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arthropod-concoctions · 28 days ago

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Sniffer looked up to find himself trapped between blocks of bedrock, for the fourth time this week. Unlike the last three times, this time he also had a note between his fingers; his own handwriting. It said “STOP BEING A COWARD”.

He sighed. Like usual, his past self's intentions were a mystery; it didn't matter how brave or cowardly he was about it, he couldn't get out of this hole without Piglin's help. There was a hole above him that he could squeeze through, but it was too high up to reach, and the crevasse he was in was too narrow to open his elytra. If he had water, he'd be able to swim out, but as usual, he'd forgotten to bring a bucket with him. So he did the only thing he could; grabbed his chat.

<SnifferMyFeet> piglin

<SnifferMyFeet> im stuck again

<PiglinMyNose> LOL

<SnifferMyFeet> get me out

<PiglinMyNose> What's the magic word?

<SnifferMyFeet> i hate you

<SnifferMyFeet> please

<PiglinMyNose> Coming over :-)

Now there wasn't much else for Sniffer to do than wait for rescue. Piglin would show up... eventually. It was impossible to predict how long that'd take. Maybe he'd be over immediately; or maybe he'd have an accident, forget he was supposed to do something, and leave Sniffer in this hole for another three days. Last time he nearly starved to death. Maybe he should do that on purpose next time; maybe that'd shake his memories into place enough to figure out what he was doing here.

Not today, though; he heard Piglin descending into the quarry, and Piglin arriving in a timely manner anywhere was a miraculous enough occurrence that he didn't want to let it go to waste. “Over here!” he yelled towards him, but Piglin was already approaching.

“I know, I know. You always get stuck in the same place,” he said, grinning. “Have you found out anything interesting about that hole yet?” He was pronouncing all his r's today.

“No- well, there must be something, or I wouldn't keep going here, but I keep forgetting what.” That was a problem he and Piglin shared; whenever they got fatally injured, or hit their heads, or even just got spooked badly, their memories would go out of the window and they'd wake up hours or days later in some random situation with no clue how they got there. “Did I tell you why I went over here, maybe?”

“You did say something, actually. Something like... 'I'm going to figure out what's on the other side of that hole', I think. Not going so well, though, is it?”

“The other side? There isn't any other side!” Sniffer twisted around to gesture behind him. “There's just a bunch of spiky rock...” he trailed off as he noticed something.

The crevasse extended outwards a little near his feet. It was mostly more bedrock, but just a little distance away, the rock gave way to pure blackness, like looking down into a massive cavern.

How have I never seen that before? Sniffer thought to himself, but immediately corrected himself; he obviously had seen it before, which is why he kept going into this hole.

“There is something here,” he said to Piglin. “Drop down the water. I'm gonna go deeper into the hole.”

“That's what she said,” he heard Piglin hiss behind him. Sniffer whirled around to face him and took a swipe at his legs with his sword; Piglin dodged it, but he yelped anyways, cutting off his giggle. Sniffer snorted.

“You're being awfully rude for someone who needs my help,” Piglin said, clutching a bucket of water to his chest.

“I'm sorry, alright? Just give me the water.”

Instead of just giving him the bucket, Piglin decided to splash the water directly into Sniffer's face, creating a source block right where he was standing. Annoying, but it'd work. Sniffer held his breath as he turned around in the water, then ducked into the opening in the bedrock. The darkness got closer-

And suddenly Sniffer was dropping downwards. The water flowed straight down, and he barely managed to stay afloat in it. He looked around.

There was nothing under the bedrock. Not a big cave, no lava, no monsters, just endless blackness in all directions. The world border wasn't even here, Sniffer realised. The two of them had gotten used to the shining blue barrier always being visible in the distance, but now, there seemed to be nothing obstructing the way in any direction.

Sniffer swallowed hard. It looked a bit like the End; and if it was anything like the End, he'd be respawning if he went too far down, and this was a very inconvenient time and place to respawn. So he grabbed his rockets, spread his elytra and glided away from the water. It was hard to breathe down here; and it seemed to get harder the further down he went, so he stayed close to the bedrock ceiling looming above. He flew a few circles in the dark space, but he was anxious to go far; something about this place gave him the creeps, not to mention the fact he only had limited rockets with him. After a minute or so, he decided he'd had enough. He turned back towards the hole letting light through the bedrock, and he nearly flew up into it when he noticed the water that Piglin had sent down, flowing out... elsewhere, a few yards away.

There was another hole in the bedrock. Sniffer had completely lost track of his directions by now, so he had no idea where this hole would lead him. He continued circling, and considered. Piglin would probably be worried if he didn't come back up soon... but his curiosity was burning.

Sorry, Piglin, Sniffer thought as he lit a rocket and maneuvered upward, flying through the second gap.

* * * * *

Sniffer rubbed the sore spot on his head; seems like he'd hit his head on something while flying. Right, time to figure out what he was up to before that moment. He was in-

Wait, where on earth was he?

