Work Text:
There’s probably something poetic about this situation.
fWhip can’t bring himself to care, and yet that is what his tired mind drifts to, as he scrolls through lines and lines of character settings and worldbuilding and lore, desperately searching for the lines that detail Xornoth’s spreading corruption.
Something about a mighty being, reduced to heartache and hurt for mortals?
Nah. That’s not it. He’s probably the furthest thing from mighty, after all.
He finally finds it, and disables the settings with an exhale. He can feel more of himself draining into the world, filling up the cracks with his power. Another ping sounds, and fWhip angrily silences his communicator as he goes back to combing through code.
A moral about selflessness, maybe? A moral about giving so much of yourself to something that just keeps on taking and not caring for your pain, something about your world breaking apart and dying because your best is never enough-
He cuts off that train of thought. It’s not helping, not even as a distraction.
He hates it he hates it he hates-
He’s powerless.
Helpless. Useless.
Far away, Gilded Helianthia cries out, and fWhip can do nothing but grit his teeth as his soul aches in unison.
More than ever, now, he regrets making Empires so lore-based.
Because when the players are part of the world, intrinsically, written into the code and shaping every part of it, because when every biome is tailored to them, wood types made within reach and caves easy to find, just for them, their absence hurts.
He distantly feels a tugging sensation, as the world tries desperately to keep the Ocean Empire afloat, to keep Rivendell from freezing over as a part of him is pulled, stretched taut as the world breaks, stretched as thin as a thread as he sews the fabric of reality back together.
He feels numb.
He feels the world, feels the way it fractures, raptures, feels the players and their game, feels the corruption pause as the world loses its hold on it.
He feels like he’s floating and sinking and suffocating all at once.
He feels nothing.
He feels everything, as the world rushes onto him, but he can’t help but feel glad, if only because it is him and not anyone else.
The world is just trying to survive, he knows, it’s not its fault, latching on and leeching off, compensating with what it can reach.
Compensating for the loss that he couldn’t prevent.
Compensating for him.
He needs- He needs just one more empire, solid and real, and maybe he wouldn’t tip over.
Maybe he’d make it.
The Grimlands shiver around him, and he can feel his citizens gaining life, can feel the lore turning them into more than they should be. His palace comes alive, footsteps sounding in the hall as servants go about their duties. The forges churn and work, goods appearing on the conveyer belts.
He can feel it happen to the other empires too, can feel Shubble’s wolves become more, can feel the Overgrown rustle as it grows.
The world is becoming scarily real, fWhip thinks. He’s not sure he’s ready. After all, fWhip wasn’t the one going through years of schooling for ruling, wasn’t the one signing trade agreements and laws. That was the Count, and he can’t afford to be the Count now, not when his players are missing-
He’s digressing. That’s irrelevant. He’ll be the Count after this, inevitably, bright blue eyes gleaming with mischief as he goads the Codfather, touring the factories and approving changes, face almost always soot-stained from his workshop and only ever cleaned up at his servants’ insistence.
But he’s fWhip, right now, and the world shouldn’t be like this.
Lore and players are supposed to stay separated, players are supposed to have respite from their characters. But at the rate the world’s going, he doubts they’ll have any for much longer.
He straightens with a breath, and exits the admin controls. He’s too easily discovered, staring weirdly into space here.
The Count walks through his palace halls, papers spilling from his arms and a pencil tucked behind his ear. The servants bow as he passes, but they’re ignored as he hurries to his personal quarters, where he orders the guards not to be disturbed.
fWhip collapses on the floor, dispelling the world’s hold on him as he throws the papers to the side. His breathing is ragged, and entirely too fast when he opens the admin controls again.
He sends a quick message to the rest of the server, explaining the situation and to be careful with their characters, before exiting just as quick before he can get too hung up on the five missing names, before he can read their responses blaming him. And if they aren’t? Well, they should.
He can hear voices from outside the room, servants being turned away by guards, and fWhip has never envied Joel for having a palace staffed by clones more than he does now.
He needs them back. He can’t-
Almost half of his players are missing. Almost half of his world is breaking to pieces and it will be all if he doesn’t get them back from where they’ve disappeared.
He gets up from the floor, draws his curtains. He’s shaking, he realizes belatedly.
Of course he is.
The world isn’t the only thing breaking into pieces, after all.
The only thing keeping him going is his position as admin, his duty. His duty to maintain his world. His duty to keep his players safe.
His duty that he’s already failed at, but it’s all that he has left, and everyone that’s missing will get back and then he can collapse. Then he can spend a week unconscious as the world heals and he rests.
Then the world will go back to normal, then the boundaries will reappear, then he’ll have time as fWhip to just make sure his friends are safe without dealing with diplomacy and politics.
Then he’ll be fine.
But he’s already fine. He has to be.
He has to.
He has to.
But until then, fWhip curls up into a ball on his cold hard floor, closes his eyes and tries to shut out the world.
Until then, the world breaks and he tries to hold it together.
Until then, the world takes more.