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If you know what’s good for you, you don’t go into the NHO’s jungle.
You aren’t really sure what happened to them, but you think Concorp has something to do with it. Four hermits don’t just… go missing, not like that.
Unfortunately, you kind of need to find them. The season’s ending soon, and as much as nobody wants to go into the jungle, nobody wants to just leave the season without them. You grip your sword as you stare into the shadowy brush—it’s eerily quiet. No rustling of leaves, no chirping parrots, you can’t even hear any mobs. Are you sure this is even the right jungle? You saw Etho’s savannah camp not far away, so you guess this is it…
You swallow hard, put a torch in your offhand, and start slashing through the brush.
“Bdubs!” you yell, “Doc! Beef! Etho? Anybody around?”
Your voice dies on the air. The trees are too quiet. You push the rising panic in your throat down and keep walking, you’ve got to find them.
The leaves under your shoes crunch too much, almost like they’re dead despite being vibrantly green. The further in you walk, the forest gets quieter, and the air gets stickier and more humid. You haven’t even seen an ocelot. Don’t get anything wrong, ocelots run for dear life at any minor inconvenience, but you should’ve seen at least one by now. Or a parrot, or an enderman, something! Your heart pounds in your chest.
You aren’t so sure about this, afterall. Someone else can come find the NHO. This forest is freaking you out. You haven’t even found Bdubs’s treehouse, so maybe you’re in the wrong place, and really you should just turn around and go home and—
Something moves in the corner of your eye.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” you call, holding your torch up. It’s the middle of the day, but you can hardly see five feet in front of you.
Your skin crawls as you catch sight of eyes reflecting the light of your torch. Nope. Nope. You’re done here. You spin on your heels and start marching back the way you came. There’s something wrong with this jungle that you just can’t place in its eerie silence and crunchy leaves and lack of mobs, peaceful or hostile.
You aren’t paying a lot of attention to where you’re walking, more preoccupied with getting out of there as quickly as possible. Your foot catches on something, and you barely react in time to throw your hands under yourself, in the same second chucking your torch out of your hand and into the forest. Your curse under your breath as wherever the torch landed, it immediately sizzles out, leaving you alone in the dark in this silent as death forest.
Your heart pounds. You think you can still find your way out of here, you just have to follow the brush you cut away to get out and go back home and make this someone else’s problem.
“H…Hello?” something rasps, not too far away from you.
Your chest twists. You keep your head down as you hear footsteps drawing closer. Vines wrap around your ankles and wrists, so you couldn’t even run if you tried.
“Join… us…” it croaks. You feel the vines start to pull down and sink into your skin.
“Lonely…”
You look up as the vines wrap themselves around your neck, and—
“Bdubs?”
The last thing you remember is looking up into his eyes, between the vines that’ve overtaken his flesh, and seeing something… sad, in them.
Your neck snaps, and you’re back in your bed at your base. Shit. Well, you guess you found one of the NHO members.