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Stress lowered her comm, and shook her head.
The noonday sun shone mercilessly down on their heads, and Stressmonster sighed. She wiped the sweat off her brow with one of the many rags dangling from her belt, and tucked it in her pocket. There wasn’t any hiding from the sun up here, stood atop this lone rise in the earth. A single hill, a prominent hump, surrounded on all sides by plains biome.
In the distance, Stress could see a plains village, the villagers plying the trade and ambling about, minding their business. Nearby, a herd of cows wandered about, clearly surprised at the forest of planted spruce trees turning their grass to podzol. And immediately in front of her stood Iskall, raising his hoe up and tilling block after block.
Stress watched as he turned another patch of the hillock to farmland, and she sighed.
“Iskall, we can go home. Really. I think whatever’s got you in a tizzy is all done now,” Stress said, and Iskall shook his head. He raised the hoe up and tilled another furrow, tossing some wheat seeds into it and walking over to the next one.
“Stress, I’d love to, but like…there’s no way this is over. I mean, we don’t even know what’s going on. But I know what I saw. I saw Grian get dragged away. I’m not taking any chances. We’re staying right here.”
“But this is SILLY!” Stress leaned on her own hoe, “C’mon, Iskall. Grian was getting dragged off by Doc. Iskall, luv, PLEASE. You’re starting to scare me.”
“Okay, so, why should I not be concerned by that?” Iskall snapped, folding his arms.
“Well…I was with you when it happened, and we were four chunks away?” Stress said reasonably, “An’ we couldn’t hear anything they were saying? An’ it’s Grian and Doc? That pesky bird probably just messed with his redstone again an’ Doc was hauling him off to go fix it. Besides, if Grian had said something, Doc would have stopped. Come on, Iskall, you know that. They were just havin’ a laugh, you know they were.”
“And I’m telling you, something’s WRONG!” Iskall shot back, rubbing his face, “Grian was LIMP, Stress! Completely limp! Now I know a few things about Grian, and- look. Maybe I wasn’t seeing it clearly. We were pretty far away, you’re right about that. But Grian never, ever stops moving. And he was just- like a bag of rocks!”
Stress shrugged.
“Again, we were really far away.”
“But that’s not the only thing! Surely you’ve noticed? Something’s up. With almost everyone. I mean, I talked to Keralis last week, and he pronounced “bushes” correctly. Something is seriously, SERIOUSLY wrong.” Iskall gestured with his robotic arm, the metal glinting in the unrelenting sun.
“Are you sure Keralis wasn’t doing it for fun?” Stress sighed, raising her hoe and bringing it down to till a few more tiles on top of their mound.
Iskall just grunted.
“Look. All I know is, I went to talk to Ren, and I saw…I don’t know. It swam across his eyes, from one eye to the other. Like a light behind them, or something. And I don’t want whatever that was to happen to us, too!” Iskall snapped.
Stress groaned.
“Luv, have you considered you’re just being paranoid? Are you sure any of this is really happening?”
“I agree! I probably am!” Iskall shot back, “And I’d have fully agreed with you, right up to the point where I watched Grian getting hauled off by the ankles!”
Stress sighed.
“Alright, fine,” she muttered.
Iskall’s face softened a bit.
“I didn’t drag you out here for fun,” he said quietly, “I was- I’m worried, Stress. I wanted to keep us both safe. That includes you.”
Stress’ shoulders slumped, and she nodded.
“Thanks, Iskall.”
Iskall smiled.
“I’m glad you’re here.” he said, “I’m glad I don’t have to be alone.”
Stress nodded, her back still to him.
“Thank you too, you plonker.” She said, and Iskall could hear the smile, “Even if you are being all weird about this.”
They both resumed working, and Stress piped up again.
“How much food do we need, anyway?”
Iskall shrugged helplessly.
“I don’t know. Enough to last us awhile? Mostly while we get all our farms set up. We need a gunpowder farm, and a sugarcane farm, so we can have enough rockets. In case…you know…”
Stress nodded.
“Alright, I’ll go plant some sugarcane, I guess?” She said, gesturing helplessly, “Seriously, I wish you’d told me before we took off. I could’ve packed my ender chest with more stuff than…uh, nothing…”
Iskall waved a hand.
“I’ve got enough stuff for both of us,” He grunted, “And- you know what? There’s another thing, actually! We can’t leave the server, and god knows I’ve tried! So what do you have to say to that, Stress? I’m just being paranoid, am I?”
“Well, yeah,” Stress shook her head, “‘Cause X said last week we’d be stuck here for a few days while he fixed something.”
“And it’s been an entire WEEK .” Iskall grunted, raising the hoe up and bringing it down again, “That’s more than “a few days”, unless Xisuma can’t count.”
Stress shrugged.
“Alright, fine. I’ll get planting…”
She made her way down the earthen mound, to the water-filled trench at the bottom, and started planting sugarcane around the outside edge of it. At the top of the hill, Iskall wiped the sweat from his brow, and smiled down at his wheat field. It was finally done, and he could relax a bit.
