the hermits… the horrors….!

He frowned at it, then leaned down and poked it. It seemed to be grainy and slimy at the same time, and it sucked his finger in like quicksand. It dropped off his finger like syrup before he wiped the rest off on his lab coat. He pulled out his shovel and scooped the substance out of the ground and into his inventory. After taking it all out, he pulled out his pickaxe and began to dig out the edges of the hole the sculk had left, in search of a shrieker that could’ve caused it. About a dozen stone blocks in his inventory later, Doc decided that somebody was just pranking him and began to replace the stone. He flew off, any concern completely gone. 

Doc, once again stood on the edge of the Perimeter, squinted to try and confirm what he was seeing. He flew back into the center of the Perimeter and landed next to another pond of sculk. Confusion filled his mind. 

I thought I got rid of all of it. Maybe I left some behind, I guess. He paused. This is too weird to ignore, though. I should talk to someone about it. Maybe…

He pulled up his communicator and sent a message to the Hermits. 

<Docm77: hey cub, you busy?> 

The reply came a few seconds later. 

<Cubfan135: no, do you need something?>

<Docm77: yeah, can you come over to the perimeter for a sec? i want to show you something>

<Cubfan135: on my way>

Doc watched Cub fly over the Perimeter, then glide down to meet him. 

“So I assume this is what you want to show me,” Cub started, gesturing at the sculk. 

“Yeah,” Doc replied. 

“Did someone put a catalyst in here or something?”

“That’s what I thought the first time.”

“The first time?”

“There was another patch like this a few days ago. I thought that someone was pranking me, like you said, but I dug it all out and there was no catalyst.”

Cub furrowed his eyebrows. “None?”

“None.” Doc dug into his inventory and pulled out a handful of sculk. “I still have it, if you’d want to look at it or something. I thought you were the best person to tell, seeing as- well-”

“Yeah, I know. You’re probably right, anyway. That’s probably …” He trailed off, rummaging in his pockets. He pulled out a beaker from one of the pockets on his lab coat, then held it out towards Doc. As Doc tipped his hand, emptying the sculk into the beaker, Cub continued. “There were no catalysts, huh? That shouldn’t be…” He tucked the beaker back into his inventory and turned back to the sculk. “We should check to see if this one has any.”

Doc pulled out his shovel. “Yeah, good idea.”

The two dug all of the sculk out of the crater of stone, leaving just that—stone. 

“There’s no catalyst here, either.” Cub said. 

“No,” Doc agreed. 

“That’s not possible. Sculk can only spread if something dies near a catalyst, and if there’s no catalyst, then-“

“Well, couldn’t it have-“

“And it’s not like you’re near a Deep Dark either, seeing as we’re already at bedrock.” Cub kicked a chunk of the material as he mentioned it. “This is-“

“Cub,” Doc interrupted. “This could still be a prank, though, right? Someone could just be putting it here to mess with me and my glorious Perimeter. I know what lengths they’ve gone to before,” He said, remembering the short period of time in which his Perimeter ceased to exist. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re doing something like it again.”

Cub turned back to Doc. “Yes, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?” He glanced back at the crater that the sculk had carved out. “Keep me updated, will you? I’ll let you know if I find anything with the sculk.” 

“Yeah, I will. Hey- if you do find anything, make sure to tell me right away. The quicker I can get this fixed, the better.”

Cub nodded, then took off. 

A speck of sculk floated past Doc’s face, then landed on his back between his wings.

“Doc?” Cub called down to him from the sky, then landed next to him. “I just wanted to check in with you about the-“

Cub locked eyes with Doc. A glowing turquoise light pierced through the dark teal of his scleras, seeming almost like fires burning into Cub’s soul.

“Oh- hey, are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m okay.” His reply seemed to reverberate through the air. 

“Great, that’s … yeah.”

“What were you saying?”

“I wanted to check in about the …” Cub turned towards the Perimeter, eyes instantly locking onto a black splotch in its center. “There’s more of it.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“Have you tried to get rid of it?”

“No, I actually quite like it there.”

