#like the soothing effects but i dont… want to directly smoke it since i still live with my parents yknow

[ragingbullmode]

mmm. kind of a hard question to answer but does anyone have any. advice for getting into cannabis use (preferably vaporizers) for someone whos never smoked a day in their life 🫣

[sweetest-honeybee]

To Hell and Back

Chapter 30

Summary: Xisuma isn’t doing all that great to say the least and neither is Keralis

Characters: Xisuma, Keralis, Evil X, Hels

TW: Fighting (not an overly violent or gorey chapter or anything)

Notes: Don’t really like how this chapter was written but I rewrote it like 4 times ;v; Also, I’m like 99% Keralis’s name doesn’t pop up as just Keralis in the chat but I’m too lazy to see what the hermits usernames are in the game lol

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“What do you mean I’m being affected?! I’m fine!” Xisuma yelled, quite obviously proving Evil X’s point.

After what Ex said, the admin snapped at him repeatedly while he tried to explain what was happening. How Hels’s hateful personality was being used as fuel for Wels’s outbursts and if Xisuma let his anger get to him much longer, Evil X would be reaching the sickly state Hels was currently in. Hours ago when the knight was sleeping- it was probably nighttime in the overworld- he woke up suddenly complaining about pains he was having in his head.

In tears, might he add.

Obsessed with what Xisuma said to him, Ex took it as that he needed to help Hels. Unfortunately, that meant that he needed to get back to the overworld somehow and one elytra certainly wouldn’t carry both of them, he didn’t think. It would just break faster with the added weight. So, not wanting to ask the other Hermits for assistance since that didn’t count to him as ‘cleaning up his own mess’, he soothed Hels back to an uncomfortable sleep.

Throughout the next passing hours, Ex stayed awake. He had no problem with sleep, weirdly, he didn’t really feel tired even after being up for more than a full day. He watched as Hels slowly lost the color in his face and how he would start to shiver from The End’s everlasting breeze. That in itself was concerning since the knight never really was cold- radiating over 100 degree body heat had its pros for sure. Nonetheless, Hels had to prop himself up on the side of the mast to sit up and overall, he just felt awful. Every movement threw the world around him into a spin and something was mumbling annoyingly in the back of his mind. The Lord was probably punishing him with uncontrollable voices again. He was sluggish, for lack of a better word, because his counterpart was draining him of everything he had left in this vessel.

“Xisuma, take off your helmet,” Hels commanded hoarsely, giving the other his best glare he could muster. Unsurprisingly, Xisuma didn’t comply and only further made concerningly aggressive remarks about the situation. Mostly just saying how he got only a couple hours of sleep the night before and that he was just tired. Yet, none of them, not even Keralis, believed it for a second.

“Shashwamy, you’ve been acting weird the entire time on over here,” Keralis decided to comment. “I think they’re right.”

“Xisuma, if you keep yelling at everyone, I’m gonna end up just like Hels.” Ex stared at Xisuma, awaiting an answer. Growling- growling- at Ex, Xisuma popped the seal around his neck and lifted the helmet, intending to show off that he was just tired and irritated and didn’t, in fact, have red eyes.

Only he did. Very, very red eyes startled both Ex and Hels, the two crawling backwards away from the admin and drawing Hels drawing his sword. It nearly fell from his less than solid grip but he didn’t plan on dying yet. Keralis stepped back a few steps, not wanting to provoke whatever they saw. Xisuma turned to look at him over his shoulder and the man gasped at the sight, drawing his own sword as well.

“Sh….Shashwamy?” The blade wavered in his own grip as well.

Weirdly, it was so unnatural to see slitted crimson irises on the admin. His short, earthy brown hair, minimal stubble, and freckles crossed with an ‘X’ shaped scar across his face oddly supported his usually friendly demeanor. Now, he simply looked possessed and instead of being scared of how the trio fumbled to get away from him, Xisuma chuckled, a deep, sickening chuckle, at the reaction.

“Oh, this will be fun,” he said.

“Xisuma….” Ex muttered, making Xisuma’s head snap towards him. “Xisuma, you need to snap out of it!”

