Work Text:
It’s a nice calm day on Hermitcraft. The weather has been pleasant and most Hermits are taking a break, working on smaller projects or just chatting with friends.
Of course it can’t last long as every player gets a ping from their communicator.
ᒅᔮ⍊╎ᒣ joined the game
Someone has joined the game. But everyone is already on Hermitcraft? And there are no scheduled visits for the day?
The Hermits are confused and after some discussion a group is sent to spawn since if someone did join that is where they would presumably be.
And find someone they do, because collapsed on the ground at spawn is a figure covered in a tattered and burnt cloak. And as they get closer they see it’s a blue slime, a badly injured one at that.
They’re extremely dehydrated, covered in scratches and severe burns and have a raging fever.
They’re moved to a nearby starter base and the more medically inclined hermits are called in to help, meanwhile the admins try to figure out how they got in, but with no luck. There are no clues of how they got in or of what happened to them to cause them to get in such a state, just a weird residue of something none of them can identify.
4C wakes up in a soft bed. Which doesn’t make any sense as the last thing he remembers is the pain of losing another part of his soul after losing to that puppet mimicking Nom (his friend, his brother, he misses Nom so much-) in that horrible place.
But here he is, laying in the softest bed he’s ever felt. It’s wrong. Is it another trick? Is the Rouge God trying to give him some kind of false hope just so they can destroy it?
He needs to get out of here. He needs to leave. He needs to get out of the cell. There is a window. He pulls his aching body out of the uncomfortably soft bed ripping something out of his arm in the process. He doesn’t notice.
He freezes at the window. Where is his cloak? He needs it. It’s hanging on a chair next to the bed. He trips getting it, but he has it now. It’s mended and washed. He doesn’t notice.
The window is easy to open, it’s not even locked. And it’s easy to climb down even though his legs shake and the fear of falling permeates his entire being. The drop is barely five blocks. He doesn’t notice.
His feet land on the soft ground, so different from the unforgiving bedrock. A cool breeze blows by, so different from the scalding air of hell. He doesn’t notice.
He needs to run. He needs to climb. He needs to find somewhere to hide. Someone yells out in the distance behind him. He needs to get away. They’ll kill him. He runs. They sound worried. He doesn’t notice.
It’s been several weeks now and no one has seen 4C. It’s common for him to disappear, but never for this long without telling anyone, and Katie says he’s missed several farkle Fridays now. They’ve searched all his hiding spots in both kingdoms. They’ve searched the surrounding wilderness, the arena, the tavern. Everywhere. He’s nowhere to be found. Nom has even threatened every single person in the Red kingdom. No one knows where he has gone.
It’s Mae who brings it up first, the 500 farkle games, the curse from the Rouge God. It was just a bad joke right? An excuse to play more games? But 4C had gotten more jumpy recently, running off randomly, playing even more games of farkle than even Nom, getting increasingly more distraught with every loss. And the last time anyone saw him was the day of his supposed deadline.
Was it actually true? And if so how were they going to get him back? How do you get someone back from a god? Can they even get him back?
The Rouge God has seen many things in their long life, but never has anything like this happened before. A soul that is their’s has disappeared. It is nowhere to be found. And they see all. They know all. Yet they do not know where this mortal has gone. They want him back. And they will get him back.