“… what? What happened to ‘the quicker this is fixed, the better’?”

“I’ve had a change of heart. Did you find anything unusual about the sculk?”

Cub pulled a test tube of it out of his pocket and started rolling it between his fingers. “Yes. It’s … well … independent.”

“How?”

“It seems to just multiply, regardless if anything died near it. I don’t know how it got there in the first place—maybe something with the land itself, or something someone left there—but it’s going to continue to multiply if there’s nothing to stop it.”

“I see.”

“I’ve thought of a few ways to try and prevent, or at least hinder the spread of the sculk. I don’t know if-“

“Thank you, Cub, but I’ve got it handled.”

“You-“ Cub turned back to Doc and finally noticed the veins of dark turquoise snaking across his horns and up his wings. Cub stepped back and tucked the vial of sculk away. “Okay. You sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Okay.” He stepped farther away and unfurled his wings. “Good luck,” His voice seemed unsure.

“Thank you.”

The Perimeter was closer to a jungle than an abyss now. Vines of sculk climbed the walls and covered the floor, seeming to ripple and pulse. Cub stood at the edge of it, staring into the sea of shimmering false stars. He turned his back on the Perimeter and started to walk away, preparing to take off. Then Doc’s loudspeakers crackled to life and a message blasted through Cub’s ears.

“THE GREAT WARDEN IS GRINDING TIRELESSLY FOR THE CORRUPTION OF OUR GLORIOUS PERIMETER. ARE YOU?”

Cub stood still as he comprehended the differences between Doc’s usual ‘motivational messages’ and the one the server had just received. Warden. Corruption. 

Cub shot into the sky in search of False, hoping to god that she would be able to help again.

Cub and False landed next to each other inside Doc’s Perimeter, both standing on the only patch of uncovered stone there was. 

False drew her sword, then called out into the jungle. “Doc? Where are you?” There was no response, other than the chittering of the sculk. False turned back to look at Cub, who shrugged. False continued forward, shield up, and Cub followed behind, axe in hand. His other hand held a deep red potion bottle. The pair continued into the forest, still finding nothing but towers of sculk. 

From the right of them came a quick clicking sound. Both instantly turned to investigate it, but found nothing. With a couple more shrugs, they decided to continue. The sculk chattered around them, filling their ears with faint clicks. 

“If what I think happened has happened, killing him won’t do anything,” Cub whispered, reminding False. 

“Potions. I got it.”

A growl came from deeper in the forest. Cub and False froze. The sound of clicks filled the forest around them. A figure charged out from between the pillars of sculk, too fast for either of them to react. It was covered in sculk with two curling horns and muted butterfly wings dripping with the stuff. It roared, then swung its arm towards them. 

Cub flew across the server, clutching his bleeding stomach, and finally landing—crashing—in front of Ren’s base. He took his hand away and looked at the specks of sculk mixed in with his own blood. 

“Ren? Are-“ He cut himself off with a string of coughs. “Are you there?”

His reply came from inside the building, getting closer. “Yeah, man, you need something?” Ren opened the door, concern instantly showing in his face. “Woah, you okay? What happened?”

Cub looked up. “Doc.”

“Yeah I heard you and False were heading over there. Where…?”

Cub shook his head. 

“What? What happened?”

“Doc’s gone.”

“Like he disappeared?”

They came from the stars.

That was what the villages near the river claimed, anyway. A great, hulking mass of machinery, as large as a mountain, descending upon the rock. It opened a small orifice, like a door, and about two dozen of the visitors emerged. They weren’t really like villagers at all, but that was the closest thing they could be described to, though some had traits of other animals, like dog tails or fish scales. All anyone knew was that they were something different.

And they were the talk of everyone everywhere for a decent while, the gossip spreading from village to village until it reached the pillagers and the piglins and the enderfolk. The visitors seemed to be content staying in the area around the river, clearing out trees and building houses and collecting animals. Houses was a bit of an exaggeration, some would claim, half of the things they were building were more like shapes or rocks or statues. They were built with precision and rich materials, clearly important, but many were wildly impractical for everyday use, bringing up the question for why someone would go through all that effort for somewhere so poor to live. It must be a religious thing, most guessed, some way of honouring their gods. The whole settlement was clearly a village, if a very foreign one.

