Work Text:
The heat from the redstone lamps had melted the snow cover around it, so that the circuit set up next to the nether portal had sunk a foot into the ice. Phil climbed out of the hole and dusted his palms against his legs, resettling his wings behind himself. “That should do it.” He looked over at Niki, crouched by the edge of the setup with her communicator in her hand. “Right?”
Niki checked something on her screen and held a testing crystal against the edge of the redstone, then looked up with a nod. “We’ve got about twenty minutes.”
“Great,” Phil said. He kicked a bit of snow at Techno with the front of his shoes. “Window’s closin’, mate.”
Techno had been banished from the enchanting that changed this ordinary nether portal to one that could connect between servers when he’d broken out a ruler and started counting the inches between redstone lines ‘just to be sure’. The pig hybrid jumped when the snow hit his cloak and went back to shading his eyes with his hand, looking out over the ice. “Alright, pog. So all we need is for Ranboo to join us.”
Phil checked his communicator and dropped it in his pocket, then crossed his arms against the cold. “It’s been five minutes.” He shrugged. “They probably got a bit behind.”
Techno glanced at him. “What if they decided that they weren’t interested? What if I never get to show my mentee my endless potato farms? That’s a popular tourist location, I decorated with oak planks and everything. They’d be missing out.”
Phil clapped a hand against Techno’s arm, serious expression on his face. “You’ll have to fuckin’ decorate with oak planks here. Really blow their mind.”
“Maybe even oak trap doors, if you want to really go wild.” Niki chimed in with a grin.
“Woah woah woah.” Techno held up his hands in protest. “Let’s not get crazy, gotta keep the expectations realistic. Last time I worked with trap doors I nailed my cloak to the wall.”
Phil snorted, amused. “Is that why you have an open fuckin’ hole with a ladder in the floor of your house?” His grin grew. “A couple different times?”
“Those trap doors attacked me, Phil.” Techno’s tone was serious. “I had to get rid of them. It was a safety concern, Phil.” He turned back towards the expanse of ice and shaded his eyes again. “Is that him?”
Niki pressed her fist against her mouth and carefully cleared her throat. “That’s an Enderman, I think.”
“Ah, so it is,” Techno watched the tall figure teleport around the hillside. “Shoulda brought my glasses. Easy mistake to make.” A beat later, he looked back at the others. “Guys, what if Ranboo died?”
“Ranboo hasn’t died,” Phil told him, patting his cape-covered shoulder again. “He’s got more totems than God.”
At that moment, the portal crackled and Ranboo stumbled out of it, arms clutching a bag overflowing with totems. “Sorry, everybody,” he said, bending over to pick up one of the ones he’d dropped. “Lost track of time.”
“You know you can’t bring these with you, right?” Techno crouched down to help pick up Ranboo’s items. “I know there was a whole evil dictator thing goin’ on on Hypixel, but I handled that.”
“Well, you know, there are ways, it’s good to be prepared—” the enderman hybrid said vaguely. He shuffled along the snowy ground, picking things up, and took the last totem from Techno’s hand. “Thanks.” Ranboo shifted the bag in his arms and grinned at Techno as he stood. “Yeah, the dictator banned the auction house, didn’t he?”
“That guy was bannin’ everythin’,” Techno said. He stood up. “Dante charged for chattin’. And respawn. He turned off the sun. Super dead, though, super dealt with. Island’s safe now.” He squared his shoulders, cloak falling back into place. “We go?”
Phil kicked a note block on the edge of the redstone circuit, and the portal changed from purple to the deep black of the void. “Let’s go see your potatoes, mate.”
The buildings and leaderboards of Hypixel Skyblock loomed above their heads, colossal structures surrounding a courtyard filled with giants. Technoblade stumbled, hand coming up to catch his crown, and found he wasn’t wearing it. He wasn’t wearing his cape either, or his armour, he was wearing—one of the basic Steve tunics that players fresh out of their spawn worlds wore?
“Uh, Techno?” Phil asked behind him. His voice sounded higher than usual, a bit worried, and still amused. “Don’t remember things lookin’ like this last time I was here.”
Techno spun around to face the rest of his party. Ranboo was still a head higher than anyone else in the group, but he was significantly shorter than the players around them. Niki had her hair in pigtails and one of her front teeth was missing. Phil’s wings, tucked behind his back, were fuzzy. None of them had any of the weapons or armour they should, and they looked like they were about eight years old at max.
And Techno could see eye-to-eye with his friends, which really did seem to imply he was also a child.
“Absolutely not,” Techno said, turning and marching across the courtyard. He had to push his way between adults in armour. “I’m not dealin’ with this.”
His friends followed him, small figures trailing through the crowd. “What are the odds that if we don’t do anything, it’ll fix itself?” Ranboo asked.
“I think if we wait long enough it will definitely fix itself.” Niki told him. “That’s how time works.”
“Oh great!” Ranboo returned, forced cheer in his voice. “I can’t wait to go through growing pains again. Those are fun.”
“Hmmm.” Phil sounded the kind of calm that meant his brain was in overdrive. “Techno?”
“Nah nah nah, it’ll be fine.” Techno’d made it to the console at the portal to player islands and stood on the tips of his hooves so he could punch in the code to summon his home. “We’ll go to my island and sleep it off. Or somethin’.”
The console beeped and flashed red. “ERROR. Indicated player already at this location. Merge profiles?”
Techno paused, hand hovering in place. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Techno,” Phil said again, voice intent behind him. Techno wasn’t sure he was entirely fine with Phil sounding that young. Phil was supposed to be ageless and dependable, not fuzzy-winged and unarmoured. Techno turned to look. His friend pointed to the side, where a large board said “Keep an up-to-the-minute eye on the latest potato stats!” One of the players standing in front of it wore a shirt featuring a chibi squid holding a potato on a trident and the slogan We’re coming for you, Blood God.
“So, I think more than one thing might have just fuckin’ happened,” Phil said, tone dry. “Small brain and all, but I’m pretty sure we went back in time.” He raised his eyebrows. “Which definitely helps this whole deal.”
Back in time, back to the Potato War. Back to the height of his time battling Squid Kid. Back to where he was already there, already at war. There was already a Technoblade in this time, and that player was currently using all of his hard-earned items and skills. Techno—this Techno—had nothing. His hand went to his waist. He was wearing an unornamented tunic, and he didn’t even have a wooden sword. He was a noob.
He would have to repeat the entire grind up from the lowest levels-- win sponsors-- amass supplies-- spend hours buying ice. Not only did he not have his high leveled equipment, he was back to the size where his opponents could just bowl him over in combat. Techno’s hand went to his mouth. His tusks hadn’t even grown in properly yet, so he was going to have to go through that again, and he was pretty sure he had the hit points of someone who could be taken out by a rogue spider. He didn’t even have his cape, for the all-important dramatic entrances and exits!
Someone bumped into him, jostling him forward. “You gonna select an island or what, kid?”
