Chapter Text
The Halloween update. georjadam had missed the 2021, 2022, and 2023 badges for it. He was here now though so he supposed that that counted for something.
It wasn't that he hadn't joined at all for those 3 years. The game just ended up on the farthest backburner with it's minimal updates and outdated or broken mechanics, as all games from his childhood eventually did. His eyes still prepare for a wave of vertigo whenever his sprint bar runs out, expecting that nauseating 300 bpm fov switch. He had grown so used to it that it felt like another bug when he discovered it had been patched.
The game had released more than just patches when he wasn't looking. There were new shops, an entirely new mining zone that replaced some vague memory of a Roblox event god knows how long ago. There were new trees, tool upgrades, ores, graphics. Small things, noninvasive, quaint, even. He'd discovered all of this in a single afternoon 2 days ago.
And then the leaderboards.
Obviously, obviously he has to get on. He owes it to that carefree tween who had supplied his singular save file with a concerningly high amount of cash and enough ignis for an entire mine to spawn. He's almost grateful that he doesn't know how to check his playtime.
Before any of that, he'll let himself enjoy the full extent of this seasonal update.
He has 150 more mushrooms to collect before he can make enough speed potions to get to potioncrafting level 4. Then he can make the potion that lets him phase through these otherwise impenetrable cobwebs. After collecting the pumpkin within the inexplicably abandoned mine entrance that spawned one day over 4 years ago, he'll dig down to Hell and enter a bedrock vein to collect some soul shrooms. Only then can he create the potion that sends him directly to Hell whenever consumed.
He doesn't remember how, but he received these potions one day 2 years ago. He hadn't consumed them all in the time period between then and now; still had over 90 of the coveted hot chocolates. But he figured it'd be good to have an abundance of each anyway. If he made up his mind to aim for the leaderboard this month, he'd need all the tryhard methods he could get. He might try to get on the leaderboard at some random point in the summer, too. His life hadn't been planned that far, but he still knew how his brain worked. When he'd randomly decide one weekend that he wanted to grind for a 200k diamond skirt that he wouldn't wear that often anyway. Or he'd just want to collect 50 floor tickets so he could spawn in Poob and Pest whenever he was feeling down. Those sorts of life goals he was an expert at.
So he carefully optimizes his stamina and prefects his mushroom-collecting route from fixed spawn-point to fixed spawn-point, ensuring he gets the pick as soon as the mushroom spawns up before any other robloxians can. He is vigilant if nothing else.
georjadam pauses in the forest, waiting for the first mushroom to pop up again to signal another lap around the map. He stares at the trees. Unblinking. And in the slowly consuming haze, he briefly imagines a slight tussle in the leaves being pushed by a breeze. He can hear it, so vividly that he listens to what it has to say.
The first mushroom has appeared but georjadam doesn't move. He's experienced this before; the departure of something internal, all motivation and desire withheld. But that is decidedly not what is happening because georjadam recalls that no, the trees have never rustled in a slow, fleeting crescendo before. Their trunks have never widened and actually appeared to be emerging from the ground, little spurts of grass and moss climbing their way up the bark. He tries to look past the trees but they've become endless, standing tall on a slight incline. His eyes trail up further and there's literally sunlight streaming through the leaves and birds calling to one another. He smells the dirt and the wood and the promise of rain.
A sparrow flits up and around him before taking off into the trees. He feels his entire body react, straightening into a little awe-filled hop before the tension leaves him clutching his knit scarf.
georjadam glances to a stump in the corner of his eye and he swears he can count the rings in the soft, aged wood. He swears he can feel the grass sway against his ankles. Ankles. What the fuck.
He hears a voice beside him, like an actual human voice, and he knows it's just part of whatever mass hallucination he's having but he does it: he turns his head and---
It's an avatar with like 4 blonde hairs layered one over the other. It isn't wearing a package so it's body is blocky like georjadam's, and the 2D print of clothes against it's limbs proudly showcase the most poorly pasted PNGs of actual clothes into a shirt and pants decal georjadam has ever seen and that is saying something. It's so blurry that georjadam briefly checks the menu to make sure his graphics are manually set to 10. There are flashes of white on the corners where the PNG didn't even reach far enough to cover the whole template. It's nearly entirely a brown monochrome palette, bits of black and white here and there on the wrinkly short-sleeved T-shirt with some indecipherable graphic and belted pants just under the torso. He's wearing a pair of earbuds and theres a pair of headphones at his hip. Complete with a bullshit "headless" (that brain head accessory and undoubtedly a dynamic head inside it) and skeleton leg. The whole outfit is so insultingly, eyerottingly "y2kcore" or whatever the fuck that georjadam engages shiftlock, slowly rotates side to side, and then fully turns away.
A little part of him hopes that the world has stayed vivid, but it's returned to its simple, small, blocky self. There are a mere 2 "trees" before the smooth wall of rock that indicates the edge of the map. georjadam, admittedly crestfallen and thoroughly questioning his mental state, looks back to the other boy.
He is also in shiftlock, approaching liftoff at mach 12. He abruptly stops at georjadam's stillness. georjadam stares at him. dthzzgrii_p stares back.
