Chapter Text
The Kingdom of the Caves had gone quiet.
Not peacefully quiet.
There was nothing peaceful about the silence hanging over the tunnels.
It was the kind of silence that came after thousands of footsteps had stopped all at once. After weapons had been dropped. After voices had screamed themselves hoarse and simply had nothing left to say.
Wemmbu walked through it alone.
His boots scraped against stone.
Every few steps, something cracked underneath them.
An arrow.
A piece of armor.
A broken tool.
A block of sculk.
He didn't bother looking down anymore.
He had spent too long looking down.
At traps.
At enemies.
At corpses.
At the paths he was supposed to take.
At the places Arachn1d told him to go.
At the people who needed him to do something.
At Egg.
Especially Egg.
Wemmbu kept walking.
The deeper parts of the kingdom were still recognizable, although barely. The great underground civilization Arachn1d had once proudly called the greatest civilization in the history of the server had been carved apart by the Purge. The tunnels that had once carried armies now carried dust. The grand halls were scattered with abandoned equipment. The kingdom's promise of safety had been reduced to a maze of stone and darkness.
And somewhere inside that maze was the one place Wemmbu had been trying to reach for what felt like an eternity.
Egg's stasis chamber.
He found it.
Wemmbu stopped.
There it was.
The familiar mechanism.
The suspended pearl.
The chamber.
Egg.
For a few seconds, Wemmbu didn't move.
Egg was still there.
Alive.
That was the important part.
Alive.
Wemmbu stared at the walls.
His mind projected images of his friend looking almost peaceful.
It was an irritatingly familiar sight.
Egg had always been able to look peaceful in situations where Wemmbu was one bad decision away from blowing up half a civilization.
Wemmbu almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead, he stepped closer.
His hand came up.
His fingers rested against the trapdoor.
“Hey.”
Nothing.
Of course nothing.
Egg couldn't answer him.
Wemmbu knew that.
He knew exactly how stasis worked.
He knew Egg was trapped.
He knew he could potentially pull the chamber.
He knew that freeing Egg would mean dealing with everything waiting outside.
Arachn1d.
The kingdom.
The remnants of the Purge.
Everyone who had survived.
Everyone who wanted something from him.
Everyone who would expect him to immediately start fighting again.
He thought about Egg again.
“Sorry.”
His voice came out quieter than he'd intended.
For once, there was no joke afterward.
No sarcastic comment.
No stupid grin.
Just the word.
Sorry.
Wemmbu lowered his hand.
He could free Egg.
He knew that.
That was precisely why this decision mattered.
He wasn't leaving because Egg was gone.
He wasn't leaving because Egg was dead.
He wasn't leaving because he had forgotten him.
He was leaving because, for once, Wemmbu wanted to make a decision that belonged entirely to himself.
He looked at the chamber again.
“I'll come back.”
He didn't know if that was true.
Maybe that was the worst part.
Wemmbu turned around.
His boots scraped against the stone again.
One step.
Two.
Three.
He kept going.
He didn't look back.
The tunnels swallowed him.
For a while, there was only darkness.
Then light.
Wemmbu emerged from the cave mouth and stopped.
The surface stretched out in front of him.
No armies.
No guards.
No civilization.
No Arachn1d.
No one shouting his name.
No one demanding that he fight.
The wind moved through the grass.
Wemmbu stood there for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't his usual laugh after successfully killing someone who had underestimated him.
It was almost disbelieving.
He was free.
Not permanently.
Probably not even for very long.
But right now?
Nobody was telling him where to go.
Wemmbu looked toward the horizon.
He had spent so much time moving from one crisis to another that he'd forgotten something.
There was a whole world outside the caves.
He knew the server.
Obviously.
He'd fought across it.
Built across it.
Destroyed parts of it.
Escaped through it.
He'd explored the Far Lands with Egg. He'd crossed dangerous territory with Jaden. He'd spent entire stretches of his life moving from civilization to civilization because somebody had decided that owning Wemmbu was a worthwhile objective.
But he'd never really explored just because he wanted to.
Not properly.
Not like this.
Wemmbu looked left.
Then right.
He pointed toward the horizon.
“...That way.”
He started walking.
Then stopped.
He looked in the opposite direction.
“Actually, that way.”
He started walking again.
Another five seconds passed.
He stopped.
“Wait.”
He looked around.
“Which way is spawn?”
Nothing answered.
Wemmbu slowly grinned.
“Who cares?”
And then he ran.
For the first few hours, he didn't think about the kingdom.
That surprised him.
He expected to.
He expected every cave entrance to remind him of Egg.
Every dark tunnel to remind him of Arachn1d.
Every abandoned structure to remind him of the Purge.
Instead, he found himself staring at things he'd never bothered to notice before.
A ruined bridge.
An old road.
A half-collapsed house.
A river cutting through a forest.
