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The body was a tangle of wooden struts and twisted cords, a life-sized marionette dressed in leather and wearing Etho’s face. Gem discovered it caught beneath her wooden dock one foggy morning. It appeared without fanfare, with no sign to claim or explain it.
A prank, Gem figured. But not a good one. Maybe not even one meant for me.
She fished it out with a long, hooked pole and laid it out on the sand. The figure’s leather garb soon dried to shades roughly approximating the real Etho’s clothes. Its thin wooden limbs ended in carved mitts and heavy boot-shaped blocks. Saltwater damage had cracked the leather and caused the wood to swell, but no algae had started to grow on it, so it couldn’t have been floating for long.
Gem pried the Etho-head off the puppet’s neck to check inside it. The deathmask had lost part of its tag during its time in the sea.
Etho’s head, ______ by ____
Odds were, the missing text read “Killed by Geminitay.” Gem snapped the head back on. Its glass eyes stared at nothing.
“I guess I’ll treat it as a gift from the water until some hermit takes credit.”
Gem bundled it all into a crate and carried it back across the channel, to the little cursed town she was building.
And the tides flowed in and out.
The hermits knew well that the stories they told about the world around them had a habit of coming true—for a certain definition of “true.” Gem expected a degree of spillover from her theme to the rest of the server; it was why she’d gone out of her way to warn False and her river business.
“There’s something infecting the water, you know. Be careful.”
Of Gem’s closest neighbors, Grian had heard her warning and chosen to lean in. Skizz, on the other hand, had inoculated himself via an unrelated fishy storyline quarantined to a single persona. Pearl and Tango both had strong, sturdy base themes; and Gem trusted them each to fend off the thalassic horror or incorporate it responsibly. Etho, as always, would be protected by a base that resisted high concepts in general, serving instead the design gods of practicality, color theory, and flow.
Gem, secure in this knowledge, watched as the nights around her little town grew foggy; as the winds began to blow constantly towards the sea; as the story she was telling the world began to seep in and stain it.
And the tides flowed in and out.
After taking some time to brainstorm, Gem brought the mannequin out of storage and arranged it into a diorama. Etho would play the part of a mysterious test subject being studied by the town’s researcher. Gem made sure that the secret entrance into the underground lab wasn’t too hard to stumble across—it would be a shame if the real Etho never discovered her hard work, after all.
Can’t wait for his reaction, Gem thought gleefully as she finished the wiring that would open the “hidden” trapdoor.
She wound up waiting a bit longer than she’d hoped, but eventually an impromptu base tour brought a handful of hermits to her little coastal town—including Etho.
The others found it first—and with giggling mock-horror warned Etho away. Gem followed him down the ladder. She watched him discover the lab—an art display with himself as a centerpiece. In a clear glass tank in the researcher’s gloomy cellar Etho saw himself suspended in effigy.
It took him a second to laugh.
“It’s good, it’s okay,” he told the gathered hermits. “It’s not me, so it’s fine. It’s not the real me.”
More laughter, along with some teasing about the number of Etho-heads Gem had in her collection. Gem enjoyed the familiar ribbing, back and forth. The joke was old and worn, but comfortable. Like a favorite pair of boots. It was almost enough to make Gem believe she’d mistaken the flicker of fear in Etho’s eyes when he’d seen himself in that container. Almost.
Gem knew Etho. She knew how he reacted to her jokes, even the ones at his expense.
It’d taken Etho a moment to laugh at the sight of his double.
It’d taken him a moment too long.
So when the party broke up she followed him back to his base, intercepting him just past the trident farm he’d made for her.
“Hi Etho!” Her normal hello, accompanied as usual by a playful jab to the shoulder.
But instead of moaning or fleeing or punching back or returning the greeting in any of his customary ways he just.
Stopped.
Turned his gaze towards her.
His mismatched eyes—one red, one black—seemed distant, as though he saw her through thick fog. Gem became suddenly aware of her own heartbeat, pounding from the exertion of the flight over.
“Etho?”
Etho tensed. Shook his head.
“You okay there, Etho?”
He regarded Gem with clear eyes and a straightened back.
“Hey, Gem,” he said. “Actually—I’m glad you’re here. Can I ask a favor?”