The admin stood, towering over the two still on the ground. Keralis crouched, awaiting some kind of attack or, if their luck happened to be any worse, The Lord of Darkness to appear and kill them all as well. Instead, he unfurled his elytra, speckled grey and white feathers stood out against the ship and he gripped his sword tight, firework rockets in his other hand. He had no intentions to hurt his friend, mostly since he didn’t want to lose him with respawn, but also that whatever it was in front of him, it wasn’t Xisuma.

“Xisuma,” he started, pulling the admin’s attention away from the pair on the other end of the deck. He swallowed the bitter lack of using the endearing nickname, but again, this wasn’t Xisuma. “You can take me on, but we leave the ship and we leave them alone.” He eyed the pair behind the admin.

Xisuma thought for a second. “And if I win?”

“If I die, you’ll be the one left with them here. But I can get you help, Shashwamy. You need to fight it.” The builder kept his voice even, softer than what he would’ve liked.

The admin’s gaze dropped briefly. With a blink, violet eyes were looking at him, but with another blink, they were gone. “You’ll regret trying this. Remember what happened to Tango, Keralis.”

Keralis swallowed thickly. “Yes, I know about Tango. Shashwamy, don’t let it get to you, you’re better than this.”

Xisuma then put his helmet back on, the redness of his eyes glowing through the visor. This time Keralis’s attempts had no effect on the admin. It made his stomach twist, but he stood his ground.

“Fine then. If I die, I come back for you, Keralis.”

The builder shuddered but both were in fully enchanted armor, thankfully, so he would take a few hits if it came to it and so would Xisuma….hopefully. He wouldn’t suffer Tango’s fate at least- Doc had told him and Impulse about it the day before.

Summoning his sword and spreading his elytra- deep green and black spotted pterodactyl wings- Xisuma pulled out his rockets, the pensive glare never leaving Keralis’s unusually large eyes. With that, he stood at the edge of the boat, falling backwards off of it, probably intending for Keralis to follow. He pulled himself up with a few flaps, the smoke of the rockets trailing behind him, and hovered directly over The Void. Keralis thanked everything that Xisuma was bad at PvP. Well, unless the weird evil force had more skill but he doubted that.

With a last glance at the pair on the deck, he fired off his rockets and flew off into the sky. He flew a bit lower than the admin, circling around him. Though, that hadn’t lasted long when Xisuma dived into his direction, already beginning to swing his sword.

He dodged the attack, maneuvering himself around the admin, taking a swing at his elytra to catch him off guard. Not enough to tear his wings, but enough to give him some fright. Keralis fired off more rockets and shot off into one direction. When he turned back around, the admin was coming at him with a speed he would swear was faster than an arrow. Xisuma successfully tackled the other and moved quickly to push his sword upwards into Keralis’s back but his hand was caught and before he knew it, a kick to the chest later and Keralis was flying off again towards the End City.

With yet another growl, the admin sped off towards him. They flew up and around the structure, some shulkers firing at them but the two weaved through the small attacks easily. Keralis flew off over The Void again, letting the admin follow him. Thankfully, the fight was more chasing than attacking and he was perfectly fine with that. Stopping just briefly, he fired off more rockets, flying back towards the city with a much faster speed than he had before. The builder didn’t look like he planned to stop, and Xisuma saw that the idiot was about to fly right into the side of one of the towers. The two were speeding up more and more and even Hels and Ex had no clue what Keralis was planning to do.

But that question was quickly answered when Keralis pulled up just before hitting the building and Xisuma was sent flying right into the side of it. Unfortunately, his armor must’ve given out at some point during the impact because the trio’s communicators buzzed as the admin turned to a puff of green, blue, and purple smoke.

Xisuma experienced kinetic energy

All of the items in Xisuma’s inventory fell meters down onto the endstone and Keralis tore his communicator from his pocket, typing furiously.

<Keralis> Nobody go see xisuma

<Keralis> You dont know whats happening but he and wels are being possessed and will kill you on sight

<Tango> Guessing you were attacked too

<Keralis> Yeah

Pocketing his communicator, and ignoring the various additional buzzes from it from what he assumed were the other Hermits, he flew down to the island. Sure, Xisuma had literally almost tried to kill him, but that didn’t mean the admin wouldn’t at least have his stuff saved. With a sigh, Keralis turned to the ship. Well, Xisuma did drop his elytra in the crash and it wasn’t hardly half broken by any means so Hels would use it to get back to the overworld. Agreeing to this thought, he fired off more rockets and made his way up to the ship.