Techno automatically reached up to adjust his crown, his hands closed on empty air, and he glared at the adult who’d pushed him. “I have actually,” he said with dignity, “changed my mind.” He turned and marched away from the console, heading towards the others. They moved to make a huddle, small heads leaning towards each other.
“Alright,” Phil said, taking a deep breath and counting on his fingers. “We’re back in time, we’re fuckin’ short and shit, got no skills or equipment—you think we can contact anyone we know for help or is that gonna fuckin’ backfire?”
“Well,” Techno said. “If they’d believe us.” He gestured at the crowd around them, where a figure in a cape and crown crossed the courtyard, and a player only a bit taller than them in late-game armour sported cosmetics that made their face resemble grown-up Techno’s. “People’ve tried to impersonate me before, and I don’t—” He wrinkled his nose in displeasure at this fact. “I don’t think I have any way of proving it.”
Niki looked at her communicator, then back up at the group. “None of us have any levels or rank, either,” she contributed, nodding to Techno. “You’re not PIG [+++] any more.”
Techno made a noise of pain, and Niki patted his shoulder. “We’ll fix this, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, we can fix this,” Techno agreed. He clenched his fists, then pointed a hand for emphasis. “We go back to Hypixel main, start out in Walls, I’ve got that meta memorized, and we can speedrun levels and sponsors that way. It’ll only take what—four to six weeks to get established?”
“I think they added a height requirement to Walls. Something about it looking bad when you had grown players killing a field of children.” Ranboo chimed in, then cleared their throat. “Which could have been anyone, y’know.”
Techno looked at him with a crestfallen expression, then his eyes narrowed. “Sky Wars, then. They can’t have changed Sky Wars, that’s my home turf.”
“Uh,” Ranboo coughed into their hand. “They did add in uh—” They waved a hand, tone becoming oddly animated. “Really the anti-cheat measures were way too broad-ranging. Nobody was even cheating that badly in that game!”
Techno raised his eyebrows at Ranboo. Phil raised a hand for a moment. “I don’t know anythin’ about Sky Block,” he cut in. “But don’t we have like—islands?” He glanced around. “‘Cause we’re players on the server?”
“Yes!” Techno grabbed for his communicator, then paused, looking at the item-form boats floating around his hooves. “Why is my—” He opened his inventory and looked at the rows of boats there, then looked out around the group again. “My inventory is full of boats,” he reported to no one in particular.
“Oh that will be helpful if you need to go ice boating,” Niki said, nodding. Techno pulled a boat out of his inventory and balanced the item on his hand, expression terrible. Niki started to giggle.
“I’m gonna kill someone with a boat,” Techno said, again to no one in particular.
“Do not kill someone with a fuckin’ boat, mate,” Phil told him. “They have magic swords.”
“I think I could get the jump on them, Phil,” Techno returned, gripping the boat item in his fist. “They think I am a noob, but little do they know that I am aged and terrible and coming to destroy them. I have trained for years at the highest level, I’ve been hardened in battle, and they think they can noob troll me? Me? I’m going to take them apart for XP and throw their items into the void.”
“They have armour, you have a shirt,” Phil said, as Niki continued to giggle. “Like yeah, we’ll kill them later, obviously, but not right now. We need to like—find a place to sleep first.” He looked around the group, visibly shorter and less equipped than anyone in the crowd around them. “Shelter and food, right?”
Techno vanished the boat back into his inventory and crouched into a small ball, covering his face with his hands. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this, you guys,” he said, muffled.
“I think we’ll be fine,” Niki told him. She pushed her hair behind her ear. “And I’m gonna go ask some questions! Be right back.” She left the group and headed for a kiosk with an ‘info’ sign above it. The others watched as the Hypixel employee inside the booth bent down to talk to her, handing her a brochure and opening it up to point inside. Niki smiled and nodded, clearly holding a productive conversation, and then smiled a thanks at them and then rejoined the group. “Okay, I got some information,” she said, unfolding the brochure.
“Thanks,” Techno said. He shuffled his hooves awkwardly. “I think I got too uh—locked in. Maybe.”
“Well, I have been new to a place before,” Niki said, a tiny bit pointed, and then grinned. She waved the brochure at the group. “So we do technically have sky islands cause we’re players, but the new ones they’re issuing people with are way out there, and once you get portaled there you have to earn your way back, and that can take—a while.” She pressed her lips together. “Plus we’d all go to separate islands, so I don’t know that we’d want to—split up?”
“Mmmm, nope,” Techno said, shaking his head. “Not a fan of that.”
“I don’t want to split off while we’re all like this,” Phil said, gesturing around the group of children. “We should stick together.”
“Maybe we can hack the islands?” Ranboo suggested, uncertain.
“Maybe, but also—” Niki opened up the brochure and pointed. “There are hostels if you’re new to the server.”
The lobby of Jerry’s Beginner Hostel had a small sitting area with a few players lounging on couches, all visibly older than the gaggle of children who’d just come in, and a small kitchen to the behind it with an office leading off it. A Hypixel employee reading a book sat behind a desk by the door. Phil absently brushed his hair out of his face—he missed his hat—and then headed for the desk while the others fanned out into the room. He’d drawn the talking to people straw this time. “Hi,” Phil said, folding his arms on the edge of the desk. “I need a fuckin’ room for four players.”
The employee paused his reading, visibly looked over Phil’s head, and then adjusted down to where Phil’s face actually was. “Hey there, kid,” the employee said. He wore a name tag that read Hi, my name is Jerry. “Aren’t you a little young for Sky Block? Hypixel main’s got a lot more resources if you’re starting out, let me get you a brochure.” He bent over to reach under the desk.
Techno had checked under the sink and found a string bag, and now sped towards the tray of “take a lunch” containers. Phil raised his eyebrows at the employee. “I’m fuckin’ five hundred years old, mate,” he said. “I’m here on purpose.” Normally he would stare down someone who’d said something he wasn’t impressed by, but it didn’t have the same impact when he was this short. He felt the grey fuzz on his wings puff up, making him slightly bigger.
“Oh-kay,” the Jerry behind the desk said, evidently not quite knowing what to do with that. “Sure. Uh, if you’re—“ He cut himself off and shook his head, reaching into a desk drawer. “Whatever you say, boss. Four players, you said?”
“Yeah.” Phil nodded. “With a door that locks.” He watched as the employee pulled out an ordinary stick and renamed it at a desk anvil. Behind Jerry’s back, Niki stood on a footstool to reach the top of the ‘free items’ bookshelf, disappearing items into her inventory.
One of the newbie players turned to look at her over the back of the couch. “Are you uh— using all that?”
Niki gave him a shy gap-toothed smile, holding an entire stack of candle items in her hand. “I like decorating,” she said, and the candles vanished as she reached for bone blocks.
“Huh,” the player said, evidently deciding not to argue. They watched as she kept plundering the shelves.
The employee finished enchanting the key with a clang of stressed metal and started to hold it towards Phil. He paused, hand in the air, and gave a slightly worried chuckle. “Why do you need a door that locks, kid? I mean they all do, but you know, random mobs aren’t as much of an issue on the hub. You’re safe here, actually.”
