#alexa play all hallows by aviators

[queensparklekitten]

so i've been playing on a small server with the darkrpg modpack, which includes the graveyard mod

it also has dozens of different origins, a skill tree mod, a mod where chests generate loot per-player so multiple people can raid a structure and one person emptying the chests doesn't mean everyone else will get nothing, a mod that makes many mobs (incl. skeletons) drop their heads, regions unexplored (very good biome mod), and a system where powerful dark mages, unseen and unheard by all, will do things like clear dropped items and reward players with random items every 30 minutes. like there's messages in chat going "a dark mage will clear dropped items in 10 minutes". the dark mages come across to me as kinda gods or a synonym for the universe or something

also the person (twig) who i often outsource my moral compass to on our shared servers is unable to get onto the server because of technical issues that are hard to solve when you're long distance friends

also i spend a lot of my time on modded servers exploring, adventuring, and just generally looking to see all the cool things and pretty places and visit all the structures. i often choose winged origins to facilitate long distance travel

also i am a massive lore whore

anyways

(note: this contains major lore spoilers for the Graveyard mod. if you would like to discover the writings and stuff yourself via exploration of a modded world, you may want to press J.)

(also cw for cults, briefly mentioned child death, and a whole lot of murder)

>be me

>air chidori (hybrid of an avian and a blazeborne, raised in an elytrian village) explorer constantly flying around huge distances to find new places and things

>chronic couch-surfer and crasher in empty houses (or on their roofs, i need fresh air to sleep) who carries everything she has on her person (yay for bundles, backpacks, and volumetric distortion!)

>scared shitless of graveyard mobs. in fairness how can one not be? there's blood-covered skeletons called revenants with huge teeth. once i knocked one apart and watched it put itself back together. the ghouls are even worse and i'm just observing them from atop trees. not to mention that the revenants and skeleton creepers have glowing white eyes which can and will cause you to freak out upon seeing one coming at you in the dark of a mine when you were raised on herobrine legends

>so far i'm faring decently well. i keep dying but keepinventory's on. wandering around looking for cool/pretty things

>while exploring at night, come upon a huge dead tree covered in cobwebs with a dead villager hanging from it

>what... the hell...

>at least i HOPE the villager is dead. hear a noise that may have come from it

>get closer. there are multiple half skeletons hanging from the tree

>hear the "dead" villager -the Nameless Hanged, as it turns out they are called- struggling for breath again

>try to save them. attempt to break the branches and chains above, can't figure out how to remove or cut the rope

>while attempting this, they offer to trade with me. they're buying something called corruption. i don't know what that is.

>well that was spooky but i shouldn't be staying on the ground at night i barely have decent armor

>head elsewhere

>some time later (note: irl it was the next day but that's quite a few ingame days) i'm exploring with Ender, a spellbound aegis and admin. They tell me about a nearby massive dreadnought in the sky filled with wither skeletons and phantoms and other monsters that they raided

>fly up there to see what free stuff i can get now that the mobs are cleared out

>alongside tons of diamonds, golden apples/carrots, and potion materials, i also get a huge ass iron scythe

>we venture in the woods a bit and come across what appears to be a normal campsite

>get closer

>there's blood and skeletons all over the place. ghostly hands coming out of the ground. skulls mounted on pikes iirc.

>find a book in one tent. it's written by whoever killed these people. it speaks of a first test of allegiance and of being the saviors redeeming lost souls, and that the people at the campsite are already doomed and possibly already corrupted. speaks of a "Him" who had them do this, briefly questioning His orders before asking who they are to do so and saying these people need to be cleansed

>holy fuck... well that's disturbing

>put the book in my backpack

>hear indecipherable whispering, soul sand valley ambience type spookiness

>look around

>there's something there, on the ground nearby... a piece of an ominous bone staff? whispering at me?

>take the piece

>oh i NEED to know what the deal is here

>Ender is there to witness all this and says I've begun my necromancer arc

>agree

>keep up the exploring and adventuring, now with a quest. findings include but are not limited to a sky village, really creepy nether mobs, and a super pretty flower field surrounded by rainbow trees on one side and cherry trees on the other, which i consider setting up in. none of these things have anything to do with the graveyard mod the flower field will just be relevant later

>eventually find an underground crypt. go in

>there's coffins containing corruption. opening some of them causes wraiths to appear. they seem to be enslaving souls. creepy

>stop looting the coffins after the first few. there's chests to take from

>the place is also full of corrupted illagers, with herobrine eyes and a dark substance all over them that is absolutely corruption. i can tell because i obtain corruption from killing them.