He climbed a hill purely because it was there.
At the top, he looked over the landscape.
Far in the distance, he could see the remains of an old settlement.
Wemmbu squinted.
“What's that?”
He headed toward it.
The settlement was abandoned.
Mostly.
A few structures remained intact, but their roofs had collapsed in places. The roads had been swallowed by grass. A ruined farm sat at the edge of the village, its crops long dead.
Wemmbu walked through the streets.
Nobody attacked him.
That was new.
He entered one of the houses.
Nothing.
Another.
Still nothing.
The third had a chest.
Wemmbu opened it.
Rotten food.
A few tools.
Some blocks.
And a written book.
He picked it up.
The cover was dusty.
Wemmbu opened it.
The first few pages were ordinary notes about the settlement.
Then he found a page that mentioned a battle.
His eyes narrowed.
The name was familiar.
Wemmbu.
He read the sentence again.
Apparently, some players had once passed through this settlement while fleeing a fight involving him.
Wemmbu stared at the page.
“Huh.”
He flipped forward.
There were more mentions.
Apparently, according to the writer, Wemmbu had destroyed an entire group of players.
According to another page, he had saved them.
According to another, he had started the conflict.
According to another, he'd finished it.
Wemmbu slowly lowered the book.
“That's not even what happened.”
He thought about correcting the record.
Then he shrugged.
“Whatever.”
He put the book back.
As he left the house, he noticed a sign outside.
Someone had carved a sentence into it.
WEMMBU IS DEAD.
Wemmbu stared at it.
There was a long silence.
Then he started laughing.
“Oh, that's fucking great.”
He sat down in front of the sign.
Nobody was around to see him.
Nobody knew he was there.
For several minutes, he just laughed.
Eventually he stood up.
He didn't destroy the sign.
He didn't correct it.
He simply walked away.
By sunset, Wemmbu had traveled farther than he intended.
He found a small hill overlooking a river and decided to stay there for the night.
He didn't build a house.
Didn't make a civilization.
Didn't claim the land.
He put down a few blocks, sat on them, and watched the sky.
Stars appeared one by one.
Wemmbu leaned back.
For the first time in what felt like years, there was nothing he needed to do tomorrow.
No objective.
No war.
No hostage.
No kingdom.
No opponent.
Nothing.
His thoughts wandered back to Egg.
The smile disappeared.
Wemmbu stared into the darkness.
“I'm sorry.”
He didn't know if he was apologizing for leaving.
Or for knowing he was leaving.
Maybe both.
Then he looked up again.
Tomorrow could wait.
For now, he was just Wemmbu.
And nobody was looking for him.
Yet.
Wemmbu walked.
That was it.
No destination.
No map.
No kingdom waiting at the end of the road.
Just walking.
For the first few hours, it was almost peaceful.
Then he saw another player.
Wemmbu stopped.
The player stopped too.
They were still far enough apart that neither had to make the first move.
Wemmbu's hand immediately moved toward his mace.
The other player noticed.
Their weapon came up.
Neither said anything.
Wemmbu tilted his head.
The player took one step backward.
Wemmbu took one step forward.
The player took another step backward.
Wemmbu smiled.
“Yeah, that's what I thought.”
The player turned and ran.
Wemmbu didn't chase them.
He watched them disappear over the hill.
Then he looked down at the mace in his hand.
“...Right.”
He'd forgotten.
Not everybody on the server wanted to talk to him.
Some people were scared of him.
Others wanted him dead.
And some people would probably attack him simply because killing Wemmbu was worth trying.
He had spent so much time around people who already knew him that he'd forgotten what his reputation looked like from the outside.
Wemmbu wasn't just some guy.
He was the guy who had fought entire civilizations.
The guy who had stolen maces.
The guy who had used orbital strikes when he was outnumbered.
The guy who had survived prison.
The guy who had fought Flame over and over again.
The guy who had been dragged into wars with half the server.
The guy people had learned to be careful around.
And after the Purge?
He was an even bigger target.
Everyone knew he'd been one of Arachn1d's strongest fighters.
Everyone knew what he was capable of.
Wemmbu scratched his head.
“Okay.”
He looked around.
“That's going to be annoying.”
He continued walking.
A few hours later, he found a settlement.
He approached from a distance.
The first thing he noticed was the watchtower.
The second was the player standing on top of it.
The third was the fact that the player immediately raised their weapon.
Wemmbu stopped.
Another player appeared on the wall.
Then another.
Three people were watching him now.
One of them shouted.
“WEMMBU!”
Wemmbu sighed.
There it was.
He didn't answer.
The player shouted again.
“What are you doing here?”
Wemmbu looked at the settlement.
Then at the three weapons aimed at him.
Then back at the settlement.
His first thought was simple.
Kill them.
It came naturally.
Three people.
One elevated position.
Two on the wall.
Open ground.
He could close the distance before they coordinated.
