Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s hot. 

Sweltering, if you will. If you have the energy for eloquence, the willingness to use a thesaurus, or the abililty to think of any word that isn’t hot .

There are other things that Zam feels when he wakes up—confused, uncomfortable, dry—but it’s the heat, the beams of sunshine that especially strike him before he even opens his eyes. He still chooses not to, because he’s familiar with the brightness of the sun that would welcome him if he were to open them, and he’d rather not face it.

He’s laying on the ground, a large mass of scratchy, rocky grain surrounding him. With the way it bites into his skin, pressing into and invading every part it can reach, Zam feels obliged to stand up, just to escape the warm, hostile ground.

He tries to stand, the ground warping beneath his feet makes the task a little difficult, but he manages. He opens his eyes just as the sand begins to stop falling from the movement.

It’s hot.

He can still feel the sand. Instictually, Zam brushes himself off. A few grains fall, but he can still feel more on his skin, beneath his clothes. 

It’s a pointless effort to try and rid himself of sand—for now, at least—so he turns his attention to surroundings.

From here to the vast, accompanied by the occasional cactus, dead bush, or patch of dry grass, is sand. Ceaselessly. It’s entirely devoid of human life beside himself, not a pyramid, a well, or any visible tampering with the desert in sight.

Zam blocks the sun from his eyes and squints to see any farther, but there’s still nothing but desert.

It’s empty.

And hot.

How did he even get here?

From what he can remember—

his reign over the empire; the war against wemmbu; his life’s work falling to pieces, blown to bits while he watches helplessly; trapped in a prison with wemmbu; barely escaping with his life; joining the mafia, attempting to cling to any power he can grab onto; losing; losing; losing

—it’s a little blurry.

The circumstances which led to his arrival in this desert are… unclear, to say the least. So, finding his way to wherever he can call home, if something like that still exists on this server, will be difficult.

There’s really nothing he can do other than take the first step. 

So he does, shifting his weight and moving one foot forward.

Of course, the sand shifts around his foot planted in the ground, and he loses his standing, falling face-first into the ground.

Zam doesn’t try to get back up. Just lying here, he can pretend the desert, his current predicament, isn’t something he has to worry about. He can close his eyes and pretend this is just a dream. A prophetic, metaphorical dream about the future to come. 

Though, that doesn’t really bode well for him, does it?

“Fuck.”

It’s hot.

And now, there’s sand in his mouth. Gross.

Chapter Text

A sharp piercing pain, followed by a dribble of warm liquid down his back. This repeats—although lesser—onto his sides, the back of his legs, and, very briefly, at the base of his neck. This is the first thing Wemmbu feels when he wakes up.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself looking up at the harshly blue sky at a slant. He’s not laying on the ground—his feet are planted against it as the grains of sand around them shift against his weight. Instead, he’s leaning against something, and that something is painful.

Wemmbu tries to push himself upward, pressing his hands into the sharp, stabbing thing he’s held up by, only to feel the same pain, but ten times worse. 

Still, he manages to push himself away.

There’s just a bit more blood outside of his body rather than flowing on the inside than he would’ve liked. It’s not like there’s much he can do about it though, other than get some water to wash it off and get some food for regen.

Wemmbu looks out, and finds only dunes, stretching from the small dune slack he stands in into what looks like infinity.

This is not optimal.

Possibly even bad, one might say.

Well, it’s not the first time he’s been in this sort of sticky situation where he’s found himself in the middle of nowhere with practically nothing. This time, it appears he has… his mace, Gambit, and the clothes he wears on his body. Great . It seems like this “adventure” might end up being a more difficult one…

He turns to look at what he was leaning against and—a cactus. Or, multiple cacti leaning against each other to hold up his weight and not collapse. A few of the cacti spines are dripping red.

The sharp pain, for a moment, resurges. 

Absent-mindedly, he wonders how long he was asleep on top of the cacti, and how much blood he could have lost. 

Wemmbu looks at his hands, the same hands he pressed, willingly, against the spines of the cacti—now bathed in his own blood. The pricks were bad enough to pierce his skin and leave a decent mark (that is, the blood), but not an ailing wound. This would hurt, but only for now, so long as he gets something he can use to heal up. A golden apple or anything that can provide saturation would do.

Given his lack of inventory, it’s best he gets a move on so he can actually find something, anything he can use.

So, Wemmbu takes his first step into his search for… civilization? Structures? Mobs or food? Anything that can help him.

Or, with what he’s seeing right now—miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of sand, and maybe more—anything at all.

✧ ★ ✧

Attemping to search is a little difficult, to start.

Aside from the desert conditions themselves, there are a few issues. Namely, the blood on his back had begun to dry, sticking his sweaty cotton t-shirt to his skin—attempting to move his back felt like his skin might peel off with the shirt as it shifted around. The injury from the cacti may not have been deep, but its surface area per se was still an issue. Still, it wouldn’t have been an issue had he been wearing his jacket—a purple, lightweight windbreaker—which would have been much more difficult to pierce. Instead, it was tied around his waist. 

Wemmbu reaffirms that, given he had no choice in his current predicament, this outcome was not his fault.

Umm. Well. 

He thinks he had no choice. But—

He doesn’t quite remember. Whatever happened before is like some kind of void in his mind—it’s just gone.

Wemmbu knows himself, though. This isn’t a choice he would take.

Probably.

Anyway—

Wemmbu takes a seat on the ground, his legs crossed into a pretzel shape like how a child or Eggchan—speaking of, where’s he at?—might sit.

The solution here, Wemmbu decides, is to get the shirt off of his body before blood platelets decide to lay full claim over it, then to put the windbreaker on to prevent any sand from getting into the injury on his back. He’s hoping that the purple jacket shouldn’t result in the same sticking issue as the shirt given its waterproof material and that the blood should be mostly dried already, but if not… He’ll just have to deal with it.

