Chapter Text
A man lay flat on his back in a brand-new world, his vision having just cleared. We would type the name of this completely unidentified person if that was an area he was lacking in, which he most certainly was not. His name was often screamed in annoyance by his friends as he dashed away, rockets in hand, grinning with delight. This man was, of course, Grian, and he had just found himself stranded and alone, by his own fault.
The recent past was recalled— he’d been sent a link to a random video game a short while ago. It didn’t matter where it came from, honestly. Grian knew how to check for viruses, and this game seemed harmless.
Its webpage boasted a short, corny description (Cooperative building game! Unlock new worlds as you progress! Achieve your full potential as a legendary hero!) and that had been enough for Grian to decide that it would be a fun game to play with the bored Hermits as they wrapped up Season Seven.
He'd sent the link to Hermitcraft's main chat, where some players then decided on their server-client pairs. Grian was the server player for his neighbor and friend Mumbo, and Mumbo was his. Server players were able to control the surrounding environment of their client player, allowing objects (related to some weird alchemy system) to be deployed and structures to be built.
There had been a considerable amount of fucking around with the mechanics before the giant-ass meteor had arrived. It was about to crash over the two players, their equipment for the game, and the bases they'd spent months building. Grian couldn't even fathom how large the meteor had to be to cover not only the humongous mansion that he was still working on, but also the futuristic structure that Mumbo had just proudly finished.
Yeah, they had been about to die. And all of their stuff would be gone with them.
Panicking, Grian had scrambled to the red egg that had materialized on his platform thing that Mumbo had deployed. He’d picked it up, trying to figure out what to do with it. The meteor had obviously been spawned by the game, but it wouldn’t just… destroy his base. Without any way out of it. He knew the egg was part of the solution, but…
Oh, right. He had forgotten that part. Where he dropped it. His vision had gone blank the moment the egg broke on the stone of his mansion. Maybe he’d hit his head and passed out while diving for it.
And now he was somewhere completely different.
Had the game put him in purgatory for fucking up? Possibly trapped him in the afterlife for dying to the asteroid that it itself had spawned?
Oh shit, Mumbo. Grian had been planning on telling him what to do.
He pulled out his communicator, dismayed to find that his message history was gone. This added another piece to the puzzle of “where the hell am I”, which Grian was not prioritizing at the moment because that would require patience. He had more important matters to focus on for the next thirty seconds or so.
Two minutes. No response. Well, he wouldn’t rush the guy. Mumbo was probably busy solving his own tasks. Grian would just figure out where he’d found himself.
Glancing around, the biome he found himself in was completely unfamiliar. The floor was green, bumpy, and kind of… bouncy? Like a trampoline? Not bouncy enough to make you go up in the air, unfortunately. That ruined the moment of fun.
Grian peered upward, squinting against the glare that came from the spotlights scattered around. The sky was pitch dark, giving no other source of illumination.
His communication device buzzed in his jean pocket. He quickly yanked it out to see who had sent a message and…
SolidarityGaming: what the heck is happening
SolidarityGaming: do you know where i am
Grian: TIMMY WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE
SolidarityGaming: what is happening
Grian: LIKE I FUCKING KNOW
SolidarityGaming: im in this biome with like
SolidarityGaming: ribbons floating around everywhere?
SolidarityGaming: i cant see that far ahead of me
Grian: well i can tell you that we are nowhere remotely close to each other
SolidarityGaming: jeez okay
It made sense that Jimmy of all people would also get sent to weird-sub-video-game purgatory while playing it. At least Grian wasn’t the only jackass on this server—though pressing tab confirmed that Timmy was his sole company for now.
He opened his inventory to find it empty. The plot thickened.
Actually, that made a lot of sense, with the fact that Grian was in a separate multiplayer world already being fairly obvious.
Grian began to wander his surroundings. Upon closer inspection, the floor he was standing on was actually made of speckled mushrooms that completely covered the ground.
The land was vast and expansive. Grian could see a village off in the distance, and a big spotlight in another direction that pointed towards a large tower. He would investigate that later on, but first, he needed to visit the town to try and obtain some supplies. This seemed like a weird and dumb game, but he decided he might as well play it for a little while.
Hopping down from a mushroom, Grian noticed that the houses within the village looked smaller than usual. Looking closer, he realized that its inhabitants were some sort of… orange geckos?
He approached one of them. He guessed it was a farmer? It was wearing an overly large straw hat, carrying a pitchfork, and walking around a small field doing what appeared to be absolutely jack shit.
“Hello there!” the gecko creature said, to Grian’s surprise.