He tromped through the field, careful to not trample any crops, and rounded towards the two doors built into the side of the hill. When they’d found this place, it had been a natural idea to hollow the mound out and put a small base inside it.
Iskall stepped inside. Chestmonster, bed, furnace next to crafting table. Tuff floor and cherry wood walls (Stress had insisted on making the base prettier, and Iskall wasn’t going to argue.) His eyes lingered on the far wall of their little mound home, where Stress had set up a whole bunch of brewing stands, all bubbling away making weakness potions. Not a bad idea, since there was a village down the valley, and they’d need to set up a trading hall sooner or later…
Iskall sat down on the bed, running his organic hand through his hair a few times. He breathed a sigh of exhaustion, letting the tiredness leak out of his bones, and flopped back on the bed.
It was all so incredibly stressful. All of this. Packing up everything in the middle of the night and escaping into the nether with Stress, before anyone noticed…
Iskall rubbed at his face, and swallowed. He took a glance at his coordinates on his comm- 100,000 blocks out from spawn, diagonal to it. Half an hour of flying over the nether roof, and they were here.
Safe.
Safe, and starting again.
Iskall shook his head.
“What’s happening back there?” he muttered, “What did I do? Was it me, or…?”
Silence filled the mound.
“...Stress might be right,” He mumbled, “I probably am just…overreacting. I…But…”
Iskall shivered. Whatever he’d seen in Ren’s eyes, it…was genuinely disgusting. A shifting greyness, sliding left to right, overtop his iris and sclerae, wrapping around the pupil…
Iskall sat up. Maybe she was right, maybe he was wrong. But whatever the case, he’d already pulled the trigger.
What was done was done.
And there was no sense wasting time resting. They still had a lot of farms to set up- a basic mob farm, for one. He’d promised Stress he’d handle that. So.
No time like the present.
Iskall started ransacking chests for cobble, as the brewing stands behind him gurgled the finished potions into their bottles.
The weakness potions were done. They just needed gunpowder to make them splashable. And then he’d need to haul off the villagers…Iskall groaned. Hopefully Stress would be in favour of doing some villager wrangling. That was always the worst part of any given season…especially when one had elected to start over in the boonies.
Iskall grabbed the cobble and trekked outside, wandering over to a nearby flat spot. He started pillaring up without another word- time for the traditional drop chute under the traditional giant box. Every Player had the design burned into their brain, practically from birth. Or whatever they had that was the equivalent of birth.
He built and built as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, watching Stress plant and harvest sugarcane as it grew around the edge of the dirt mound.
Iskall found himself wondering about their little lump as he laid down the spawning floor and the water chutes. It was dirt all the way through, no rock whatsoever. There’d been a few lumps of bone buried in it, too. Just a really strange thing in the world, and not one he’d ever seen before. Plains biomes didn’t typically have hills, so why…
He shook his head.
And the sun sank lower and lower.
Iskall had the water channels in by the time the sky started to grow dark. With the spawning spaces lit up by torches (and no roof to speak of) he was good to leave it until the morning.
Iskall jumped and fired one of their precious rockets, taking off and flying down with his elytra. Stress had lit up the mound, torches on waterlogged fences, and the moat was keeping the mobs away.
In the distance, from his vantage point, Iskall could see their nether portal, glowing ominously.
He should probably go over there and break it, but…
…losing his gear at this point was not a good idea.
He banked in to a stop, landing on the few remaining grass blocks by the door, and followed Stress inside.
Their mound was cozy, lit by torchlight, and Stress had thrown together a quick table in the middle of it. She was sitting there, tinkering with a knife- whittling herself a new pair of drumsticks, from the looks of things.
As Stress piled up the shavings, Iskall glanced at the brewing stands and noted that all of the potions were missing, and in their place, a fresh set of glass bottles had been put in place. Stress must have found some gunpowder somewhere.
His stomach rumbled, and rather than fiddling with the furnace, Iskall scarfed a piece of bread from his inventory. He wandered over to the bed, flopping down on it with his gear on. A bit of fidgeting later, and everything was safely stashed in his inventory.
“Are we gonna build a second bed?” Stress wondered aloud, kicking her shoes off and sliding into bed beside him.
“Waste of wool,” Iskall grunted, “We’re gonna need a bunch of string for a duper I saw…”
Stress raised an eyebrow.
“Is that where we’re at? Duping string? C’mon, luv, what would Tango say about any of this?”
“Tango,” Iskall growled, “Is…”
And his shoulders slumped.
“Good point. Tango would be really upset by that…” Iskall muttered, closing his eyes.
“Look,” Stress gestured at the mound, “It’s not that I don’t mind going on vacation for a couple days, but…Iskall, this isn’t healthy. You’re makin’ yourself stressed out.”