It’s going to hurt regardless.

He removes the shirt from the front, so it’s not covering his body, but it’s still attached through the dried blood. Then, he carefully peels the shirt away from his back as well. It’s like ripping off a bandaid, but in the excruciatingly slow way. 

He’d love to quickly rip away the shirt in one go, but the shirt is not, in fact, a bandaid, and has a very real chance of taking a chunk of skin alongside the blood. Well, he thinks this at least, but he’s not one-hundred percent sure. The sharper bites of pain when he peels the shirt a little too quickly leave him not willing to test this hypothesis with an experiment—Wemmbu’s not in the mood for the scientific method.

Overall, it hurts. A lot. Both in his back and in his hands, which still ceaselessly ache from the occasional needed use of pressure to grab onto the shirt properly.

Quickly, Wemmbu puts the windbreaker on, and zips up the front. He tries to limit it from touching his back too much.

In his hand, Wemmbu holds the shirt. One side of it is clean white, though with a bit of a sweat stain, and the other is stained red. Though, the stain wasn’t as bad as he thought it was, so he probably wasn’t as hurt as he felt. He spins the shirt around his finger, wrapping it up into a ball, quickly but gently wipes the blood from his hands onto it, and shoves it into a large pocket in his pants.

As gross as the shirt is, it probably isn’t a good idea to throw away the only shirt in his possession. If—when he encounters water in the future, he could probably clean it at least a bit, even if he couldn’t remove the stain.

With the main obstacle to Wemmbu’s Desert Adventures solved, now he has to face the desert conditions themselves.

It’s hot, of course. But even with the windbreaker making it a little warmer than he likes, he trudges onwards.

Wemmbu climbs to the top of a dune, and a breeze blasts sand right past him. It doesn’t hit him in the face or eyes, thankfully, but it still provides him with a bit of cooler air temporarily. With a higher vantage point than the valley between the dunes, he’s able to see much more—but also nothing more.

It all looks the same, like someone used world-edit to copy and paste the same features over and over. Well, it doesn’t actually, but with how little actually spawns in the natural generation of a desert, it may as well be. It’s just shitty cacti and patches of dry grass, sometimes with the occasional bright pink cactus flower. The cactus flowers aren’t something he’s used to seeing, but just spinning in a circle to see so many has already made him sick of them.

More sand dunes. Some dead bushes. An arroyo that hasn’t filled with water in what looks like years, flowing far from one direction into the opposite. Fuck if he knows which cardinal directions those are.

Like lightning has struck, it pops into Wemmbu’s mind that he actually can check which direction it flows, as he grabs his communicator from a pocket, different from the one in which his shirt resides—that would be gross to intermix the tech stuff with the things to wash.

Wemmbu clicks into the communicator’s navigation button—the third functional button from the left above the screen—and the screen activates, showcasing…

Well.

The coordinates section of the navigation screen is fully blurred, which— great . The biome is a desert, how helpful, thank you so much. The compass still seems to be working, though, telling him that he’s facing north, so the arroyo flows from the north to the south. Or the opposite, there’s no water in it to tell him.

All of this is useful information. Obviously.

Wemmbu wonders what he should be doing, at a time like this. He has nothing, no information, no gear besides his mace, and not a hint of a direction to take. If he can’t see his coords, it’s not like he can get help from anyone. Not that he needs it, really—he can handle things on his own, and that isn’t going to change now, if ever.

He supposes he should look for signs of people. Maybe then he can access an ender chest, get himself an elytra and rockets, and book it somewhere less stranded. Less hostile, and less willing to hurt him the second he arrives. Somewhere he can use the navigation on his communicator.

Wemmbu climbs down from the dune, and decides to follow the path predetermined by nature itself, and follows the arroyo north. The left bank of the arroyo is covered in dried grass that will only get in his way, so he walks on the right bank.

In the dune slack, it’s less windy, but also hotter. That’s the trade-off, Wemmbu supposes. But it feels nicer even with the heat, strangely enough. With the view of the seemingly infinite desert blocked off by the height of the dunes, the vast world seems less likely to consume him.

It doesn’t feel any safer.

✧ ★ ✧

The sun is still high in the sky, and Wemmbu continues to find nothing of interest. Is time moving slower? It certainly seems like it. But maybe it was a perception thing—like the reverse of time flies when you’re having fun where time swims against the tide of a fast-flowing river when you’re bored as shit . It’s not like he’s been keeping track.

It’s still hot as hell.

The arroyo is shallower here, the amount of water that formed it unable to flow this far into the desert. He feels like he followed the wrong path, now not only is he still lacking substantial progress beyond wandering—for now, he hopes—but now his feet ache from walking.

Wemmbu makes a sharp right from the fading arroyo and climbs atop another dune, this one crescent shaped. A breeze hits him as he reaches the peak. It's a nice reprieve, and thankfully not sand-filled.

He takes a seat, and stares out around him to see both what is familiar and completely unfamiliar. You, reader, guessed it: it’s more of the same shitty desert!

It’s break time, Wemmbu decides, and rips his shoes—boots meant for combat and armor, entirely unfit for walking around in a desert—from his feet. It feels great.

He unzips and removes his jacket, and then inspects the inside back panel. No blood, that’s good. The copious cacti spine wounds felt a little better, and he can only barely feel the phantom sting of the spikes in his skin. His hands still ache, but he can’t get away with not using them to try and ease that pain—it’s just not a possibility.

Still, he needs some saturation to actually feel good . But with the way things are looking, that might take a while.

Wemmbu puts the jacket back on, but doesn’t zip it up. Even with the breeze on the dune, it’s too hot for that, now—the heat’s gotten worse since earlier, especially combined with his walking.

So, he takes his break.

And sits.

And looks out into the distance.

