Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zedaph is… in a cabin?

Zedaph’s not sure how he got here, but the voice in his head says he’s the new Hero and to do whatever it tells him. Quite shady, if he might say so himself. Unfortunately, he can’t, as there's a mask in the way.

This “show” is a strange one- Zed stumbles through challenges, audience votes, and a whole lot of slime. He thinks that if his head weren’t so fuzzy, he’d pay attention to the comments the demon makes- that he’s got a limited amount of time, that he liked the old Hero better.

Zedaph wins the cooking show (whatever abomination he created magically turns into pink slime once placed in the suspiciously plugged-in microwave), and—

The room glitches; a figure in red tells him to play along. Like that’s going to happen. Zed tells the person that he’s going to find his own way out of here, and they stutter for a minute, and then he’s waking up on the couch again. He doesn’t know exactly what just happened, but the buzzing in his head is less severe now?

The second episode is just as confusing as the first, but with more people this time. Sigh. Zedaph meets all the people on the carousel, jokes around with one of the rats, and then notices they’ve all got little bombs strapped to their necks?

Zed snatches one from the guy called Sneeg, ignoring his protest, and starts fiddling with it.

“Uh… Zedaph?” the puzzler says.

“Yea?” Zed responds absentmindedly. If he can just reroute that wire…

“You’re not supposed to, uh. Touch those.”

“Well! Too bad then, because I’ve disabled it. Who’s next?”

The other people on the carousel look at each other nervously, but when the girl in red tentatively raises her hand, the rest follow suit.

Zed dusts his hands in satisfaction. If he goes on like this, he might be able to actually make a difference! And prove to that mask guy that he can escape all by himself. He does a little fist pump.

Chapter Text

They never did find out what happened to Ranboo, the boy they found alone in an abandoned mall, the one that got them involved in all this- he was just gone one morning. Maybe he was taken in the dead of night. Maybe he was a group hallucination. Or maybe some long-buried memory had him sleepwalking through the city, and the drones took him defenseless.

“I GOT IT,” Impulse’s voice comes staticky through the walkie-talkie. Skizz breathes a sigh of relief.

Tango taps some keys on his computer, then says, “It’s working! Impulse, you’re a lifesaver!”

“Literally,” Skizz jokes, then clicks the talk button and repeats the joke for Impulse. “Literally! Dippledop, you gonna make it back okay?”

“Uhh, not sure. I can follow the cord back just fine, not worried about getting lost, but…” an audible wince comes through the tinny speakers. “I think an alarm turned on when I plugged it in.”

Tango says a very bad word, and his typing speeds up to a frantic pace.

“Dude, run,” Skizz says. He lifts a slat of the window blinds, but the street outside is as abandoned as ever.

“I am,” Impulse huffs, and yeah, that’s definitely an alarm in the background.

“I think I got in!” Tango calls frantically, and starts fiddling with dials on an old TV in the corner. News station- comedy channel- Showfall broadcast, that’s the one. He darts back to his laptop.

Skizz tries to ignore the corporate voice filling the room and squints out the window for any sign of Impulse.

“I thi— far— too many,” Impulse shouts, broken up by heavy static. “Don’t— make it— so sor—”

“You got this, Impulse,” Skizz says urgently. Please, please, please-

The line goes dead, filled with static. Across the street, a drone turns the corner. Skizz drops the window blind like it's burned him.

Chapter Text

Grian News reporter: Welcome to hermit news! Tonight’s top story: Ariana Griande tops the charts with her new hit single, “I’m Agrian With You,” and later a segment with the honorable Mr Mumbo Jumbo on why he’s shaved his mustache. But first, our field reporter Dave Turtle, with a segment on the strange happenings outside of Hermitcraft. Dave?

Zedaph Dave: Thank you! Well, as you may know, Hermitcraft isn’t the only place in this universe of ours. In fact, it’s one of many! We are but a humble mostly-vanilla whitelist server in a multiverse of—

Reporter: [coughs] The news, please, Dave.

Dave: Riiight, right. So! Recently, this big media company called Showfall announced a new project! And they made it everyone’s problem, for some reason. [Looks at Reporter]

Reporter: Ah- yeah. They told us specifically to spread the word and stuff. That’s news from last week’s broadcast though.

Dave: Yup. Well, it’s just come to light that Showfall was actually using mind control on their actors! This is a very dangerous and illegal practice if done intentionally, and they are now facing charges for it. Many of the actors were taken from their home servers and forced to play games, not knowing they could respawn- imagine that! Horrible, really!

[Reporter looks like he wants to say something, but stays quiet]

Anyway, that’s the big news of the world. And now a special event by everyone’s favorite singer, ARIANA GRIANDE!!

[Camera pans past Reporter, who has mysteriously disappeared, to Ariana Griande stepping onto a small, hastily-constructed stage]

Grian Ariana: Thank you so much for having me! I’ll start with a special number for that special someone… Mumbo AFK!

Chapter Text

They'll be back soon, Niki reminds herself, staring at the computer in a room she was never meant to be in. It's a confusing interface, but she's done confusing things before. If they catch her they'll kill her, but she's been killed before.

Niki finds the right button and presses it, after a few seconds that feel like an eternity, and the room around her lights up with images— not the dull red of Showfall that she's used to, trapped in, but pictures of places with all sorts of shapes and colors. And—

And she hears footsteps in the hall.

She selects a world at random, and then she lunges for it, crossing the threshold just as someone (or something) rounds the corner. Her hands scrabble for something to hold onto, anything, and Niki can feel the void between worlds pulling and tugging and deconstructing her, stripping her into pieces like lines of code and tearing and shredding and

she's out the other side, gasping for breath, with grass beneath her feet.

- - - - - - - -

Mumbo rounds the corner of his base, carrying an armload of supplies, and is stopped short by the sight of— someone? Someone with long split-dyed hair, dressed in red, and— her mascara is running.

Concerningly, she doesn't look like any of the hermits, but Mumbo decides to worry about that later.

"Can— can I help you?" he says, awkwardly setting down his stack of things.

She blinks at him, having apparently just noticed that he's there, and then her eyes well up with tears.

Mumbo stutters, "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you? I'm Mumbo, and um, this is Hermitcraft, and…"

"I made it," she whispers, ignoring him completely. She's… probably not crying at him, then.

Later— over a nice cup of tea— he learns that her name is Niki, she came from somewhere horrible, and she wants needs to go back for her friends.

And much later, when all of those friends have been rescued and subsequently signed up for therapy (and given a free pass to visit Hermitcraft whenever they'd like), both of them are grateful that this is the server she found.