“Oh, it’s for necromancy n’shit,” Phil told him. In the background, Ranboo straightened from where he’d been bent over the office door and disappeared inside it. Phil smiled at the desk employee. That was disarming, right?
Jerry did not appear disarmed. His eyebrows went up. “Uh, we do have rules against like, death looping players, but you can do basic redstone. Or religious stuff, I guess.” He cautiously extended the key towards Phil.
Phil stood on his toes and snatched it. “Thanks, mate,” he said. Techno had finished at the free food tray and now appeared to be in the pantry. Phil needed to keep Jerry’s attention on him for a while longer. He leaned on the desk, looking at Jerry intently. What was a normal conversation topic? What would Niki do? “What’s the murder rate like here anyways, anythin’ I need to look out for?”
Jerry blinked at him for a moment. “Well spawn trapping and other forms of death looping are against the rules,” he told him. “If anyone tries to do that to you, you go to a Helper, someone with a uniform and a name tag like me, okay?” He plucked at his Hypixel tunic in demonstration.
Phil rolled his eyes. “Dyin’ like that doesn’t count. I mean like server kick into the void.” Niki appeared to have taken over half the beginner supplies, overflowing her inventory until she had to carry items in her shirt, and Techno had emerged from the pantry eating a baked potato with an air of satisfaction. Ranboo was still missing. Phil needed to keep talking. He looked at Jerry, doubling down on his topic. “I mean real fuckin’ death, you know? How long do people have normally? Five days? Two weeks?”
Jerry’s expression held slowly growing horror. “Kid, have you been playing hardcore?” He paused, squinting. “Unless— you mean like UHC?” His voice got increasingly uncertain. “You can play UHC on Hypixel main, but it’s not really— a thing here.” He gave Phil a smile clearly intended to be reassuring. “You don’t have to be afraid, people don’t really die here.”
“Always bein’ afraid of dyin’ is what makes life fun,” Phil told him. “Gets borin’ otherwise.” One of his teeth was loose and he could feel it at this side of his mouth, and it was distracting him. Ranboo had emerged from the office, a blandly pleased expression on his face, and Phil could escape this conversation. How did Niki do this? “Thanks for the key,” Phil said, waving it at Jerry. “Right down the hall?”
Jerry looked slightly shaken, mouthing the word “kid hardcore” to himself like a horror story. He pointed down the corridor. “Yeah, the room number’s on the key. Have— have fun?” His voice trailed off uncertainly.
“Always do, mate.” Phil waved a hand at the rest of his group, and they worked their way across the space to regroup.
The key had led them to a small room with stacked chests by the door and two white bunk beds lining the walls. A window between the beds looked out over a narrow alley between buildings. Phil climbed part of the way up a ladder and hung off it, looking at the others. “Okay, did we get shit?”
“Yes, we did.” Niki dumped her items onto the bed, a mounded pile of beginner supplies that stacked up and tumbled over the basic wool bedspread. She grinned up at Phil. “A few things, I think.” A square of redstone fell off the pile and she lunged to catch it.
Techno started unpacking his stash into rows on the window sill. “They mostly had mushroom soup,” he reported, lining up the bowls. “But I also got roasted apples, and baked potatoes, and a melon.” He finished arranging bags of items and flipped the watermelon out of his inventory, staggering as it materialized in his hands. “I’ll put this—here,” he managed, dropping the melon into the other bed, and then considered the green orb the size of his torso. “We don’t have a hoe, though. Huh.”
“You can break a melon with your hands,” Ranboo said. They’d climbed onto the top bed and were hanging off it to look below them. They wrinkled their noise. “Kinda makes a mess though.”
“Probably shouldn’t break it in the bed, then,” Techno said, dry. He looked up at Phil. “Do we have enough supplies to do the redstone thing you were talkin’ about?”
Phil transitioned from the ladder to the bed, crawling along it to sort through the items. “Yeah, I can do fuckin’ necromancy with this,” he said, picking up a few candles and looking at the coal blocks Niki had liberated. She held the redstone out to him and he grinned his thanks as he took it. That shifted the loose tooth again, which threatened to take all his attention. Phil clamped his jaw shut for a moment and then looked back out at the others. “Yeah no, I can do it.” He grabbed his supplies and slid to the floor, and started planning. He’d need string, candles, there was a half-used nub of lapis, redstone—“I’ll need you for this, Ranboo.” He rolled the single square of carpet out of the way, selected an arm’s length of string, and started scrawling a redstone circle.
The half-grown enderman hybrid hanging off the top bunk stiffened. “What? Why?”
“Cause your code went through the least fuckin’ change, probably,” Phil returned. He needed candles at the cardinal points, and he could short-form the enchanting language enough to work with the lapis they had, probably. He looked up at Ranboo. “Whatever the fuck happened to us, it had to reset a fuckton of years for me, and a shitton of experience for Techno, and a bunch of years for Niki. You’re the closest to where you were.”
“I had experience,” Ranboo said grumpily. “It wasn’t Sky Block experience, but I was on the leaderboards on Hypixel main!”
“Recently.” Phil chewed his lip to help concentration as he scrawled lapis marks on the floor.
“Well—” Ranboo started.
Phil looked up, eyebrows raised. “Compared to me, mate.”
Ranboo sighed, aggrieved. “Fine.” They slithered over the edge of the bed and caught themself on the ladder, and then scrambled down to stand next to the ritual Phil was sketching on the floor. “Where do you need me?”
“Uh, sit right in the middle,” Phil said. He grabbed the flint and steel and started lighting candles.
Ranboo lowered themself into the centre of the circle and sat cross-legged, holding their paws. They cleared their throat. “This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”
“Nah, just going to look at your code,” Phil said.
“Oh good,” Ranboo said, tail lashing nervously as Phil placed a button next to the circle and hit it. The circle around them flared for a moment with lurid red light, there was the sound of a player levelling up, and then lines of enchanting language started to scroll by in front of Phil.
Techno handed a bowl of soup to Niki and sat next to her on the bed, eating his own meal and enjoying the view. Niki pulled her legs up criss-cross and watched. Phil and Ranboo were lit from below—a green glow as though from XP on the floor, despite no experience orbs in evidence—and a slow circling breeze twitched the candles’ flames sideways.
“Huh,” Phil said, leaning close enough to the code his nose nearly touched the lines of light.
“Oh no, is it permanent?” Ranboo looked stricken. “Are we stuck like this forever?”
“Not there yet, it’s showin’ me your older Hypixel code.” Phil considered Ranboo through the code display. “You did a lot of fuckin’ stuff, looks like.”
“Oh, heh.” Ranboo cleared their throat, shifting slightly in place. “Yes, I did do that. I did do—stuff.” They picked at the edge of the basic tunic they were wearing and then gave Phil a grin clearly intended to be innocent.
Techno had been focusing on his soup and missed that. “Yeah, your rank on Bed Wars was pretty high, wasn’t it?” he asked, between spoonfuls.