It’s almost calming, really. There’s something peaceful about staring out into nothing, knowing that you’re the best thing to happen to this purposeless place.

Wemmbu reaches down beside his right pocket, and removes a heavy, metal object from its weapon holster. The mace, Gambit, is a strange thing; holding by the core is difficult because it seems so heavy (and it is), but holding it by the handle—the breeze rod—is easy, like holding air. It’s cool to the touch, too, which is nice. A completely different mood from the desert. It doesn’t even hurt his aching hand, which maybe has gone a little numb.

Other than himself—the only conscious living being in the desert that he knows of—everything about this place is quiet, unmoving, stagnant.

Oh, and other than the soft wind that quietly whistles as it passes by on the sides and peaks of sand dunes.

…And other than that thing in the distance that looks like it's moving.

It blends in with the yellow-gold sand—it could be nothing, like a heat-distortion induced mirage. That thing where it gets really hot and it gets really blurry and it looks like something’s moving even though nothing’s there.

…

It— the red, black, and yellow thing is decidedly not a mirage—is moving closer.

Something else alive is in the desert with him.

Wemmbu hopes it’s something— someone who might be able to provide insight, who can help him understand more about this place.

Or someone with gear. So that he can kill them.

That would be good, too.

Chapter Text

Everything is fine, Wemmbu tells himself.

Upon approaching the thing he thought was something that could help him, he was sorely disappointed. It was nothing, really. Just a pest.

“Ummm… Hello?”

Something waves in front of his face—another part of the illusion, as it were.

Wemmbu continues walking past the mirage, and where he first saw it. Considering it’s not nothing , just something useless , it probably came from somewhere. So, he might as well search in that direction. Maybe there’s a clue related to how he arrived in the desert.

“Wemmbu? Are you ignoring me?”

Yes, his arrival to this place. That’s something important to figuring out…the mystery? This whole thing feels like some puzzle he has to solve. Only there are no clues. And no deus ex machina hint-givers that appear whenever you’re struggling to figure it out. 

Well, other than this bug buzzing around that he’s trying to trace the origins of. Wemmbu’s kind of hoping that by walking this way, maybe he’ll find a hint of something, or put some pieces together at least.

Beside him, at his right, the sand on the ground crunches as though it’s being walked on.

“Where are you even going, man? There’s nothing that way—I just came from there. And why aren’t you wearing a shirt? You look pretty stupid with just the unzipped windbreaker. It kind of kills your whole vibe, y’know.”

Wemmbu walks, and fiddles with the zipper of the jacket as he goes. The area in front of him, as similar as it looks to everything else he’s seen, has to have something different about it. There has to be some significance to it. Maybe. He’s not the smart one here, but if this is anything like Wato’s escape room, anything could be worth looking into. Maybe there could be something linking both his and the pest’s arrival spots, and that could be something…

Ugh. This is hard. Whatever.

Wemmbu has his boots back on; he put them on before leaving the dune he was resting on. It’s not the best footwear one could have in the desert—and he’d much rather be barefoot—but he’d rather not carry them around or leave them behind and be unable to retrieve them. 

It’d be better if he actually had gear, though. No threats—other than the pest, and that one’s only a minor possibility of being an issue—have arisen yet, so the need for gear hasn’t come about either, but if any problem does occur… 

Well, if there’s one thing Wemmbu knows how to do, it’s fight his way out of any issue.

“What with that look on your face, huh? Wemmbu, are you thinking about fighting people? You’re so obvious.”

There’s this annoying sound ringing in his ear. Wemmbu’s eye twitches.

He continues to walk. There’s not much else to do here.

“You know, there’s more to life than fighting. I don’t think you’ll ever live a peaceful life, me personally. Just feeding yourself to this… cycle of violence is only going to get you killed in the end.”

The fuck is this guy— this bug buzzing about?

What even—

Ugh.

Wemmbu, regardless of whatever noises are flooding his ears, walks on. 

As hot and miserable as this place is, and it is , there’s something a little serene about how empty it is. It’s worrying, sure, definitely, but at least there’s not too much that can bother him. Sure, there are stupid cacti, and bugs, and useless dead bushes, and patches of dry grass that only emphasize the lack of meaningful existence—

But still. It’s not the same chaotic fight for power he’s used to. It’s nice in a different sort of way. Like a break, kind of. Not something he’d like permanent.

Wemmbu blinks.

Something moves.

It’s not familiar.

“Not that I care. Keep fighting, actually. I can’t wait to see you die at the fault of your own hubris.”

The noise, Wemmbu tells himself, is nothing. Even as something hot rises to his ears, his face, in a way he knows isn’t the climate.

In his peripheral, something moves. Swishes? Breathes, maybe?

It’s not familiar.

“I hope you do.”

Wemmbu lunges for it, quickly grasping the handle of Gambit and swinging the heavy core right into it. Under the weight of the swing alongside the mace’s spikes slicing into it, the normal force does nothing to stop the blow—there’s no resistance at all.

There’s a loud crunch , reminiscent of the sound of biting into a nice refreshing slice of watermelon. God, that’d taste good right now.

“Dude! What the hell?!”

On the ground are bits of green scattered on the ground. If some of it were red, it would actually look pretty similar to a crushed watermelon. Or blood and brain matter, if it were someone’s head.

But it wasn’t.

It was just a cactus—one that looked like it was moving with the combined effort of the small, short breeze and the persistent heat haze that made everything look wrong.

Wemmbu stares into the middle distance, where the cactus once stood tall. If all it took was a little heat and just a bit of irritation to do, well, that …

He will be able to get out of this place—

Wemmbu looks at the one beside him, staring incredulously at both him and the remains of his last action scattered in the sand in his stupid gold, black, and red regalia. He catches the other’s eye, unsure of the ideas behind it—unsure what plan is in store for him. It can’t be good, considering… Well. Everything.