His hand tightened around the mace.
Then he stopped.
No.
That wasn't why he had left.
He wasn't trying to conquer anything.
He wasn't trying to prove anything.
He wanted to disappear.
Killing everyone who recognized him was a spectacularly bad way to accomplish that.
Wemmbu lowered the mace.
“I'm leaving.”
The players didn't lower their weapons.
One shouted,
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere.”
“You alone?”
“Yeah.”
They exchanged looks.
That seemed to make them more nervous.
Wemmbu almost laughed.
He turned around.
“Have fun.”
He walked away.
He made it perhaps thirty blocks.
Then heard footsteps.
Wemmbu stopped.
His hand immediately went back to the mace.
He turned.
One of the players had followed him.
The player stopped.
“You're really Wemmbu?”
Wemmbu stared at him.
“Yeah.”
The player looked genuinely unsettled.
“Why are you out here?”
“Because I wanted to leave.”
“Leave what?”
Wemmbu paused.
“Everything.”
The player didn't have an answer.
Wemmbu smiled.
“Goodbye.”
He turned away.
This time, the player didn't follow.
Wemmbu kept walking.
The settlement disappeared behind him.
He didn't stop until he couldn't see it anymore.
Then he looked at his mace.
He stared at it for a long moment.
He loved that weapon.
It was useful.
It was familiar.
It was also a giant fucking sign saying:
HELLO, I AM WEMMBU.
The orbital system was even worse.
Anyone who knew him well enough would recognize it immediately.
His fighting style was one thing.
His equipment was another.
His mace and orbitals were part of his reputation.
They were stories people told.
If he wanted to disappear, he couldn't keep announcing himself every time he got into a fight.
Wemmbu sighed.
“Fine.”
He put the mace away.
Not forever.
Absolutely not.
He wasn't insane.
He was just going to stop using it where people could see.
Same with the orbitals.
If he needed them, he would use them.
Just not where anybody could connect them to him.
That left one more problem.
His armor.
Wemmbu looked down.
Anyone who had seen him before would recognize it.
Maybe not instantly.
But enough.
He needed something different.
Not a completely different person.
Just different enough.
He started looking.
He traveled for another day before finding an abandoned structure that looked like it had once been some kind of storage facility.
Inside, there were old chests.
Most were empty.
One wasn't.
Wemmbu opened it.
Armor.
Not great armor.
Not his armor.
But usable.
He picked up the pieces.
He looked at them.
Then at himself.
“Ugly.”
He put them on.
“Better.”
He changed the arrangement.
Removed pieces.
Added others.
Changed the colors.
Nothing dramatic.
He didn't need to look like an entirely different person.
He only needed people who knew Wemmbu to look at him and think:
Probably not him.
He examined himself in a cracked piece of glass.
Still recognizable.
But different enough.
That was one problem solved.
The second was harder.
His name.
Wemmbu sat on the floor.
He thought about the Invisible Knight.
Back then, he'd needed a completely separate identity for a specific purpose.
This was the same.
Just like last time,
He didn't want to infiltrate anything.
He didn't want to trick anyone.
He didn't want to convince the server that Wemmbu was dead.
He just wanted to walk around without everyone knowing who he was.
He needed a name.
Not a title.
Not a dramatic alias.
Something stupid.
Something ordinary.
Something that didn't mean anything.
He remembered something he'd found while exploring earlier.
An old identity-changing item.
It had been sitting in the ruins of an abandoned administration building.
He'd ignored it at the time.
Now he went back.
It took him most of the afternoon to find the building again.
When he finally did, he searched through the rubble until he found it.
A small item.
Nothing impressive.
But when he held it, a menu appeared.
DISPLAY NAME
CURRENT: WEMMBU
CHANGE
Wemmbu stared.
Then smiled.
“Perfect.”
He selected it.
The item didn't permanently alter anything.
It simply changed what other players saw.
And, importantly, it could be changed back.
Wemmbu looked at the blank name field.
He thought.
Then typed:
REMBY
He stared at it.
“Remby.”
He snorted.
“That's awful.”
He smiled.
“Perfect.”
He confirmed it.
The item flashed once.
DISPLAY NAME: REMBY
Wemmbu looked down at himself.
Different armor.
No recognizable weapons.
Different name.
He was still him.
He hadn't erased himself.
He'd just stopped advertising who he was.
That was enough.
Wemmbu stood.
Then corrected himself.
“Remby.”
He laughed.
“Right.”
He walked outside.
The sun was setting.
A player appeared on the road ahead.
Remby stopped.
The player stopped.
Remby's hand immediately moved toward his sword.
Not his mace.
The sword was less recognizable.
The player looked him over.
Remby waited.
No reaction.
No sudden weapon raise.
No,
Wemmbu?
Nothing.
The player simply walked past.
Remby watched them go.
He didn't move.
He waited.