For a second, Keralis wondered if either Evil Hermit was okay to fly such a long distance. Evil X was already beginning to lose his own color, but the knight was so far along in that process that Keralis didn’t even know if he was awake at the moment. Hels leaned against Ex’s side with a tired frown, breaths leaving in shallow heaves, and beads of sweat pooling over his face. He definitely wouldn’t be flying anytime soon.

Keralis debated with himself. He could see if Ex could carry him back to the overworld and just give him Xisuma’s elytra since they were a stronger set that could handle more weight. On the other hand, both Hels and Ex were probably at more risk of being attacked than the other Hermits but that could be prevented. Nonetheless, Hels needed help and Keralis didn’t want to leave the two to gather health potions….or harm potions. Poison? Did they work like zombie villagers?

He shook his head. Off topic, off topic. Right, well he could just contact the other Hermits, kind of explain what’s going on from what he knew. Though, Wels replied in chat earlier on so any plans would be watched and taken advantage of. He dragged a hand down his face with a groan, grabbing Ex’s attention. This was hard. He just wanted Doc and Impulse back here safely, too. And he wanted Xisuma as well, but that only brought on more worrying thoughts. Hopefully, when he respawned he snapped out of his weird trance. But that was a very iffy hope.

“I don’t know how to help,” he muttered, sending the pair a sad expression. “What do I do?” Ex, nor unconscious Hels, probably knew, but feedback was nice, he guessed. Even if it was the same statement repeated back to him.

Ex only mirrored his expression, turning to glance at Hels. “I….just want to help him. But I don’t know how to stop The Lord of Darkness. This just happens and I don’t think we can prevent it.” He turned back to Keralis. “There’s some people who can probably help but they’re not exactly….nice.”

Keralis perked up, interested in the possible solution. “Who?”

Ex rubbed at his neck, hanging his arm there. “The Evil Hermits. Mostly NPC Grian.”

Then, Keralis deflated. “Oh. There’s not like, a way we can convince them or….?”

The other shrugged. “That’s what I’m hoping Doc and Impulse can do.”

Well wasn’t that certainly news to Keralis. His eyes, already incredibly large as they were, widened at his statement. The fact that Ex said the very thing he was trying to figure out for more than an hour now so casually simply just annoyed him. Ex only rose a brow at Keralis’s increasingly ridiculous vague gestures while he stuttered to get his reply pieced together in his head.

“Wha- They’re in HelsCraft?! And you didn’t think to tell me this before?!” he finally yelled.

“You didn’t ask. You guys said The Lord of Darkness killed them and that they weren’t answering their communicators, so they’re probably in Hels. If we’re lucky, they’re not being tortured.”

Keralis rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but to worry at the thought of his friends being hurt by whatever kinds of creatures were in Hels. He could only think by what Doc said that Hels told him that everything there was so bent on the idea of killing. Though, if Doc and Impulse were there for a reason, they wouldn’t simply be killed. It made, unfortunately, a bit of sense that the people there would have their own fun with a couple of people from the overworld. And Hermitcraft at that.

He crossed his arms, deciding now Ex would be good enough to drag Hels back to the overworld. The man was still his blunt, questionable self and that was enough for Keralis.

“Right, right. Well, we need to get back to the overworld. You can carry him,” he pointed a twirling finger at Hels, ”back there.”

Ex only replied with a huff, then thinking for a second. “Keralis, where did he respawn? Because if I know anything about Xisuma, it wasn’t at his base.”

“Ah….Well, it was in his base but it was….” His eyes widened at the realization. “Down the hall from Wels’s cell. That’s where The Lord of Darkness was, in the cell I mean. I dunno if he’s still there.” He facepalmed internally. They really were just better off keeping him on the boat.

Hastily, Ex pulled Hels and himself up, keeping the knight leaned against his shoulder.

“Let’s go.”