—he has to.

✧ ★ ✧

Walking is boring, there’s nothing here, and it’s all pointless. Given Wemmbu has autonomy over his actions and recognizes this fact, he stops. It’s that simple.

Finding some clue, if it even exists, isn’t going to get him anywhere because—let’s all be honest here, we know what happens when one tries to get Wemmbu to solve a needlessly complex puzzle that you can’t just brute force—he just isn’t going to figure it out. That’s just the reality of the situation.

Wemmbu brings out his communicator, and pressed down one of the buttons on top on the far right. On the blank screen is now text: Create Group and Join Group . With the buttons below the screen, but not the keyboard, he selects the create group option.

“You know, Wemmbu, calling isn’t something I’ve tested yet. I don’t think it’ll work, but—hey, at least you’re trying something worth your time.”

Wemmu ignores this and takes the earpiece from the comm and puts it in his ear. Using the invite player feature, he tries to invite Eggchan—but, uh.

“Told ya.”

An error message takes up the screen:

[ (!) Invite request not sent.]

Not to point out the obvious, but for even calls to not be supported in a server where information can be transmitted from spawn to the farlands … Well, this place has to be so far away from any civilization that it probably shouldn’t even exist.

Or maybe the group function is just under maintenance…? That’s more likely than existing in a place that shouldn’t, at the very least.

Wemmbu removes the earpiece, puts it back in its spot, and taps the button to the left of the button for accessing groups on his communicator. 

“Yeahhh… That won’t work, either. Tried it a while ago. I actually tried messaging you, believe it or not—completely did not send.”

He shoots two messages to Eggchan.

A shadow forms over his shoulder.

You whisper to eggchan: yo bro where r u

You whisper to eggchan: idk about u but im in a desert with a shitty bug following me around

[ (!) 2 messages not sent.]

“Are you seriously pretending like I’m a fucking bug, Wemmbu? Really? And isn’t that my line anyway?”

Ugh, and it still won’t stop buzzing.

It’s getting really annoying at this point. Wemmbu waves his hand around in the air where the shadow is in hopes of deterring the pest.

“You can’t just swat a guy, man. This hurts my feelings… Well, not really, but you get what I mean.”

Wemmbu attempts to send out two more messages, just as a test.

You whisper to Wato1876: test

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

You message to loppezz: test

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Alas.

“Dude, if you want to talk to someone so bad, you can quit pretending like I don’t exist.”

I need to do something else, something more productive than wasting my time with this , Wemmbu thinks as he powers down the communicator and shoves it into its spot in his inventory.

Wemmbu tightly grasps his mace. The aching pain in his hands has gone numb, but still not dissipated, and now he faces another issue—he’s not satisfied. Even after the cactus from earlier—now that he thought about it, it was good vengeance against cacti as a whole for his back and shirt—having not achieved a single real success since his arrival hurts. Wemmbu wants a real win, a real push for progress in getting out of this stupid desert to literally anywhere else.

“Uh, Wemmbu? Are you done with your—brooding or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing? ”

Wemmbu puts Gambit back in its place by his side.

It’s not worth it.

✧ ★ ✧

Now that he thinks about it, he’s rather hungry. And the sound that just escaped his empty stomach just confirms that theory.

There are usually rabbits, the ones that blend in really well with sand, in the desert, right? Wemmbu doesn’t have a way to cook one, but, hey, something’s better than nothing.

“Wemmbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

God, it’s like tinnitus in his ears that just won’t stop. Usually that sort of thing goes away when he notices it, but right now it really doesn’t.

“Are you still doing this, really?”

For a moment, Wemmbu thinks he sees a rabbit, but when he squints his eyes to focus—it’s the stupid heat haze again.

His shadow is longer than it was earlier. Another shadow, almost as long as his own, stands close by. Turning around, the sun is lower in the sky than before.

At least he wouldn’t have to deal with the heat and all the mirages that come with it soon.

It would be cold instead. Dark.

And there would be mobs.

“Like, I get it, it was a little funny at first, but— it’s getting kind of— I’m— I’m getting sick of it.” A pause. “We should… We should be working together in this.”

Just a mace would not be enough to handle an unlit desert’s worth of mobs. It just isn’t enough, not without any armor or protective equipment.

Ugh.

Wemmbu really does not want to do this.

“Can you be done ignoring me already?”

He turns to his 7 from where the sound originates, and locks eyes with the person standing there.

Wemmbu quickly realizes that he hasn’t actually looked at him directly a single time since first encountering him. His eyes, though widened in slight shock, are as dark as he remembers, and Wemmbu is reminded of their final meeting in the end—when they last worked together.

Things have changed since then, of course. His hair doesn’t frame his face as regally as it used to, and he’s since ditched his dumb little cape—not as put together as usual. His crown still sits atop his head regardless, showing off a status he no longer has.

He has no power here, as much as he’d like to think he might—Wemmbu’s the one who holds it, now.

So, Wemmbu speaks his first words to Zam:

“ Sure , let’s chat.”

Chapter Text

In contrast to, well, everything from earlier, the warmth and soft glow of light is strangely comforting.

See, the sun had long since set and the desert no longer shines gold. It’s cold, dark, and the sand looks almost colorless without the sun shining upon it—it is quartz, after all. This left Wemmbu here, sitting on a small slab of sandstone across from Zam over a fire lit above sticks clearly ripped from dead bushes.

On the campfire, Zam cooks some rabbit meat—or rather, reheats it? It looks cooked already, and he holds the meat from a distance where it would be comfortably warm, but wouldn’t actually cook any further.

It’s annoying, the way he can’t take his eyes off of the meat until he knows for sure he’s getting a bite. Zam’s already assured him it’s his, but… he’ll wait until it’s in his hands to be certain of that.

