Chapter Text
Yellow. All he could see was yellow. It felt like his skull was shattering under the weight of the innumerable images and thoughts filling his mind. Random flashes of things he could and would never be able to understand. It was everything, the universe ever-expanding. It was the past, present, and future, scrambled together as one huge mess.
Amongst the images, one stayed burned into his brain. A man. Well, a slime man. Avery. His name was Avery. He tried to focus, combing through the images tearing through his mind. Avery, using a fishing rod to knock some poor sod into the void. Avery, rummaging through a set of chests. Avery, carrying a bag of burnt cookies. Avery, Avery, Avery.
Avery was holding a book. He couldn’t parse out the words over his shoulder, but he knew he was the one who had written that book. He was the one who needed to warn Avery. Otherwise He would-
Another rush of pain crashed down on him. He had to go, he needed to get out. Though, another part of his mind urged him to stay, to bask in infinity. Give in to Him. Give in, give in, give-
Stay, my knight.
D3rlord3 snapped his eyes shut and ran, ran back towards where he remembered the gate being (though, was that just an image beamed into his mind? It was hard to tell where D3rlord3 began and infinity ended anymore).
He slammed into the doors, pushing himself through and back into that inky black cave. Once he was sure He was out of view, D3rlord3 opened his eyes, glancing around before darting down the other pathway. He dug again into his brain, fighting off the black swimming in the corners of his vision. There was a way out, back to the mine.
When D3rlord3 opened his eyes again, he saw red. The pain in his head had masked the pain in his hands as he clawed at the stone wall of the cave in front of him. Rock after rock he pulled away, until he had created an opening big enough for him to fit through. D3rlord3 dragged himself back into the mine, hands dripping with blood. Checking his inventory, he found a book (which he was sure he hadn’t had before, but honestly he couldn’t be sure of anything right now).
Quill in hand, he quickly scrawled his message to Avery onto the pages. Pointless, was the word D3rlord3’s brain provided. He knew Avery would find the mine. He knew he would find his way down into the caves. He knew it all. But perhaps he could change the inevitable. And this warning would give him what he needed; more time.
D3rlord3 wrenched open the chest and tossed the book inside. He sunk down to the floor, breath ragged. His vision clouded with black, and suddenly he was no more.
D3rlord3 blinked his eyes open slowly. The ache in his head had faded, and the stream of information flooding his brain had slowed to a trickle. His head still felt uncomfortably full, but it was more manageable now. He surveyed his surroundings. A pool of blood had formed on the ground around him, thanks to his torn up hands. Nothing had changed in the mine while he had been passed out. No sign of Him.
D3rlord3 dragged himself up to his feet, his whole body protesting. His instincts were telling him to run, put as much distance between him and the mine (and by association, Him). Though, logically, D3rlord3 knew that if He had wanted him dead, he would have killed him. His brain helpfully supplied him with images of previous victims being torn apart, their essence being siphoned into Him. There had to be some reason D3rlord3 was left alive, why he was allowed to escape.
D3rlord3 climbed his way out of the mine and walked towards the small base he had put together a few hundred blocks away. He had never really intended to stay on this world for a long period of time- he had only really meant to collect resources to sell at one of the larger city servers. Nonreplenishable materials were always in high demand, especially the ones that were more difficult to get.
It didn’t take long to find a potion of healing among the loot in his chests. He drank it quickly, and the pain in his head and hands faded to a dull throb. D3rlord3 took some time to clean off and wrap the wounds on his hands. His armour and clothes would need cleaning as well, but that was a later problem. Right now, he needed to figure out when Avery would arrive.
He wracked his brain, analyzing the images that had flashed through his mind. But despite how much other information he could pull up (Avery plays skywars, Avery likes button up shirts with tacky prints, etc.), he couldn’t pinpoint when he would find this world. It was rather frustrating, not knowing the timeline he would have to work with.
D3rlord3 sighed, grabbing some obsidian from a chest. Guess it just meant he would have to work fast.