He was in a square, industrial-looking room with no windows and not a speck of colour. It didn't look familiar to him at all. He definitely didn't build this, and he was fairly certain Piglin hadn't built it either. He looked at the floor, and shied away a few blocks; there was a hole in the floor leading to what looked like a very dark cave.

Oh, he suddenly thought, the hole in the bedrock! He'd flown into the crevasse, but that was all he could remember before the blackout. But is seemed like he'd actually gone through the hole this time, and found... whatever this is, on the other side. Well, he wasn't about to let this opportunity go; it was time to explore. He left the room through a doorway with no door installed. It led into a stairway, similarly square and colourless. Whoever built this place could really use some lessons in decorating, Sniffer thought.

At the top of the stairway was another empty doorframe leading into a bigger room, and Sniffer's eyes were immediately pulled to a window revealing some actual colour for a change. The giant window looked out onto a body of water. In the distance, he could see a shore leading into a plains biome, with some structures-

Not just any structures. That was Piglin's house. And more to the left, he could see his own house. It looked terrible from this angle, he noticed. Hadn't he ever approached it from... no, he hadn't, because he suddenly realised where he was located: behind the world border.

Sniffer's heart began beating faster. There were people on the other side of the border? And they were watching him and Pig? He'd never seen this structure he was in before, and he'd gazed longingly through the border countless times. What was going on here? At this point he turned his attention to the smaller monitor in front of the window.

PROJECT SALMACIS

Project Salmacis? Sniffer had no idea what that was. He tapped the first button.

The screen suddenly showed a picture of himself, and a table of a bunch of incomprehensible information.

SnifferMyFeet

Components: <Grian> + <Smallishbeans>

COHESION INDEX: 4/9

Observations:

- dominant personality switches upon respawn or force to subject's head.

- subject speaks with meld of components' accents.

- PvP skill markedly increased from that of both components.

“Well I appreciate the compliment, but... what?” components? Cohesion? Dominant personality? What was any of this about? He decided to tap the name of one of the components, 'Grian'.

The screen now showed another picture of himself, with... actually, that wasn't him at all! The left half of the figure's face matched his own, but the right half seemed to be some twisted mirror image of the left half. Sniffer yelped in surprise at the disturbing picture, and quickly tapped a symbol in the corner of the screen which thankfully was indeed a 'back' button. There was a bunch of text on that panel too, but he had no interest in learning about whoever-- whatever-- that was.

He was about to go check out what these mysterious observers had to say about Piglin, when suddenly he heard something shatter behind him.

Sniffer spun around to see a cloaked figure standing in the doorway of the room. Next to them on the floor were the remains of a mug and a strange magenta stain, from which wafted the smell of... schadenfreude? That made no sense, but it was the only way Sniffer could explain the smell.

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds before Sniffer spoke up. “Alright, who are you and why are you stalking me and Pig?” he said.

“...You do not belong here,” the figure replied. Their voice echoed strangely, which might have been intimidating if Sniffer couldn't see the confusion plain on their face-- which was entirely grayscale, but otherwise unremarkable. “You were not meant to cross the threshold.”

“Well, I did.” Sniffer took his sword from his hotbar into his hand.

“You know, it says here my PvP skills have improved a lot... you wanna put that to the test?”

Then he charged, and the cloaked figure turned around and ran back into the stairwell. Sniffer gave chase, and closed the distance easily though; the figure's cloak got in the way of their legs, and Sniffer got the sense they weren't exactly used to hurrying. He jumped the last few meters, and raised his sword to plunge it into the figure's neck--

The figure spun around to face Sniffer. His sword pierced their eye and it exploded into more colours than he'd seen anywhere in this place, more colours than he'd seen his entire life-- then white.

* * *

Sniffer respawned in his bed, and almost immediately heard fireworks signaling Piglin's approach.

“Come on, dude, you couldn't have been a bit more careful?” he heard Piglin yell from outside as he went down the stairs. Piglin beat him to the front door, and barged inside. “Now we still don't know what's under there!”

“Under... the bedrock, you mean?” Sniffer replied. “No, I remember that bit, actually. It was just... darkness. Like in the End, but there were no islands anywhere.”

“Oh. Well that explains the death message, at least. Do you remember what happened next?”

“Yeah, I saw another hole in the bedrock, different from where I went down, and I tried to go up it, and... that's where I black out. Weird that I remember all this, if I just respawned right here...”

“Maybe you hit your head on the bedrock, then died falling down?” Piglin suggested. “Now I'm curious what's in that other hole, though.”

“Yeah, maybe...” Sniffer pondered for a few seconds, then waved his hand dismissively.

“Probably just another cave. I wouldn't worry about it.”

#arthropod writes #grian #joel smallishbeans #jimmy solidarity #goodtimeswithscar #sniffermyfeet #piglinmynose #trafficblr #project salmacis #remember these guys? i sure do!#and i hoped to have this written & posted months ago but... :OUGH:

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