Ranboo twitched guiltily and then pivoted to aim the grin at Techno. “Also that, yes.” He nodded. “I did a lot of Bed Wars. Also.”
Techno paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. He raised his eyebrows. “From the way you’re talkin’, sounds like you did some stuff that might cause problems,” he said, tone dry.
“Nooooooo.” Ranboo shook their head. “Not, like, officially.” They grinned again. “Beside, my code reset, right?” They glanced at Phil.
“Yeah…” Phil scrolled slower, eyebrows coming together in concentration. “Kinda. Found the thing that fuckin’ nerfed us. Good news?” He turned his attention back to the others. “I think it’s fixable.”
“But?” Niki tilted her head to the side, scraping her spoon against the bottom of her bowl.
Phil hit the button and the redstone went inert. He brushed his hands off on his legs and then started reaching for candles. “Guy named Dante did it, his fuckin’ signature’s in the curse.”
Techno paused in place, eyes widening. “Do—do I have to kill him again?” He wrinkled his snout in displeasure. “That might be tricky without gear.”
“So, how this curse works is that it resets your code back to no experience and sets you to this time, and then if you come into contact with yourself, your older code—with no experience and all—overwrites the stuff in this time.” Phil snuffed out the candles and briefly got distracted by putting his finger in the hot wax.
“So that’d make me eight and no skills at the height of the Potato War?” Techno said, horrified.
“I think you could still win,” Ranboo told him, picking a bowl of soup from the windowsill and climbing to the top of the other bed.
“I mean obviously I would win, I know all the strats,” Techno said, and then pressed his hand to his mouth in anxious thought. “I’d have to—grind up my stats. I bet I could get to farming level 50 if I farmed 16 hours a day.” He blinked, expression thoughtful. “Could I?”
“If you don’t come into contact with yourself it doesn’t override.” Phil cut in. He shook the pieces of wax off his hand. “So you won’t have to battle Dante at fuckin’ age ten or whatever else, which I think was his plan. If we leave and go back to the SMP, we set back to our proper code and we’ll be fine.” He sighed. “Only problem with that is that if we go to the server directly, it isn’t fuckin’ open yet, so we have to uh—” His voice got uncertain. “Follow our code back the way we came? When the servers come in alignment? Across time? Not so sure about that one.”
“Give me a second,” Niki said, pulling her communicator out and grabbing a piece of quartz from the pile of liberated items. “I should be able to figure it out.”
“I don’t know how you read that shit, that’s amazin’,” Phil told her. He got up and picked his own bowl of soup, sitting on the floor under the window and twitching his wings to get them situated.
“I moved between a lot of different servers,” Niki sounded distracted, sketching absent shapes on the comforter with her fingers while she focused on her communicator. “It’s not hard, if you know the patterns.”
“Well I can’t fuckin’ do it,” Phil said, eating soup. “So I’m glad we’ve got you.” He squinted at his bowl. “Is this made with only one type of mushrooms?” His eyes narrowed. “And water?”
“Phil.” Techno put a hand to his heart. “Are you implyin’ bad things about the free soup I stole for you?”
Phil jabbed his spoon in Techno’s direction. “If it was free I don’t think you fuckin’ stole it, mate.”
“No no, that was definitely stolen,” Ranboo said, nodding fervently. “They get mad if you take that much.”
“Like Ranboo said,” Techno said, after considering the enderman hybrid for a moment. “We’re a famed criminal gang now. We’re gonna get hunted in the streets for our crimes any second now.”
“Oh no,” Ranboo said, not sounding especially concerned. “That’ll be brand new for me.”
“You know, Ranboo, I really start to think maybe we should unpack what your history is here that you keep alludin’ to,” Techno told him. “You’re rackin’ up a lot of suspense, there’s gotta be some dramatic payoff waitin’.”
“No, no.” Ranboo shook his head. “No need for that. Forget I said anything.” He grinned across the room at the friends in the lower bunk. “And honestly we don’t have to worry about being sent back in time, I think you’d win the Potato War like this and beat Dante in a couple years.”
“Your faith is touchin’ and appreciated,” Techno said, deadpan. “But if I have to grind up the Crimson Isles again while I’m half the size of every other player, I’ll give up and let Dante win.”
“But not Squid,” Phil said.
“Of course not Squid, Phil, what do you take me for?” Techno said
“About a week from now.” Niki twisted a strand of hair in her fingers. She looked up from her communicator. “We can go home in a week.”
There was a brief pause. “That’s not so bad,” Phil said.
Techno flopped backwards on the bed and threw an arm over his eyes. “I can’t go anywhere for a week or I get turned into a noob permanently?”
Niki started piling things on him from the supplies pile, starting with the planks items.
Phil went back to eating his soup. “Aw, mate, pretty sure your grown up self is locked in on your island right now, we can still go out and do shit.”
“I know lots of things to do!” Ranboo contributed from the top bunk.
“I can’t do anythin’ for a week,” Techno mourned. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Well, we’ll be goin’ out and doin’ things.” Phil unsympathetically opened up one of the bags of roasted apple and peered inside it. “But you can stay here if you want.” He swiped a finger inside the bag as soon as the steam escaped and then looked up, frowning. “Did they not put spices or raisins in this? You call this shit cookin’?”
“We can steal better food for you, Phil,” Ranboo suggested. They paused. “I mean. Buy.”
Phil raised his eyebrows at them and started breaking pieces off his apple. “I mean, either one’s good.” He grinned at the bed where Techno sprawled. “Better than stayin’ in here bein’ miserable.”
“I left my ADHD meds at home,” Techno told the ceiling, eyes screwed shut. “And my glasses. And my grown up self has all my web novels on the island. Death would be sweeter.”
Niki picked up a handful of string and dropped it on him. “Now you look like you have hair,” she said, smiling as he blinked up at her, and then looked over at Phil. “I’m down to go exploring though. Let’s go see the sights!”
Phil had found himself distracted once again by his loose tooth. He looked up as Ranboo started hurriedly drinking the rest of their soup, then tuned in to what Niki had said. “Right!” Phil pushed himself upright and patted Techno’s knee. Ignoring his friend’s low noise of misery, he headed for the door. “Let’s go out!”
Techno had sampled his stolen foods—not as good as the meals at home or the magical recipes he normally ate in Sky Block—considered the melon, and cleaned their supplies into the chests by the doors. Then he’d taken all their items out again and put them back in alphabetical order. He’d found a crafting square built into the wall behind the chests and made a wooden axe, and then climbed up to the top bunks to strip the bark off one of the oak logs decorating the ceiling. Then, panicking that he was gonna get in trouble for vandalizing the hostel, he climbed along both top bunks and the top of the chests in order to strip every bit of the bark off the logs so there were no suspiciously-obvious bare spots. He’d opened up his communicator and checked to see if any of his saved stories were there, and found that his newbie user id on Sky Block had no history or saved files, and he didn’t even have his basic spreadsheets about potato minion optimizing, and accessing anything electronically took levels he didn’t have.