He moved as he spoke, reaching into one of many pockets and retrieving a small white token. He flipped it onto the ground, where it burst into a full-sized bed with white blankets. Etho rested a hand on the headboard, setting his spawn, then returned the bed to item form, thus reverting his origin back to world spawn. He placed a shulker box beside the path. Into it went his armor, tools, and the contents of his inventory.
“Always happy to help,” Gem answered belatedly. “What do you need?”
“Can’t you guess?” Etho said.
And true, his actions made it clear that he was asking for a death. Not an unusual request, no; Gem had grown used to other hermits looking to her for a speedy respawn. Resetting health, testing a minigame, procuring a deathmask, or simply a quick trip home—Gem had heard many practical reasons from a servermate requesting her blade.
And yet…
“You don’t want to duel for it?” Gem said. Her hand twitched around the hilt of her sword.
“No, I need to make sure of something.”
Etho took a step closer. He lifted his chin, inviting Gem’s blade to his throat. She almost recoiled at the sight.
Something’s off. I don’t like this.
“What’s wrong, Etho? It’s not like you to give up a life for no reason.”
“Trust me, there’s a reason.” Etho’s voice darkened. “Gem, please.”
It was the shift in his tone that convinced her to delay no further. She carved through his health pool with two quick slashes. A brief moment—barely more than a tick—spent watching Etho’s knees buckle, seeing the light leave his mismatched eyes—
his eyes
—before the Laws of the world consumed his body, leaving behind only a few bits of stone he hadn’t bothered to stow away—and a single deathmask.
Gem’s communicator pinged. She retrieved it from her pocket. There was the death message; Etho was slain by Geminitay. It read as normal, and Gem…wasn’t going to think about why that came as a relief, moving instead to the next message.
Etho whispers to you: thanks, can you meet me at spawn? bring the head
You whisper to Etho: omw
They met up in the new world spawn location. Gem returned Etho’s shulker to him along with the head, but he made no move to retrieve his gear; instead turning the deathmask over in his hands, examining it from every angle.
The Etho-head was like any other in Gem’s collection. The painted features, the wooden texture, the silken cap of hair. Gem couldn’t see anything weird about it. After a few ticks Etho produced a flint and steel, setting a patch of ground alight. He tossed the deathmask to the fire and watched for it to burn, only stomping out the flames after his own wooden face had crumbled to ash.
“Okay, it should’ve fixed itself now,” he said. “Thanks Gem.”
Gem kept her eyes on the man in front of her. His tone affected his usual lightheartedness, but he still seemed…spooked. He towered beside Gem like her own lighthouse, his red eye gleaming as he turned his neck back and forth—looking over her, beyond her.
“Etho, what is happening right now?”
A tremble ran down his body. His gaze snapped to hers, then dropped.
“You’ve been weird since seeing my basement lab. Did I do something wrong with it?”
“No, no. It wasn’t you.”
He swayed where he stood like a scarecrow unsteady on its pole. The cold, undecorated stone of the spawn plinth cast long shadows over them both.
Gem took Etho by the elbow.
“C’mon, we can talk it over somewhere cozy.”
The nearest place of warmth Gem knew was the soup shop towards the back of Impulse’s city. The robot behind the counter placed hot bowls of mushroom stew in front of them both. Gem fidgeted in her chair, swiveling around as Etho ate careful spoonfuls; his vest collar turned up to shield his face as he ate.
And Gem was so patient.
At last Etho’s spoon clinked to rest in his empty bowl as he drew the mask back over his face. His fingers drummed against the counter.
“Gem. Do you know what I am?”
“I…” Gem swallowed. “I guess I don’t?”
“Me neither.”
A chill settled over Gem’s shoulders.
“What? Explain, please.”
“It’s weird. I know I’m not the only one who remembers how it was before you could travel from world to world, but I’ve never met anyone who reacts to it the way I do. Whatever I am…I don’t think it’s something meant to exist outside of a singleplayer world. Anywhere with more than one story. My code doesn’t like outside influence, or something. I don’t do well on servers with heavy lore. That’s why I kept away from the Rift, to be safe.”
“Okay,” Gem said. “Okay…what does that mean?”
“Mostly nothing. I just need to take precautions. Keeping my appearance consistent is part of it. Admins need to be able to tell if I’m not me.”
Etho’s drumming grew erratic.
“And I need to make sure my deaths stay in sequence. Can’t go too far off-script.”
“What script are you talking about?”
Etho froze. He took a moment to answer.
