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Tommy was surprised after being given the go ahead to re-visit his old server that he would find that there were still signs of life. Tommy had managed to escape the SMP before Tubbo nuked the entire thing single handedly killing everyone and everything on that server. There were admins and higher ups who had been unpicking the code to the server so that he could get back in now that the possible radiation levels had dropped enough to be safe thanks to some coding help. Tommy had glitched out of the server in the first place, it practically broke his player code and almost killed him, but he was fixed up in the server he crashed onto; Hermitcraft. He also went through a long healing journey accompanied with building lessons, he was now a master at tree building thanks to Bdubs.
“You know you don’t have to go back” Grian had told him.
“I want to, for clarity, this place gave me so much trauma but I also experienced some of the happiest parts of my life there” Tommy had replied.
“If you’re sure”
“I’m sure”
He entered the server spawning into the community house, the buildings were still intact surprisingly and somehow looked even better. Tommy scanned the areas surrounding him, it all looked the same except for a sign, it was on birch wood and the words were glowing. He approached it and read it: 11/04/2023 Everyone else is dead, I’m the only one left.
Someone was alive.
Someone was alive and still on the server.
He had to find them.
Instead of reflecting on his past he sought out more signs. He found a few in succession. The date getting later and later for each sign. Each sign containing a short message, all anonymous, all still pointing to signs of life. Tommy moved on down the Prime path, past Targay, Church Prime and where previous sights of the egg were, except the radiation had killed it off. How was this person alive?
The signs continued, they got further and further apart in location and age. And Tommy continued to wonder.
~
Purpled survived the nuke, of course he did, he’s an alien, he’s immune to nuclear damage.
It took him a day to realise that everyone and everything was dead. He was stuck on his own. No way to get out without basically killing himself so he made a start to recover. He traipsed through the server leaving signs and messages for the possible days when the radiation levels would decrease and someone would visit. He left a trail, a path. He did eventually settle down in a birch forest, it was untouched and his makeshift radiation monitor had said that this area was lower on radiation. The soil was contaminated though, so no crops and also no animals. But he had scoured abandoned houses gathering food and trying to ignore the corpses of his friends as he buried them outside their houses with accompanying gravestones, even the one he found inside the egg despite having no idea who it was. Everyone was buried except Tommy, he couldn’t find his body.
He did build a house in the birch forest, it was a modest size and did everything he needed it to. But he was bored. After declaring himself stable in the terms of having somewhere to live, he basically abandoned his house and decided to clean up the server. Purpled was a stickler for neatness and his servermates didn’t hold the same values. He also appreciated that people had put effort into these buildings. He cleaned up rogue blocks from people traversing the mountains and hills, he repaired broken houses and buildings, he even continued the Prime Path across the whole server. Finally he made the nether safe, he built paths made out of nether brick with walls so that he wouldn’t have to worry about ghasts, additionally he set up a portal network and signed up the whole place.
At this point it had been almost a year since the nuke had eradicated the server, and the place had looked the best it’d looked in a while. His path of signs were still around all leading to his new living area, it was just a waiting game now. Who would find him and get him out of this server.
~
Tommy whilst following the sign trail noticed that the server itself had been cleaned up, the paths were neat, all three wide and all oak stretching throughout the server, buildings that were griefed were repaired, the entire place lit up and all the creeper holes and rogue blocks were patched up. He also noticed that any houses that Tommy took a look into had a gravestone outside, each one with the person’s tag carved into it, he didn’t want to know if the bodies were there or if they were just placeholders. Maybe Phil was the one left, he was pretty clean and he had lived for so long that Tommy wouldn’t be surprised if he was still standing after nukes. But Phil wouldn't leave signs, he liked his own company and wouldn’t be signposting a possible intruder directly to him.
Whoever this was wanted to be found, they didn’t want to be alone.
At this point parts of the servers became unfamiliar, the path stayed strong though. It was the only consistency throughout whatever the server had turned into. He’d walked past any signs of past life, no more buildings, just plains, a birch forest in his sight line. Birch signs leading up to it. He was stepping into this person's territory. A past friend or enemy.
~
Purpled was working in the hut he’d built for experimentation. He was working on making soil usable currently. Anyways, he heard something. It wasn’t windy so it couldn't be leaves or a fallen branch and nothing was alive anymore so not an animal either. Someone had gotten onto the server. A sense of anxiety writhed through him, he thought he wanted to get out but now he was scared.