While he was content with the silence earlier, just sitting and waiting with only the crackle of the fire to fill that void is unsatisfying, to say the least. So, Wemmbu asks, “Sooo… How’d you manage to light a fire?”

“Sword with fire aspect II,” comes the quick reply accompanied by the sound of slicing meat, courtesy of the aforementioned blade. Wemmbu supposes that makes sense, it’s consistent: both of them are armed with their best weapon, but neither of them have any armor (so long as Zam doesn’t have a secret stash somewhere… which is unlikely given the circumstance, to be fair. He doesn’t take Zam for someone who would willingly appear to be weak).

Wemmbu hums in acknowledgement, and then voices a short “Thanks,” upon being handed half of the cooked rabbit meat. Even before he eats any, the meaty aroma of the freshly cooked food is mouthwatering—just the smell alone transports him to another, happier realm. Taking a bite and tearing the meat with sharp canines, savoring the flavor in his mouth is a whole different story. Not just pleasing, but actually gratifying—fulfilling. 

It’s delicious.

He does not say this aloud.

Instead, back to the matter at hand, the more serious predicament, Wemmbu begins with, “Sooo…?”

Zam quickly finishes the bite of meat in his mouth to reply with, “So what?” like the idiot he is. His face is as equally tactless as the words that just left his mouth.

“Bro, you’re the one who wanted to talk to me.”

Wemmbu takes another bite. The taste doesn’t get worse the second time.

Or the third.

“Um. Right,” Zam says as pushes himself up to stand from his seat. There’s no drama behind the movement, and clearly none was intended as he immediately paces back and forth right behind it. He continues with, “Do you know what this place is?” in a tone that makes it unclear what sort of answer he wants.

Wemmbu blinks, and turns his head to the left and right as if scanning the area for any newfound changes. “Uh—Look around bro. It’s a desert.”

Zam shoots a glare his way and continues pacing. “Well— yeah . But you know what I meant,” he says. Eyes narrowed and an uncharacteristic frown on his face, Zam seems a little irritated. “I mean, have you figured anything else out, besides the desert part? Like, is this place a trap or a puzzle or another dumb escape room or something?” he asks, making exaggerated hand gestures as he talks.

“I dunno man. I haven’t been here for long.” And for basically half of that time he has been here, Zam was with him . “It hasn’t been long enough to figure anything out that you haven’t.”

And it’s not like he hasn’t been trying. Kind of. Wemmbu’s been wandering around to find literally anything that could be helpful—like a tree or something, that would be great—but thus far all he’s found is Zam, whose utility is questionable at best. Questionable, and for a good reason.

(Though, he hasn’t done anything… hostile quite yet. Other than his particularly irritating way of trying to get his attention earlier.)

“What about before, then?” Zam suggests, “What do you know about before you got here—is there anything you can remember about your arrival?” He doesn’t sound urgent or desperate—because that’s not who he is, Zam doesn’t get desperate of all things (though, maybe that’s changed in the time since they last met). But, he’s speaking fast and uncertain, in a very characteristic way.

And the question—it’s not something he’s thought about, really.

When Wemmbu woke up, he was against a cactus and in pain, like a cruel joke from the universe, or whatever happened that led him to this desert. Before then…

There’s nothing.

Wemmbu narrows his eyes, and looks toward the fire. The crackling is a nice comfort of white noise, alongside the occasional pop of embers floating into the air. He looks back toward Zam, who is now standing still looking out at the dunes, as he responds, “Nope.”

“Really? Nothing?” Zam quickly fires back.

“Yup.” Wemmbu takes another bite of the very delicious rabbit. At least Zam isn’t good for nothing . “What about you?”

Zam groans, and, in one of his overexagerated movements, flops backward onto the sand below after sitting down back on the sandstone slab. “No…” he says disdainfully. “This sucks.”

Wemmbu hums in agreement as he continues eating. The saturation is great; he can feel the numbness in his hands slowly disappearing as he heals. His back gets a bit of it as well alongside what’s already healed, which is nice as well, but as he twists his torso just a bit to stretch, the small spikes of pain tell him that it’s not fully done. It felt like taking a nice warm shower, but without the pressure of water beating down on him.

Zam slowly sits back up in his seat, asking, “So, how long have you been here, then?”

“A day, maybe less.”

Zam grits his teeth and leans back, his weight held up by his arms planted against the ground. Then, he sighs and releases a considerable amount of tension in his body as he slumps a bit. “I was really hoping you’d have been here longer…” he says with a low tone, trailing off into a sigh.

With the meat fully gone, and now residing in his stomach waiting to be digested, Wemmbu tosses the bone he was using as a handle into the fire. “So what about you, how long have you been in the desert?”

“I haven’t really been counting, but,” Zam says as he scratches the back of his head, “Two weeks? Give or take?”

Wemmbu’s eyes widen for a moment, and then says, “Have you figured out anything useful in that time, or…?”

Zam doesn’t reply immediately. Another ember pops from the fire, and floats toward Zam. He smacks it away, and stares with uncertainty into the fire. For a brief moment, his eyes lock with Wemmbu’s but he quickly looks away.

“Well, yeah,” he says, in a less friendly voice than the rest of their conversation had been, “But why should I tell you, though?”

Um.

What.

“Dude. What are you talking about? You’re the one who wants help from me .” Because that’s what this conversation is, right? Zam is asking for information, and Wemmbu is giving it, even if he doesn’t have much. 

Zam is the one who wanted to talk to him—to work with him, like they’ve done in the past—and now that he’s agreed, he suddenly won’t? Okay bro. Sure.

Wemmbu had thought that they’d gotten over this inability to cooperate with the escape room. Alas . Things change, he supposes. Whatever.

This is—stupid.

