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1) Dyes
When the NOPOE finally built their headquarters, it was impossible to miss. It stole Etho’s attention as soon as he entered the vicinity of the shopping district. The massive concrete building would have been an eyesore if it wasn’t so well designed, but the bright colors were so artfully placed that he couldn’t even be annoyed by it. The fingerprints of various different members of the revolution were evident on the structure, mixing Pearl’s imaginative organics with Tango’s combination of whimsy and industry with Gem’s life-filled details. The building must have been delegated to the newest recruits, while the founders continued to plan behind the scenes. Etho was impressed but confused. Hadn’t Pearl been complaining for weeks about being out of dyes to stock her shop? Scar’s yelling about his sand and gravel being bought out made more sense now, but that still left the color unaccounted for. Huh. He didn’t know that any of them had flower farms. Turning to fly back toward his base after checking his shops, Etho resolved to ask one of them about it later. As he glided over the trees, he didn’t notice the patch of dirt among the grass covering the entrance to one of his flower farms.
2) Bone Meal & Moss
The NOPOE had been quiet for too long, and Etho now understood why. It looked like nature had tried to reclaim the shopping district. They’d covered every single block of open space with moss, bushes, and trees, to the point where you couldn’t see the ground at all. You could barely even get to it, blocked by the interwoven canopies of the trees. Resigning to do his shopping another day, Etho messaged the Permit Office & Co. (they were working on a better name still, give them a break) with an image of the verdant district, shops barely peeking out amongst the sea of green. While most of the replies were of shock and reluctant awe at the thoroughness and scale of the revolution’s attack, Etho was once again stuck on how they got this much moss. The trees had popped up overnight, too, so those must have been grown with bone meal. Gem was the obvious answer, given her shop, but she had been bugging him the other day for tips to improve the efficiency of her moss farm. If her farm couldn’t keep her small shop in stock, it certainly couldn’t have done this. Who on their side had a farm big enough to produce this much moss and bone meal in such a short time?
3) Stone
The NOPOE getting Tango on their side was a genius move, if not for his brain then for his access to redstone supplies and the materials to make more. Etho, as the resident redstoner of Permit Office & Co., was struggling to keep up with Tango, with his factory and witch farms. While he could just about match his pace when it came to design and building, the lack of resources was killing him. The one thing he was counting on to bottleneck Tango was stone, which Etho had been giving to him previously. The fight was all in good fun, but Etho couldn’t well be supplying the enemy, which Tango took no real offense to. Despite the disappearance of his source of stone, though, Tango just kept pumping out contraption after contraption. When Etho ran out of redstone dust, repeaters, or whatever else he needed, and had to leave to collect more materials, Tango seemed to have an endless supply of observers and pistons. Where in the world was he suddenly getting all that stone from?
4) Froglights
The Permit Office & Co. were collecting mob drops. Specifically, they needed arrows and gunpowder for traps. A collection chest was placed by the entrance to the headquarters and those of them with mob farms had slowly started to drop off resources. On the first day after the chest was placed, quite a lot accumulated as Hermits deposited what they were willing to spare from their existing stockpiles. Over the next couple of days, more was contributed as farms continued to produce the needed materials. However, by day 4, the amount collected had started to decrease dramatically. Etho, personally, was contributing less because his farms weren’t giving him as much. He attributed it to some minor update messing up efficiency, but decided to wait to investigate until after the ‘war’ of sorts concluded. It didn’t really matter, Etho figured, since the other Hermits could surely collect plenty without him. When a week had passed and they weren’t even close to their total goal yet, though, he became a bit concerned. Checking in with the groupchat, other members echoed complaints of reduced efficiency from farms. That disproved Etho’s theory of a minor bug fix or update, since they had so many different farm designs between the various Hermits that a change big enough to mess them all up would definitely have been broadcasted publicly. He remained confused until Cub sent a picture to the groupchat a couple of hours later, captioned only with question marks. Etho went to check his own farms, and sure enough, he found the same thing Cub had shared. Froglights were everywhere, decimating spawn rates. While that solved his initial problem, Cub’s discovery left him with more questions than it answered, to be honest. Why froglights, of all things? Torches would have been easier, would they not have? Well, Etho had never claimed to understand the thought process of the NOPOE.
