stories, Hypno makes a resolve to be the first one that succeeds on an expedition. Not because he needs anything of course (though it will be nice to learn some new spells, he admits), but mainly because he’s bored, and stealing an impossible treasure is arguably the best use of his immortality. It’s not like he can die, and even if he does get in trouble, he’s got magic!
Standing over a cliffside with a map in hand, Hypno scans over the vast ocean ahead of him.
“So, I just gotta swim now, huh?” Hypno says to nobody in particular, rolling up the map and tucking it into his inventory. With a wave of his hand, he casts a water-breathing spell on himself and ties his coat around his waist. “Should be a piece of cake, mmhm!”
Hypno stretches out one final time before not-so-gracefully leaping into the waters. The cold ocean water pricks at his cheeks and it takes a second for his eyes to adjust, but within a few moments, he is off and swimming towards the deep sea.
While he swims, Hypno wonders why nobody has returned from these expeditions alive. There hasn’t been much trouble at all so far, with his only hindrances being a couple drowneds that he takes out easily. He’s almost reached the location specified on the map, and still nothing of note has happened yet… it almost feels too easy, in a sense.
Finally, after ten minutes of swimming, Hypno reaches a glowing mound marked by a symbol on the ground (that he unfortunately can’t read). This is it, he thinks, grasping the ground and kneeling before the mound. Hypno draws out a shovel from his inventory and plunges the metal head into the gravel-dirt mixture, digging until his spade hits the top of something solid. Excitedly, Hypno shovels away the dirt, revealing the top of a glimmering box.
As his heart beats in anticipation, Hypno drags out the box and sets it onto the solid ground. The treasure chest is intricately crafted— glimmering gold lines the edges, runes run across the chest, and an obsidian lock sits extravagantly at the lid’s center.
He touches the runes lightly, watching the symbols light up beneath his fingers as the gem on the lock starts to glow. It seems as if the lock requires a specific combination or key to open, but Hypno doesn’t need to worry about that. He’s got at least ten different lock-opening spells, and if none of them work, he can always try brute force.
While Hypno starts to chant his spells, he doesn’t notice a figure watching him from behind the rocks. The mystery individual streaks through the water with quick movements from his tail, closing in on the warlock attempting to open the chest.
After trying his fourth spell, Hypno finally manages to crack open the lock. “There we go!”
However, before he can actually open the lid, he hears an unexpected voice behind him.
“You!”
Hypno whirls around, his eyes landing upon a large figure right above him. The stranger’s face, though almost entirely shadowed from the backlit sunlight, evidently has three glowing eyes staring directly at him, not to mention fins protruding out from the sides. He opens his mouth to scream, but in that second, Hypno feels his entire body seize up— almost like being blasted by an ice beam. Desperately trying to cast a spell, Hypno’s magic fizzes uselessly at his fingers, unable to produce any effect without his movements or words. He’s been frozen in place.
This sequence of events jogs Hypno’s faulty memory by reminding him of one final part to the legends: the beasts— or rather guardians roaming in the deep oceans that protect hidden treasures. He now understands why nobody has ever returned from the depths with a tale to tell. Even immortality means nothing when he’ll be trapped underwater for all of eternity.
Hypno braces himself in acceptance for any horrible fate he’ll be subjected to— whether it’s being buried alive, cut up into pieces, or even just being left alone until his water-breathing spell expires and he’s trapped in a loop of suffocating forever. But all of his expectations shatter like glass the instant his captor speaks again.
“Hey there!” the guardian greets enthusiastically, swimming into a spot with a ray of sun that illuminates his face.
With this, Hypno sees that from waist up, the sea warden is just a typical bearded man with turquoise and orange gills, having the addition of an extra eye sitting in the center of his forehead. Below the waist, however, he has a long fish-like tail with spikes in place of legs.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen anybody around!” the guardian says, circling around Hypno with the energy of a hyper dog. “What are you here for? That treasure chest? No need to worry— I have the key on me! But first, where do you come from? Obviously somewhere from the surface, I assume, but still! Your clothes look really different from what my creators wore, so maybe you’re from far away?”
Hypno remains staring at the guardian, unable to speak, even if he wanted to. Is he going to attack me? Is this some sort of a trick?
“Oh yeah, speaking of my creators, they haven’t visited in a while…” The guardian crosses his arms, frowning. “They’d usually come here every so often to check up on me, but I haven’t seen them since! I wonder what’s up with them… but—”
The fishy warden breaks into a smile again, swimming up to face Hypno gleefully. “—that doesn’t matter! You’re the first person around who actually stayed long enough for me to talk to! Everyone else just screamed and ran away upon seeing me, so…”
Clasping his hand over his mouth, the guardian exclaims, “Oh, how rude of me! I haven’t even introduced myself! My creators named me Xeanumilibus , but you can just call me xB. Nice to meet you! What’s your name?”
Hypno attempts to respond, but it’s quite impossible when his mouth is frozen.
“A bit shy? That’s okay! You can take your time— oh my goodness, wait!” the guardian— xB exclaims. “I completely forgot about that!” xB quickly brushes his hair over the eye on his forehead, and Hypno feels his body relax as autonomy returns to his limbs once more. “Are you okay now?”
The rupturing scream from the moment he got frozen tears out of Hypno’s mouth, causing a couple rocks around him to vibrate.
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t mean to!” xB frantically apologizes, flapping his tail anxiously. “I don’t mean any harm! I totally forgot about my freezing powers!”
“No, no, it’s fine!” Hypno reassures while smacking himself in the arm a couple times just to eliminate the lingering numbness. “That was probably from before you froze me. I’m not scared anymore, I think.”