Pushing the anxiety down he moved towards his house swiftly, he made his way to the basement and equipped his armour and weapons, he hadn’t had to do that in a while. He was cautious to go back upstairs, to exit onto his front porch and come face to face with the visitor.
But there they stood, a red sweater, blonde curls and brilliant blue eyes. Tommy.
~
Tommy found this person's house easily, it was nice, nothing special. He scanned for life or even identification of who could live here. It wasn’t until the front door opened with a creak and a figure stood on the porch.
They were in full netherite, enchantments shining in the sun, a sword in hand blonde hair poking out from under the helmet hanging just above purple eyes.
“Purpled,” Tommy said before he could stop himself.
~
Hearing his name spoken out loud was bizarre.
“Hey” he croaked back, his voice out of use.
He cleared his throat before comparing his and Tommy’s current states and immediately disarming himself and removing his armour letting them occupy his inventory.
“How are you alive?” Tommy stammered.
“I could ask you the same”
“I asked first,” Tommy folded his arms.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Purpled tugged an antennae before gesturing to the rest of his alien features, his eyes, purple freckles, purple finger tips and elfish ears.
“What?” Tommy frowned.
“I’m an alien”
“You are?!”
“Prime, how unobservant are you?”
“I thought it was a fashion choice” Tommy defended.
“No, I’m an alien, I can withstand radiation, the nuke didn’t kill me” Purpled explained “Now how are you alive and why are you here?”
“I glitched out of the server” Tommy stated “And the admins and higher ups working on this server deemed it safe enough to visit so I thought I would”
“Well, it’s been a while”
“The place looks great, you cleaned it up nicely”
“If some random person found me I wouldn’t want them seeing that our server was a mess and that I was happy to live with it” Purpled defended it.
Tommy chuckled slightly before his facial expression sobered up.
“Everyone else is dead?”
“Everyone” Purpled confirmed.
“And you are sure”
“Yes, I buried every body, except yours”
“Even Michael?”
“Michael, Michelle, Yoghurt, Foolish Jr, Shroud and countless pets” Purpled nodded “Everything with a name tag or player tag is dead and buried, even a randomer in the egg”
“Fuck, you’ve been alone the entire time”
“Just me, my thoughts and some music discs”
“You can come with me”
“I was going to, whether you offered or not,” Purpled laughed.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Tommy frowned.
“It would probably kill me, our player code is corrupted and mine was unstable to begin with because I’m not human or hybrid” Purpled explained “Without an Admin or higher up if I try to leave it is likely I won’t make it out, and Dream is dead”
Tommy shuddered at the name before continuing “I can get you out” Tommy said “I promise”
There was a sincerity in his voice that Purpled hadn’t heard since the L’manburg wars.
“And there will be a place for you to go as well, if you want it” Tommy added.
“Great, I am not going back to Hypixel,” Purpled said.
“Let’s go” Tommy started, the boy turned around and started back up the path.
“So, where is this place you’re taking me?”
“Remember when we went to MCC a couple times?” Tommy started.
“Yes? Where is this going?”
“Well, we are going to Hermitcraft, with players such as Grian, GeminiTay etcetera etcetera”
“What and they let you live there?” Purpled’s eyes widened “You TommyInnit who builds cobblestone towers and dirt houses live on a server with incredible mega builders?”
“Yes” Tommy scoffed “I can build more than just cobblestone towers, besides I have had coaching, I can build a nice house and trees, I’m really good at trees”
“I’ll believe it when I see it”
The boys had ended up closer into the centre of the SMP at this point, the recognised buildings were drawing closer.
“I only cleaned this place up to honour people’s memory” Purpled spat out “I’m a clean guy but knowing that the only good things the people did here were make these buildings, I felt like I had to represent that somehow, I don’t want to be forgotten, I’m scared of it, so I didn’t want other people to be forgotten either”
“That’s nice,” Tommy said. They walked in silence for a bit “Did you know I was alive?”
“I didn’t find your body” Purpled started “I did wonder if you’d run off like Wilbur did”
“Did you find his body?”
“Yeah, he was living underneath Las Nevadas, weirdo”
Tommy chuckled “Did you think I was alive though?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t really think about it too much” Purpled admitted “I was preoccupied with everything else”
“Glad to know you cared,” Tommy scoffed.
“Hey I went through a very traumatic life event” Purpled nudged Tommy causing the other boy to stumble.
“Sod off”
“Are these people on Hermitcraft nice?” Purpled asked tentatively.