Some wandering traders made it their mission to contact the foreigners, talking big about all the goods they’d get and the trade routes they’d set up. None that set out to the settlement came back. One of the larger pillager factions sent out a scouting crew to investigate the lot, who shared the same fate. Some others tried, but eventually everybody got the idea that the strangers weren’t to be messed with.

The uneasy peace the land had settled into didn’t last long. The first warning was the attack of the Mansion of the East. The pillagers that survived talked of foes that, when killed, would leave no corpse, re-entering the Mansion risen from the dead, as healthy as could be. Even in a fight, they were formidable, healing wounds in seconds. They demolished the mansion, with only an un-armoured party of 4, targeting every evoker and looting every room. The magic they had – to heal and respawn – was unlike any that had been seen before, stronger than even totems of undying. That was when the fear began to brew, the realisation that the new arrivals were far, far stronger than any of them had met before.

And then, for the next few days, Marigold Valley Village would be silent, with their usual traders failing to show at the monthly market, nor any representatives coming to the Valley council meeting. Though it wasn’t known at the time, this would be because it was taken over. One of the foreigners had claimed the village as his own, altering the town and keeping its people hostage as workers. It was the first sign of a new era: destruction. Now that the settlers had gotten themselves established, they turned to raiding and kidnapping. It wasn’t that these were new concepts, pillagers had been doing the same for more generations than anyone could remember, but nobody could fight back against opponents of their power. Villagers were stolen from their homes, put to working for these creatures, whilst their villages were destroyed. Pillagers would come next, outposts burned, ravagers taken, and mansions slaughtered. Even the folk from other realms wouldn’t last long, piglins being put to work themselves and bastions ruined even more than they already were, not to say how the once great nether fortresses would be transformed into wicked machines. The odd enderman had escaped the End and fled to the Overworld, and would share with others, sombrely, about their empty end cities and a great machine that could kill thousands at a time.

And then, as soon as it began, it ended. The world returned to stability once more – albeit a very different kind. The villages distant enough to avoid the purge learnt new rules – hide inside when one of the strangers flies over, give up all items that they desire, and don’t attempt to fight back. They would see one of them occasionally, but they would only show up to steal a camel or ransack an old temple, and had no interest in harming the villagers. As generations passed, the gossip and community of the villages that once were was forgotten and the silence was all that was known. You would think, when there are less people, the world would seem much smaller. But as the fringe villages went on with their lives in isolation, it felt so much larger.

As for those under the direct control of the settlers, they developed their own kind of normalcy. Disobedience wasn’t an option – in the early days, they’d execute workers in front of everyone else, but later on, people would simply disappear if they weren’t up to standard. The cosy insides of a wooden house or animal hide tent were replaced with glass and concrete and stone and sometimes, even, the bowels of a ship. Work was hard, gruelling days and gruelling tasks – quarrying stone and copying books and mining obsidian. It wasn’t like anyone had a choice, though, and there was food and shelter. Life, no matter how difficult, just became ordinary life. And, for those born in the catacombs of some dank hole, they knew nothing else.

There was a lot of debate, of course, on what the beings were. Most people saw them as gods, with the uncanny buildings and impossible machinery and immortality. Ancient pantheons were merged with the current figures, forming new names and rituals. Each of the “gods” was identified and had their own domain and supposed sacrifices to gain favour with, but also on a more observable level, had an area they were known to live in and activities they were known to do. Some disagreed strongly on this interpretation however, seeing their captors as strong and undefeatable, yes, but just entities like any other. They were the step-up from pillagers – just as bloodthirsty and greedy, but far more technologically advanced.

