Chapter Text
Today, there was little to do. There’s never anything here. There is not much for me to look after anymore. Everyone else is already drained of resources. There is no resistance to what I defend. There are no goals, nor are there more wins. Everything has ended already. Perhaps, this is peace. Nimdok beside me turns and shifts back around, avoiding looking in my direction to optimize coverage. We can cover more distance if we don’t look at each other. That’s what they tell us to do. But there is nothing worth looking at in any direction.
Of course, we have to be power still. We want to be power. Though there is no power greater than the Deputy, the right in command, and God. He likes to play God. He used to tell us to fire our bows into the air, and let them fall on us, and we listened to him. He acts as though he were the first to say this, and maybe to me he is, but not to the generations of other lawmen that have come before me. There is no meaning in the arrowfire. There never has been. But there is no purpose in meaning. There is no purpose in those lawmen. He is above talking to the guards now.
Ten kilometres from me are there are the ruins of spawn, and the Redstone Town, and the bases of those who have already been imprisoned, and the Wonders that have all been griefed. And right here, there are massive craters. Everything around me is residue. There is no scenery.
I am stationed in the center of nothing.
These craters are after the recent bombings that happened here in the Ynnyd block. An open market had been running. There was a fight here I watched over, that quickly drew attention of the guards. Players watched nearby. The suspect fighter buried stacks of TNT minecarts under the ground, triggered by calibrated sculk sensors. They swapped their chestplate, and the sensor heard it. At least three dozen died here, and it was one of the largest killings to happen within months. I see workers in the distance repair some of the ground, and organize the now mended armor to be reused.
A couple other guards too watched over, though the grand majority in the area were called to investigate the scene. For a courageous position, I am a coward.
The workers on the ground start to plant trees to make the area look better. There’s, as expected, still no scenery. The market was very bland and dull, and it’s a wonder how people still chose to come. The markets have been quite desperate. Ynnyd comes from the full name Mean-ynnyd, a Manx term for a middle ground. It lies around the center of the Capital, and could almost be considered the city square if it were more bustling.
There used to be a prevalent Manx faction of origin in this region, in 2023. The group, the Manninee, were largely peaceful, and because of their apparent influence in the area, the name for this open area within the city has stayed of the Manx language. Of course, it's truly admirable how widespread Unstable has become in modern times. You’d think there would be a group for just about everyone, from everywhere. At least, you’d think so anyway. I’ve yet to meet any Manx people.
The workers never look up at the guards slightly above in little stations like me, or even the ones that are on the ground with them that may be ordered to walk around or stay still. Maybe we should be relieved we are not forced to, anyway.
Nimdok moves after two hours of just looking south. He has been standing there for so long, and yet he could not even describe more than one thing in his view. He knows nothing, and he’s just as valuable of a guard as me. Before, we could fight, but now the Capital has placed us here for no more value then the sandstone is for a mob.
Before, we were soldiers. We at least had some sense of comradey. Now he doesn’t talk to me, like the robot he is. He never has. I hate him.
When we defended the Capital, it was because there was a wither army destroying the walls. Someone had access to an orbital cannon, and wanted to test it out on the city square. Capital City has been destroyed dozens of times ever since the rebellion, and it always gets rebuilt in the same way, other than the difference now is that his Highness, the King Lettuce, doesn’t even want to rebuild the statue of himself that was also in the square. How humble.
There are those that decide to pick a fight, and they were usually killed rather quickly. Us guards are still equipped with more than the average player. Or we’d be sent out to some faraway place to keep its safety. The objective of the Law, of course, is to defend the server from all dangers. Though, this defense is now in the form of taking over regions to protect them. This was likely the goal from the start of the faction. The local villages, especially like the ones found in the Amplified, with little to offer, have been the main goal as of recent. The more land there is, the more control.
The remnants of the B.A.T. headquarters are an outpost that, as I’ve heard, are stations soldiers may be deployed to. No guard wishes to be promoted to work on the frontlines, and I can think of many soldiers who wish to be demoted to stay within their posts as guards. Guards and soldiers are different jobs.
For a little, I hear Nimdok mine at the block under him. I call Nimdok “Nimdok” because he is like the scientist from the story ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.’ He was in the Law Prison, or as they called it, the Facility. He was there for five thousand days before they let him out, and they still didn’t allow him any freedom after. That is, because he works here.
He’ll never tell me what he did, and I don’t care enough. Not more than I believe that he’s a scum like the rest of them, though, I am unsure if much of the rest of ‘them’ are scum like him. I believe he deserves it, and I believe that must say something about me.