“Too nice” Tommy commented “They care a lot, it’s overbearing at time, especially right at the beginning, they’ll want to perform a health check on you and then when your all clear they will bombard you with gifts in the form of building supplies so that you can get to building”
“Do they run off a favour system?”
“Kind of, there’s a shopping district where you can buy stuff but everyone’s friendly they will often just give stuff for free or help people out for free, some of the Hermits return favours some do not”
“So it’s confusing,” Purpled stated.
“You’ll get used to it” Tommy said “False, one of the Hermits, she came from anarchy, she was great at helping me settle in”
“I’m going to have to socialise a lot aren’t I”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing”
“Tommy, have you met me”
“Yes, and I know that you can be very social if you feel comfortable, I’m preparing you so you can feel comfortable”
“Ok” Purpled nodded “Do they know anything about me?”
“Not really, I’ve mentioned you when I tell people about the server and all but if you want me to tell them more before we get there I can on my comm” Tommy suggested,
“You should at least tell them that you found someone, that someone being me”
“Yeah, probably” Tommy pulled out his comm, it was revamped, partially red now and the stickers looking fresh and new, he offered it to Purpled.
“What?”
“Introduce yourself” Tommy shook the comm so that he would take it.
Purpled took the comm and opened onto the chat titled Hermitcraft, he started out a message: Hi, I’m Purpled (Tommy found me on the Dream SMP) Tommy said you’d give me a place on your server which I’m grateful for. I’m an alien so not really hybrid or human, this is also the reason I withstood the radiation. I’m looking forward to having somewhere stable to live and I like the colour purple, hence the name.
He handed the comm back “Is that good”
Tommy scanned the message “Yeah” Tommy sent the message “I’ll message X asking him to hop onto the server so he can sort your code”
“X?”
“The admin” Tommy shrugged “He is the practical polar opposite of Dream, don’t worry”
Purpled raised his eyebrows, antennae twitching.
“He cares about his players, they are his priority, he makes sure they are healthy in all aspects and conducts regular wellbeing check ins, he’s great” Tommy assured him before chuckling.
“What’s funny?”
“Chats in response to yours” Tommy handed the comm back.
Scanning the replies Purpled noticed general kind responses welcoming him to the server a couple shocked that aliens exist and then one that was obviously the one that made Tommy chuckle from a guy Rendog ‘False has another traumatised teen to therapise’, it made Purpled smile.
“They seem great,” he commented, offering the comm back.
“They are” Tommy nodded he scanned the comm before speaking again “X said he’ll be here any minute, spawn is still the community house”
“Yep”
“We better get moving”
“How did you glitch out in the first place?” Purpled asked as they got closer to the community house.
“Remember that I was exiled”
“I heard rumours,” Purpled said “Didn’t know the details just that Tubbo exiled you”
“Dream was the main push, exile was awful and he basically abused me so one day I decided to pillar up and drop off, lose my last life but there was a glitch and I ended up on Hermitcraft”
“Shit, I’m sorry”
“Not your fault” Tommy shook his head “I’m better now, over it”
“I don’t know if that's the type of shit you get over Tommy”
“Meh meh meh, I’m Purpled I survived a nuke”
“Shut up” Purpled shoved him again with a smile on his face.
“Hey X” Tommy called out after regaining his footing.
“Hey Toms, I’m assuming your Purpled” X addressed moving towards them.
The guy wasn’t too intimidating, Purpled still kept his eye on the axe in his hotbar.
“I’m Xisuma, X, suma, whatever you want to call me” Xisuma started “I’m the admin on Hermitcraft and I’m going to patch your code so you can come over”
“And how does that work?” Purpled asked.
“I’m going to need to make physical contact with you to open your code, I’ll take a look and see what needs fixing it shouldn’t take too long as you haven’t server hopped with compromise code” he looked at Tommy.
“Hey I didn’t control that” Tommy defended.
“I know, I know” Xisuma responded “Let’s just sort Purpled’s code”
“Let’s,” Purpled agreed.
“Just going to hold your arm,” Xisuma said, reaching to Purpled.
Purpled almost pulled back but let the admin grab his arm a screen materialised in front of the admin and Xisuma’s grip released. Purpled watched as the admin moved through the code occasionally stopping at lines and changing a word out or two.
“What exactly are you doing?” Purpled asked.
“Removing the perma-locked life system, removing the lock on transferring servers and checking for anything else out of sorts” Xisuma replied.
“So from my brief understanding of how player code works, Tommy you basically tore your code apart when you glitched onto Hermitcraft”
“Basically, we had to forcibly knock him out for a day so I could fix his code” Xisuma chuckled “His code was all mangled so despite knowing what to fix it was hard to find and decipher”
“So mine is much easier,” Purpled replied.
