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Joel, the Mad King of Mezalea, Slayer of Horses, Collector of Sand, was someone who was not expecting this.
Here he was, sitting on the dirt, staring at the undeveloped horizon of some spruce forest. A spruce forest, which is, mind you, nowhere near the sandy, swelteringly hot mesa biome. One could argue the opposite, maybe ignoring oceans or snowy peaks. Whatever.
The point was he was back at the beginning, with no kingdom and no Lizzie.
Joel sighed. Wherever he was, he would have to build shelter to survive the night. He could see that the sun was already lowering in the sky, the lovely baby blues slowly becoming a gradient of lilacs and corals. It was pretty, sure, but it also foretold the grim night, full of hostile mobs that would not hesitate to end his life.
Speaking of lives… how many did he have?
The man knew of hardcore servers, where players have one and only one life, while other servers, like where he was previously, players had practically infinite lives. Sometimes he feels like he remembers servers where players had only a set number of lives, where death only became permanent after a couple of kills. Who knows. Even with these thoughts, he didn't want to risk it.
So he cut down trees, crafted crude wooden tools, and began to hunker down in a cave. Joel watched as day became night before placing a blockade at the entrance, placing a torch down and getting down to digging. Coal, stone, the usual beginning items. He missed Lizzie, but Joel couldn't find any indication that she had traveled with him. He had checked the communicator that every player came to with, but couldn't even find a hint of any other person in the server. Just him, apparently.
He ignored the feeling of loneliness creeping into the back of his mind. After all, it wasn't that unfamiliar of a sentiment. He'll deal with it.
Coal, stone, iron, stone, stone, coal, mining. Not much else to do for the night if he wanted to survive. Joel climbed back up to the surface to check how much time had passed, peering through a sliver in the blockade he set up. Hm. He couldn't see much, but he could estimate at best that barely a couple hours had passed. He glanced at the stony ground. Maybe sleeping on the cold hard floor wouldn't be that bad?
He didn't even notice the ever-shifting tattoo on his palm, counting down the hours. Or was it counting up?
*/*/*/*
Grian stared at the horizon before him.
When did he get here?
Last he remembered was… oh, right. His death.
He facepalmed, leaning against a tree. Of course the damned Watchers let him get killed off. Who was it by? Scott, he thinks. Scott, yeah, he remembered watching him raise his diamond sword up to the sky triumphantly, a corpse littered with arrows laying behind him. Of course he hadn't seen Grian Watching him, but at least the man could remember.
He tried not to think too much on what happened to his former allies.
The avian surveyed his surroundings. Spruce forests, a river weaving through the landscape, and nothing much else. Just him, alone.
Lovely.
It was better than being trapped in a death game with his closest friends, anyhow.
The sun, he began to notice, was becoming dangerously low in the sky. He had no resources, no food, no tools, so, he decided, that it would probably be in his best interest to gather materials. He could just feel that it was a hardcore world, which just got his heart racing even more.
At least he didn't feel the all-knowing eyes of those goddamned Watchers on his back. Maybe they didn't even know where he was, in which he would be relieved. He's probably safe for now. Well, as safe as one could be on the first day of a hardcore world.
He, too, didn't notice the timer on his palm. He did notice the hardcore heart plastered on the back of his hand, though.
*/*/*/*
When Scar had jumped into the Boatem hole with his friends, he wasn't expecting much. Honestly, he was pretty scared.
What he did not expect was to fall directly into dirt, before sliding into the muddy bank of a river.
He looked around, panicked, looking for any sign of his friends. There were no footprints, and certainly no bodies other than his own He was alone again.
It's fine, it's okay. This was definitely a different server, he could feel, but where? It was certainly not Hermitcraft, as the land was pristine. No massive crater, no remnants of moonrock, no debris, no dead.
Just him and the spruce forest.
Hm.
Whelp. Scar shook the thoughts out of his mind, deciding that he should probably get up from the riverbank and explore his surroundings. It was probably better to move around instead of just sitting and doing nothing.
A muted cream flashed in the corner of his eye and he yelped, falling directly into the river and splashing a lot of water. Scar frantically looked around for the source, but there were no mobs in sight. Just him.
"Oh, haha… silly me! Just my imagination- ah!" he jumped again, splashing more water. He was certain there was a creature there now, but where the heck was it? Why wasn't it attacking him?
Slowly but surely, Scar began to feel the coldness of the water crawl up his legs. The safety of the water calmed his nerves just enough for him to realize that he was feeling water soak into his legs. Legs, far too many legs for a man like him. Finally, he steadily turned his gaze on his lower body, eyes widening at the sight that beheld him.
