Chapter Text
Avery doesn't get some things. It's something that she knows well, something she's learned over and over again. So when she stumbles across a mysterious book—one riddled with something she thinks is code—she just accepts it. There's not much to be done about it anyways, the internet hasn't given her any answers, and her video has barely been viewed.
Just another oddity in her world of pixels.
But then Avery finds her.
A spartan, struggling to stand with fists clenched. She finds her in... in her single-player world.
(So, yay. More weirdness that proves the rule that Avery knows very well. And, hey, there's probably an explanation for it, right?)
Avery invites her—d3rlord3—to stay at her base just a couple hundred blocks away. She doesn't know why exactly, it just seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, they're sharing a world together—and Avery isn't as good at PVP as she is at bedwars.
For some reason d3rlord3, d3r agrees.
____________
D3r was cursed.
She knew this innately now. She knew how every fiber of her being, down to her very 1s and 0s, was corrupted. She could see the metadata behind blocks, could see IF statements upon AND gates. She could see every bit of information ever conceived about every voxel she laid her eyes upon.
She saw the code of the land, of the life she thought was real. She had lived and breathed in this... this...
Game.
She knew there were quirks to the world she inhabited with others. She knew about inventory and worlds and commands and respawning. But it was all she had ever known, D3r had only ever chalked it up to the rules of her reality. That was how things went: the sun set in the west, diamonds broke obsidian, and trees didn't fall.
Then she encountered... It.
It refracted like a prism, showing worlds upon worlds. She couldn't, she didn't—
(How does one describe the indescribable?)
People had theorized that their world was a game. They had pushed the fabric of existence to the very edge of breaking. They tested and tested, but couldn't find anything either way. Too bad she knew now. She knew it was all code, that nothing was flesh and blood, no matter how real it felt.
They were all redstone machines, or products of redstone machines, or—
Movement, just in front of her helmet. D3r drew her sword on instinct, mere moments away from lashing out before recognizing Avery.
Avery.
She quickly sheathed her blade, but not before Avery scrambled back, blocky slime hands held up placatingly. "Woah! Chill man, it's just me!"
D3r didn't answer. She doesn't even know what her voice sounds like anymore. Instead, she lowers her head in apology, willing the information to stop flowing through her when she glances at the block beneath her feet.
(Diorite, added in Version 1.8, block tags: base_stone_overworld, dripstone—)
She hears the sound of footsteps (coded in, engineered by a sound designer, not natural—), and knows that Avery is anxiously stepping in place. "Hey man, it's okay. Just. Don't kill me alright? I'm pretty sure this is a hardcore world."
"It's not." She says on instinct, the knowledge coming unbidden. D3r's head lurches up, meeting Avery's surprised green eyes.
Avery gives a smile, bright and blinding. D3r sees the code running in her, the way she hesitates to cradle D3r's chin gently, they way her arm twitches. She sees the game's code seamlessly compute all of it at once, every desire made manifest into physical form.
(She feels sick.)
"Let's go." She croaks out, trying to decide whether Avery's or the floor's code is more enticing.
The slime hybrid takes D3r's greaved hand before she can settle on one or the other, and she's stuck looking into those green green eyes. (They're speckled with grey. She wants to look forever, even when lines of code flicker behind them.)
"Yeah, let's." Avery says simply, tugging both of them to her base.
(She knew, from the moment this player had been forced into her mind, that she would not fail.)
(Avery will not know what she knows.)