Wemmbu pushes himself up from the seat, now standing, and looks Zam right in the eyes as he says, “If you of all people can figure out how to survive here on your own, I think that I can as well.” He turns his back to Zam, just as he notices the other quickly rising from his seat. “You’re clearly not interested in cooperating, so I’m not either. We’re done here.”

The lack of warmth from the fire is felt the moment he walks away. Wemmbu doesn’t turn back to look at or hear how Zam responds, if he even does.

What a waste of time.

(The crunching noise of shifting sand goes unheard.)

✧ ★ ✧

Despite it being the dead of night, it’s not really dark. That’s the power of the moon, reflecting light from the sun, and it in turn being reflected by the pale sand. Something about it feels wrong, though—it’s eerily unfamiliar regardless of how many nights Wemmbu has spent awake, prowling flat plains in a similar manner to this desert.

This place… it just doesn’t look real. The craters on the moon are the wrong sizes, and in the wrong spots. The sand looks entirely untouched—it doesn’t look natural. Not that he usually pays enough attention to the night sky, but even the stars don’t look familiar. It’s weird.

It shouldn’t be this empty, Wemmbu realizes with a start.

It’s night—even if it doesn’t look that dark, the light levels are still low without light sources. Mobs should be spawning—he already knows that some entities beside himself and Zam exist here because, well, he just ate one.

Mobs—creepers, endermen, husks, skeletons, spiders—could be astronomically helpful. Creepers could help him get underground with their explosions and even mine for him without a pickaxe, enderpearls could save him from who knows what might happen here, husks could get him food, skeletons could provide bonemeal, those last two could both spawn with gear that could be helpful, spiders could get him some string…

How is this possible? And why, for what purpose?

A small pit in his stomach forms. It’s not from hunger.

This doesn’t make sense.

…

Wind rushes past, just to his right, and something shifts in the same spot.

Wemmbu whips his head around to look at what moved. It is a shadow on the ground, swaying, though more forcefully when a gust of wind blows through. Beneath the moon casting the shadow is a cactus.

Wemmbu sneers, and looks away.

For a moment, he feels a phantom sting of pain on his back, and warm blood rushes to his face.

He climbs another dune, this one dome-shaped. On the higher ground, yet again, he looks out. In a landscape that should be littered with specks of hostile life, all he sees is sand and plants. Nothing conscious.

A wave of exhaustion hits him like a mace, and he submits to the instinct of rest by sitting down, one leg stretched out and the other held close with one knee bent. He leans his head on the knee, tiredly staring out into the distance.

It’s then that he swallows, absent-mindedly and having nothing really to do, but instead of feeling saliva, his throat is dry.

He’s thirsty—and he doesn’t think he’s had or seen any water all day.

This… sucks.

Wemmbu leans back, and stretches his legs out, fully laying down on the top of the dome dune.

Looking up, again, he sees the bright moon— that may or may not be real? —accompanied by stars that only remind him of the grains of sand cushioning and surrounding him uncomfortably. The sand doesn’t get under his windbreaker though, or he would definitely have felt that by now. It just feels… gross.

A sharp pain stabs him in the back of his head like a migraine, and his heart beats too quickly to simulate relaxation. 

It’s too bright to sleep, but he closes his burning eyes anyway.

Any rest, regardless of if it’s real or not, will be valuable in trying to survive tomorrow. Be it to protect himself from Zam, the desert, or even himself; he’ll need it.

Chapter Text

When Wemmbu opens his eyes again, he finds that a considerable amount of time has passed. It’s not daytime or anything, the dark sky and lack of a blinding sun in it makes that incredibly obvious, but the moon and stars are in different spots from before.

Wemmbu pushes himself up from the mound of sand, grains falling as he does so. Then, he stands up; even more sand falls. Wemmbu reaches both arms up toward the night sky and arches slightly backward, stretching to get himself ready for the day. He stretches his legs as well, though it's a little more difficult as the sand below moves with him. More sand drips from the creases of his clothes that it managed to invade.

Luckily—extremely luckily—he doesn’t feel anything rocky beneath the clothes. Though, that also means he likely wasn’t asleep for that long where he didn’t move too much. He’s never been one to stay still, even when sleeping.

Even though the heat of the sun isn’t permeating at this moment—it’s quite cold, unsettlingly so, even—the dryness still persists. Instinctually, he grabs for the canteen clipped on the left side of his pants with a carabiner to take a quick swig of water, only to find it empty as he holds it upside-down above his mouth. Not even a drop.

Water. Something everyone needs to live. Everything living. That lives. Is alive. Life. All of it. Water.

He’s thirsty. Water—maybe even with a little bit of ice, or made cold using wind charges—would be great right now. Refreshing.

Looking out, he sees none.

Something aches. He’s hungry, too.

The hunger isn’t as bad as the thirst, though. Both physically and mentally. Wemmbu just ate—well, however long ago it's been since he was with Zam at the fire—so even though he walked for hours , he wasn’t starving. Yet, at least. Plus, he knows for a fact that it’s possible to find something to eat out here—Zam also showed him that with the cooked rabbit.

Maybe that’s what he’ll do, as he waits for the sun to rise. Watch for rabbits. 

Wemmbu stares off into the sands beyond this dune, waiting for any movement to catch his eye. Rabbits tend to blend in, camouflage, with their environment, so they should be the same pale yellow as the sand… He’ll need a keen eye, if he actually wants to spot anything.

He tries, but he’s still a bit tired, not fully rested by the short, uncomfortable nap; and this sort of thing takes a certain type of focus—the kind he needed to learn to spot members of the mafia, when they were the pervading issue of the server—that he’s not sure he possesses right now.

For a bit longer, Wemmbu tries to keep an eye out, but finds nothing for his energy-deprived efforts.