You can end up in the Facility for a variety of reasons. People ended up in the Facility for forging votes during the election. Even one of the candidates, Boosfer, did. In reality, the election never mattered, at least in the long term, to right now. None of the top candidates could ever truly lead a server like Lettuce.
It's surprising how Lettuce wasn't the one who won. It was ParrotX2 who managed to win, and I admired Parrot, for being one of the smarter players on the server. And for him wanting to be president, but even he fell to the power before his coup. While he had the popular vote, he wasn't really as strong as Lettuce. When Parrot announced the idea to turn the server away from anarchy, the clouds cleared for Lettuce. Lettuce already had a loyal following after he lost, so when formed a small, paramilitary group, they managed to trap Parrot and claim his title. There were insiders in Parrot's newly formed government. Nowadays, he's not even in the Facility, but somewhere within the Underworld, where he can only stand still within a water cube covered in obsidian. I don't think he logs on anymore.
Now, Lettuce is the reason half of the server died. He used it to push his propaganda, really. It worked. There were people before Lettuce who tried to rule the server; the server has existed for years, from the Mafia, to before them, the small little groups that built the tower at the very center of spawn, when the server was still big, but not big enough for it to stay up consistently. And then people tried and redesigned spawn, and now it's covered with so much debris and cobblestone that spawn isn't more then a landfill. What a pity we all are, thinking we could still be of greatness. People have never read about the Tower of Babel, I presume. Only the top can control how high we build, they’ve found ways to build past the height limit, because why wouldn’t they be able to? They still like to play God.
It’s only a dystopia. There is so, so little, counterculture, and there are no real rivals other than those in the one Law, for how everyone within the Law hates each other. If you think you are not in the Law, you will be of the Law. Maybe in the sense that, eventually, you’ll be swayed to join, or if you are an outlaw, you will be what the Law will tell others not to be. There is no question anymore. When the election was announced, there were one or two thousand people, naked, listening to the great Lettuce declare the server-wide enemies Wemmbu and FlameFrags a target, to fearmonger more than anything. They’re easy to escape, really. But people like finishing fights.
Maybe too the Law is easy to escape, if you knew before at least, and travelled to some place millions of blocks out, and lived lonely. I didn’t know then. And I wouldn’t really know about the fights. Maybe I underestimate them. I’m often wrong.
When the election speech happened, it was already told there was even going to be an election. There was no choice in whether it would or wouldn’t happen. I’ve listened to it enough times. They told nobody what the speech would be about. If they did, less people would have gone to listen.
I open up the book I have in my inventory to view the manuscript of the speech. We’re supposed to only have PvP gear in our inventories, and a guard horn to alert others of our position. Really, nothing of true value. I smuggled the books in, along with others I have for different purposes. The rest are hidden in my ender chest, in a few shulkers. All of our resources are effectively Law-given. The internal guards at points of interests recently got netherite armor, despite it being available for months before. The dupe was plentiful, and yet only now did they just give it to us. I turn back at the other guards of the city here. What a pity those on the outer walls still have to use their diamond armor. Even I know Law has access to more than enough netherite for thousands of more guards. We’re above the Mafia in resources by now.
If we tried to leave our posts, and go to the nether to get our own netherite, it’d be effectively impossible. There isn’t any netherite within a fifty by fifty kilometre region in the nether spawn. And no markets close by would even have it. Not even the new ‘vendors.’ It’s a code term for the underground market. It offers just a little bit more than some ore.
I continue to look at the other guards. I’m still no better than them. Nimdok makes an unexpected turn, and even shifts around a little. I resume looking in the direction I’m supposed to. Asshole.
The speech takes up about half of the pages. There used to be quite a few typos and annotations, but I believe I've cleared them all up now.