“Ha,” Iskall muttered, closing his eye.
Stress smiled.
“Well, yeah, not just me. Anyway. Tell you what, let’s sleep this off. I bet you you’ll feel better in the morning, yeah?”
“And if I don’t?” he didn’t open his eye, and his bionic was still glowing.
“Well, then we can stay, I guess. But you’ll see. You’ll feel better in the morning, and then we can go home.”
Iskall groaned.
“Fine. One night. But no hogging the covers.”
Stress giggled.
“See, this is why we need a second bed!”
“Well if we’re leaving tomorrow, why bother?” Iskall shot back, a smile crawling onto his face. He rolled over onto his side, and switched off his bionic.
Stress giggled.
“Alright, you got me on that one!” She snickered, “Night, Iskall.”
“Night, Stress.” He said, and tried to drift off to sleep.
A few minutes later, Iskall heard something shuffling around outside the door. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and got out of bed.
“Iskall…?” Stress muttered, and he grunted.
“Just…stay there. I heard something.”
“I’m telling you,” Stress said, “I think you’re being paranoid, Iskall.”
“Maybe. Maybe I am. Just- let me check, okay? And then we can go back to sleep.”
Iskall slipped his gear back on, carefully moving his chestplate and sword to his hotbar, and sidled up to the door.
On the other side, something was…moving. Through the wheat, he could hear stalks being pushed aside, and it wasn’t wind. There were torches aplenty, lighting up every spawnable space, so hostile mobs weren’t likely. Iskall listened carefully.
The bedsheets shuffled as Stress climbed out of bed.
Then-
Iskall heard a sword slide out of a scabbard, and heard a skeleton rattle in fright. Flame crackled at its bones, the evocative singing clang of netherite striking bone ringing through the night air, until the monster fell to a pile of charred fragments.
Iskall immediately jumped back and barred the door with four extra pieces of cobble, hands starting to shake.
“Stress?” he said, eye wide, “Stress, they’re here.”
“They- oh. Iskall, come on. Maybe we worried them by taking off into the night like that?” Stress sighed, and Iskall shook his head.
“I- well-”
“Look. Let’s just go out there and say hello, alright? It’s gonna be fine!” Stress said, and the small hairs on the back of Iskall’s neck started to prickle.
Maybe…was he just being paranoid? Was…
But on the other hand…
“Why haven’t they knocked? Or said hello?” Iskall hissed. He glanced down at his comm. There hadn’t been a message in chat in the last three days, which was unusually silent for the server. So…
“I dunno, maybe because we were sleeping? And they were going to, before you sealed the door up?” Stress offered, and Iskall swallowed. He looked at the door, and then at the back wall…
…and the other Hermits didn’t know the place was dirt all the way through, did they?
Iskall swapped his chestplate for his elytra, and pulled out his shovel, stabbing it at the wall.
“I’m gonna dig our way out. Grab your rockets, be ready to fly,” he said, and Stress put on her elytra without another word.
Iskall raised up his shovel and stabbed it into the first block, pulling it down. Then the next, and the next-
Rockets in hotbar. Elytra on. Shovel in hand. They had, probably, optimistically, seconds-
Nothing was more dangerous than a player with a plan. Nothing. Nothing-
And a splash potion broke against his back.
Weakness flooded Iskall’s arms and legs, and he stumbled, nearly dropping the shovel from his fingers. Shock, cold shock ran through him, almost as potent as the weakness. Every mote of might within him bled away- at this point, if someone tapped his chest with a finger, he’d topple over.
Iskall’s brain seized, the gears locking up as he desperately tried to work out why-
Iskall turned around to see Stress, smiling sadly at him with another potion in her hands, and one of her many rags.
She pulled the cork, and stepped into the tunnel, as Iskall struggled to maintain his balance.
And in her eyes-
He saw it.
A grey shape, like a tattered cloth in the breeze. It slithered up from the corner of Stress’s right eye, shifting its way over the white and onto her warm brown iris. It eclipsed all colour as it travelled, turning the bright warmth underneath to a dull, boring gray.
It moved with a sinuous ripple, the shifting tatters, sinking into the opposite corner of the eye- and springing across Stress’s other eye. Like the moon eclipsing the sun, leaving a shadow on the earth, this thing was eclipsing his best friend.
The shadow slunk away, and Iskall looked down to see Stress dumping the weakness potion into the rag and taking another step forwards.
“Sorry, Iskall,” Stress said softly, “You’re too clever for your own good.”
Iskall let out a weak, strangled yell, and brought the shovel up, swinging it down with all his might-
Stress dropped the empty potion bottle and caught the shovel with one hand, wrenching it out of his fingers. She spun it so it was sideways, and slammed the handle into his chest, pinning him to the wall.
“Get some sleep, luv. It’ll be better in the morning.” Stress whispered, shoving the rag in his face.
Several seconds of struggling and choking down sickly-sweet fumes-
And everything went black.