✧ ★ ✧

Instead of black, the sky above shifts to a purple, then a darker blue, and is then filled with color: pinks, oranges, lighter blues, yellows and golds, lavender. With the slowly rising sun comes the sunshine, hot and beating with intentless might and vigor. It has been both only a few minutes and many hours—nothing has changed in that time, so it doesn’t matter which is true.

Either way, a new day is upon the desert, and something should probably show for it.

What do you do whenever you start a new world?

It’s not like he can go punch a tree, or go mining, or do much, really. So, Wemmbu is left with two options: A) go exploring, or B) build something. Given he’s already given the ‘exploring’ option a try and found nothing, and he’s rather sick of the anticipation with nothing in return for it—so he’s going to build something.

Maybe a house. That’s what Egg would do.

So, now committed to this goal for the day, Wemmbu climbs down to the bottom of the dune, and begins gathering sand. 

To make sandstone, he’ll need to gather quite a bit of sand itself—it compacts to make something more solid. Plus, he doesn’t know quite how large of a structure he wants to make either, so better to go for more than less, right?

He digs.

There’s still the issue of water, too. He’s probably got a little bit more time in the day before it becomes a significant problem, but it’s still a concern worth thinking about.

Water has to exist around here, somewhere. Otherwise, Zam—who allegedly has already been here for two weeks or so—would not be alive. Unless he was lying, but given he’s figured out how to deal with hunger and doesn’t seem miserable, it doesn’t seem like he was. 

He digs—the hole he’s dug in the side of the dune is rather large now, but not large enough to supply a house’s worth of sand, let alone sandstone.

Maybe he should go smaller?

Wemmbu stands still for a moment, thinking it over.

Nah. Wemmbu keeps digging.

What are the ways to get water? An infinite source, like a lake or something, but how likely is it that he finds an oasis in the desert only now after having explored for a whole day yesterday? Maybe rain? But it doesn’t rain in deserts—or, at least it won’t frequently enough to be sustainable. Not that it needs to be sustainable for a long time, just enough to be able to get out of here.

Ugh, this sucks to think about.

Maybe that’s enough sand.

He crafts together the sand he gathered into sandstone. It feels heavier, but still like it’s probably not enough. He crafts a few, about half, into cut sandstone blocks as well. For variety.

Then, after walking away from the hole and toward a flatter area of land, Wemmbu begins laying down the blocks of sandstone into a wall, 5 wide, 3 tall.

He wonders, again, what sort of method Zam must have found in order to survive out here for two weeks. Two weeks. It’s something Wemmbu can’t help but linger on, because… that’s a long time. He feels like he’s going crazy after a day here—he’s really getting sick of it—and Zam has been here for two weeks.

Two weeks.

Zam seemed fine, he supposes. Maybe a little off—he switched from actively hostile to somewhat friendly pretty quick, and then began acting strange, so there’s that—but overall, not insane. Wemmbu thinks that if he was here for two weeks with nothing to do, no one to talk to, he’d probably have at least one screw loose.

Unless…

A window would go nice here, but he doesn’t have any fire to melt the glass. Without a crafting table, it might be a little difficult, but he thinks he might be able to make a slab to use as a window instead.

Using his inventory craft, he manages to acquire two sandstone slabs from one block, though the cut isn’t as clean as a crafting table’s might be.

He places the slab into the wall, essentially functioning as a window, since you can look out of it, but nothing can get in. Not that there’s anything out here, really, but. 

Yeah. There’s no reason to be building anything protective, since there’s nothing that will spawn to be attacked by. Well, illusion of normalcy, he guesses.

He goes back to building.

…Is it possible that Zam hasn’t been here for two weeks? Time has felt rather slow.

Though, looking out at the sky—no longer as colorful, just a bright blue hue which contrasts intensely with the pale sand on the ground and there’s not a cloud in the sky obscuring it, not that there ever was; it’s not sunrise anymore—time has definitely passed.

There’s not really a point lingering on it, since there’s no definitive way of knowing how long its been for Zam, and it probably doesn’t matter. Zam’s figured something out about how to survive here, and that’s the part that matters.

And—

“Well, yeah,” he says, “But why should I tell you, though?”

—he’s entirely uninterested in sharing what that ‘something’ is. For whatever reason.

Beneath him, Wemmbu sees something—something liquid—drop onto the ground. And then again. He looks up to see nothing there. Something drips again, this time from his head, right above his eyes. It’s hot. Wemmbu dusts his right hand off on his pants, and then wipes his brow. His hand comes back wet with sweat.

The wall isn’t complete, the top part of it is only halfway done, but he’s decided that it’s time for a break anyway. So, Wemmbu gets down from the top of the wall, and sits himself down against it, so that the wall is between him and the sun. The shade is nice, that’s for sure, and it feels good to be sitting down after doing some labor.

On his right is the window, and for a moment Wemmbu thinks he sees something move on the other side of it. When he manuevers himself to get a better viewing angle of it, he finds nothing.

Hm.

He forgets, for the moment while he sits in the shadow of the wall, that he could be doing something while he has the light of the sun to aid him. He’s still tired, not feeling fully rested by the bouts of sleep he got briefly in the night and before dawn.

And slowly, without his realizing, everything fades to black.

✧ ★ ✧

With the beating heat of light upon him again, Wemmbu wakes up to the absence of shadows and the sun bright above him. It’s around noon now.

The wall behind him uncomfortably holds up his slumped over body into a seated position, but still remains study as he pushes against it to heft his weight up so he can stand. For a moment, things are blurry and dark before the light returns again.

Somehow, Wemmbu passed out.

He swallows, only for it to taste like sand. Dry.

He needs water. Soon. Now? Maybe.

He hears the sound of sand falling—lots of sand falling. Like if someone had a bucket full of sand and left it sitting on its side on the ledge of a cliff for its contents to empty down the side. 

Wemmbu looks up, expecting to see blocks of sand falling from above him to crush and suffocate him.