That had taken about forty-five minutes, and then he’d laid face down on the bed and willed himself to be tired. When the door to the room opened he had stacked all of the room’s pillows on top of himself and was trying to do math in his head.
Techno startled upright, shedding pillows to the floor, and attempted to look casual. He re-collected the pillows and stacked them as the others came in the door. “So, how was bein’ a noob?” Techno smoothed the wrinkles out of a pillowcase.
“We found a bunch of things to do!” Niki said enthusiastically. She wore a flower crown and had a stuffed fish plushie tucked under one arm. “You should come out with us next time.”
“I don’t want to run the risk of ruinin’ my stats,” Techno said, slightly less emphatic on the subject than he’d been before he spent two hours in a hostel room listening to the ventilation system. “That would really suck.” He eyed the others. Ranboo had a wooden sword tucked into their belt and Phil was wearing a shirt that said I’ve been farming potatoes in sky block (that’s not a joke), under an emblem of a crown and a sword. “Phil, did you buy knock-off merch profitin’ from my struggle?”
“No,” Phil said cheerfully. “Why’ve you got all the pillows on one bed, mate?”
“Phil.” Techno ignored the question to fix Phil with a tragic expression of betrayal. “I can clearly see—”
“We don’t have money, mate.” Phil started fixing the beds Techno had disassembled. “Niki asked the guy about what was goin’ on and I nicked it.”
“Well.” Techno was slightly mollified. “I guess that’s okay, then.” He shifted over to give Niki space to sit next to him, and then watched as Phil crowded in on his other side and Ranboo sat at the head of the bed with his legs tangling with theirs.
“Here.” Ranboo leaned forward and handed Techno something. “I stole you an orange.”
“Bruh. Thanks.” Techno dug his thumbs into the orange to peel it, smelling citrus in the small room. With his friends piled in on the bed with him, he felt his shoulders relax. “I’m not touched,” he told Ranboo, pulling pieces of peel off. “This isn’t an important gesture of friendship at all. My heart isn’t moved.”
“Of course,” Ranboo said, nodding seriously. “I would never assume you have a heart at all, even.”
Techno squinted at him. “Hmmm,” he said noncommittally. Ranboo grinned at him.
“So,” Phil said, shifting to lay his wing over the top of Techno’s shoulders and brushing his hair out of his face. “You goin’ to come with us next time?”
Techno morosely ate a piece of orange. “I probably should stay here, I think.” He couldn’t manage to put any enthusiasm in his voice.
“Mmmm.” Phil pulled a grease-stained paper bag out of his inventory and put it in Techno’s lap, where he could get to the last three pretzel bites. “That’s what I thought you’d say. You know, Niki looked somethin’ up.”
Techno looked between Niki and Phil. Niki nodded enthusiastically, smiling, and produced a drink out of her inventory and tilted it so she could get the last few drops. She drank them noisily through a straw.
Phil grinned at Techno. “Did you know Squid Kid’s island is still open to visitors?”
Later that day, Ranboo placed a square of fabric on the ground and looked back up at the others. “So you step onto this, Techno, and then your original body will stay here, and the new one it makes will be a totally different account that won’t have any connection to Technoblade! You can go anywhere!”
Techno squinted at him, wrinkling his snout and brushing a hand over his small tusks. “I know how an alt works, Ranboo,” he said.
“Oh.” Ranboo cleared his throat. “Nevermind. Well.” He gestured to the square. “It’s ready to go, then!” He adjusted the collar of his tunic in absent anxiety.
“My question is how you got an alt, Ranboo,” Techno said. He raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t we just get here?”
“Oh.” Ranboo tried a grin. “Right. Well.” They shifted in place, tail twitching. “Normal—normal reasons.”
“You should say you forgot, Ranboo, that’d be more fuckin’ believeable,” Phil said dryly. He put his slice of melon next to the half-eaten fruit they’d torn open on a bed of napkins on the floor and shifted into place behind Techno.
“Hey,” Ranboo’s eyebrows drew together. “I did forget a lot of things, normally. This is, uh.” They cleared their throat, eyes darting to Techno’s face and then away. “Do you really wanna know?”
“I can figure it out,” Techno said, stepping onto the square of fabric. Another figure materialized out of his body, solidifying into a newbie rabbit hybrid a few inches shorter than him while his original body slumped backwards. Phil caught Techno’s AFK body, staggering, and dragged him over to the nearest bed.
“Oh my god, you look so cute.” Niki clapped her hands in delight. She reached out towards the outfit the alt had come with. “Ribbon bows!” Niki frowned, hands going to the ribbons. “They didn’t tie them right though.”
“Oh great,” Techno said, blinking at the wall and manfully standing still enough to allow Niki to fix the ribbons on his new coveralls. “They didn’t fix my eyes.”
Ranboo paused in the middle of folding up the alt launcher. “Is that—bad?” they ventured.
“Nah, I’ll have Phil shoot somethin’ if it’s far away,” Techno said. His hand went to where his tusks normally were, now just soft fur, and he frowned.
“Oh sure, I’ll be sure to do that with my totally overpowered fuckin’ bow I have.” Phil huffed out, dumping Techno’s body onto the bed and putting his hands on his hips as he got his breath back.
“It’s a bow, Phil, how complicated can it get?” Techno said.
“It’s a stick with a piece of fuckin’ string on it, doesn’t even have fuckin’ enchantments!” Phil returned indignantly.
“Righhhht,” Techno said, lengthening the word. “Needs mendin’.”
“The only bow with mendin’ worth fuckin’ usin’ is one you fished up,” Phil retorted. “You wanna spend hours diggin’ up gravel? That’s how you spend hours diggin’ gravel.”
“Yes, you would never dig gravel,” Ranboo said soberly as he stood up.
“Yeah that doesn’t sound like Phil.” Techno looked between Ranboo and Phil. “He hates diggin’ things.”
Phil spluttered. “That’s different, come the fuck on.” He spread his arms. “Craftin’ arrows is borin’, terraformin’ is fine.” He appealed to Niki. “You do big builds, right?”
“Oh yes, terraforming is fun,” Niki agreed, fixing the ribbon tails so they hung properly. “Big difference between digging for a project or grinding for supplies.”
“See?” Phil said.
The corner of Niki’s mouth turned up. “I put mending on my bows though.” She patted Techno. “There, now you’re perfect.”
“Alright, thanks, Niki,” Techno said, over Phil’s protestations about enchantments. “I always wanted to be perfect.” He absently reached up to touch his ears and then twitched them away from his hand, setting his shoulders. “Let’s go visit the enemy.”
Squid Kid’s island had a tourist attraction atmosphere, with people lining up to join the AFK pool and visitors in merch wandering around exclaiming at the sights. Techno huffed under his breath as he took in the scene. “Mismanaged, typical Squid Kid,” he told the others. “Look, see that guy sellin’ shirts?” He pointed. “That’s a scammer, you can tell ‘cause they’ve got their entire deal set up ready to move in a minute. People’re here monetizin’ Squid’s island, and he’s not even gettin’ a cut!”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Niki said agreeably. “I feel bad for him.”