The player never looked back.
Remby slowly lowered his hand.
“Holy shit.”
He smiled.
It worked.
He started walking again.
A few hours later, another player crossed his path.
This time, the player looked at him.
Remby tensed.
The player nodded.
“Hey.”
Remby stared.
“...Hey.”
The player kept walking.
That was it.
No fear.
No weapon.
No questions.
Remby looked over his shoulder.
The player was already gone.
He laughed quietly.
Nobody knew.
He hadn't become a different person.
He was still Wemmbu.
Still capable of using the mace.
Still capable of calling down orbitals.
Still capable of killing someone if they gave him a reason.
But nobody looking at him now would know that.
That was the important part.
He could fight normally.
He could travel.
He could explore.
And if he ever needed to...
He could switch the name back.
WEMMBU.
The thought made him grin.
Remby continued down the road.
He had no idea that this was going to become more complicated than he expected.
Because hiding a name was easy.
Hiding a fighting style was harder.
Hiding instincts was harder still.
And hiding the history of Wemmbu from people who had spent years fighting beside him?
That was going to be nearly impossible.
But for now?
Remby was nobody.
And nobody was exactly what he wanted.
Remby discovered that being invisible was surprisingly useful.
Not metaphorically.
Actually invisible.
He was standing in the middle of a road, watching four players approach him.
They hadn't noticed him yet.
Remby looked at them.
Then at the road behind him.
Then back at them.
He sighed.
There were too many.
Not that he couldn't fight them.
He could.
That wasn't the problem.
The problem was that fighting four people with his normal equipment would leave evidence.
A mace.
Orbital strikes.
His usual movement.
Maybe somebody would survive and tell people what happened.
And the entire point of Remby was that nobody was supposed to know what happened.
So he reached into his inventory.
Pulled out a potion.
And drank.
His body disappeared.
The four players continued down the road.
Remby stepped aside.
They passed directly through where he'd been standing.
One of them stopped.
“Wait.”
The others stopped too.
“What?”
“I thought I saw somebody.”
Remby stood completely still.
The player looked around.
Nothing.
“Probably nothing.”
They continued.
Remby waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then he quietly walked in the opposite direction.
He smiled.
“That is fucking convenient.”
He'd always thought of invisibility as something useful during his Invis night arc.
But now, with a different name, he could kill freely.
He kept walking.
The potion wore off several minutes later.
Nobody had noticed.
Perfect.
From then on, invisibility became part of the routine.
If he saw a large group ahead, potion.
If he saw people setting up a checkpoint, potion.
If he heard voices while traveling through unfamiliar territory, potion.
Sometimes he didn't even know who the people were.
He didn't care.
Remby wasn't interested in becoming involved with anyone.
He wanted to see things.
That was enough.
Days passed.
The world became stranger the farther he traveled.
He found enormous structures he had never heard of.
Old settlements built around ideas he didn't understand.
Abandoned fortifications with entire sections of their walls missing.
A massive underground complex that had clearly once belonged to a powerful faction.
Remby spent nearly an entire day exploring it.
There were rooms.
Corridors.
Storage areas.
Old battle damage.
A throne room with no throne.
He stood in the middle of it.
“Who the hell lived here?”
Nobody answered.
He looked around.
“Seriously?”
Silence.
“Fine.”
He walked out.
The next place was completely different.
A settlement built around a massive central tower.
People actually lived there.
Remby watched from a hill.
He could go inside.
But he didn't.
Instead, he sat down and observed.
People came and went.
Players traded.
Two people argued over something that sounded completely insignificant.
Someone ran through the streets carrying supplies.
Another person shouted from a balcony.
It was ordinary.
That was what interested him.
Nobody here seemed to know him.
Nobody was talking about Wemmbu.
Nobody was waiting for him.
Remby watched for almost an hour.
Then he noticed someone staring at him.
He immediately stood.
The player was far away.
They were still staring.
Remby's hand moved toward his sword.
The player raised their hand.
Not a weapon.
A wave.
Remby stared.
The player waved again.
Remby slowly raised his own hand.
Then immediately regretted it.
The player smiled and walked away.
Remby stood there.
“...What am I doing?”
He walked away from the settlement.
He decided waving at strangers was not for him.
That evening, he found an old campsite.
There was no one there.
He sat beside the remains of a fire.
For a while, he did nothing.
Then he pulled the name-changing item from his inventory.
He turned it over in his hand.
REMBY.
He could change it back whenever he wanted.
That was the strange part.
Wemmbu was still there.
He hadn't disappeared.
He could press a button and become Wemmbu again.
He could walk back toward the caves.
He could return to the server.
He could find Egg.
He could find anyone.
He just didn't want to.
Not yet.
Remby put the item away.
Then looked toward the horizon.
He had traveled farther than he'd expected.
He'd crossed places he had never seen.
He'd met people who didn't know him.