>and acolytes. they sound like illagers, though i can't see their faces under their red-eyed skull masks and purple robes. they attack me with bone daggers.

>keep my ears peeled for whispering. don't find another staff fragment

>do find two more books, both on lecterns, called The Spreading II and III. The latter is the first one I find, and is on some sort of altar made of amethyst and surrounded by candles.

>I have an image of it

>The Spreading II describes a plague across a village. Failed quarantine, people are described moaning in pain lying in the streets surrounded by the dead. Ends with "Where is He? I need to find Him. He will know what to do. Surely He will..."

>leave the crypt with several stacks of corruption, two books, some wither roses, a bone dagger, and some other loot

>i have more info now, but i know this is not the full story

>as i spend more and more time adventuring and get better gear and increase things like my speed, resistance, and max health, i wind up close-ranging enough revenants to be less scared of them than i used to be. still avoid close-ranging ghouls and will evacuate the place with utmost haste if i see a nightmare (hunched eyeless enderman with large teeth covered in blood)

>wind up half setting up in the flower field, no builds or land claiming or chests but i have a waystone, a nether portal, a bed in a nearby tree, a small sugarcane farm, and a few creation tables that i put there for the sake of convenience of not having to carry them on my person

>so that's the closest thing i have to a home base. i'm still spending most of my time flying from place to place looking for cool things

>eventually find a tall spire covered in cobwebs. get closer. it's a tower above a mine. at one point i step on a tripwire and next thing i know a bunch of gravel is on the ground and there are 9 oak signs in my inventory.

>the second staff fragment is at the top of the tower

>two down one to go

>also a little under an in-game week later i find an ossuary. not sure what to do with it. Ender uses the phrase "necromancy arc" again in response to this. i do eventually figure out what one does with it, and note down the coordinates to make halloween decorations with it

>find the tree again after having looked for it for a while

>when i try to trade during the day, they tell me "yes, I see you... but let me enjoy the sun. Come back at night."

>okay so they can see me despite their blindfold

>when I'm visiting Alexis (another player)'s base I try to use her nether portal but it doesn't work

>Can you not use nether portals on someone else's claim?

>After that visit, I'm flying over the ocean

>Notice a shadow on the water

>Look up. Can't see what's making it

>Fly up

>There's a huge island in the sky with tall pillars made of deepslate and dark iron, an enormous ribcage (big enough that I can fly between the bones), and a raised altar surrounded by candles and dark corruption leaking souls

>There's a lectern at the base of the ribcage containing a book

>The book is undated, and the person who wrote it was actively succumbing themself throughout the entire thing. It states that whatever evil the writers of the previous books thought they were fighting took control of them and they became the thing they sought to destroy. "The corruption reached His heart and turned my master... my friend... into this THING!"

>The book writer's mind became clear long enough to realize what was going on, and they took His staff while He was resting and used all their remaining power to seal Him

>at this altar

>which they lifted into the sky above the ocean because the stone was corrupted when the lich was sealed there and they didn't want it spreading any further and claiming anyone.

>They were the one to break apart the staff and hide the pieces in the ruins of places they and their allies slaughtered people -many of them their own friends- thinking it would protect them

>the staff that I've been seeking to piece back together to see what happens

>They speak of being disgusted by the mere thought of their actions and that their cruelties may never be undone. And that they can sense they are dying, and accept this.

>It ends with them telling whoever is reading to stay away from this place. "It holds only sorrow and woes."

>stare into space for a bit processing what i just read

>instead of leaving, go over to the altar and just. start talking to the lich. He doesn't respond, and I don't expect Him to. Not sure how aware He is, if He can hear me. Mention my quest.

>also all this talking is done in the chat and Alexis uses the phrase "necromancy arc" about it

>Eventually figure I can't stay here forever

>...I'm still going to reassemble the staff.

>i can't just quit. i know now that it was split apart for a reason but i've already come this far

>put the book in my backpack

>fly off

>return to the campsite where I found the first piece, knowing what I know now

>sit on the bench by the campfire and talk out loud to the skeletons, skull/torso piles, and the souls that are still here. Tell them I'm not going to release Him, and mean this. I'll never do it. The one who put the staff fragment here died for this.