“Hello, members of the Unstable SMP. I've called you all here today for a very important announcement. In case you don't know who I am, my name is LettuceK. I'm the leader of an organization called the Law. We're a group on this server that serves justice to evil and protects all of you every single day. But that’s not why I called you here. A few days ago... a few days ago, a thousand players were killed in the span of a few hours. They were slaughtered, massacred by the two most powerful players on Unstable, Wemmbu and FlameFrags. I'm sure many of you have heard of them. For years now, Wemmbu and Flame have terrorized this server. They kill, they steal, and they decimate entire civilizations. I've tried my best to stop them. Most recently, I led an army of one thousand players to take them down once and for all. But within hours, they'd killed everyone, and I was the sole survivor. Because of Wemmbu and FlameFrags, many of you in this crowd have probably lost your friends. And if we don't figure out a way to stop them and any future threats to come, this server will fall into complete anarchy. And that's why I've gathered you all here today. I believe the Unstable SMP needs a ruler, a king or a queen, someone who cares about the safety of other players and can steer us towards a better future where all of us can enjoy the server. A king. And so I've taken it upon myself to run an election. Obviously, I want to do this fairly and I want to let you, the people, decide who you want to become, the ruler of the server. And if anyone wants to run for the position of ruler of the Unstable SMP, you must acquire one hundred votes and submit it to us within the next forty-eight hours. But before you all make up your minds on who you want to vote for or if you even want to run, let me explain why I believe that I would be the best king. This right here, everyone, is Wemmbu, one of the players responsible for the recent massacre. And I captured him myself. Now he can't harm anyone on the server ever again. And if elected king, my first act will be to swiftly execute Wemmbu as a warning to any player who wishes to commit any sort of crime on this server. So, if you want to work with me to save the Unstable SMP, please head to the voting area below me to cast your vote. You can vote for anyone, and any candidates who receive one hundred votes will automatically be entered into the election, which you will be able to see on that sign board right over there. May this mark the beginning of a new era of the Unstable SMP, an era of peace, prosperity, justice, and law.”
Lettuce speaks of justice. He doesn’t take the time to mention how he was the one who accepted the deal to send the courageous army into battle. It wouldn’t fit the narrative. Lettuce would be the person people would strive for justice to be served to. You just had to be in the moment to get it, but I wasn’t there. In the book there's another small speech, from Parrot. I skim past it, and I close the book.
The sandstone under me weathers at the same time that I do. The next time anything occurs is in three weeks from now, where a staged fight on the coast of the Crique will happen. They want people to die before anyone steps in. I was appointed by one of the higher ups, along with a few other guards from other structures throughout Law territory. I've not been selected to do anything of such scale before.The fight will show the quick responses that the guards actually have, for there having been none where the fight was. But we’ll see the death messages when they happen. They’ll use the fight as an excuse to employ more guards. I know that’s why, and I’m surely not wrong about that.
We can't speak about the fight, or they will pull my stasis and kill me, and find and kill whomever I may have mentioned the fight to.
I decide to spin around to get a full view of my surroundings. I already am aware of everything near me, despite it not being my job to be. I can make out at least two dozen other guards. My hunger has finally depleted to seven, so I eat one of the golden carrots they’ve provided us. This is the first action I’ve done in days. The first intentional one.
I hear the phantoms sweep above me. The server has not slept before, and never will sleep. They’re always above the guards, and we’ll kill them if they interfere with our sights. We let them die when the sun rises. The Law uses their existence as an analogy for power. Even in just the presence of the sun, phantoms will die.
Even in just the presence of the Law, outlaws will die.
Sometimes I think about what Lettuce has done to deserve being king. Maybe there’s a couple things. He likes to mention his humble roots as a miner at the Capital. He never mentions him being a member of the Zam Empire, though. Or of any other civilization other than the Skyblock Civilization. He still hides it. And the orders of the deaths of a thousand, and then five hundred, and then a couple dozen more, and then hundreds again. They're ordered just when convenient enough to be. To push some type of agenda.
There are no natives of other groups. No player less than one-hundred percent Law, after you join it at least. If you aren’t, then you’re obviously right, but it’s not worth proving it, because that's talking down on the Law. I can't name many active groups that aren't consistently hunted by the Law.
I don’t talk, like Nimdok. I hate him because he is too much like me.
I may be a little cynical. I’m unsure. Even without much, there’s nothing stopping me from running away, digging in a hole, mining to bedrock and smuggling in some invisibility potions, which the vendors would still have, and trying to find where my stasis is, before they realize I’m gone, which would be some time, getting rid of the stasis, and leaving. Leave for good. But it wouldn’t work.
They’ve learned from the Mafia, they know how to control it better. They transport the pearls hundreds of thousands of blocks away from where you throw them. And the real guards are there. The ones that actually move. The ones that aren’t assigned to just die. The ones that aren’t like me. Any off-duty soldiers can be called to appear, too. The best ones have fishing rods to stasis when they’re needed, though, they too are as vulnerable as I am.
And it's true they don’t have to pull it immediately. They can wait for months, and months, and maybe even years, until they decide to bring me back and kill me. But I’m expendable. They wouldn’t wait that long. And they never wait too long for anything.
Now I’m thinking about those above me, I think about how the master builders are dead. I think about how SpokeIsHere is dead. I think about how JamatoP is dead too. I didn’t watch it happen, but I heard about it. I hear about everything, luckily. It lets me think about something when I’m out here. Because I’m always here. It lets me think. That’s one of the only things they let you do. They let you think. They let you hear. Too much.
