Chapter Text
Scholars.
Scholars are people who study a specific subject in great detail or students who receive financial aid to support their education. But no, I’m not talking about the people who study a specific subject down to the tiniest detail, nor the students who receive financial aid or support for their education. No.
Fuck that.
I’m talking about the Scholars of the Unstable SMP. There, the Scholars are much like spies. The Scholars are people who gather information and document them into books, writing pieces of histories that may soon be forgotten in the server over time. Some of the Scholars are intelligent, more intelligent than most. Some of them are good in blending in and hiding. Some of them good in manipulation.
They’re all different in their own unique ways, but they all have one thing in common; Writing. Documenting.
They all document every single thing that happens in the server, no matter how small it is. It’s apart of the job, really—even if it’s not an actual one.
Whether it’s about the new growing civilizations or the failing ones, the new forming factions or the dissolving factions, the newly starting wars or the ending wars, or the people that had made a name for themselves.
The Scholarly of the Unstable Universe documents them all.
Writers of stories; that’s the name of the very, very few people who knows about their existence gave them.
They’re all scattered at all parts of the server. In parts I mean; Kingdom of Unstable(main spawn), the Nether, the Great Sea, Kingdom of the Caves, Skymore Civilization, Redstone Town, Capitol City, Merchant City and more that I don’t remember.
The group’s leader is a player currently unnamed as Scholars don’t know who the he is. Many theorize that he goes by the title or name; ‘The Eye’.
The current and recognized assistant standing in for him is a player named ‘Athenaeum’ or Athena for short, a player who seems to have been in the server long enough to see the beginning, the rise that will soon be the fall, and she seems to have enough knowledge on the main four.
The Scholars’ base, or rather Citadel, is in the Underworld. The Underworld being located hundreds of blocks underneath the bedrock floor of the Nether, right where the void should normally be.
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The chamber wasn’t built to be found. Buried somewhere between loaded chunks and forgotten coordinates, the Council’s meeting room flickered into existence only when all conditions were met—ten seats, one long obsidian table, and a ceiling that shimmered like corrupted skybox code.
A chair scraped.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” The Director sighed, leaning back like he owned not just the room, but the server itself. His voice carried that casual authority, the kind that didn’t need to be loud to be obeyed. “We’ve got a situation.”
“Everything is a situation with you,” The King of the Nether muttered, boots up on the table, spinning a netherite dagger between his fingers. “If it’s not burning, exploding, or screaming, you call it a ‘threat.’”
Code Eater didn’t look up, fingers idly tapping the table as faint lines of code shimmered in front of his eyes. “Statistically, he’s not wrong. Ninety-two percent of your ‘situations’ resolve themselves without intervention.”
“And the other eight percent rewrites the entire server,” the Director shot back.
“That’s the fun part,” the Code Eater replied flatly.
A low hum filled the room as the Oracle tilted her head, eyes unfocused, like she was watching something none of them could see. “He's listening, you know...”
Silence.
And then the King of the Nether decides to break the silence, "it's not like he's gonna do anything about it."
The Glory—slouched, arms crossed—clicked his tongue. “You’re joking. Just because he can't do anything about it now doesn't mean he won't actually do anything about it later on.”
The Relinquished Crown leaned forward, resting her chin on her knuckles. “He's right,” she murmured. “He is the Leader after all. He sees every possible future that can take us down. I'm honestly surprised he hadn't used that to his advantage and betray us.”
“He's merciful,” the King of the Nether said, “makes him weaker.”
The Director tapped the table once to get everyone's attention, “we need to focus on this matter and not make things surface again, but you're right. His mercy and kindness makes him weak.” A faint distortion flickered near the empty seat—the one that never quite looked empty. The Eye wasn’t there, not fully. But the temperature dropped slightly, and the air carried that quiet, watchful pressure.
The Director exhaled. “Anyway, the Citadel has been exposed to quite a few people, we can't let that get out or our shit will be out to the entire server," he then turned and glared at Athenaeum.
"Hey, don't look at me, it wasn't my fault the Citadel's location was exposed." Athenaeum exclaimed, crossing her arms across her chest as she leaned back against the back rest of her chair, "Look at Jamato. He's the one who refused to take the books in a safe place besides his shulkers and ender-chest, resulting in one of the main four taking them."
Code Eater, or rather Jamato, finally looked up, head whipping around to glare at her. “Okay, fine. I admit. That was my fault, but what am I supposed to do? He threatened to fucking kill me--”
"—language," the Relinquished Crown interrupted, "and what is even the point of all of this arguing? Let's just focus and try to actually do things that benefits us and keep the Scholarly a damn secret."
"Zam's right," the Glory followed, breaking his silence. "We need to keep the Scholarly a secret, that's the only thing we could at least do now that the Citadel's location could possibly be leaked. Especially from the Director's smart little bird."
"He's not my bird." The Director defended himself, "He's my clone's pet. Even if he is, I'd already have killed him. I don’t do friendship unless it brings benefits to my researches and experiments. I'm only assigned to keep tabs on him and nothing else."
Athenaeum rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, we know, Director, you've reminded us approximately five hundred times.” The Director simply shrugged, completely unapologetic as he leaned back into his chair.
“Regardless,” Athenaeum continued, “the point is that the Citadel being exposed means we have a serious problem.” She tapped her fingers against the obsidian table, eyes moving across every member present before stopping briefly at the empty seat. “If even one person figures out what the Citadel actually is for, we can assume the information will eventually spread.”
“And then?” The King of the Nether asked, spinning the dagger between his fingers. “They come knocking on our door?” He grinned slightly, as though the idea amused him more than it concerned him.