“Much,” Xisuma paused “Except this section, it’s in a different language that doesn’t seem to be enderian”
Purpled glanced at it but quickly understood “It’s my native language, I can translate it but I doubt it will have been tampered with, not many know it”
“Give it a quick read over,” Xisuma said.
Purpled did and nothing looked out of shape “All looks good” he nodded.
“Great. Let me whitelist you for Hermitcraft” Xisuma closed Purpled’s code and pulled out his comm “Your player tag has been added, the server should be in your list of options when you leave to the hub”
“That’s it, we can go?” Purpled asked.
“Yep” Xisuma nodded, “Just exit server on your comm and we shall see each other in the hub, I think Grian will still be there”
Purpled pulled out his comm, the peeling ufo sticker caught on his hand as he opened the menu and clicked to exit server. It had been years since he left a server so the feeling of your insides being tugged into the void of the server hub, it differed from ender pearl use as your conscious moved with your insides into the server hub instead of feeling left behind. He blinked into reality and into the vibrancy of the server hub. There were people bustling around whether they were admins or players reuniting with friends before joining new servers. There were several large portals, one for hypixel, one for multiplayer, one for singleplayer and a final for board meetings.
“There’s Grian” Tommy pointed to a man dressed similarly to Tommy except he had parrot wings.
“Tommy nice to see you back and Purpled nice to meet you”
“Thanks,” Purpled replied.
“Suma, I’ve messaged ahead and there’s a group of Hermits waiting at spawn for us” Grian informed them.
“Thanks Grian” Xisuma nodded “Shall we get going then”
“Quick question” Purpled started “Does your server let you message outside people?”
“Of course, I know that server didn’t, any reason?” Xisuma pressed.
“Just I have a friend outside of the server that I want to catch up with”
Tommy cast a confused look to him but Purpled ignored it.
“Tommy, head through first, then Purpled, we’ll follow” Grian said gesturing towards the multiplayer portal.
Tommy confidently stepped through the portal doing a little spin on his heels as he did so. Purpled followed, stepping into the swirling portal and noticing the new option for Hermitcraft pop up in his server list, he selected it and felt the awful pulling sensation before feeling the hard ground beneath his feet. Wherever he spawned it was gorgeous, there were buildings surrounding him and people. People that Tommy was smiling and conversing with, they’d all focused attention on him and he stood like a deer in headlights.
He was also defenseless, no inventory items. His antennae twitched uncomfortably and whilst people were talking to him he was blocking it all out, the voices sounded like buzzing, he stepped backwards a couple times before turning and running. Because, fuck, the entire situation was overwhelming. He didn’t know where he was running but he was running eventually far enough to duck in and take rest behind a building.
He pulled out his comm that had been buzzing with messages from the Hermitcraft chat. But he selected Tommy’s contact.
TommyInnit: You alright?
TommyInnit: I can get them all to back off
TommyInnit: Let me know where you are
TommyInnit: None of them are going to come after you
TommyInnit: It will just be me
Purpled: Sorry
TommyInnit: No worries the hermits can be overwhelming
TommyInnit: Where are you?
Purpled: I don’t know
TommyInnit: Send me a picture
Purpled: [image.png]
TommyInnit: I have no idea, send me coords
Purpled: Here (coords)
TommyInnit: Be there soon
The sound of footsteps approached and Tommy’s face came into view.
“I feel like an idiot,” Purpled spat.
“Don’t worry, I was flighty, I killed a couple of the players and ran whilst I was about to make friends with death” Tommy comforted “I talked to them and we agreed that we can get you set up with a base and Hermits can come and visit you one at a time”
“That sounds better”
“Well we just need something built”
“I don’t mind staying with you” Purpled said “If you’re okay with it”
“That’s fine with me”
Throughout the first two weeks or so of his time on Hermitcraft Purpled did manage to meet every Hermit and begin to build relationships with a few of them. He built up his own place taking the liberty of being able to build without worry of it being destroyed. But since most of the land was gone he decided to build in the sky, creating his own planet that he lived on top and inside of. It was still in progress and he spent a lot of time gathering resources often accompanied by Hermits such as Impulse who didn’t mind the repetitive nature of mining for blocks or building farms. He’d also got back into relations with Walli and using his new found freedom had played a couple rounds of bedwars with him and they set up a survival server which they fucked around on once in a while. He was happy to be in a better place and start a new chapter in his life.