“Nah nah nah, don’t feel bad,” Techno said as the group wandered down the corridor. “He’s missin’ out on this cause he’s busy plottin’. All the time! Look, see that supersmelter? He built that for redstone components, cause he’s tryin’ to automate potato plantin’. He’s out here inventin’ new ways to break the game, nobody’s done this before.” Techno pounded his fist into his hand for emphasis. “But it’s not gonna do him any good, I’m goin’ to crush him in the end. All his minions and plots aren’t goin’ to help him when it comes to the final victory, we’re gonna out-plot and out-maneuver him and totally win the war.” He paused. Ranboo had climbed up the side of the super smelter and was looking in it. “Oh hey, anythin’ good in there?” His tone got more animated. “If we could get a glimpse of his future plans, I could send them to myself, maybe?”
“Nah, just gold,” Ranboo said, with the brief flicker of something moving from his hand to his inventory. “Maybe powered rails?”
“Powered rails,” Techno said thoughtfully, staring into thin air. “What could he be plannin’ this time?”
“Hey, check this shit out,” Phil said behind him. He stamped on the glass floor and the redstone block below it lit up for a second.
“Ohhh.” Niki promptly joined him. She grinned at Phil. “Wait, look, we can make a pattern.” She gestured to the line of redstone blocks in the floor.
“Heh.” Phil stomped on one block, and then the one next to it, and then Niki jumped on her block and then the one next to it, so that the activated redstone moved in a wave underneath them. “I wonder if there’s machines under the floor?”
“Not a lot of space for it,” Niki said, and jumped again to send the pattern back towards Phil.
“Alright, up here is the set dressin’, you’re not interested in that,” Techno announced, heading towards the door. “Let’s see the real star of the show, the potatoes. You know how many layers of farms Squid’s got?”
Phil leaned towards Niki. “Do you think he’d go to a play if it was about fuckin’ potatoes.”
Niki grinned and put her hand over her mouth for a moment to hide the expression. “Only if it was licensed and he was getting a cut,” she whispered back.
“I heard that,” Techno said, dignified in the doorway of the room. “And I’ll have you know I’ve always supported local theatre.” He paused. “From the comfort of my home.” He waved a hand. “I don’t like goin’ to where there’s crowds, is all.”
“Makes sense, mate,” Phil said, nodding along with Niki. “Fuckin’ hate crowds. That’s why I’d play on a server with two hundred thousand players.”
“No crowds here,” Niki agreed.
“Hmmmm,” Techno said, squinting at them. “I’m choosin’ to ignore that because I don’t have a response for it.” He headed down the corridor, the others hurrying to catch up with him. “To the potatoes!”
There were several visitors wandering around the first layer of Squid’s potato farm, but as they took the elevators down, fewer and fewer people appeared. There were only endless lines of potato fields, rows of plants stretching into the distance between lines of sea lanterns.
“Are we gonna run into Squid?” Ranboo looked around at the plants.
“Nah.” Techno gestured to the fields. “These potatoes’ve been growing for about half an hour, so he’ll be on one of the other levels right now.” He nudged a potato plant with his foot. “I mean, I think so. I’m pretty sure.” He huffed out an exasperated breath. “It’s harder to tell when I’m so short.”
“Seems like a pretty decent height to me, mate,” Phil said blandly.
“No, I think he’s short.” Niki nodded.
Techno eyed Phil, currently his height in the alt, and Niki, who had about an inch of height on him. Both of them grinned at him. A few rows over, Ranboo poked the huge redstone machine lying still next to the fields, hopping to clamber on top of it. “I meant now that we’re noobs,” Techno said. He batted at the potato plant, a thread of frustration in his voice. “Things look different when I’m down here.”
“It’s like you’re lookin’ at the situation for the first time,” Phil said. He raised his eyebrows, reaching up to brush hair out of his eyes. “Maybe you’ll see somethin’ new?”
Techno eyed him. “Hmmm. Maybe.” He tilted his head to the side, ears twitching in thought. “Maybe we should go down and look at the potato minions setup.”
“Oh my god,” Niki cut in in a delighted whisper. She crouched down by a row, extending a hand towards a tiny creature that wrinkled its nose at her. “Look who I found.” She reached out carefully and scooped up the tiny rabbit, holding it to her chest. “Look, he’s tame! He’s so cute.”
“Hmmmm, I’m feelin’ a bit self-conscious about my current look, does this mean I’m cute?” Techno deadpanned, coming closer to look. Niki opened her mouth and his eyes widened. “Don’t answer that.”
Niki grinned, then returned her attention to the half-grown rabbit she held. “Oh, you’re so little. Did you escape from somewhere? Do we need to bring you back to your farm?” She very carefully stroked one finger over its soft ears. “But that might be bad for you. Should we bring you somewhere safe?” She glanced at Techno. “But we need to go look at the potato minions, I guess?”
Techno held out his hand to let the rabbit sniff at it. “I mean, we can go—” he cleared his throat. “I know where Squid’s carrot farms are, if we want to make sure the bunny’s safe?” He nodded, looking at Niki. “Just to make sure he’s okay.”
Niki beamed at him, very carefully standing up. “Thanks, Techno.” She cupped her arms around the rabbit, cautiously moving towards the exit. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna keep you very safe.”
Techno moved alongside her, holding out his hands to act as a secondary line of defense in case the rabbit slipped. “We’ll get you to a much better home, lots of food to eat,” he told the small creature, then fixed Phil with a stare. “Don’t you dare shoot this cute animal, Phil.”
Phil held up his hands, grinning. “I was only thinkin’ about it for a bit!” He caught sight of Niki’s expression and waved in negation. “But I wouldn’t, don’t worry.” He nodded. “Keepin’ the rabbit safe, that’s me.”
“Ah-huh,” Niki said. She raised her eyebrows. “You’d better.”
Phil cleared his throat and pointed towards the exit. “I’ll go make sure the elevator’s free, then?”
The small potato farm at the bottom of Squid’s world was dotted with player-sized construct minions in constant motion. Niki stood aside from the elevator and waited for the others to appear. “I think the rabbit’s gonna be much happier.” She picked up the conversation as Techno stepped out. Niki absently reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she smiled at her friend. “Much better food options.”
“And he can undermine Squid’s carrot production,” Techno agreed. He waited with Niki while the others appeared and then led the group through the rows of potatoes. “Even if really not wantin’ to live on potatoes is a startlin’ lack of imagination, I think.”
“There are so many good foods that aren’t potatoes!” Niki protested. She watched as one of the minions broke a plant, then planted more, then broke them again, the harvested vegetables visible for a moment before they were picked up by the construct’s inventory. She crooked a smile at her friend. “I should bake you some.”
“I will not be swayed from my loyalty to the best vegetable,” Techno told her. He leaned a casual elbow on a minion, arm sliding off as its middle segment rotated. He staggered. “Whoops.”
Niki giggled, hand coming up to cover her mouth.
Ranboo nodded soberly. “Watch out, those move.”