“Uh… hi?” he said. “Sorry for bothering you, but… can I borrow a bit of food? I’m just passing through, and I need it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind at all!” the animal responded. “That is, on any other day. Today, a maid is supposed to come to this village and take all our crops!”
“Isn’t that a bad thing? Don’t you… want that to not happen?”
“No, not at all! I would be honored to be graced by the presence of the Maid of Doom! But instead, I’m stuck with this pesky fuzz creature right now. Thanks a ton.”
Grian sighed. He would just steal this asshole’s potatoes. He didn’t think it was smart enough to notice, anyway. H e wasn't sure why it was going on about some maid of doom, which sounded like it came out of Iskall's mouth, but it likely didn't concern him.
(He was fully wrong about that.)
While he was robbing the unsuspecting geckos and gathering potatoes in his shirt, the ground started to shake, and he almost fell. Grian was blinded with light once again. His communicator buzzed wildly while the villagers began to erupt into chaos, screaming and running around.
The light started to recede, and Grian could see again. The farmer ran into him, making him spill all of his stolen potatoes. He scrambled to pick them up, but was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Wh—whoa! Hey! What are you doing?”
“Bee?” Grian asked, surprised.
“Hi!” His old friend Big B smiled, kneeling to help him pick up the potatoes. “You're, uh, kitted out already?”
Grian suddenly remembered that he was splayed on the ground and covered in stolen pseudo-vegetables. Standing up, he said, “I guess so? I got sent to this server, like, twenty minutes ago. Did you just get here? Who else joined?”
“I dunno. Let me check,” Big B responded, pulling out his communicator. “Oh, I don't know most of these people.”
“Oh,” Grian said. He gathered enough sense to realize that he could just put the potatoes in his inventory. “Well, I'll just check it myself.”
“Alright.” Big B squinted towards where Grian had come from. “You got any idea where we are?”
“Nope.” He dusted himself off.
“Hey! Assholes!” another voice called out from the opposite direction.
“Okay,” Grian sighed. “I guess you're here too. Sure.”
“Yeah, a few other Hermits got here at the same time as I did,” Tango told him, approaching the two. “It was crazy. We're all scrambling since we realized that Mumbo didn't respawn. I'm, uh, not sure how many of us are going to make it…”
“Wait – hold on. What?” Grian jolted to his feet. “Mumbo what?!”
“Oh, right,” Tango said, biting his lip. “I guess you wouldn't know. He's- a lot of people are gone. You were about to die , man.”
“Holy shit” was all Grian could stammer.
Tango reached for his phone. “Looks like Impulse got here with me. Some people named Smallishbeans, Smajor, Solidarity, Big B… Skizz? Huh.” He glanced back towards Grian. “You sure you don't have any clue about what the fuck this is about?”
“I just thought it would be a fun game!" Grian threw his hands up. “I swear- I-” He trailed off, distracted. “Tango, why are your eyes green?”
“Wh-- They're not fucking green! I'm not that colorblind. For all I know, your eyes could have been green this whole time!”
“Yes, they are. They're bright green,” Big B confirmed.
Grian held back a snicker. “Why are you so embarrassed about this?”
“I'm not! I'm angry because you changed the subject!” Tango said.
“I don't have an ulterior motive for buying a game that killed a bunch of Hermits. Can we not argue about that?” Grian asked. He looked around, realizing that the group's surroundings had changed. “Oh!”
The terrain was now split up into three visible sections. The old landscape was just behind him, with two new ones to his right and his left. The borders between the areas seemed to be centered in the village where the players currently stood.
“I-- Huh. I guess an area of terrain gets added on for every person that joins the server? And that's where they spawn in? Okay.”
Tango glanced behind himself. “So we're all scattered. Cool,” he said sarcastically.
“Well, we can at least communicate,” Big B pointed out. “I'll message the server and tell everyone where we are.”
"Should we try to meet up with other people?" Grian said. "I feel like that's something we should be doing.". Tango murmured in agreement.
Big B looked around at all the three areas. Picking on a whim, he said, "Let's go... ah, this way," pointing in the direction that Tango had come from. That section was covered in lava and thick metal pipes. Lovely.
"Yeah, sure." Grian headed that way tentatively, with the other two following behind him.
The group was silent for most of the walk. The ground was like cooled magma. It was slippery in places-- they had to be careful to watch their step. Grian would spot the occasional, sparsely populated village of bright-red crocodiles, but they didn't pass through any.
"Where do you think all these pipes go?" Tango asked at one point, trying to break the awkward silence.
"I think they're just for decoration," Big B told him.
"No, they all look like they feed the lava into the earth, or something. Where do they lead, Big B? Where do they gooooo?"