>more time passes. the adventuring continues. at one point i find a house in the woods full of acolytes and skeletons. there is some weird stuff going on in that basement. with caged villagers.

>say out loud after killing acolytes "you know i'm only killing you because you try to kill me"

>it's true. i want to know their deal, not fight them. but they're attacking me, so i kill them. though is that not how it is with all illagers? i kill them because they attack me on sight.

>by this point my inventory (incl. backpack and bundles) contains 10 lost souls from another mod, more totems of undying than i need, multiple stacks of corruption, a scythe, way more skulls than i will ever use, soul sand, some bone decorations i made at the ossuary for the heck of it, and two pieces of the staff

>also i wonder why the nameless hanged wants corruption so badly?

>also i've begun close-ranging ghouls. still scared of them but not as much as i used to be

>also i'm thinking up ways beyond "i can't just stop now" to justify continuing the staff search to myself

>go to another crypt. don't find the first Spreading book but do find a room with end crystals and nether plants and brewing stands with poisons, and also a pair of trapdoors with books nearby signed with random letters and symbols. all the text is in rhyme and tells me that one trapdoor has a prize and the other means death and the loss of all your items, which i parsed as either tnt or lava. not only is keepinventory on but i am immune to lava thanks to being half blazeborn and can fly out of the drop thanks to having wings. one holds a prize the other means certain demise mild inconveniencing.

>lose my scythe when the modpack updates :( intend to make a new one, there's still another mod that has 'em

>i also return to the altar at one point just to talk to the lich. and to the leaking souls i guess, who i didn't even consider the first time what with the All That but they're here too

>If He's aware in there, He might appreciate having some company other than the trapped souls.

>i know i shouldn't be sympathizing with the leader of a crusading death cult, and I'll never free Him, but still...

>at one point during this i recite the "this place is not a place of honor" out loud. because, it's true, isn't it? Sending this message was important to us. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

>some time down the line, I try to raid one of those sky ships Ender went to. Who are you calling birdbones, I can take an endgame dungeon too!

>die

>on my way back, pass by a large graveyard

>there's blood nearby

>there's an area with a tall device that has dripstone spikes on it, tons of blood at the bottom, a ladder to the top, a chest with tons of dripstone spikes in it, and a lever

>there's a caged villager

>this is no normal graveyard

>flip the lever. the dripstone spikes fall to the ground on an area full of blood

>free the guy in the cage

>find a book on the ground titled The Consequence

>written by someone who states that "they came in the night" and dragged people into the streets, that they were friends and neighbours and family to their victims, and the book writer can't believe what He has done to them. A man named Robert killed the book writer's brother

>find pages of Robert's diary in a corner. It talks of the infection turning people into mindless monsters. He goes "forgive me for what I am about to do" and talks of killing children and his own friends to save them. No mention is made of Him that I recall but it's clear he's another cultist

>put the books in my backpack

>it seems like my inability to enter that nether portal may not have been about it being on someone else's claim. Ender can't get into the nether either. i can't go to the end. all portals have stopped working. something's bound us to our dimension

(note: i still don't know what the issue with the server was but it still hasn't been resolved)

>since we're confined to the overworld, shulker boxes may well be locked out, and i am having MAJOR storage issues from carrying everything i've collected in my travels on my person all the time, i officially, for the first time, commit to something other than the necromancy arc, the gathering of prismoss (pretty rainbow block from regions unexplored), and the stormyx and crying obsidian armor i chose based purely on appearance rather than protection. i return to my waystone at the flower field and make a rainbow hobbit hole. decorate the hell out of the exterior with flowers and heart shaped windows and firefly jars and pink terracotta, half-ass the interior

>yes i am aware of the humor in the contrast between my activities and also my appearance (my current mc skin wears entirely black, though my armor is mostly purple with some pink and blue) and my super cute pink-and-rainbow base which i later filled with pink furniture, flowers, and plushies. got pics if anyone wants. i also had been for a while carrying a cute panda plushie on my head to save space.

>make a storage room. reserve a special diamond chest mounted on the wall for the books i've collected. mark it with a sign and put space between every book, marking them with certain items.

>reread the books to categorize them and put together a timeline. notice a lot of them are dated "Day ___".