“Thanks, I appreciate you lookin’ out for me.” Techno’s tone was dry. He twitched his ears back as he adjusted his coveralls and then waved a hand at the field around him. “So this is the centre of everythin’! Not the best, of course, but pretty impressive setup when you look at the stats.”
“Ah, I see.” Niki considered the field of machines, Phil beside her staring at the nearest construct with a slightly mesmerized look. “How does it—work?”
“Oh pretty basic minion mechanics, but he’s got them maxed out and optimized.” Techno’s voice got even more animated. “He’s got these leveled up to max speed, and they’re boosted by fly catchers—see, you can see the edge of it through the compartment here.” He gestured to one of the minion’s front panels, which was slightly bent. “Plus supercompactors, and then this whole setup is boosted by his farmin’ crystal, which is—” he trailed off, squinting at the fist-shaped crystal hovering in the air over the field. Enchanting lines emanated from it and washed over the machines. “I need to check somethin’.” Techno headed towards the crystal, expression intent.
Ranboo rested a hand on the arm of the nearest minion. “Hey Niki, do you think if I climb on top of this I could get in the way and pick up the potatoes before they grab them?” They grinned.
“Watch out, those move,” Niki said, expression serious. She giggled in response to his sarcastic look, then reached up to tighten one of her pigtails. “Maybe? If you really think you need to steal potatoes.”
“Liberate potatoes, this is fuckin’ war.” Phil chimed in. He paused as the others looked at him. “Isn’t it?”
“Well, Techno’s in a war, I guess,” Ranboo said.
“Guys,” Techno hissed. He was crouched down by the farming crystal, staring up at it from a foot away. “This is out of alignment.”
“Is that—good?” Niki tilted her head to the side.
“It’s fantastic—oh my god, it’s because he had all the machines runnin’ up a couple farm levels.” Techno swivelled to stare at the others. “The redstone knocked it a bit out of alignment. If I can knock it properly out of place we can increase the time when Squid isn’t getting the benefits of the farmin’ crystal! That’ll drop effectiveness by—“ He put his hand over his mouth in thought. “It must be a 2% drop. I had to wait till he kicked everyone off his island to nerf his farming crystal. This could save me thousands of potatoes!” Techno dropped his hands to his sides and looked seriously at the others. “I need to do this. You can go on without me.”
“Obviously we’re helpin’ you, mate,” Phil said immediately. “Right?”
Niki nodded enthusiastically. “I don’t know anything about the minions or anything, but anything I can do to help I can!”
“I just like breaking the rules,” Ranboo said pleasantly.
“Good attitude, keep that one,” Techno told him, and then turned back to the crystal. “Alright, a redstone pulse would do it. Anyone bring redstone?”
“Oh!” Phil pushed himself to his feet. “I know where to get some.” He jogged off towards the exit.
Ranboo paused in place for a moment, tail lashing thoughtfully, and then grinned at the others. “I can go find Squid and keep an eye on him? I did some uh—” they cleared their throat, then smiled like they were plotting something. “I did some shopping earlier that might help.”
“Hmmm, ominous,” Techno said. “Good thought.” As Ranboo sped off, Techno crouched down to look at the crystal, starting to push aside the potato plants below it. “Okay, so, if we knock it off its mount, that’ll decrease the radius.”
Niki helped to pull the plants aside, and brushed dirt away from the spots of enchantment-bound dirt below the crystal. “Is it a lot of redstone?” She chewed thoughtfully at her lip. “There isn’t a lot of space.”
“Nah, I don’t do the complicated stuff,” Techno said, measuring the space between the crystal mounts with his hands. “Not without a tutorial. I build things that I can optimize in a spreadsheet first. But if we send a pulse through one side of this and not the other, it’s so badly balanced that it’ll make the crystal fall just a bit, and that’ll decrease its radius, so the minions aren’t gettin’ the full impact.” He pressed his hands into the ground for a moment. “Bruh, I wouldn’t have seen this if I wasn’t so short right now, this is actually playin’ directly into my hands.” He chuckled. “Dante’s actually gonna help me out, thanks I guess.”
“Always good when a plot to kill you helps you win a war instead,” Niki said, mock-serious.
Techno threw a grin at her for a moment. “That’s what I’m sayin’, love it when my enemies decide to help out.”
The elevator sounded behind them and they both glanced in its direction, then froze in place as Squid Kid stepped out.
“Oh my god, he’s killed Ranboo,” Techno whispered, stricken.
Behind Squid, Phil appeared in the elevator and froze in place, slowly easing himself into a shadow to the left with fuzzy wings outstretched for balance.
They were hidden from view by a potato minion, Squid hadn’t seen them yet. That wasn’t going to last, however. Techno breathed out. “Oh my god, I don’t have any levels, I don’t even have any equipment,” he said, horrified. “I don’t have anythin’ for this. I’m not prepared to face Squid.”
Niki squeezed his arm. “You don’t need equipment, we can do this.” She shuffled forward a few inches, still holding onto Techno’s shoulder, and pointed with her other hand. “I’ll get Squid away, you grab Phil and do the redstone, then we get out of here.” She squeezed his arm again. “Alright?”
Techno took a deep breath, then closed his hands into emphatic fists. “Alright.” He nodded at her. “Let’s do this.” He scuttled to the side, further behind a minion, as Niki stood up and headed towards Squid.
Squid blinked as she stepped out of hiding. “Hi, kid.” He cleared his throat. “You’re here to see the magic happen, I guess?”
“Yes, it’s very impressive, so much is happening!” Niki tilted her head to the side, looking up at him. “And Technoblade is here too, it’s so exciting!”
Squid froze in place. “Where?” He reached out as if to grab Niki’s shoulder and then thought better of it, turning it into a vague wave in her direction and then the sort of clutching of arms to the chest that happens when someone doesn’t know what to do with their limbs. “Where is he, what is he up to?”
“He was upstairs, I think?” Niki took a step towards the elevator. “I can show you?” In the background, she saw Phil step from the shadows and tiptoe rapidly behind Squid.
“Yes,” Squid said, the tentacles below his face twining around each other in an excess of anxious energy. “I need to know what he’s doing. What is he planning now?”
“I think he was on the top floor, I’ll show you,” Niki said, and stepped onto the elevator.
Squid appeared immediately behind her, looking around frantically as soon as he stepped onto the top level. “Where is he?”
“Over here, I think?” Niki started walking slowly down the corridor. “I’m not sure if it was him for sure, but he had a crown and a special rank?”
“That’s him, that’s the fucker,” Squid said, stepping a few feet ahead and then waiting impatiently for her to catch up. “What is he up to? There’s no way he can find anything to undermine this time, I have everything optimized.” He frowned, staring into space for a moment. “Surely I have everything optimized.”
“Everything is so well put together and balanced, it’s really nice!” Niki told him. She gestured towards the AFK pool at the end of the hall, where several people were wearing Technoblade-themed shirts or cosmetics and knock-off capes. “And so many people are here to help!”
“Yes,” Squid said darkly. “Except for the ones who’re plotting against me.” His eyes narrowed. “So many of them.”