No one responded. Grian left Tango to daydream about machinery.
It took maybe half an hour to reach the end of the biome. A giant wall appeared over the horizon, with an ornate doorway that sunlight poured through. Impulse and Skizzleman were waving to the group from inside the doorway.
"Hi there," Impulse called out. Oddly, he wasn't smiling like usual.
"It's scary in there, man!" Skizz said to the group as they made their way over to him. "Weird monsters everywhere. They kept trying to kill us, and we don't even have any weapons yet!"
"Was your place any better?" Impulse asked him.
"Uh, it was more open. It had medieval lookin' towers and shit, but it was kinda scary 'cause the gravity kept changing and I never knew when I could just end up face-first on the floor."
"Are we claiming ownership of the places we spawned in now?" Grian asked. "I feel like that's not how it works."
"Yes it fucking is!" Tango exclaimed. "We now have Tangoland. Land of pipes and magma. Hell fucking yes!"
"Okay, then," Grian sighed. "Sure."
"Well, as wonderful as that place looks, we might have to stay in Tangoland for a little while and try to find supplies. It's..." Impulse frowned at the several pools of lava. "…sort of safer?"
Big B started to head back through the gateway when the players were blinded by light. Everyone froze, preparing for more players to join.
The radiance cleared to reveal that absolutely nothing had changed.
Impulse squinted. "Oh. I think that was just the area we're in. It's so bright, jeez."
"Whoops! False alarm," Big B chuckled. Then the floor began to glow again, washing the players in light.
Grian heard buzzes coming from all the players. They'd been completely bamboozled.
And just like that, Bee had been teleported a mile or two away.
Grian burst out laughing at that.
"Fuuuuck," Tango said. "More?"
"That's good," Impulse reminded him. "It means more people are coming out alive."
Skizz opened his communicator. "We're twelve guys now. SmallishBeans, ZombieCleo, GoodTimesWithScar, Renthedog." Having listed off the players who'd joined, he glanced up. "Anyone know any of these people?"
All four of them confirmed this, but Grian had the feeling that he was the only person who knew of everyone on the server.
He had an idea of why... but he wouldn't dwell on it.
The land that stood before the group now was covered in gaudy purple spikes , with hot-air balloons floating above it. Those were connected by bridges like they were treehouses. It was very whimsical- and extremely precarious.
Grian had a pretty good guess as to whose area this was.
"HI GUYS!" a voice called out from the distance.
He ran over, panting. "That was intense! I think I barely made it before the meteor hit. My partner put my things in some absolutely ludicrous places."
"Who was your partner?" Tango asked.
"Cub. Did he...?" Scar glanced at the players. "Did he make it?"
Grian didn't know if he could say it.
"You're trolling me, aren't you?" Scar questioned.
"He hasn't shown up yet," Bee told him gently. "But... he might enter later."
"His... timer had the same countdown as mine. For the meteor impact, I guess." Scar paused. "He's probably on a different server. Maybe it sends your partner to a different place? Yeah, that's it. There's no way he would've missed the entry."
Tango hummed a note. Something told Grian that he and Impulse had been a server-client pair.
Cub, one of Scar’s best friends, was dead.
Knowing Scar, Grian guessed that he'd forgotten to deploy the alchemiter or something. There was no way that he was going to say that right now, though.
He was going to be a considerate and helpful friend, and he was going to do this by pulling an extremely distracting prank.
Grian snuck behind the gaggle of men to seek out one of the alleged terrifying monsters. It was like a labyrinth in there, and just around the corner to the right were a couple of mobs he didn't recognize, including some giant...
Grian was an expert at luring mobs, and he did just this. Inching towards it, then when it swung at him, backing away just enough to make it step forward. And repeat.
The beast was huge . Easily four times his size, probably more, with razor-sharp tusks that curved out from its mouth. It was terrifying , especially to unarmed players.
He got close enough that he could see Scar, now conveniently close to the entrance. Hoping the ogre hadn't made any noise, he stealthily dashed back into the horde, between Skizz and Big B.
The lumbering footsteps grew louder as the monster grew closer and closer. Surely someone would notice by now, right?
As the ogre raised its fists above their heads, preparing to strike, Grian screamed, "Guys! Look out!"
Everyone glanced back, noticed the giant monster looming above them and immediately stepped back in fear.
He looked paralyzed, unsure of what to do. Maybe his instincts told him to fight it, while his brain knew that he stood no chance. He was terrified.
The ogre slowly dropped its giant fist on him.
And just like that, once again, Grian had to watch from a distance as one of his best friends died.