"so do u know or nah" is all he says.
georjadam blinks before checking the chat. There, he sees it:
"yo where is mithril at" this. person. had asked.
georjadam debated just straight up not replying, but he had already kinda acknowledged the other guy's existence with his little contemptful shimmy. He takes a final look at the plain world around him, tries to slouch his shoulders which merely sway their idle sway, and says, "it spawns anywhere below 500"
"depth?"
"yes, in Hell"
"but tjeres bedrock" dthzzgrii_p protested. "theres*" he corrected. georjadam almost replied "there's*" but he didn't feel like making a random stranger he'd never see again brutally murder his roblox avatar in his head with a metal baseball bat. At least, that's how he deals with people he doesn't like.
It wasn't all too uncommon for people to ask him how certain things in the game worked. He was typically at the top of the player list with his stagnant 8 million cash. It didn't stop a little flame of smug entitlement from blooming inside him as he took a tiny, half-stud sidestep.
"you need to find cracked bedrock and use a detonation charge on it" he explained. "you get those in the shop"
"ohhhh" the other guy replied. "does it cost money tho cause i spent it all on obsidian pickaxe" he equipped said pickaxe for less than a second before putting it away.
georjadam checked his inventory. He had 60 just sitting there, unused for actual years. He looked back up at dthzzgrii_p and his awaiting idle animation before coming to a decision.
"i have some if you need it" he offered, admittedly kind of excited to show off his game knowledge to this aesthetic nightmare of a player. "i'll go with you"
"k" was the last word between them before dthzzgrii_p backed up and walked off like a car rushing out of a parking lot. georjadam never understood why they moved like that. Like they needed to get as far as possible as soon as possible, but not at the sacrifice of some nuance unbeknownst to him.
georjadam followed him to the short distance back to the main spawn and leapt down the hole dthzzgrii_p had made in the upper left corner of the mine. They made it a whole 60 blocks before hitting a pool of oil, quickly scuttering to the next entrance down. The cycle continued until they reached about 400 depth, where dthzzgrii_p abruptly paused. georjadam made a respectful amount of distance between them and waited expectantly for a speech bubble to render.
"this is as far as i made it" he admitted before hopping to a corner and beginning the rest of the length to bedrock. His pickaxe was noticeably slower than georjadam's speed-optimized one, but he let the other guy dig his damn hole. He looked up at his username again.
"do u listen to deathgrips by any chance" georjadam snarked. dthzzgrii_p paused.
"idk what that is" he replied before continuing to mine. georjadam thousand-yard-stared at the stone wall, imagining a different conversation where his dumb stupid terrible failed reference would've been sooooooo cool if this guy had just gotten it. How do you make that username and not know what deathgrips is?? And how was georjadam even supposed to explain it either??? oh yeah it's this experimental industrial noise hip hop rap electro trio with a cult following they're super cryptic and--- shut UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
"it's a band" he settled on, trying desperately to scramble together the remaining shards of his pride.
"k"
georjadam beat dthzzgrii_p's avatar to death in his head with a metal baseball bat, his own mental avatar quickly doing the same to itself.
They hit bedrock.
georjadam wasted no time, hastily equipping his pickaxe and plowing through the bottom layer of blocks in search of this stupid cracked bedrock so he could go back to mindlessly collecting mushrooms and hallucinating hyper-realistic forests. Despite the wholly unnecessary nature of the act, he still stops to collect every precious gem uncovered. For no one, for nothing, except a number with 0 significance. He realizes this, not for the hundredth time, then promptly mines another emerald.
It doesn't take very long to find their cracked bedrock. georjadam doesn't feel like following that one anecdote about the fisher teaching the guy to fish; he's already set the detonator off before dthzzgrii_p even catches sight of him. It blasts through the bedrock and the next 10 blocks of Hellstone with an instant code output and a little explosion effect. Whelming.
dthzzgrii_p doesn't express much more than georjadam aside from a "woah" followed by a "ty" before jumping in the hole. georjadam takes a peek down the entrance to Hell and realizes a little too late that it lands straight into a pit of neon cheeto-orange.
"oh that's lava LOL" georjadam doesn't move.
"did i lose stuff" dthzzgrii_p's lamented query gets bumped up in the chat by about 6 instant "#############################################################################################" messages before TurnerClank_55 is kicked from the game.
"prolly"
"dang"
For a bit, that's everything in the chat. The silence goes on for long enough that georjadam assumes they're done, teleporting to the surface and rushing to the nearest mushroom. The chat gets another message and he pauses, lest he delay the rhythm of mushroom collecting before it's even begun.
"how do i avoid it"
"just dig around it"
"k"
"how"
"u mine?"
"no like i keep fallinf"
"*falling"
"uhhhh"
georjadam spends the next 30 seconds typing out detailed instructions and methods for avoiding lava in the least condescending tone appropriate for the word count, reads over it 4 times, and presses enter.
Silence.
He tries to collect his delicate little brown mushroom.
Nothing.
He tries to teleport. His vision fades to black and does not fade into the spawn location so familiar to him. 5 seconds pass.
"hello"
"hellooo"
"b"
"hjj"
"j"
"m"
"m"
"oh my god ru fr"
georjadam disconnects from the game, walk animation stuck in place behind the blurry gray window of what must be some divine punishment. There's absolutely no way he's rejoining that sever for atleast another 12 hours.
But. The leaderboard.
Maybe he'll join back, atleast 7 hours after the current time tomorrow, just so there's no chance at all of running into the guy again. Yes.