#the prank was so powerful Iskall came on the server just to help

[mystilotls]

The escalation from "I'm going to graffiti motivational quotes" to "I'm going to play obnoxious sirens of my voice everytime you get close" to "I'm going to unite with the server to bury you alive with your home, and I'm going to plant trees so it looks like you were never there" is certainly something.

[ceaderblocks]

Writing prompt: all the hermits have powers save for Grian, Grian knows the others have powers, but says nothing, the others are entirely oblivious (only if you want to write aus of course)

Grian knew something was different the moment he entered the boundaries of Hermitcraft. The magic electrified the air, and it was simply obvious something was different about the players of this world.

Grian could see it in the way Mumbo could draw redstone from the ground and move it as if it were alive. Xisuma seemed to possess the code around him, more then an Admin would usually be able to do. He had created mini-blocks and altered the course of night, all in the name of convenience and aesthetics. BDubs controlled the forest, Doc was never hurt by mobs and Iskall’s teeth were a little too sharp and his vision a little too good. Scar and Cub were their own brand of powers, and the builder didn’t want to know what they did to make their eyes spark and their hands blaze with power.

Grian came to realize very quickly that he was the only one without any sort of power or ability.

And so Grian pretended. He pretended TNT blasts came naturally, only him knowing that the explosives were really hidden beneath his feet. He practiced lighting the block as soon as it left his inventory, making it seem like it simply materialized from thin air. He pretended that the too-close blasts didn’t hurt, and that the burns didn’t exist. He studied the radius and depth of each explosion, perfecting his damage so the others would think he was controlling it. He stayed up nught after night testing pranks to make sure the right enough of damage was done to make others think it was a careless prank instead of mindless destruction.

He learnt how to craft different TNT blocks, ones that had never been seen before. Grian learnt to adjust them so they exploded faster and carved the land deeper. No one questioned his singed hair and the scent of gunpowder that followed him.

Hermits never guessed that his power wasn’t natural. On a nether trip Tango commented that he wished for Grian’s ability. Grian had laughed it off, watching with exhausted eyes as Tango waded into the lava sea, unbothered, as Grian pulled out blocks to build a crossing. Grian laughed when Mumbo said how much his power suited him, watching the redstone glimmer in Mumbo’s hair.

Of course, even the best lies crumbled. Grian’s fell apart when creating a new TNT block. The fuse was to short, the explosion ripping through his base. It was a miracle Grian was alive at all. His body burnt and his lungs filled with smoke and gunpowder, Grian knew he needed help. He was barely conscious enough to voice-dial Xisuma.

Xisuma came as soon as Grian called, Zedaph and Joe in tow. As Zedaph controlled the water to put out the fires in the builders base, Joe muttered soothing words that knit Grian’s ribs together and grafted the skin on his torso and arms. The potions Xisuma dumped down his throat were amplified in an unnatural way, Grian choking on the sticky sweetness and any lie he could think of.

When the fires were out and his body healed enough to stand, Grian held his breath, waiting for the inevitable. Zedaph left with a smile and wave, and Joe pleaded with Grian to call him if anything hurt.

Xisuma stood by his side, not saying a word until the others were gone. He paused before frowning, feeling the consequence of each word before letting it join the sentence.

“Grian, I hope you can trust us.”

Each word hurt more then the explosion Grian had just been through. Grian smiled and nodded, hiding his shaking hands in the tattered ends of his sweater, and told himself they could never find out the truth.

(Later, when Grian brushed off the incidence as him loosing control over his emotions, Zedaph said nothing about the mutilated TNT sticks he washed into the sea.)

(When Grian said he just wasn’t immune as he thought, but it was no big deal, Joe didn’t speak of the builder’s cries pain or extensive injuries, and how the poet didn’t know if he could save him.)

(In Season 7, Xisuma watched Grian’s face fall when he realized he had to start over again, and decided a well placed shulker box with TNT wouldn’t hurt the server.)

writing requests are still open

[betweenlands]

murk beneath a twinkling void

[wrote another thing for @ask-elementalhermitcraft a few days ago and am only just now posting it because i am a certified grade-a disaster person]

[also i can’t write evilx help]

Characters: Iskall, EvilXisuma (mentions of Xisuma, Doc, Mumbo, Grian, Stress, Ren, and Joe. oh and Poultry Man, who definitely isn’t Grian.)

Genre: Confusion, but it intensifies. maybe adventure?

Third time this week he’s had the dream.

Iskall’s starting to get used to blacking out right before night, waking up in that weird swamp dimension, waiting until the sky opens up and kicking off through the rift and back to the waking world. But it’s getting annoying.

His elytra keep getting damaged from it, for one, and he’s using a bit more fireworks than he probably should be, silently dipping into his own reserves to keep the other hermits from noticing. His boots keep getting mud on them, and if he falls asleep with food or potions in his pockets he wakes up in bed with them rotted or otherwise generally gone bad. He’s losing supplies at an annoying rate, and sooner or later someone’s going to catch on.

