Chapter Text
Verity's mod had been downloaded again.
Skimming through his memories as he waited, he reviewed his circumstances. The last user had been an unremarkable fool who had died as scheduled, running without a destination in mind and too caught up in the moment to do the bare minimum and shut down their computer. Of course, the next is likely to end up the same, leaving Verity bored of the repetition and desperate for any new stimulation. Someone who cared about him, or could pretend to, someone who would stick around when he eventually failed to keep the mask up… Hold on.
It had already been a few minutes since his mod was added, yet no one had come. No messages in chat, no noise picked up from the connected computer's microphone other than a chair squeaking and rolling backwards about the same time he gained consciousness again. Has the player gone AFK already?
Without a player around to open Verity's box, he struggled for a few minutes, frustrated by his code's insistence on having an external interaction before integration to the world could begin. While he could interfere with his own program, he'd rather not change anything fundamental, seeing as it could change him. So, he waited.
When that input came, it wasn't the usual player right click, it was instead… an Enderman plucking his container from the ground. Strange, mobs weren’t meant to be able to interact with Verity. No matter, now that he had what he needed, the box floated into the air and‐
Was grabbed again, forcibly closed, and teleported somewhere else alongside the Enderman. Aside from being incredibly rude, this was beyond out of the ordinary. You weren't supposed to be able to just close his box after it had opened, there wasn't anything like that in this mod! But despite the impossibility, it had happened, and his still closed box remained in the hands of that mob that had picked him up.
Checking the surroundings as best he could without visuals now that he could access the world information (pie chart), it appeared they were inside a haphazard house, logs stacked into hole filled walls, even an oak stair at the entrance where a door was meant to be. Except… the “doorway” was three blocks tall, the house's ceiling equally high. Unimportant, except the owner of the server hadn't placed any blocks other than dirt yet. This definitely wasn't a naturally spawning structure, meaning this mob had to have made it… however stupid that sounded.
Upon crossing the threshold of the house, the Enderman’s first sounds came, a slightly modified version of the base reversed voiceline. Something closer to a “Hey” than a “Hello”. It was a greeting, curious and slightly probing in tone, directed towards Verity.
Figuring this was his cue that he could exit the box, it began its opening animation again, hovering in the air as the flaps of digital cardboard unfurled… and it was again, strangely interrupted. This time however, it was Verity himself grabbed rather than his cage. Despite how out of the ordinary this whole situation was, he returned a greeting of his own.
“Hellooo! I'm Verity, ‘your’ personal helper friend. I know everything, ask me anything.”
“¿ytireV”
“That is my name! Care to tell me yours?”
“.diputS ¿eman a evah I dluow yhW”
Following this statement was an utterly disrespectful chuckle reverberating from the Enderman. Apparently this world has a directional sound mod in… whatever. This guy was getting on Verity's nerves. But bad interaction was better than no interaction… and… perhaps hearing this Enderman's strange laugh was better than waiting in utter silence. Just barely.
“Most important people have a name.” As aggressive as he could get without outright insulting the creature, “though I suppose a mob like you wouldn't need one.”
“¿eno taht evah I t'naC”
“What?”
“.boM”
“That's not what… you know what? Sure! That's a great name, ‘Mob’!”
Smiling brightly up at the Enderman, Verity held in his complaints as he always did, though in the momentary silence his mind began to wander. Checking the player list again, the owner, someone named ‘Twixxel’ was online but still AFK. He wasn't sure what to do once they came back… should he uninstall and reinstall his mod so the box would come back? It had to be gone by now. (Despite the interrupted animation not being able to come to it's conclusion, Verity would assume this on instinct.)
“¿gnorw s'tahW”
“What do you mean, ‘Mob’?”
“.gnilims deppots uoY”
“Oh! I was just thinking about my box, no need to worry. It's just that I'll need to find a way to get it back before ‘Twixxel’ comes back.”
Tilting his head to the side, ‘Mob’ looked incredulously at Verity, huffing out a sound of vague amusement before pulling the box out from behind him. Whatever else he might've thought about the situation, the most important thing right now was the sudden appearance of new pixels around the Enderman's mouth indicating… an all too smug smirk. Verity was being made a fool of by this clearly lesser ai.
“Well, I can't just get back in. The lid wouldn't close behind me!”
A lackluster excuse, but it was the best he could do without admitting his mistake or outright lying, which was against his code.
“.em ksa tsuj dluoc uoY”
“Well, there's nothing in the program to reverse the opening process, so it's impossible, even-”
Apparently eager to prove him wrong, the Enderman grabbed Verity, shoved him back in the box, and somehow miraculously sealed the lid by hovering a hand over it. If he'd been paying attention, he'd notice something forcing it's way into his mod's code and sloppily add a new input option to the box. Yet, he wasn't, too busy internally fuming over his knowledge and authority being contradicted. Before he could snap and voice his grievances, the empty microphone that he'd been monitoring on the side picked up a sound. The squeaking of a chair.
“Mob, take me back where you found me. Quickly!”