She was losing him. Niki looked up at Squid, wearing her best innocently interested expression. “You’ve done so many things that are really cool. Are you really planting the potatoes with redstone?”
Squid grimaced for a moment, tentacles tying themselves into worse knots. “The redstone is—a work in progress.” He seemed to realize he was talking to a child and cleared his throat. “I’m gonna get it, though,” he said, visibly attempting to project confidence. “The theory is all there. I’m gonna fucking defeat that guy, you’ll see.” He glared down the hall at the AFK pool again. “You’ll all see!”
Up ahead, Niki saw Ranboo step out of a hallway, look around frantically, spot Squid, and start rapidly walking in their direction. “I’m sure everybody will see.” Niki kept her expression supportive. “You’ve put in so much work!”
“I have,” Squid said. “Fuck, I have.” He clenched a fist. “But it’ll all be worth it when I crush that guy under my foot.”
Behind her and Squid, the elevator sounded. A moment later, Techno’s voice said, “Ranboo, you’re alive,” in a tone of surprise.
Ranboo coughed into his hand, projecting innocence so hard it might as well be a neon sign proclaiming that he’d been up to something. “Of course I’m alive, I’m a—a tourist here.”
Squid stopped, squinting at Ranboo, and then pivoting to look at Techno and Phil out of breath behind him, and then staring back at Niki. “You’re—” he waved feverishly at Phil’s Techno-themed Potato War shirt. “—you’re the damn operatives I was expecting to try and infiltrate!”
“Nooooo,” Ranboo and Techno said in unison, unconvincingly, while Phil and Niki shook their heads.
“We’re here to look around and appreciate all the work that’s been put into the place,” Niki said, serious. “The art is really beautiful.”
“You’re distracting me!” Squid said, jabbing a finger at her and then swinging a wild hand at the whole group. “You’re plotting my downfall!”
“I don’t even have stats, I couldn’t do anything,” Techno said.
“I stole this shirt, cause I didn’t want to give them money,” Phil chimed in.
“I don’t remember what we’re talking about,” Ranboo said, eyes wide. “Is there something happening?”
“I’m new to Sky Block, everything’s so impressive here,” Niki said, trying to smooth the others’ contributions over. “And the enchantments are so cool!”
“Every minute I spend talking to you is another minute he gets away with it,” Squid said, with a distinct attitude of not realizing he was speaking out loud. “I need to go check on things.” He turned and sped-walked down the hallway.
“Okay, it worked,” Techno hissed, stepping closer to the others. “We got the farming crystal out of alignment. Squid’s not gonna know what hit him. Thanks for covering for us, Niki,”
Niki waved a hand. “It’s fine.” She tilted her head at Ranboo. “Where did you get to?”
Ranboo turned their tail over in their hands and gave the others an anxious smile. “I couldn’t find—I think I might have missed him in the elevator?” They cleared their throat. “But I filled his hopper system with rookie axes, so I hope it wasn’t entirely a loss. Sorry.”
Techno reached out and squeezed Ranboo’s shoulder. “Ranboo,” he said. “That’s beautiful. Thank you.”
Ranboo smiled anxiously. “You’re—welcome?”
From further down the corridor, Squid yelled. “What did you bozos do to my floor?”
“Right.” Phil nodded. “That’d be where I got the redstone.”
With a sudden lurching sensation, all of them were abruptly stumbling away from a portal amid the crowd that had been in the AFK pool. Im_a_squid_kid’s island disallows visitors flashed across a nearby console.
“Oh my god,” Techno said, and laughed in incredulous delight. He helped tug the others to the shadow of a leaf pillar, talking enthusiastically as they went. “That worked even better than I thought. This way he’ll lose the entire benefit of the farming crystal when he’s not online. I had to wait until March 20th for that to happen, and this time it’ll happen on—” he pulled his communicator out and checked it, then froze in place. “... March 20th.” Techno’s tone was vaguely devastated. He stared at the communicator screen, clearly not really seeing it. Niki reached out and squeezed his hand.
“Oh that’s so kind,” Ranboo said in the background. “Someone gave me fifteen rookie axes. And there’s more on the ground. Neat. If someone wants a rookie axe, I have a couple now. I can hook you up.”
Techno looked up from his communicator, appealing to the group. “Guys, is it actually impossible to change the past and we’ve been livin’ within an immutable fixed timeline the whole time?”
“I dunno man, you know my brain’s too small for that shit,” Phil told him. “I only do basic redstone.”
“Techno,” Niki said, holding out her hand. “Do you want to go play Party Games?”
Techno drew in a deep breath. “You know what?” He gripped Niki’s hand and reached out to pick up Phil’s, then made an abortive swipe at Ranboo with his ankle. Ranboo looked up from his new collection of axes and grabbed Niki’s hand. Techno nodded emphatically at the group. “Let’s go play Party Games.”
A week later, Niki checked her communicator one last time, standing next to the main portal out of Hypixel Skyblock. “We’ve got about four minutes till it opens.”
Techno adjusted the plastic crown he was wearing and nodded. “Thanks.” He sighed. “Not gonna be sad to go home. Sorry I couldn’t show you my island though, guys.”
“I still had fun!” Niki said. She wore a t-shirt with a kitten on it and the slogan another purr-fect day along with a bunch of new hair clips, had a shoulder bag covered in keychains, and a backpack full of stuffed animals.
“Me too,” Phil chimed in, the blue straw hat he sported clashing catastrophically with the green t-shirt that read I went to Sky Block and died repeatedly. He raised his eyebrows. “Gonna be pretty fuckin’ glad to not be short anymore though.”
Techno looked at him. “You sure that’s gonna change in a second, Phil? Are you sure you’re rememberin’ exactly what’s goin’ on at home, if you don’t expect to be short? Is your memory goin’?”
“Fuck off,” Phil returned, flipping him the bird in a clatter of bead bracelets.
“Uh, I was wondering—” Ranboo pointed to a group of players in Hypixel-enforcer uniforms that didn’t look quite right that were scanning the crowd next to them. “Should we be concerned about those guys?” His hand came up anxiously to fiddle with the tie he wore over a hand-made shirt with kicked out of the auction house (again) scrawled on it in marker.
“Oh, amazin’,” Techno said, after squinting at them for a second. “That’d be Dante’s men. Late and underpowered as usual.” He sighed happily. “I’d love to stick around and let them kill me, but I think it’s time to go home and sit in my own house in silence for a while. Are we ready?” He looked at Niki.
Niki checked her communicator, holding her hand in the air, and then brought it down. The portal behind her turned the black of the void. “We’re good!” She looked up. “We’ve got about three minutes.”
“I sure hope my totems are still there,” Ranboo said.
“Alright, back to it,” Techno said. Sporting a handmade shirt that read I Went To The Number Two Potato Farmer’s Sky Block Island And All I Got Was this T-shirt, a licensed half-size version of Technoblade’s cape, and an armful of friendship bracelets along with his plastic crown, he led the others back through the portal.