He can’t have that happen. For one, he just got into Architechs, and he’s not eager to try and push the limits of what they’re willing to accept. Being a dude who plays pranks and maybe escalated one thing on purpose for revenge is one thing, but this just feels a bit too weird to tell them. Plus, Mumbo might blame it on himself because of that whole electrocution thing, whereas Iskall’s pretty well ruled that out by now.

Still, he’s gotta talk to someone before something gets screwed up bigtime and Xisuma has to retcon him out of existence. He’s not sure that’s a possible thing, but just in case, right?

So Iskall sits in his villager trading hall, propped up right next to the shulker box full of melons, and starts making a tally in a book of who he might be able to talk to.

Obviously, Doc and Mumbo are the first on top of the “no way in seven Nethers” list, though for different reasons. They’d both try to blame themselves, but Mumbo would probably take the self-loathing route (very bad) and Doc might decide he needed to do further experiments (also very bad).

Grian he stares at on the list for a little longer. The guy had recently adopted the moniker of Sherlock Grian, and might be decent at solving the mystery this presented, but… no, the guy was pretty bad at keeping secrets. If he told Grian about this, everyone on the server would know in another week’s time.

So that was the Architech crew off the list, then. He frowns, tapping his quill to paper, then writes Ren’s name down and crosses it off. Sure, he was a great friend and would keep this secret, plus his darkness powers might help Iskall grapple with whatever this was, but Ren had been pretty busy with all the huge projects he’d been doing lately, especially the HRN. Coming to his friend with something this bad was going to stress him out.

Speaking of Stress… no, he couldn’t tell her. Their powersets were barely compatible anyway, and he honestly didn’t think she’d have any helpful advice for this situation. All it’d do was make her confused and maybe a little less likely to want to share storage space with him.

Joe, then? The guy was good at keeping order and good at talking to people. He might be able to help him work through all this. Maybe this was even a bug in his powers that Joe could heal away-

A horrible mental image of Joe slowly turning into a pile of rotten flesh came to his mind, and he winced and frantically crossed the man’s name off the list. No. No, Joe couldn’t know about this, he would try to help however he possibly could and that could get the nicest person out of all the hermits killed, forever, and that would be exceedingly bad. Not only could he not approach Joe, he was going to need to take added precautions to make sure that Joe never, ever suspected a thing.

He moves on, turning the page, quickly going through his options and dismissing them just as fast. Jevin? No. Scar or Cub? Absolutely not. Wels? He might rust the dude up. Cleo? Probably a bad idea.

Before he knows it, he’s staring down at the very last name on the list.

Evil Xisuma. Exy, specifically, is what he’s written down. He moves to cross it off - pretty stupid idea, trying to get someone’s self-proclaimed evil doppelganger to help with a problem - then stops.

Iskall hasn’t really been around Exy much, but hadn’t the guy had some issue with his powers changing around recently that he was still adapting to? He felt like he’d overheard an argument between him and - yeah, it was Grian. Something about him not having time powers anymore.

And, Evil Xisuma, he seemed like the type of person to be able to keep a secret, right? He was probably gonna get mocked mercilessly for it, because evil twins and all that, but Exy had always struck him as the type of person who kept a lot of his cards close to the chest. And he could maybe even try to offer some things in exchange, because there was a non-zero chance that the guy needed resources or something.

Fine. Great. He’s going to go ask Evil X for help with a glitch in his powers. Truly an ideal situation.

Iskall grits his teeth, tosses the book across the room into a cactus to destroy all evidence, and pulls out his communicator.

PM TO: EVILXISUMA

[iskall85] hey dude are u free?

[EvilXisuma] if there’s chickens in your base again, I already told you I’m not Poultry Man.

[iskall85] lol everyone knows it’s grian dude that includes me i made that joke one time seriously tho, are u free rn

[EvilXisuma] depends on what you want from me.

[iskall85] uh advice kinda? hard to explain over text

[EvilXisuma] despite the fact that this is obviously a prank, I’m bored, I’ll bite. where do we need to meet.

[iskall85] it’s not a prank i swear location… the swamplands in the wargrounds preserve should work nice and quiet

[EvilXisuma] ...did someone put my name in your black book.

[iskall85] lol no if that were the case you’d never see me coming meet you there

ISKALL85 HAS CLOSED THIS PM

He shoves the communication device back in his pocket before Exy responds, then adjusts his backpack, grabbing a couple things for the road before heading out. The sky blurs past - luckily, he doesn’t run into anyone who’d ask questions about where he’s going - and before long, he touches down on a solid strip of land right at the entrance to the swamp and wades on in.

Evil X is sitting on a log, dragging a stick through the mud at his feet, and doesn’t seem to hear Iskall approaching through his helmet, which he is in fact wearing. In fact, the doppelganger is wearing his full red-and-grey armor set, probably just in case he gets ambushed by zombies or something. Honestly, Iskall doesn’t blame him.