>both Spreading books I have are dated Day 108. The third Spreading, where they swear obedience, is the first known mention of death cleansing the world. It's later the same day as the second one if we assume they're written by the same person. Which it may well be given that the second one ends with the writer seeking Him out.

>the book from the campsite is day 112, and describes a first test of allegiance. I assumed the third Spreading was written by someone who'd been in this for a while, but it seems they wrote that the day they became a follower out of desperation.

>I call them the Follower in my notes

>The Consequence is day 162, could be 50 days later but wasn't written by the Follower. Also I don't think Robert is the same Follower from the Spreading, but he could be, I don't know. Likewise, I presumed the Follower from the altar book to be the same one as from the Spreading, but they may be different people.

>document all my observations on the cult, the Follower, the lich, and the history of these places (note: I actually have a google doc of my observations)

>this is my graveyard lore book setup btw

dark iron = crypt book. corruption = the Spreading. skull = campsite book. skull pile = the Consequence and Robert's diary. skull pikes = the book at the altar

>a few in-game weeks later, pass by the Nameless Hanged while looking for birch wood

>I know they carry a few extradimensional items, so i get out the corruption in hopes of obtaining new suddenly much more valuable resources

>they have the third fucking staff fragment

>where and how did you get that

>best i can guess is they bought it off someone who took it from the original hiding spot? they won't tell me how they got it

>it's not until around this time that I realize the sound they make when you interact with them sounds almost like a distorted "I see you". The subtitle says they see through you. They could see me despite their blindfold. Did they somehow detect that I wanted the third piece?

>they make me pay an entire stack of corruption for it

>i take the deal

>fly to coordinates X 108 and Z 112, both days in the books. it's right by world spawn. try to put the pieces back together. can't figure out how.

>stop by the altar on my way home

>realize for the first time there's underground tunnels in the island. explore them. nothing of note. couple skeletons and soul lanterns

>talk to the lich again. and the ghostly hands. don't mention that i have all three pieces

>so now i've got the pieces and i don't know how to put them back together. also i wind up getting a black shulker box off the nameless hanged

>eventually get an idea of what i might have to do to be able to use the staff

>...oh dark mages

>btw remember when i was as scared shitless of ghouls as i am of nightmare endermen? damn that was a while ago huh

>also i've leveled up in power enough to be able to take on one of those sky ships and not die

>while exploring, find another crypt. it's in a prismachasm (rainbow glowing crystal cave from regions unexplored). can't spell graveyard without rave

>there's a boarded-up area

>obviously i break the boards and go in

>the first spreading book is there. it's also day 108. it describes the effects of the plague, which at the time of the writing had only claimed one victim. it's fucked up as hell. the infected start to resemble animated corpses (though there's no indication of their minds going zombie) and that's stage 1, i'm not even gonna mention stage 2's body horror. says their family will be quarantined. we know that didn't work.

>this doesn't seem to be the same infection as the one the cultists speak of? this one unambiguously KILLS, while the other is described as turning people into mindless monsters, and this takes very fast effect while the Follower was able to do all that with their last days. Robert also says the village was infected, but the Consequence makes no mention of disease, only massacre, even though the Spreading has very visible symptoms.

>anyways

>add the first Spreading to the collection display

>also craft a fresh scythe with netherite scraps. mod it's from said i can use it to harvest souls of the mobs i kill with it. haven't actually used it yet at the time of this writing because other things happened

>obtain more information

>to be able to use the staff i have to WHAT

>my suspicion is confirmed and now i know how to do it

>if acolytes are what's left of this cult, they're probably gonna hunt me for this staff

>even if they're a cult leader, no one deserves to be trapped FOREVER

>it's for the good of the world, the alternative is worse

>unless...

>that might just get me killed! and then what'll happen?

>know damn well what i'm doing isn't right

>

>they don't. guess i gotta do this the old-fashioned way

>say to my cat "hey kitty baby i'm gonna go do something and you have to promise not to ask what it is okay"

>get out my bone dagger i got from an acolyte i only killed in self-defense, and an empty vial

>i'd use my waystone to zap to the village by Alexis' base but i don't want her blamed for the disappearances

>most small illager campouts have a cage with a kidnapped villager in it. usually when i find those, after killing anyone who tries to kill me, i free the person in the cage. this time, i kill them with the dagger and collect blood. the vial only fills to 1/8th capacity. i need to do this 7 more times.