None of it mattered, anyway, in the end. They were spotted less and less, coming to check up on their workers nearly never. The braver and luckier ones were able to stage an escape from their confinement, at first apprehensive on what their masters would do if they found they had escaped, but eventually realising their captors were never coming back. They had left as suddenly as they appeared. A month passed without any signs of them. A mixed feeling of relief and fear settled over everyone. So many years had passed since the first arrival, over a hundred, and nobody was left to say what the before times were like. At first there was a lot of power struggle, questioning, revolts, disputes… But as with all things, it became normal again.

Villages sprouted up where they used to be, mansions got re-inhabited, bastions got repaired, and ender cities re-emerged. There was a bit of hesitancy, at first, about living near or in the structures the creatures had left, but it brought so many benefits, that eventually people did. There were some places everyone avoided – the gigantic hole in the world and the starting village, for one. But otherwise, houses and farms sprung up in teapots and caves and rocks and castles and vaults and it all became natural. Hundreds and hundreds of years later, they were left as nothing more than a scary bedtime story and silly old wives’ tale behind the massive structures on the planet.

It had been, once—until very recently, in fact. Even as it awoke, began to breathe, began to consume and transform, it had still been a game. People had been having fun. He’d been having fun. It’d only stopped being fun when—

When what?

Back in season seven, when it was quiet and lifeless, when it had only been played a couple hundred times, nowhere near as engaging as its sequel, verging on a thousand? When he’d come up with the idea for a sequel, started drafting out plans, discarding and creating mechanics to bring everything up to the next level and beyond? Sometime during those thirteen months in a hole, turning cold and blue, afraid of the sunlight, isolated from his friends? When he’d dug for hours on end, dyed his skin red with redstone, ushered in beasts and monsters at cost to his health? 

No. No, all of those things were fun, in their own way. It was only when—

When he became—

Why? Why did—?

The issue isn’t that Decked Out isn’t a game. Decked Out isn’t a game right now, because Decked Out is currently a person, and that’s not supposed to happen, and that’s why it’s not fun. Game’s busted, everyone go home. Dungeon shut down for maintenance. They were right, the hermits, all those times they yelled at him to fix his game. No one enjoys a game that’s broken.

So if that’s not the problem, then what is?

His body feels small and cold. There are arms wrapped around him, warm and solid when every part of him is frozen. He can feel Hypno breathe above him, below him, chest fluttering as he gasps for breath, and the dungeon quivers as Tango does the same. Flesh. It wasn’t meant to be flesh, the Burning Dark—the name wouldn’t make sense, if it were flesh. It’s just flesh because Tango’s flesh, and Tango’s the dungeon right now, and he doesn’t really want to be.

…So it wasn’t want, then. That’s good. He hadn’t thought he’d wanted to be a dungeon, but you can never be too careful with subconscious desires. So—not want, then. Then what? What? 

“Tango,” Hypno whispers. “Tango, we need to go.”

Tango tries to open his mouth, and slams a hazard door open and closed. Great. He tries again, and gets a breath out, a frigid wind blowing down a tunnel on level one. His face scrunches in concentration and discomfort, and Rusty heals one tick, sending a cascade of treasure and embers onto the empty floor of his cage.

“Would love to,” he slurs at last, and his voice sounds like cracking stone and noteblock jingles. “But if you haven’t noticed…”

He can’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t know how. How could he possibly explain—

He doesn’t even know how to explain it to myself.

“Don’t make me carry you, man,” Hypno says. “I’ll do it.”

Tango doesn’t respond. His fingers twitch. Two floors above their heads, a shrieker howls. Hypno can’t hear it, of course. Tango hears it. Tango hears everything.

“Right,” Hypno mutters. “Right. Okay then.” 

And then—movement. Tango is lifted, slowly, painstakingly, and his leaden limbs are moved without his permission. His spine cracks, and the dripleaf parkour slips into hard mode. It’s embarrassing, really, having so little control over anything, over neither of his bodies. His head lolls back in Hypno’s arms. A ravager spins and turns to walk in the other direction.

“Okay.” Hypno takes a step. “How long do you reckon it takes to punch through flesh? Can’t be that hard, right…?”