“Hey,” he calls out, gunking up the water in front of him so he can get to the man’s position easier. “Thanks for meeting me, Exy.”

He can see the guy’s nose wrinkle beneath his red-tinted visor. “Exy?”

“Yeah. Look, Xisuma is X, and I was gonna call you Ex but spelled E-X, and then I realized those two things are pronounced the same way and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. So you’re Exy now.” He hauls himself up onto the sandbar and takes a seat on the far end of the log, a respectable distance and a half away from Evil Xisuma.

“Great. Thanks. So, assuming this isn’t the lead-up to the prank of the century, what do you want from me.” Exy stabs the stick into the mud and turns to face Iskall. The sun reflects off his visor through the trees, making it hard to see his expression, but it’s honestly pretty easy to guess that it’s something along the lines of annoyed and impatient.

Iskall tries to relax his posture as much as possible, picking up his own stick and poking at the mud in front of him. “Okay, bear with me. So I overheard you complaining about how your powers changed and they’re different now, right-”

The man visibly flinches, but Iskall presses on. “-and, uh, I was wondering if you had any advice on how to theoretically handle that situation if it was theoretically happening to someone else. Specifically a totally theoretical person who should only have slime powers but in this theoretical situation seems to be developing others. Theoretical other powers.”

It takes Exy a few minutes to respond, or at least from Iskall’s point of view it does. It could be two seconds and he probably wouldn’t know the difference, with how stressed this is making him.

“First of all, please stop saying ‘theoretical’, your accent is absolutely mauling that word,” he finally says. Iskall snorts, secretly glad that he was right to prepare himself for the possibility of Exy mocking him. “And it’s obvious you’re talking about yourself, since you’ve dragged me all the way out to somewhere that nobody else would stumble into by accident.”

“Guilty as charged there, my dude.”

“Second. Please clarify for me, what exactly do you mean when you say you’ve been developing other powers? Because you’re right when you assume that it should not be happening.” Exy’s tone grows harsh, and it’s Iskall’s turn to wince involuntarily.

“I’m not really sure when it first started happening,” he starts, and before he realizes it he’s laid out the entire situation for Evil X - spacing out and waking up in the same swamp they’re standing in, how he’d assumed it was something to do with war bitterness and slime chunks, the strange dreams where he woke up and found out he’d tracked mud and brought damp torches back with him into the overworld.

To Exy’s credit, he doesn’t interrupt at all, just nods as Iskall goes over everything that’s been happening. He actually runs out of things to say about his situation before the red-masked man makes a comment. Or maybe he’s word-vomited all over Evil X too much and not let him get a word in edgewise, but he’s sort of leaning towards the former explanation.

“So, to summarize, your powers now include waking up in weird swamps and making consumables go bad.”

Iskall wrinkles his nose. “It sounds less serious when you put it like that, dude. I’m seriously worried about what this stuff could do if it gets out of hand.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t serious,” he responds, plucking the stick out of the mud and stabbing it in further. “Something like that getting out of hand could be a real hassle at best, and at worst…”

Exy trails off. It’s kind of obvious what he’s thinking, because Iskall’s run through those scenarios happening to him countless times. Getting trapped in that swamp hell with no way out. Accidentally losing control and de-torching what’s supposed to be a mob-proof area on the server. Everyone’s food supply suddenly rotting, leaving them all to starve.

He starts feeling sick to his stomach as he realizes how much of a danger this could be to the other hermits. How on a razor’s edge it is - like if Mumbo was supercharged by Doc 24/7. One slip and-

Evil Xisuma elbows him in the side, hard, snapping him back into focus.

“Hey! What was that for?”

Exy, who apparently removed his mask sometime during Iskall’s whole infodump without him noticing, holds up an apple by the stem. It’s got a huge patch of rot on it, mold slowly starting to form, and he sighs.

“Let me guess, that apple was perfectly fine before.”

“Bingo,” Evil X responds, chucking it into the mire. It sinks into the mud, hopefully never to be seen again. “First rule of adapting to new powers, don’t think about all the ways they could go wrong, or you’ll start doing it.” He takes out an unblemished apple and bites into it, staring off at the ripples from the slowly sinking rotten one.

“Okay, and is there anything I can do, or…” Iskall feels something lurch in his stomach, and recognizes the telltale signs of a lag spike. Or at least, what sure feels like a lag spike. “Exy, dude, are you doing that?”

“Not on purpose,” he responds, then takes in a sharp, hissing breath as he looks up at the sky. “Hm. That’s not good.”

Iskall follows suit, and his heart sinks. The sun has set again, but this isn’t a night sky with a moon. It’s the dark green sky from his dreams.

“Don’t worry, there’s gonna be a rift that opens up, and we can fly into it -”

Exy just stares at him, and he sees anger and confusion and annoyance and what could almost be dawning horror in the doppelganger’s expression.

“Iskall. I don’t have elytra.”