“I don’t know right now. I only have that knowledge in single player.”
“Yeah, that’s sus,” Gem said. “Get Hypno or Xisuma or someone retrieve it for you.”
“I could, yeah. But…”
“But what?” Gem bumped him with her elbow, and followed that up with a light jab to the shoulder. “C’mon, c’mon, let’s hear it!”
Someone else might’ve taken a gentler approach to coaxing answers out of Etho, but not Gem. Theirs was a friendship built on playful punches and friendly barbs, on insults and in-jokes and combat as a way to show love. And for Etho, Gem knew, familiarity meant safety. Meant comfort.
“So aggressive,” Etho whined, but with a smile in his eyes. He rubbed his shoulder theatrically, then leaned back in his chair, seeming relaxed for the first time since he’d entered her secret lab.
“Thing is, the metadata on the memory mod has my signature. I’m the one who configured it.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s probably there for a reason.”
“Mm-hmm. And it first showed up in my code when I came back after. Y’know. The Moon.”
“Oh.”
Etho had disappeared from the hermit lands well before that calamity came—and he hadn’t returned until long after their new world had been established. Back then, Gem hadn’t known him well enough to ask him why.
“The details are fuzzy for me,” Etho continued. “But I gotta keep track of my deaths, and make sure there aren’t any more or less in world-memory than there should be.”
“So when you saw the deathmask in my basement…”
“I couldn’t account for it. Which is scary.”
“Did my lore mess you up?”
“I think so.”
Etho raised his eyes, as if seeing past the shop’s awning to the skies above.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That must’ve been it.”
“But you fixed it, right? That’s what me killing you was about?”
“Mm-hmm. It should’ve. It did.”
“Good.” Gem nodded sharply. “Let’s have dessert. My treat.”
And so, by the force of Gem’s will the conversation shifted to lighter things. Utensils clinked against dishes. The city hummed around them. The brightness and warmth and taste of good food slowly convinced Gem that she’d been mistaken—that she hadn’t, in the moment she dragged her sword across Etho’s throat—seen his eyes roll back in his head and gleam with pale, rancid light.
And the tides flowed in and out.
Night on the server, a night unsettled. The wind screamed its way to the sea. Gem was up late, sketching designs for her fortress by candlelight in the warmth of her storage room. The water beyond her submerged window was pitch black.
At first, she thought the noise was just the clattering of a loose shutter. Her quill paused its scratching. She listened above the gale.
That sound…
Gem could not say what drove her to climb out into the night. To cross the bridge, lantern in hand, and approach the anthropologist’s cottage. The wind fought her every step of the way. At the doorstep she paused, hand on the knob, and listened once more for the rhythmic noise that drew her out from shelter.
It came from within.
It came from below.
It was the sound of something crashing against a thick glass wall, over and over.
“That’s…No.”
Gem withdrew her hand from the knob. She equipped her wings and filled both hands with flight rockets.
Screaming through the air as the gale struggled to sweep her back towards the sea, Gem hurtled over the mangrove trees to the jungle beyond and the purple-roofed house it sheltered.
“Etho!”
Gem did not pause to land. Her communicator buzzed unheeded on her wrist. She threw open Etho’s front door while still in flight, gliding into his unfinished sanctuary.
“Etho!” she screamed.
“Gem?”
Etho’s face emerged from a hole leading to his storage room below. He got his arm up and began pulling himself out. Gem landed at his side and stooped to help haul him up. Her communicator buzzed again.
“What’s going on?” Etho said, getting his feet underneath him, a hand on her shoulder for support.
“There’s something moving around my basement lab and it’s really loud and I think it’s the not-you trying to get out and I—”
The insistent buzz on her wrist cut her short. With a frustrated growl she looked down and tapped open its screen, displaying the most recent messages.
Etho whispers to you: help
Etho whispers to you: gem I’m trapped in your base
Etho whispers to you: let me out of here
Gem re-read the messages once, twice. Her stomach sank like an anchor.
“What’s going on?” said the Etho beside her. His hand tensed.
“It’s a trick,” Gem whispered. “A player would just break through that glass.”
She looked up for confirmation, for reassurance—
—and her gaze found a pair of eyes, stark white and gleaming with pale, rancid light.
The grip on her shoulder turned to iron. The face inches from her nose—it was blank. No crinkles in the corners of empty eyes. No creases in the mask to convey a smile or scowl. Gem looked upon that face, nauseating in its familiarity, and saw only a void too deep to even be called hunger.