He'd avoided fights he normally would have started.
And somehow...
He liked it.
The next morning, he found a massive ravine.
Remby stood at the edge.
Then looked down.
“That's deep.”
He crouched.
Looked again.
“Really deep.”
He considered jumping.
He decided against it.
He wasn't stupid.
At least not all the time.
He walked along the edge instead.
That was when he heard shouting.
Remby stopped.
Someone was fighting.
His first instinct was to keep walking.
His second was to watch.
His third was to get closer.
The third won.
He approached carefully.
Two players were fighting near the bottom of the ravine.
Remby watched.
Their equipment was good.
Their movements weren't.
He frowned.
“That swing was terrible.”
One player nearly got hit.
Remby winced.
“And that one was worse.”
He crouched behind a rock.
The fight continued.
One player finally disarmed the other.
Remby watched the winner raise their weapon.
He could tell what was coming.
The defeated player backed away.
“Wait.”
The winner didn't.
Remby sighed.
He didn't know either of them.
He didn't owe either of them anything.
He should leave.
Instead, he reached into his inventory.
He pulled out a regular weapon.
Not the mace.
Not anything distinctive.
Then he jumped.
Both players looked up.
The winner froze.
Remby landed between them.
“Stop.”
The winner stared.
“Who are you?”
“Doesn't matter.”
The player raised their weapon.
Remby's instincts kicked in.
He moved.
One strike.
The player's weapon went flying.
A second strike.
They hit the ground.
Remby stepped back.
The other player stared at him.
Remby looked at them.
“You okay?”
The player nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Remby turned.
The defeated player looked after him.
“Wait.”
Remby stopped.
“What?”
“Why did you help me?”
Remby thought about it.
He genuinely didn't know.
“Didn't like how he was fighting.”
Then he left.
He climbed out of the ravine.
The whole thing had taken less than a minute.
He hadn't used the mace.
He hadn't used an orbital.
He hadn't even used his real armor.
Nobody could connect it to Wemmbu.
That was good.
But something else bothered him.
He'd said he wasn't getting involved with anyone.
Then he'd gotten involved.
Apparently, changing his name hadn't changed his instincts.
That could become a problem.
He continued traveling.
Far behind him, the first people were beginning to notice something else.
The search for Wemmbu had started.
Not because anybody had seen Remby.
Not yet.
It started because Wemmbu had been gone too long.
LettuceK stood inside one of the surviving structures near the Kingdom of the Caves.
He looked around.
Nothing.
No sign of Wemmbu.
No sign of where he'd gone.
He had already checked the obvious places.
The surface.
The nearby roads.
The surrounding settlements.
Nothing.
LettuceK frowned.
“He wouldn't just disappear.”
A player nearby shrugged.
“He did.”
“No.”
LettuceK looked toward the mountains.
“Something happened.”
He didn't know what.
Nobody did.
But Wemmbu had always been difficult to predict.
That wasn't new.
What was new was the complete lack of evidence.
No body.
No fight.
No message.
Nothing.
LettuceK started asking questions.
Not everyone cared.
Some people assumed Wemmbu had simply left.
Others thought he was dead.
A few believed Arachn1d knew more than he was saying.
LettuceK didn't know which explanation was correct.
So he kept looking.
Meanwhile, somewhere far away, Remby was trying to figure out how to cook without setting his own shelter on fire.
He stared at the result.
“...That's not food.”
He poked it.
It collapsed.
“Okay.”
He threw it away.
He had survived wars.
Prison.
The Purge.
Entire factions trying to kill him.
And now dinner was his greatest enemy.
Remby sighed.
“I'm going back to stealing food.”
He packed his things.
Then noticed something.
Footprints.
Not his.
Someone had been near the shelter.
Recently.
Remby immediately drew his sword.
He looked around.
Nothing.
He crouched.
The tracks went toward the road.
He followed them.
A few minutes later, he found another player.
They hadn't noticed him.
Remby watched from behind a tree.
The player was searching the area.
Remby's grip tightened.
He could kill them.
Easy.
But then he noticed something.
They weren't searching for him.
They were searching the ground.
Looking for something they'd dropped.
Remby relaxed.
He stepped out.
“You looking for this?”
He held up an item he'd found nearby.
The player spun around.
“Where did you come from?!”
Remby tossed it over.
“Over there.”
The player caught it.
“Thanks.”
Remby nodded.
The player looked at him.
“You traveling alone?”
Remby immediately became suspicious.
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
“Don't.”
The player laughed nervously.
“Okay.”
Remby walked away.
After a few seconds, he heard the player mutter,
“Strange guy.”
Remby smiled.
That was acceptable.
Strange was good.
Unknown was better.
He kept moving.
The landscape slowly changed again.
The settlements became less familiar.
The roads became rarer.
The structures became older.
The server felt enormous.
And Remby had barely begun.