And Tango—

The dungeon seizes, all the doors opening and closing at once, all the beasts opening their mouths to wail, every noteblock and disc playing at once, and the sound is cacophonous, agonising. Hypno cries out out the sound. Deep within the skulk-covered walls of level three, Cub lets out a groan. Far above their heads, Gem clamps her hands over her ears and shrieks, giving Pearl, Scar, and Bdubs just the opening they need to slip a sword between her ribs and send her off to her base to respawn.

Do no do not destroy the dungeon do you know how long that took do you know how much it took do you know don’t—

The dungeon settles. It feels like it takes an age, but beside the heartbeat, and the sound of dripping blood, and harsh breathing, level four is quiet again. Hypno hadn’t even made it to the wall, much less torn through it. It’s funny, because he’s never really been afraid of pain before—the amount he smacks his face into walls, he can’t afford to be—but just the idea of Hypno breaking through the dungeon makes him recoil in a way he can’t—

Wait.

Oh.

He’s been asking the wrong question, hasn’t he?

It was never about Decked Out at all.

The dungeon sighs, long and low and whispery. Thirteen months—three years, really, if he considers the first one—and now, now he realises what he’s done—

(It was worth it, though. Maybe it’s just because he’s tangled up in it still, can’t tell the difference between his body and the dungeon’s, but he can’t help but think it was worth it.)

(He doesn’t want it to end.)

(And that’s the problem, is’t it?)

He puts all his energy, all his focus (that system’s gone, was scrapped, redundant, useless—focus. Frost Focus, Moment of Clarity, focus) into opening his mouth, into choking down a breath, into croaking out, “Kill me.”

Hypno nearly drops him with the force of how hard he jumps. “Jeez, man, you scared the crap outta me—I’m not killing you, dude, what the heck?” 

“Kill me,” Tango insists. “You got that sword, right? Cheater.” He tries to snort. The dungeon manages it instead. That’s—fine. Whatever. Won’t matter soon. What matters is that he needs this thing carved out of him—

“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t gonna use it on you—the ravagers, probably, if anything—”

“Gotta,” Tango whispers. “Kill me. Then—go—go tear out the, the—” He can’t breathe, all of a sudden, the weight of the entire dungeon on his lungs, crushing the air out of him—

Those aren’t the only lungs he has anymore.

The dungeon breathes, “Redstone.”

“What? Wouldn’t that break the game?”

He—laughs. The dungeon laughs. His head swims. “Kinda the point,” he manages, the dungeon manages. “Game’s over.”

“Oh.” Hypno is quiet, for a moment, and then unceremoniously drops Tango without warning. He hits the fleshy ground hard, sinks back into soft tissues, stares up at Hypno through half-lidded eyes. Hypno draws his sword. Bites his lip. “You’re sure about this, Tango?”

“Yeah,” says the dungeon, and Hypno nods.

The sword comes down, and there’s a burst of pain, and Hypno’s face melts into red, red, red—

And then there’s only black.

----

Tango had gotten the idea for Decked Out from somewhere else. Something else. Another game, actually.

Clank. A board game. Making it into a real thing, a minigame, had been a fun challenge—and then it had been so fun that he’d just had to do it again. He’d taken this thing and made it his own. Made Tango synonymous with Decked Out, with dungeon, with hazard and clank and frost embers. All that time, all that effort spent—he’d put so much of himself into the project.

…It’s no wonder, really, that things had ended this way. He’d put all of himself into the game—

And now, in order to pull himself out, he needs to destroy it.

Game’s over.

Hypno’s sword slices through the flesh walls of level four, and then he uses his fists to punch out the black concrete beyond. He pulls himself into the cavern beyond and begins to crawl up the half-finished wool buslines, up towards the spaghetti soup of redstone above. Once he’s there, once he’s found the card sorter and the clank blocker and the—everything important, really—he takes handfuls of wool and redstone in his hands and begins to tear.

Tango screams. The dungeon screams. In her bed, blocks and blocks away, Gem screams, hands twisted in and tugging at her hair as the stone slowly leeches out of her skin. On level three, Cub screams, pushed out of the skulk-infested grave he’d made for himself, the rot sloughing from his flesh and leaving bloody open wounds in its place. Upstairs, Etho is doubled over, clutching his stomach and retching up pieces of Tango’s soul.