>go from raiding illager campouts (at one point going "want out?" right before killing the villager) to going to a village at night and targeting the green-robed ones (and making a fly for it when the iron golem runs over to the house i committed murder in) to simply taking anyone who strays far enough from their village that the iron protectors won't be likely to notice, often telling them they shouldn't stray too far right beforehand.

>say "i'm sorry" right before killing the last victim i need, someone who lives alone in a little house in these really pretty hills with purple trees (i can respect that lifestyle choice), who i've passed by and said hi to before in my travels several times, who was nearby and nowhere near an iron golem and wouldn't be as likely to be noticed if they went missing

>brew up some strength potions

>get out my enchanted golden apples (i've collected like 9 in my adventures, had more but i ate them)

>fly to the altar

>set my spawn nearby, at X and Y levels 108

>keep talking to the lich. at one point go "hey bet i can fly through those ribs" to Him. don't manage to do so

>heart fucking racing. i can't believe i'm doing this

>while waiting for the sun to go down, light all the candles there purely to be dramatic

>

>when the sun sets, place each staff fragment on the especially corrupted areas at the altar

>pour blood into the altar, fly up onto a pillar, eat an enchanted golden carrot, and watch as best as i can as soul flames appear everywhere

>everything goes dark around me and i hear ominous whispering

>the Corrupted Champion rises

>it's fucking insane. there's like streams of trapped souls. legions of revenants and red-eyed blood-covered white ghouls, which i close-range without hesitation. glowing-eyed skulls being shot at me. bloody skeletons raining from the sky. i keep getting lifted into the air. the area is cloaked in darkness and i often can't even see the lich

>the lich who keeps saying things I can't make out with how distorted His voice is and has 3 different forms all of them skeletal. goes from huge floating skeleton-thing in a torn black cloak with the same glowing white eyes of revenants wielding the newly intact staff, to the same without the staff or cloak, to a deformed version straight-up crawling on the ground who managed to land some hits on me

>spend the next i don't even know how long shooting arrows sometimes blindly, drinking strength potions, eating enchanted golden apples, going "this isn't your final form?!" and being very glad i have flight

>eventually He falls apart and the bones appear to sink into the ground and disappear. it's day by now. i fought all night. the place is now empty except for me

>...did I do it?

>pick up the Staff of Xaphnok'gul. Fully intact, its once-empty eyes bright purple.

>for a moment just stand/kneel (haven't decided yet) there where the fight ended. i couldn't think of anything to say but i know my cubita did some kinda salute or said something, not quite sure what. main thing that came to my mind was the tma quote "rest in... just rest." because i have tma brainrot

>fly away. return to my platform by spawn to test out the staff's abilities

>on the way there, the dark mages reward me with an item again. hits differently after doing That.

>good to know you still consider me worthy of such rewards

>i mean, i DID defeat the Corrupted Champion. And intended to.

>once i get there, wind up summoning a ghouling out of the ground. purple, large teeth, visibly undead, neither of us fears the other. new buddy! ^-^ :D

>side note i love that he's purple and so are the staff's eyes because purple's kinda my colour. my shield is purple my armor is purple (crying obsidian chestplate with purple eye trim, stormyx everything else) my eyes were intended to be purple but when i edited this skin for my use it was night and my blue light filter was on so they wound up blue but looked purple to me at the time (i translate this in-universe as my cubita's eyes being blue by day and purple by night) and now my ghouling and my staff's eyes are purple

>the ghouling follows me around, helps me kill monsters like a wolf would, and when i use the staff to have them stay still or follow me (something which involves a ring of white soul particles) he talks to me ("i will stay here" and "i follow")

>and is way better at avoiding powder snow than i am, something i comment on out loud

>we're heading back to my base

>oh yeah btw here's a pic with the staff. ghouling's a bit hard to see but he's there

>Upon finding out I have the staff, Ender tells me I'm the lich now. I agree and am okay with this. it IS my staff now

>i have no intent of starting a cult

>night falls and it starts thunderstorming. no sense in being out after dark, even though after what i just did i know i could take on even a nightmare enderman no problem. we head into a nearby lighthouse to wait out the storm

ah sweet manmade horrors no longer beyond my comprehension

you guys are never gonna believe what i've been up to with the graveyard mod btw