“They won't need to knock,” Code Eater said. His fingers moved through the air, pulling up several translucent windows filled with coordinates, player names, and fragments of server data. “If the location is leaked, they'll simply find a way inside.”
The Glory leaned forward. “And if they get inside, they get the archives.” His expression darkened as he glanced toward Athenaeum. “Which means years of documented history, classified observations, identities, and information on the Main Four could become public knowledge.”
“Exactly,” Athenaeum replied. “The Citadel isn't just a base; it's the largest collection of information on this server that has ever existed. A library of history.” Her voice became quieter as she added, “If it falls, the Scholarly falls with it.”
The room went silent.
Even the King of the Nether stopped spinning his dagger. The atmosphere shifted almost immediately, the playful arguing from moments before replaced by the uncomfortable realization that none of them could simply fight their way out of this problem.
Then the Oracle spoke, “they're already looking.”
Everyone turned toward her.
The Oracle's eyes remained unfocused as she stared at something beyond the walls of the chamber. “Not for the Citadel,” she clarified, her voice barely above a whisper. “For the Scholars.”
Athenaeum's expression hardened. “Who?”
The Oracle slowly tilted her head. “Everyone with the former King of Unstable.”
The King of the Nether scoffed. “That's fucking vague.”
“It isn't,” the Glory muttered. “She's saying the problem isn't one person searching for us.” He looked around the table, his expression grim. “It's that enough people are starting to notice that something exists.”
The Director nodded slowly. “And once people realize there's something worth finding, they'll start digging.” His eyes briefly flickered toward the empty seat again, and for the first time, there was something resembling concern in his expression. “Which means our Leader's little secret society is becoming considerably less secret. Regardless of what happened, we still have a problem sitting directly beneath our feet.”
Athenaeum rolled her eyes. “You mean the problem that you keep blaming everyone else for?”
“I am not blaming everyone else,” the Director replied, leaning forward. “I am pointing out that someone was careless enough to let information about the Citadel become accessible in the first place.” Jamato scoffed. “And somehow that always circles back to me.”
“Because it was your fault,” Athenaeum said bluntly. “You had the fucking books. You could've hid then and prevented this fucking problem from escalating.” Jamato stared at her for several seconds before slowly leaning back in his chair.
“I already admitted that,” he muttered. “How many times do you want me to say it?”
The Glory sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Can we stop arguing about whose fault it was and actually figure out what we're doing now?”
“The obvious answer is to relocate,” the Director said. Athenaeum immediately shook her head. “Absolutely not.” The Director raised an eyebrow. “And why exactly?”
“Because relocating the Citadel every time someone gets too close defeats the entire purpose of having a permanent archive,” Athenaeum replied. “Not to mention moving everything we have stored there would take fucking forever.” Jamato nodded reluctantly. “She's right.”
The King of the Nether twirled his dagger again. “So we just sit here and hope nobody finds us?” “Nobody said that,” the Glory snapped. “We're going to reinforce the security around the Citadel and figure out exactly how much information has already gotten out.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” the Director asked. “We don't even know who knows what.” Jamato crossed his arms. “Then we find out.”
Athenaeum looked toward him. “And how exactly are you planning on doing that without making it obvious that we're investigating?” Jamato opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. “...I hadn't gotten that far.”
The King of the Nether laughed. “Brilliant.” “Shut up,” Jamato muttered. “At least I'm trying to think of something.”
The Glory leaned forward. “We could use the Scholars already stationed across the server.” The Director shook his head. “Too risky.” “If we suddenly start asking questions about people looking for the Citadel, they'll notice something is wrong.”
Athenaeum nodded slowly. “Then we don't ask.” Jamato glanced at her. “What do you mean?” “We watch,” she replied simply.
The Director leaned bavk in his chair. “We're already watching half the server.” “Exactly,” Athenaeum said. “So we let them come to us instead of making ourselves visible.”
The King of the Nether grinned. “Now that's something I can get behind.” The Glory gave him a sideways glance. “Of course you can.”
“What, you think I don't enjoy watching people make stupid decisions?” The King of the Nether asked, still grinning.
“You enjoy watching people suffer,” the Director corrected. The King of the Nether shrugged. “There's a difference?” Athenaeum groaned and leaned back in her chair.
“This is exactly why we can't let outsiders know about us,” she muttered. “We can't even have a Council meeting without turning it into an argument.” Jamato pointed toward the King of the Nether. “He's the one making it worse.”
“Don't drag me into this,” the King of the Nether replied. “I'm just sitting here.”
“You have been spinning a dagger for the entire fucking meeting,” Jamato said.
“And?”
“And it's distracting.”
The King of the Nether smiled. “Good.”
The Director slammed his palm against the table. “Enough.” The room fell quiet again, though several of them still looked irritated. “We are not going to solve this by arguing about each other's mistakes.”
Athenaeum crossed her arms. “Then what are we solving first?” The Director looked around the table. “The Citadel. Then after that, we deal with whoever is responsible for exposing it.”
Jamato frowned. “And what happens if Spoke is already watching us? He had Null after all.” Nobody answered immediately. The question lingered over the table.
The Glory finally spoke. “Then we make sure they don't learn anything useful.”
Athenaeum nodded. “And if they already know something useful?”
The Director's expression hardened. “Then we find out what they know.”
The King of the Nether slowly grinned again. “Finally, something interesting.”
“You really need better hobbies,” Athenaeum muttered.
The King of the Nether shrugged. “This is my hobby.”
“Unfortunately,” the Glory said, “we all know that.”
The argument started again almost immediately, voices overlapping as they debated security, information leaks, the stolen books, and just how much they should risk exposing themselves to uncover the truth.
None of them seemed willing to back down, and the Citadel remained the one subject that kept dragging every argument back to the same question.
How much did the outside world actually know?