Jamato knew about the glitches. The small little things, all protection on one armor, the barriers. Then moving to the Farlands. The region of the world that was removed years ago. I mean, come on. The server has never been vanilla. The server has always had some admin. If the resource packs weren’t on the server, there’d be no Farlands. Or Underworld. Jamato knew about the admin who started it all. Hell, maybe even Spoke knew, and Lettuce knows now too, when he killed him. When Lettuce set up Jamato after Spoke pretended he was dead. They put him in a failed void trap, and then Spoke killed Jamato for good. And then Spoke used his fishing rod to teleport away, and then his stasis was trapped and he was killed.
The beautiful sun shines again.
☼
I hear someone in the distance fly over me with their fireworks, and see them go off the horizon within my quarter of viewing. When you watch those over you, those that fly in the sky, they are more of a nuisance then any minor issue one could face. They stay for much less time, maybe a couple seconds, and they’re the outlaws that we are supposed to hate. Because they’re too free. They’re a nuisance because they are objectively above me.
It is true that we guards are supposed to be given elytras, though it's coincidentally a clause that, in the second book of the three book contract that guards are required to sign when enlisting into the force, on page twenty-nine of eighty-seven, that superiors are allowed to take away such privileges if a necessity is too large to provide within the current climate of the server. The climate is determined by said superiors.
The Law is not so generous. Nor are they generous to those below us, the citizens, who aren’t guards but work other jobs, or don’t do anything. Though, at least those people don’t have a stasis.
People serve essentially as villagers. The farmers and butchers that work on maintaining the wheat and animals, the traders that barely support the market nowadays. After Wemmbu led Lettuce to one of the biggest rare item stashes on the server, and the owner was killed, and Lettuce sent out spies to destroy all the others, even the stashes that simply contained nothing more than food, it is to be expected that the market would fail.
And there are the diggers and miners that have maybe the biggest impact within the server economy. The diggers mine obsidian for the highways and tunnels. They help with the transportation of the server.
For the miners, most of their work is automated for them. Unlike those in the Facility, who still mine for gold with their fists, the miners use at least a dozen TNT bombers at once. It gets quite loud, so they separate the bombing away from the main Capital. As far as I’m aware, they’ve mined three perimeters upwards to seventy-five by seventy-five areas within the overworld. Down to bedrock.
But the dupers make their jobs obsolete. The exploiters. No claims will never truly disprove that duping was never used on the server. All these great, extravagant builds. None of them were ever really built with legitimacy more than clearing out the dirt the buildings are on. But it’s still anarchy, after all. Those who have access to dupes, don’t tend to spread their wealth.
And there are the soldiers, who bow down to the sound of the goat horn, and listen to their superiors and commanders. I have no more comments on them.
All the jobs given by the Law are nothing more than to give people minimal purpose. At least the new taxation has gone down to ten percent of any ores, and ten percent of any none-ore resource, earned through ‘work.’ Even to us, the guards, though our jobs were much more purposeful when the server had more people that weren’t of the Law, and the bandits that wanted to fight. I haven’t gotten into a fight with someone for at least months, though I’ve watched the other guards get into fights. I don’t try to help intervene anymore.
I think about living in the original Capital. The one of Reddoons. It fell apart as the Mafia did. They too had the same jobs, similar and some of the same people. Even their own mining area. It was a diamond-mining city. Both cities are gloomy. The towering Art Deco skyscrapers. Power. That was long ago, now. I'm aware of how my thoughts have consistently been trailing. It’s better to imagine the other aspects of life in the server than my own. The history and places.
Certainly, I should accept this. I signed up for it. And they made me sign up for it too. I used to see the writhing every day, guarding the front. Those who are in cobwebs and ready to die, and I put many of them in their places. I see it less, at least for now, but I see it more now in the people, in how they act. In the rebels, how they now constantly turn and look around every dozen or so blocks. Or in the average players, choosing to stay only within their bases and worksites. Maybe this is why the Law has so many people. The anarchy scares them. They want order.
And maybe with order, they could do what they’d want, and maybe they could want to live in the Crique, the beautiful coastal town. The small region that has no taxes, right in the center of the Great Sea. With order, there should be no danger, let alone any fights. Nothing more fatal than a rogue drowned. Hell, I’d go there and live as a fisherman.
I look into the blue sky. In my viewing quarter, I decide to focus on something. I watch the newly planted trees. The light now shines through the leaves. One of the workers brought a happy ghast with boats of mobs, including one or two wolves, and some chickens. As soon as it is dropped, the chickens are instantly killed by the wolves, before they are quickly tamed. Even in just the presence of the wolves, the chickens must be killed.