He stopped on a hill at sunset.
Far in the distance, he could see the outline of another civilization.
He didn't recognize it.
That made him smile.
He reached into his inventory.
The identity item was still there.
REMBY.
He could become Wemmbu again whenever he wanted.
But he didn't.
He looked toward the unknown settlement.
Then started walking.
For now, he had no reason to go back.
And somewhere behind him, people were beginning to realize that Wemmbu's disappearance wasn't temporary.
They just didn't know yet that he wasn't missing.
He was exploring.
He was alive.
And he had a new name.
The search had begun.
Remby simply didn't know it yet.
The civilization in the distance was much larger than Remby had expected.
By the time he reached it, the sun had already disappeared.
Lights stretched across the valley below him.
Buildings.
Walls.
Bridges.
Watchtowers.
People.
A lot of people.
Remby stopped on the hill overlooking the entrance.
He crouched.
Watched.
There were guards at the gates.
Several of them.
He could get past them easily.
He could drink an invisibility potion and walk directly through.
His hand moved toward his inventory.
Then stopped.
No.
He had spent the last several days using invisibility whenever he saw people.
That was useful.
It was also becoming a habit.
And he hadn't left the Kingdom of the Caves just to spend the rest of his life hiding behind a potion effect.
So he stood.
Then walked down the hill.
One of the guards noticed him almost immediately.
“Hey!”
Remby stopped.
The guard raised his weapon.
“Name?”
Remby stared at him.
He hated that question.
“Remby.”
The guard looked him over.
Nothing.
No recognition.
No sudden fear.
No weapon being raised higher.
Just a shrug.
“Never heard of you.”
“Good.”
The guard blinked.
“Good?”
Remby continued toward the gate.
His answer seemed to confuse the guard enough that he simply let him pass.
Remby entered.
And for the first time in days, he wasn't trying to disappear.
He walked through the streets.
Nobody recognized him.
Nobody whispered.
Nobody pointed.
Nobody followed him.
It felt strange.
He had gotten so used to being watched that being ignored almost felt suspicious.
He passed a market.
A workshop.
A large building with an enormous sign hanging over the entrance.
A fighting arena.
Remby stopped outside it.
He looked through the open doors.
Several people were fighting inside.
He watched for a few seconds.
“Terrible.”
A person standing nearby looked at him.
“What?”
Remby pointed.
“That guy keeps dropping his guard.”
The person looked inside.
Then back at Remby.
“You know him?”
“No.”
“You know fighting?”
Remby stared.
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
The person laughed.
Remby walked away.
He found a small shop selling food.
He bought enough supplies to last several days.
The shopkeeper handed him the food.
“You traveling far?”
“Probably.”
“Where to?”
Remby looked outside.
“Somewhere else.”
The shopkeeper laughed.
“Helpful.”
“Thanks.”
He left.
By evening, Remby had explored half the civilization.
He even found an abandoned storage building where he could sleep.
It wasn't comfortable.
It didn't matter.
It was his.
Nobody knew who he was.
Nobody expected anything from him.
He sat on the roof that night and looked across the lights.
For a while, he simply watched.
Then he smiled.
Maybe this had been a good idea.
Maybe he could actually do this.
Maybe he could spend months traveling.
Maybe longer.
He could see places he had never seen.
Meet people who had never heard his name.
Become someone completely irrelevant.
Remby.
Just Remby.
He leaned back.
Then his expression changed.
Something moved at the edge of the civilization.
A group of players.
They weren't entering.
They were leaving.
Five of them.
Armed.
Organized.
Moving quickly.
Remby watched them disappear through the western gate.
He frowned.
They looked like soldiers.
Maybe they were.
He didn't think much of it.
Not yet.
The next morning, he left.
He traveled west.
He had no destination.
That was the point.
He crossed a forest.
Then a valley.
Then a wide stretch of rocky land.
He stopped several times to explore ruins.
One had collapsed completely.
Another still had intact rooms.
He found an underground passage that led nowhere.
He spent nearly an hour trying to figure out what it had been used for.
Eventually, he gave up.
“Who builds this shit?”
He left.
By the afternoon, he reached a large ravine.
He stood at the edge.
Looked down.
“That's deep.”
He leaned forward.
“Really deep.”
He considered jumping.
He stepped back.
“No.”
He walked along the edge instead.
Then he heard shouting.
Remby stopped.
Someone was fighting.
His first instinct was to keep walking.
His second was to watch.
His third was to get closer.
The third won.
He approached carefully.
Two players were fighting at the bottom of the ravine.
Remby watched from behind a rock.
Their equipment was decent.
Their fighting wasn't.
“That swing was awful.”
One nearly got hit.
“And that one was worse.”
The fight continued.
Eventually, one player disarmed the other.
The defeated player stumbled backward.
“Wait.”
The winner raised their weapon.