Decked Out screams, and thrashes, and fires every piston in an attempt to fight, in an attempt not to have the life ripped out of it—

But Decked Out is a game. A dungeon. A thing made of stone and wool and redstone. A thing animated by sound, by beast and bane, by every player who'd ever dared to play it. It is not a thing that is alive by itself. It can do nothing to stop its undoing. It cannot prevent its own death.

Dying takes an eternity. Blinding pain, and panic, and Hypno’s shaking hands tearing him to pieces, gutting him from the outside in. It’s agonising, neverending, and he screams himself hoarse before it's done, chokes on his own cries and whimpers and sobs and writhes instead, because the pain is too much for silence and stillness—

And then, all at once, it’s over.

Tango sits straight up in his bed, the scream in his throat echoing around the walls of his storage room, and then doubles over to throw up skulk rot and blood and redstone all over the sheets. He vomits for—longer than is healthy, probably, and when it’s finally done he collapses back on his elbows, shivering and empty. He should—move, probably, destroy and dispose of the sick-covered bed, but he doesn’t have the energy. 

He doesn’t…

He flops back onto the pillow and holds a shaking hand out above him. The skin is faintly pink, soft and warm and wholly alive. His throat burns. His head swims. But—

He’s alive. He’s in one piece. And he isn’t…

“Tango!”

They come clattering down into his storage room, Pearl first, Bdubs and Scar behind her. Tango’s sure he must look a mess—he sees Scar gag at the sight—but he finds it in himself to muster a smile and a wave at the sight of them.

“Where’re the others?” Bdubs demands. 

“Etho—should be upstairs,” Tango croaks. His voice is nearly gone. “Cub’s on level three, someone should go get him. Hypno’s in all the redstone spaghetti out there.” He gestures vaguely with a hand. “Might wanna get him too.”

“Right,” Bdubs says. “I’ll—no, Pearl should get Cub. She knows level three the best.”

“Got it,” Pearl says. “I’ll be right back.” And then she’s off, firing rockets and flying out into the dungeon, into the places no one but Tango ever goes.

“I’ll go get Hypno,” Scar offers, and then he’s gone as well, and then there’s just Bdubs and Tango. They’re quiet for a moment. Tango’s breath rattles in his chest.

“Okay,” Bdubs says. “You gotta get out of that bed, man, that’s disgusting.”

Tango groans, but Bdubs has a point. He uses what little energy he has to wriggle out from beneath the covers and roll onto the floor, where he lies, breathing heavily. Bdubs steps forward to break the bed.

“I think what’s even more disgusting,” Tango says after a moment, “is that all of that was inside of me.”

Bdubs pulls a face. “Eugh.”

“Right?”

“You’re… good, now, though?” Bdubs asks. “You look better. You’re all orange and red again.”

“Am I?” Tango blinks. “Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I’m…” He winces. His throat really does hurt. His voice sounds like he’s been gargling rocks. “I’ll be okay,” he lands on in the end.

“Oh, good! I mean—I wasn’t worried at all, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But the others—the others were worried! So it’ll be good to tell them the, the good news…”

“Oh, yeah,” Tango mumbles. “Game’s over, isn’t it. Gonna have to let everyone know.”

That’s… gonna be fun. He’s surprised more hermits didn’t end up as entangled in the dungeon, honestly, with how into it a lot of them are. So that conversation’s gonna be…

“They’ll get over it,” Bdubs says with a wave of a hand. “We’ll throw a party or somethin’, distract ‘em.” 

“Yeah.” Tango snorts. Then—“Hey, does this mean Etho won the game again?”

A rocket fires, and footsteps touch down on the ledge into the room, and Hypno cries, “He better not have! Restart—I wanna restart. Or a recount. Or something. You can’t let him win again, Tango, he’s gonna be insufferable—I can go put the wiring back in, we can do one more phase, surely, right—”

Tango covers his face with his hands and laughs.