Four coarse-fur, cream legs. A small, fluffy tail. Hooves.
"Oh dear."
It appeared that Scar had become some sort of centaur.
Honestly, it kind of reminded him of Doc, which only made his heart ache more, but his foremost thought, spoken out loud, was a simple "Hm."
He inspected his brand-new legs and his hands, looking for some sort of transition between the two. What he found instead was a line of black text on his palm, shifting with the passing seconds.
00:02:34
00:02:35
00:02:36
Scar watched as the numbers ticked up, counting up to something.
Well, that wasn't there before, but neither were the creeper legs so he couldn't complain much. What he did need to bring his attention to was the dying daylight, dusk melding into night. He should probably find a place to stay until morning, and so he set out to find a cave to hopefully get some resources and to hide from the mobs that roam the night.
*/*/*/*
The hum of the nether portal behind Grian helped drown out the thoughts in his head as he dug through the messy contents of his chest, feeling for the cold hard surface of the diamonds that he found earlier. A couple of nights had passed, the majority of them he spent deep down underground gathering ores and stone. Now he had a nice wheat farm going, which outlined the hill that he decided to set up camp on.
Well, what he called a camp was really a singular bed out in the open, with some chests littered around and a nether portal rather close by. Less of a camp and more of just a sleeping bag surrounded by water and torches.
Where did he place those damned diamonds? He must've thrown them in one of his chests, but where?
Grian was so engrossed in the scavenger hunt through his own chests that he barely noticed the sign placed behind him, himself only noticing when turning around to get to his other chest and promptly tripping over it.
He didn't remember placing a sign. Actually, did he even craft any signs?
Carved into the sign were the words "thanks for the wheat!"
His blood ran cold.
"-A ghost."
So he wasn't alone.
As he stared at the sign, the sound of a bow's string being pulled back and the tingling of being watched brought him back to reality, fast enough to dodge to the side and watch as an arrow embedded itself into the dirt next to the wooden sign. He pulled up his shield and spun to face his attacker, staring up at a man atop the hill. The man he allied with in the death games.
The man who shot him off of a platform.
The man who killed him.
"Joel?" Grian whispered.
The avian blinked, and the man on the hill was gone.
*/*/*/*
He stood before his brand new home, grinning from ear to ear. This was a build that he was proud of, but he missed working with the colors of the Matral Palace. Nevertheless, Joel was happy with the results of his hard work.
It had been a few days since the first, and he had found some rather interesting things whilst exploring the current world. Well, one interesting thing. Everything was literally just a spruce forest, with a couple of extra large trees.
The interesting thing he found was another settlement, with terrace wheat farms propped up via stripped logs and random chests strewn about. There were also some small scattered feathers in the area, mainly red in color.
Joel had hid behind a tree to watch who the base belonged to, and was pleasantly surprised to see Grian pop out of the portal. He looked a bit scruffy, some ash splattered on his shoulders and a somewhat concerning alertness about him, his eyes cautious and his shoulders tense. He went directly to one of his chests, kneeling down and searching through it for something and completely ignoring a sign that Joel had placed down.
He continued watching, his patience slowly trickling away as the avian continued to scavenge for whatever he was looking for in the chests. A breeze blew through the forest, rustling the leaves and the branches.
Grian finally got turned around and tripped over the sign, and the former king had to stifle a chuckle. Joel perked up at the movement and watched intently as the avian stared at the sign but did nothing else. Why was the man so boring?, Joel complained mentally and continued observing him.
Finally, Joel got far too bored and pulled out his bow, knocking an arrow and drawing the string up to his cheek. He narrowed his eyes and aimed at the bird below him, low enough to not hurt him but to scare him a bit. Overall, he did like giving heart attacks to his friends.
His fingers released the string, and Grian somehow predicted the shot and jumped out of the way. He spun and stared at Joel up on the hill, and the man could see that his eyes were filled with recognition, confusion, fear and… horror?
Anyhow, Joel immediately ducked back behind the tree and crouched down, flattening himself and trying to get out of sight. He didn't particularly expect to see how panicked Grian was, but he felt like he'd seen that expression before but couldn't quite place just where he saw it. A small movement caught his eye and he looked up to see the one and only Scar, who was jogging away from a chest that sat beneath an oak tree.
Scar, who for some reason was a centaur of some kind. He hadn't seen the man in a very long while, but Joel was pretty sure that he didn't have four legs before. Or fur. But again, it's been a while, so things could've changed.
He saw the centaur-Scar turn around and the two made eye contact. Joel waved and Scar-seriously-what-is-he waved back before returning to running away from Grian's base, which was something he should probably be doing.