Remby's hand moved toward his own.
He stopped.
He didn't know these people.
He didn't owe them anything.
But the winner was about to kill someone who was already defeated.
Remby sighed.
“Fuck it.”
He pulled out his sword.
Not his mace.
Not anything recognizable.
Just a sword.
He jumped down.
Both players looked up.
The winner barely had time to react.
Remby landed between them.
“Stop.”
The winner stared.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Doesn't matter.”
The player attacked.
Remby moved.
One strike.
The weapon flew from their hand.
Another.
They hit the ground.
Remby pointed his sword at them.
“Leave.”
The player stared.
Then scrambled backward.
Remby lowered his weapon.
The other player looked at him.
“Why did you help me?”
Remby thought.
He didn't really know.
“Didn't like the way he was fighting.”
The player blinked.
“What?”
“Forget it.”
Remby climbed out of the ravine.
He didn't look back.
He had barely gone fifty blocks when he heard voices above him.
He stopped.
Three people.
They were standing on the ridge.
Remby immediately reached for an invisibility potion.
He drank it.
His body vanished.
The three players looked around.
“Where'd he go?”
“I don't know.”
“He was right there.”
Remby stood completely still.
One of them walked closer to the edge.
“Maybe he jumped.”
“Into that?”
“Could've.”
They looked down.
Remby silently moved away.
He waited until the voices faded.
Then removed the potion effect.
“Too many people.”
He continued west.
He didn't know who they were.
He didn't know why they had been looking around.
He didn't care.
He had other things to worry about.
Like staying alive.
Like finding somewhere to sleep.
Like figuring out why every civilization seemed to have terrible architecture.
Behind him, though, the people searching weren't random.
And the search was no longer passive.
The first lead had come from the Kingdom of the Caves.
Wemmbu was gone.
There was no body.
No confirmed death.
No message.
No obvious destination.
That alone would have been strange.
But then Arachn1d made a decision.
He brought Egg out of the stasis chamber.
Egg was moved into a fortified room closer to the surface.
The moment people noticed, rumors exploded.
Arachn1d wanted them to.
He wanted the information to spread.
He wanted every road, settlement, and traveler to carry the same story.
Egg was alive.
Egg had been moved.
Egg was being kept under guard.
And Arachn1d wanted Wemmbu to know.
Egg understood immediately.
“You're baiting him.”
Arachn1d stood outside the room.
“Yes.”
“You really think that'll work?”
“Yes.”
Egg laughed.
“You haven't learned anything.”
Arachn1d frowned.
“Explain.”
“Wemmbu doesn't like being controlled.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Egg shook his head.
“You know he disobeys you.”
“That is the same thing.”
“It isn't.”
Egg stepped toward the bars.
“You've always thought that if you threaten the right thing, he'll do what you want.”
Arachn1d said nothing.
“You're wrong.”
Egg stared directly at him.
“He doesn't come back because you threaten me.”
Arachn1d's expression hardened.
“He came back before.”
“Because he had to.”
Egg's voice became quieter.
“There's a difference.”
Arachn1d turned away.
“Keep him here.”
Egg watched him leave.
Then looked toward the window.
He could see part of the surface.
The sky.
Mountains.
The outside world.
He wondered where Wemmbu was.
And whether he was safe.
Then Egg smiled faintly.
“Don't come back.”
He knew Wemmbu wouldn't hear him.
Still, he said it anyway.
“Seriously.”
The door closed.
Outside, Arachn1d gave another order.
“Send search parties.”
A soldier looked confused.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“We don't know where he went.”
“Then start where he was last seen.”
The soldier nodded.
“And if you find him?”
Arachn1d looked toward the mountains.
“Don't attack him.”
The soldier paused.
“What?”
“Follow him.”
“Why?”
“I want to know where he's going.”
The soldier nodded.
That was the beginning.
Not one giant army.
Not a single group hunting across the entire server.
Several smaller searches.
Different people.
Different motives.
Different ideas of where Wemmbu might have gone.
Arachn1d's soldiers searched roads around the Kingdom.
LettuceK, who found out Wemmbu was missing, searched old locations Wemmbu had used before.
Others checked abandoned bases.
Some checked the areas where Wemmbu had fought during the Purge.
Some believed he had gone underground.
Some believed he had returned to the main server.
Some believed he had simply died somewhere nobody had found.
And some were convinced that Wemmbu was deliberately hiding.
Flame was one of them.
He stood beside Parrot on a ruined road several days later.
Parrot looked over a set of tracks.
“These are recent.”
Flame crouched.
“Wemmbu?”
“Maybe.”
Flame looked at the footprints.
Then shook his head.
“Too small.”
Parrot looked at him.
“You're measuring his feet?”
“I've fought him enough times.”
Parrot stared at the tracks.
Then back at Flame.
“You realize that's insane.”
“I don't care.”
Parrot stood.