Instead, the sun blinds him.

Immediately, he looks down and away, using a hand to block the sun from his eyes. There was no sand; who knows what he heard—certainly not Wemmbu.

Wemmbu needs…

What does Wemmbu need?

To move, to be doing something, to wander, to fight, to move, to drink, water, a fight, water, to swing, food, to hit, to stab, to slam, to run, to fight. Water. A house, security, comfo— somewhere safe, a place to think. Somewhere to go, something to do. Water. To eat, to sleep, to get gear, to fight, to dream, to think, to be—

Water.

Wemmbu sees something move in the distance. It’s not green, and it’s also not yellow, red, and black. It blends in with the sand, and shifts back and forth. His vision is still a little blurry, but… it must be a rabbit.

He moves toward it. 

Slowly, mind you; he’s here to hunt something, he has to be discreet.

As he approaches the small lump of sand, the blurriness fades into sharper vision. Nothing is there, not even a hint of a footprint.

So, not a rabbit, then.

Wemmbu crouches down over where he thought he saw the rabbit, and digs cupped hands into the sand. He brings it up to his face to inspect it closer, and then spreads his fingers apart, letting the sand flow down between the gaps when he loses interest.

Wemmbu turns around, facing back toward the wall he built and fell asleep against. It’s maybe twenty blocks away, but through the slabbed window he sees something that isn’t the color of sand.

He walks back to the wall, and stands beside the window, trying to make himself as minimally visible as possible. Then, he peeks through to see what resides wherever he previously slept.

It’s green, spiney, and definitely wasn’t there a few minutes ago.

Wemmbu scowls, and then sprints around the right side of the wall, and rushes to the plant.

In a swift sequence of movements, Wemmby places his hands at the base of the cactus where the least amount of spines lie, and rips it upward with as much force as he can—it makes a sound like that of a cucumber being crushed.

There. Problem solved , he thinks, as his unnaturally warm face doesn’t cool down. Except, it’s not solved, because it’s impossible for that to be there. Because he was literally just there, undoubtably, and he wouldn’t have missed it. Because he was just there. Yeah. So—

Wemmbu narrows his eyes at the cactus lying dead on the ground. 

—Someone had to have placed it. Zam, maybe? Someone else? He hasn’t really considered the possibility that another player could be here, but… it’s not impossible. Who’s to say that he and Zam are the only ones? Wemmbu thinks he might go mad if it was just him and Zam.

He grabs his communicator from his pocket, and navigates to his messages.

You whisper to eggchan: hello? are you there

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Maybe something could have changed since earlier? You never know.

You whisper to Wato1876: hello? wya

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

No harm in trying.

You whisper to loppezz: hello? wya

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Well.

You whisper to ManePear: hello?

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Fuck.

It’s not like he didn’t know this wouldn’t work.

You whisper to FlameFrags: hey

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

But—still. It… sucks.

You whisper to ParrotX2: yo

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Really? Nothing at all?

You whisper to eggchan: let me know if you see this

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

Sure, fine. It’s—fine. Whatever.

You whisper to PrinceZam: fuck you

[ (!) 1 message not sent.]

He finally sends, throwing his communicator into the sand—it’s a useless piece of junk.

As the device hits the sand is a short crack noise. Whatever, he doesn’t even care.

He looks away from the broken communicator, and back toward the cactus after he spots something—something shiny—out of the corner of his eye by the cactus. He leans down, and moves the fallen cactus out of the way.

It’s a glass bottle.

Wemmbu takes it in his hand, with a slight weight to it. He swirls it in his hand, and he can see the movement of a clear liquid.

Water.

What? How is this here? Who—did someone leave this here? It—

Wemmbu immediately opens the bottle and drinks it down. It’s not cold water, but it is refreshing. It immediately takes his mind away from the cactus, the communicator, the heat, and basically everything else about this place. The feeling of refreshment following dehydration is wonderful and extremely difficult to explain in words beyond that. 

Well, it feels kind of like hitting a banger elytra-mace shot and hearing the loud shattering of a popping totem, but that’s about as close as it gets.

Absent-mindedly, he takes Gambit and tosses it back and forth between his hands. After a moment, he grabs the breeze rod handle in one hand, a cold breeze felt only in his fingers and in his palm, and spins it similar to those who spin swords for show. 

He loses focus for one second, and the mace falls; the unintentional slam of the core into the ground as it drops sends sand flying.

Wemmbu crouches down to pick it up, and a thought pops into his mind as he takes the handle into his hand. 

Why does he have his mace?

There are no mobs, there’s no animals besides rabbits (which are practically impossible to hit with a mace anyway), the only thing he could possibly fight is the only other person here: Zam.

Zam… who also has a weapon—a fire aspect sword.

He tightens his hold on the mace.

It seems obvious now, the only explanation that makes sense.

Something moves—something real this time, not some trick of the light or heat or wind or—

Wemmbu turns toward it with a revitalized vigor.

Leaning against the wall, slightly obscured by perspective, is Zam. His eyes aren’t looking at him, but down toward the mace in his hands. His hand hovers over the handle of his sheathed sword.

The only possible explanation, and the one Wemmbu finds himself partial to, is that this isn’t some set up to get the two of them to cooperate, it isn’t some shitty try to spend 100 days in the desert challenge, no. They arrived with nothing but weapons, and they already had their cooperation trial months ago and this can’t be the same: this is a last man standing sort of deal, and whoever wins gets to leave this place.

(He hopes, anyway. It would really suck if fighting wasn’t the way out, considering… Well.)

Wemmbu hoists his mace up in a battle-ready position.

Purposeless existence in this desert is death anyway—that bottle didn’t have a lot of water left, and he’s not interested in experiencing dehydration for much longer—so there’s no point in not trying to fight this deathmatch.

Especially if there’s a possibility it can get him out of this place.