“Thank goodness,” xB sighs. “The last thing I’d want to do is come off as threatening, even though my creators tell me I should be. You seem like an interesting fella with stories to tell, so I don’t want to endanger you— WAIT! You can’t breathe underwater, can you?!”
Hypno thinks of his spell, which probably has a few more hours of effectiveness left. “Well, actually—”
“I’ve got to get you somewhere with air!” Sweeping Hypno into his arms, xB glides across the water and towards a cave. There’s a small rock-lined platform at the end of the cave’s wall, which xB carefully dumps Hypno onto. “Is this fine now?”
“Uh, yeah!” Hypno laughs nervously. He doesn’t have the heart to tell xB that he can totally breathe under water, especially after xB has already shown him care. “I’m good! Thanks!”
“Great!” xB places his folded arms on top of the rock’s surface, then rests his chin on top. “So, now that you’re unfrozen, do you mind telling me your name?”
“It’s Hypno,” Hypno responds promptly, repositioning himself into a comfortable seat. “Technically Hypnotizd, like hypnotization, but it’s just Hypno for short.”
“Interesting! Sounds forgein from my place! Where do you come from?”
“Heh… the thing is…” Hypno mumbles, grinning sheepishly. “I can’t remember. I forgot years— probably centuries ago. You see, I’m more of a traveler than anything.”
xB laughs in response, rather than anything else. “That’s fine! The more places you go, the more stories you hold! Do you have any to tell?”
“Oh, plenty.” Hypno chuckles. “But if I told all of them, we’d be here all week. And I don’t even remember most of my adventures anymore!”
And so, Hypno spends the next hour or so recounting all the stories he can remember as xB watches with sparkling eyes of interest. He tells stories of terrifying beasts, magnificent kingdoms, interesting servers, and whimsical magicians. With every tale he narrates, he finds xB growing more and more curious and asking questions about the surface, which leads to more stories and even more questions.
It’s only when Hypno sees xB drifting around glumly that he pauses the ramble. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Did I say something bad?”
“No, no!” xB shakes his head, sighing. “It’s just that this all sounds so… fun! But I’ll never be able to see it for myself, because of… you know.” He points down at his tail, which swishes around dejectedly in the water. “Chances are, when you go on your way again, I might not meet anyone else for a long time.”
Upon hearing xB’s predicament, Hypno’s brain gears begin to turn. Despite only having met xB very recently, he’s grown especially fond of the treasure warden and wants to do something to help. He’s got a load of spells, so one of them’s bound to be a solution, right? Something to help xB onto land… levitation is definitely a way, but he can’t keep someone flying forever. Being slippery? No, that’s just impractical. What else is there?
All of a sudden, a moment of epiphany strikes Hypno as he thinks of a perfect spell for the situation. “xB,” he says, leaning over to his fishy friend. “I think I might have a way to help you on the surface.”
xB’s eyes light up. “Really? You do?”
“Yeah! But I just gotta ask for your opinion first.”
“Go ahead!”
“Alright, then.” Hypno grins. “So, how do you feel about bipedality?”
The afternoon sun shines lazily from the sky, casting a dappled shadow across Hypno’s diary while he sits below a tree, writing his entry for the day.
June 30, 2021– 3:48 P.M.
Dear Diary,
Scar let me try on his hat today. It was pretty big, and I’m pretty sure it’s magical too, judging by the aura coming out of it. I also opened up Horse Head Farms with xB! It’ll be much more different than other seasons, I assume, with this decentralized shopping district. I hope it will work out.
Signed,
Hypno
“What’re you doing?” a voice asks from above him, and Hypno turns up to see his old friend sitting on top of a branch, watching from above.
“Oh hey, xB!” Hypno waves. “I’m just writing in my diary!”
“You really do that every day, huh?” xB teases, hopping down from the tree and landing with a thump! on his two legs. “How long has it been?”
“I dunno, a few years?” Hypno replies, laughing lightly. “Or maybe longer than that. Aren’t you the one who told me I should start writing down my memories?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to actually commit to it for so long— from what I remember at least, it’s been almost a century.”
Scratching his cheek, Hypno frowns and says, “Huh, already? It only felt like a week ago when we met for the first time.”
“And it only felt like a week ago when you granted me the ability to shapeshift, too,” xB adds, taking his seat next to Hypno as his tail thumps against the ground nonchalantly.
“And you totally ate sand when you tried to take your first step,” Hypno snickers. He tucks his diary back into his inventory, now leaning against the tree behind him. “You still do, now.”
“Only because you purposely push me every time!”
“I would never.”
xB punches Hypno playfully in the arm, and the two laugh it off under the tree’s cool shade.
Over these long years, the two have formed a strong bond— besties, as others will call it. Their friendship was certainly incredibly accidental and unexpected, but Hypno regrets nothing about deciding to steal a treasure. He didn’t even get the reward he originally came for, because in the end, the books lay forgotten in the chest while the two swam up towards the surface. No amount of cool spells can ever beat the sight of xB instantly falling and eating sand. Or the look of marvel and wonder on xB’s face when he sees land for the first time. That too, he supposes.
Hypno is well aware that nothing lasts forever in the universe, especially with the centuries that he has spent alive. He’s watched empires rise and fall, servers open and close, and players come and go. However, none of it really matters in the long run, as long as he’s had fun in the moment. With all the factions already forming and fantastic builds being put up this season, it’s leading to a great experience for the next few months, whenever it decides to end.
Besides that, Hypno knows xB won’t leave him alone for a very long time, at least. The fish-guy is always there to tease him and play pranks, or find a way to annoy him one way or another.
And after all the years he’s spent living in this pattern, Hypno decides that he wouldn’t want it any other way. That’s what friends are for, after all.