“What if he changed his appearance?”
Flame looked at him.
“He wouldn't.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Flame's expression became more serious.
“Because I've seen him do it before.”
Parrot went quiet.
Flame continued.
“Wemmbu disappears when he wants people to stop looking for him.”
Parrot nodded slowly.
“Then what?”
“We look harder.”
Parrot smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
“It should.”
They started walking.
Neither of them knew about Remby.
Not yet.
But they were already looking for the exact kind of disappearance he had created.
Elsewhere, Spoke and The Null commander were having a very different conversation.
“You think he's dead?” __________ asked.
Spoke shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody found anything.”
“That doesn't mean he's alive.”
“No.”
Spoke looked toward the road.
“But it means we don't know.”
________ sighed.
“So what are we doing?”
“Checking places he might go.”
“Which places?”
Spoke smiled.
“The places nobody would expect.”
_________ groaned.
“You're going to make me search the entire server.”
“Probably.”
“I hate you.”
“You'll survive.”
Meanwhile, Wifies had started looking into something more specific.
Not locations.
Identity systems.
Name-changing items.
Old records.
Anything that could allow someone to disappear without actually disappearing.
He found several possibilities.
None were conclusive.
But one detail caught his attention.
An old identity-changing item had been used before.
Not recently.
Not enough to prove anything.
Still, he saved the information.
He didn't know who might use it.
He only knew that if Wemmbu had decided to vanish, changing his name would be one of the simplest things he could do.
The search was becoming a web.
And Remby was walking straight through the middle of it.
He just didn't know.
Several days later, he reached another settlement.
Smaller this time.
He didn't enter.
He saw people near the road.
He drank an invisibility potion.
Walked past.
Then heard one of them talking.
“Any sign?”
“No.”
“Still nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Remby slowed.
He couldn't see them.
They couldn't see him.
He listened.
“Kingdom's sending more people tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because they think he might've gone this way.”
“Who?”
There was a pause.
“Wemmbu.”
Remby stopped.
His stomach dropped.
He hadn't heard that name spoken aloud in days.
One of the people laughed.
“Why would Wemmbu come here?”
“Don't know.”
“Maybe he ran.”
“Maybe.”
Remby stayed completely still.
The invisibility potion shimmered around him.
Nobody could see his expression.
He listened.
“Doesn't matter. If we find him, report it.”
“Think he's dead?”
“No idea.”
Remby waited until they moved away.
Then he walked.
Fast.
He didn't run.
He refused to run.
But his thoughts were moving quickly.
They were searching for him.
Not Remby.
Wemmbu.
That distinction mattered.
He had known people would notice eventually.
He hadn't expected it to spread this far.
He stopped behind a rock.
Pulled out the identity item.
The name on it glowed faintly.
REMBY.
He stared at it.
Then put it away.
“Keep walking.”
He continued.
Behind him, the search party moved in the opposite direction.
They passed within a few hundred blocks.
Neither side knew how close they had come.
Remby traveled until nightfall.
He made camp far away from the road.
No fire.
No lights.
Nothing that could attract attention.
He sat beneath an overhang and stared into the darkness.
For the first time since leaving the caves, he wondered whether disappearing had actually worked.
Then he remembered the searchers.
Apparently, not completely.
He looked toward the direction he had come from.
He could go back.
He could change his name.
He could become Wemmbu again.
He could find Egg.
He could deal with Arachn1d.
He could fight everyone who came after him.
The thought almost made him smile.
It would be easy.
Violence always was.
But he didn't want easy.
He wanted distance.
So he stayed where he was.
Meanwhile, Arachn1d received a report.
A soldier stood before him.
“We found signs.”
Arachn1d looked up.
“Where?”
“Far west.”
“Certain?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“Someone has been traveling alone.”
Arachn1d waited.
“Unknown name.”
“What name?”
“Remby.”
The room became silent.
Arachn1d frowned.
“Who?”
“Remby.”
Arachn1d leaned back.
He had never heard the name.
The soldier continued.
“They've been avoiding settlements.”
“Describe them.”
“Dark armor. Sword. Travels alone. Doesn't stay anywhere long.”
Arachn1d thought.
“Could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because they were seen near one of the routes Wemmbu used.”
Arachn1d's eyes narrowed.
“Find them.”
The soldier nodded.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Arachn1d stood.
“And if it is Wemmbu?”
The soldier waited.
Arachn1d looked toward the chamber where Egg was being held.
“Then bring him home.”
Far away, Remby was already moving again.
He had no idea anyone had mentioned his new name.
He had no idea people were starting to connect the strange traveler called Remby with the roads Wemmbu had once used.
He only knew one thing.
He had finally found somewhere nobody knew him.
And now people were searching.
Remby pulled his hood up.
Then disappeared into the darkness.
The search for Wemmbu had become a hunt.
And the first hunters were already getting close.