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Living on a server with Zedaph, especially in proximity, is a bit of a gamble. Not that there’s ever really a chance of losing, per se; simply that one can’t possibly anticipate what will appear next. Like Pandora’s Box, except instead of all the evils in the world, it’s the most left-field interpretations of Minecraft mechanics possible. And what’s left inside would be any notion of stability, of predictability.
Xisuma is no stranger to playing with the mechanics of the game in ways outside of their intention, of course. If it’s not the copper golem that sells copper golem statues, it’s the baby cow right outside running endlessly about his fields (since the parents are in a boat underground looping, like the world’s cruelest lazy river), or a boutique that’s solely a walk-in advertisement for maximising one’s bundle usage.
However, the difference between them, as Xisuma sees it, is one of intent. Xisuma twists the rules of the game for efficiency in novel forms–finding new ways to make functional farms, innovation as invention. His expansion into movement and the ‘living base’ concept is a work-in-progress of allowing for aesthetics to be its own reward, but there is still a clear purpose to the things he attempts.
Zedaph seeks the limit of what is possible for its own sake. Curiosity, experimentation, for the love of the game. The things he tries to do rarely have a practical purpose at all; it is merely displaying existence and possibility that might never be considered otherwise. It doesn’t make his life easier, his farms faster (in fact, often the opposite). But it does make it livelier.
And truly it is marvelous, what things Zedaph is able to discover. When the question of “how would this help” is reduced to simply “how”, when “why” becomes “why not”, so much is possible.
A ghast is far slower at mining gold than a pickaxe would be, but they can do it for you if you survive.
Witches riding chickens are just faster and therefore more dangerous than any naturally spawned would be, but they can be made to exist with a lot of effort.
Riding a zombie piglin requires at least one other person to make it move with any control, and can never be redone once undone, and is a hindrance to existence, but it can be ridden (quite comfortably, apparently).
Xisuma loves talking to Zedaph, finding out what obscure technicality he has discovered to thrust into the limelight. He can never predict it–and enjoys it. It keeps Xisuma on his toes, and helps remind him that there really is no end to joy, if you are willing to seek it in the small places. He stops by anytime he can spare, watching the base sprawl out with platforms to hold new Zedvancement trophies. Someday, he’ll even earn one himself, Zed promises. Xisuma looks forward to it.
However, along with the joy of discovery, there are some…perils.
All this passes through Xisuma’s mind in the moments between the death message appearing on his screen, and the careful return with a spare elytra to the airspace near the shopping district to discover the cause of death.
His suspicions are confirmed–Zedaph has left a single glass block at about 180 blocks in the air above the district-side edge of his base. It is, as Zedaph explains as way of apology, a piece purposefully left behind from the set-up for his “Winging It!” Zedvancement; upon that glass block had rested the experience orb from which Zedaph had fully repaired a broken elytra without touching the ground. It is also, as glass blocks tend to be, completely invisible whilst flying at any speed until it is too late.
Zedaph hands over the last of Xisuma’s scattered bundles, and offers to take down the glass block. He’s got the trophy, that should be memorial enough.
Xisuma hesitates, then tells him to leave it there. Etho’s player launcher system is becoming very popular, and high-speed flight above the shopping district is imminent. The Hermits need a reminder to watch where they’re flying sometimes.
And if someone else dies to it, then Xisuma seems like less of a derp for doing it first. In fact, it’s even funnier if someone else dies second, because they had his example as warning. It’s an experiment; how long will it take people to forget?