5) Trident Drowneds
Everyone thought the NOPOE had conceded. The shopping district was clear, the redstone traps and contraptions disarmed, and they’d been quiet for a few days. Etho woke up excited to get back to the various half-finished projects he’d pushed aside to counter the revolution. Opening his communicator to create a to-do list for the day, he was instead met with dozens of new messages in the Permit Office & Co. chat (No, they still had not come up with a better name). Reading back through the frantic conversation, Etho resigned himself to pushing back his projects even further.
The NOPOE had stolen every permit on the server.
They’d even managed to get the ones that’d been kept in people’s bases or buried in the depths of chest monsters. Only permits in ender chests were safe, and those were few and far between following the POE POE crackdown on building your shops or losing the permit. Their heist had been long in the making, apparently, but had culminated the night before in one last hurrah. In turn, the Permit Office & Co. was in the midst of planning an infiltration mission to retrieve the permits from the NOPOE headquarters.
The plan was pretty simple. Zedaph was hosting a mini-game tournament the following night, and any Hermit not participating was invited to watch. Most of the server had been planning to attend, but Zed would understand if the Permit Office & Co. was a bit late. With the NOPOE distracted away from their base, it should have been a simple in and out mission. Unfortunately, nothing could be simple on Hermitcraft. They’d split into two groups, half flying in from the top while half crossed the moat to enter on ground level. They set off as the sun dipped below the horizon, counting on the cover of darkness to keep them concealed in case any stray revolution members had hung back. They’d expected the fliers to have a harder job, given the visible defenses concentrated on top of the base. While the ground crew would take longer to get there, they figured they’d be able to get in easier and help from the inside. As Etho and the rest of the ground crew approached the moat, though, they heard a dreaded clang. One by one, they scrambled backward as dozens of Drowneds wound back their tridents and launched them out of the water. Scar was the first to fall, items exploding onto the grass around them, and Etho quickly placed down a bed for everyone else to set their spawns. As Scar made his way back to collect his items, the rest of the group tried to advance forward again, shields at the ready. Many a shriek was heard as the barrage of tridents resumed, and they were pushed back once again. They couldn’t even get close enough to swing at the mobs due to the sheer volume of projectiles being launched. Setting up a camp out of range of the moat, some Hermits tried shooting off arrows or fireworks in hopes of chipping away at their undead opponents, but the darkness obscured their positions in the water too much for any substantial damage to be dealt. With nothing to do but wait for the fliers to complete the mission, Etho could focus on his surprise at the amount of trident-throwing Drowneds the revolution had been able to collect. How long had it taken them to get that many? Even his farm, which used to work pretty well, had only been giving him one or two of them a day recently…
6) Realization
The conflict had eventually ended with permits returned and compromises reached between the Permit Office and the NOPOE, but Etho’s confusion had lingered. Gem was making fun of him for staying stuck on it for so long, but he still couldn’t figure out where they’d gotten everything from. They were sitting on her dock, chatting after a long day of group cleanup efforts of the aftermath around the server, when he brought it up again.
“Gem, I just don’t get it,” he whined, but her laugh undid his efforts to force a pout onto his face.
“Not this again. How are you so smart yet so dumb,” she laughed. “Etho.”
“Yeah?”
“Who has access to all your farms and storage?”
“Uh, me?”
She just laughed harder at that. “Etho,” she started again. “Me,” she continued slowly, as if speaking to a toddler. “I have access to all your stuff.”
He looked up from the wiring he was fiddling with, genuine surprise painting his face as he pieced everything together. The froglights, moss, dyes, stone, and drowneds were from his farms and shop stock, places which Gem was one of the only other people on the server with access to. Gem, who he’d taught how to use each farm right after building it, with signs listing them as the only two permitted operators. Gem, who he’d shown where his extra stock was kept. Gem, who was on the other side of the revolution.
“Oh.”