Gem screamed. She swapped the rockets in her hand for a sword. Bashed its hilt into the center of that empty face. Struck again, and again, but the grip did not loosen. She scrambled back, and the Etho came with her—white eyes boring into her own. That face filled her vision. Something shifted beneath the mask, something writhed—
—and Gem stuck a blade through his throat. She held it there firm as the body gagged and shook—tried to speak—choked on the sword.
His grip went slack. The hand fell away
The Etho did not bleed. The light did not fade from his eyes. But in the void of that face briefly flickered something bright.
His trembling hand curled closed. He jabbed her shoulder, light and playful.
“Etho?”
The body vanished, and Gem was alone.
No items scattered before her.
Not even a deathmask remained.
Gem did not trust herself to fly after that. After checking that nothing had respawned in Etho’s bed, she made her way home on foot. Out from the jungle manor, through the river tunnel they’d built together; she followed the water and the wind back towards the ocean.
The clamor of fists against glass could still be heard from outside the anthropologist’s house, but its rhythm had faltered. The pounding was erratic, exhausted.
A ripple of guilt broke through the hazy state of shock.
Geminitay: sorry etho, im here now
Etho: ok
The noise ceased. Once again, Gem found herself hesitating in the doorway.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Wasting no further time, Gem entered the house and opened the secret door. She did not bother with the ladder. Sword held tight in one hand and a lantern clutched in the other, she jumped down to the basement lab and brandished her light.
The place was as she left it—but the containment display at its center held not an effigy, but a man.
“Gem!”
His voice was ragged—had he been shouting too, words drowned by the gale? He wore not his usual attire, but the old leather garments that had washed ashore with the puppet. The puppet itself, and its deathmask, were nowhere to be seen.
Her light shone on Etho’s eyes—one red, one black—and the weary relief they contained. Gem set the lantern on the table, but did not approach.
“How did you get here?” she said.
“I don’t know. I should be back at spawn? I remember asking you to kill me but I must’ve zoned out afterwards, because I just woke up here not too long ago.”
A chill sank into Gem’s bones.
Etho pressed both palms against the glass.
“What happened?” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! Perfect actually, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re shaking.”
And so she was.
“That conversation happened yesterday, Etho. You and I had soup afterwards. I walked you home.”
She steadied her grip on the sword.
“Who did I walk home, Etho? Who did I kill just now?”
Etho groaned. He put his face in his hands.
“Don’t cover your eyes! Let me see them!”
Etho snapped his head back.
“Who was that?” Gem said. “What was that?”
“It was me.” Etho’s arms fell to his sides. “It was me, until it wasn’t.”
He looked…small. Tired. Cold, in his ill-fitting garments. Trapped.
“Why don’t you just break the glass?” said Gem.
“You built this place to contain an Etho. That’s its story. And right now I’m not strong enough to go against it.”
Gem’s sword remained at the ready.
“How do I know you’re the real you?”
“That’s the trouble, Gem. I’m always the real me, until I’m not.”
With visible effort, he squared his shoulders and stood tall.
“I can stay here for now,” he said. “If—if you’d be more comfortable. I’ll be fine.”
“Oh…”
Gem laughed, low and dry.
“Alright, no need to make this dramatic.”
She swapped the sword for a pickaxe.
They retreated to Tango’s vacant starter home, away from Etho’s base, away from hers. They climbed the many stairs and made a camp for themselves at the top. Gem allowed Etho to fuss over her, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and pressing food into her hands. She knew he needed to feel capable in that moment—she just needed to unwind.
She told him everything as the wind rattled Tango’s shutters. By the end of her tale, Etho had joined her on the bench. They huddled under the blanket together, holding what warmth they could.
“Is it over?” Gem asked finally.
“I don’t know.” His voice was so small. “I can’t figure it out. Your lore shouldn’t have done this.”
Gem listened to the winds outside howling their way to the sea.
“What if it isn’t my lore.”
She remembered those white eyes—drawing closer, inexorable.
“Something’s infecting the water,” Gem said. “And I’m starting to think it’s not me.”
And above the storm clouds in the inky, empty night something old and terrible shone with a pale, rancid light. The Moon exerted its influence, subtle yet immeasurable, over the world below.
And the tides flowed in and out.