A ghost haunted season 10. Certainly not a malicious one, if a bit mischievous - and one had to keep a careful eye out to catch him.
Jevin heard him first, deep underground. He was hunting iron, early in the season, and he was having the worst luck. He even looked up where iron should be, to make sure the updates hadn't changed anything! Alas, the iron evaded him. Jevin might have to resort to begging and then jump straight to a farm.
And he kept hearing these crackly, faint snickers. At first he thought he'd been on a voice channel accidentally, but, no, his comm wasn't connected. Then, just to make sure, he disconnected it entirely - but the laughter prevailed. Jevin chalked it up to too many sleepless nights, and went to find an overachieving hermit already building an iron farm.
Stress heard him next, but as someone who heard murmuring monsters on a good day, she didn't give it a second thought. Clear as day she heard an, "oh, bugger." She thought, you and me both, monster, before going along with her day.
Then it was Xisuma, though he didn't hear anyone, he saw. It was a mere glimmer out of the corner of his eye. White hair, stout, pickaxe slung lovingly over a shoulder. When he looked back there was nothing. He resolved to run diagnostics on his helmet, because something was clearly haywire.
And in Joel's defense, he was both exhausted and brand new to hermitcraft. It wasn't like people had nametags on, they were a group of friends! So when an old man grumbled by, lost as could be within the shopping district, Joel furrowed his brows but ultimately was too tired to ruminate. He overheard the man saying something about shroomlights and called out, "Tango has the permit, but he doesn't have a shop up yet!"
The man startled, muttered something about "permits?" before scuttling off like a spooked horse. Joel shrugged. It was called hermitcraft, after all. There had to be loads of people he hadn't met yet.
Small instances added up. Scar fell asleep making a tree, hidden amongst the branches, and was spooked awake by the sound of a player dying. But when he checked his comm, nothing showed up. A dream, he thought uneasily.
I just need sleep, Tango thought.
Wow, someone's wearing a sick costume, Skizz thought. Too bad I'm too busy to go chat right now!
Who's messing with my hourglass now? Doc thought. Only, there wasn't anyone else on the server at the time. Probably an armor stand prank.
It all came to head when Hypno stumbled across his fifth stripmine in one mining session. He rolled his eyes, because of course Wels had created tunnels beneath Hypno's place just to be a nuisance. Except when he pointed it out to Wels, who was on call with Hypno but was busy caving, Wels expressed confusion.
"I've only made one or two strip mines. And they're not near you," Wels said.
Hypno saw a wisp of white hair turning a corner. "Haha, very funny, Wels. Come on out."
"I'm not joking?" Wels said in confusion. In the same beat he got the achievement for sneaking successfully past a shrieker for the first time and Hypno was far too high up to be near an ancient city.
"Maybe it's someone else?" Hypno murmured, checking who was online. Grian and Joel, who were having their own shenanigans blowing up the comms (it involved TNT, so the blowing up was quite literal). Impulse had just left. Etho, who could be a contender if Hypno didn't know he'd fallen asleep at the post office three hours ago. Plus, what sort of prank would this be, from Etho?
He explored the endless strip mines and got so lost that he had to dig his way up. When he mentioned the strangeness to Keralis, the man lit up and exclaimed that he'd found the same thing, how weird was that, huh?
Hypno investigated. If there was a bug in the world he'd need to know.
"You know, it might not be a bug," Cleo said meaningfully. They fidgeted with a tear in their clothes.
"What else would it be?" Hypno asked, mystified.
"Maybe it's a player. You know. Someone we never removed from the whitelist."
Cleo raised an eyebrow. It wasn't in their nature to beat around the bush, but at the same time they didn't want to act crass. Not for this.
Tentative realization trickled through Hypno. He nodded and abruptly left, unsure how to feel.
The information spread slowly through the rest of the server. Joe took to leaving boxes of torches and iron pickaxes about, and every so often would have to refill them. He didn't ask, but everyone swore they hadn't been stealing. Who would need an iron pickaxe at this point, anyway?
One night, Cub let off a slew of fireworks that were spherical and solid green. He heard a faint chuckle on the breeze, and raised a drink in quiet salute.
So, yes. A ghost haunted season 10. But ghost haunting had such a negative connotation, didn't it? The hermits, if they spoke about him at all, much preferred to call him the True Hermit who never left.
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Working on my own Disco Elysium skills! Individual art pieces and descriptions (in the style of the game) below the cut :]
DIALECTICS
Examine verbal landscapes. Get to the truth of the matter.
Cool for: Logicians, Philosophers, Asshole Devil’s Advocates
Dialetics urges you to look beyond the basics of conversation. It encourages you to discuss theories, truths and falsehoods, until you exhaust everyone around you with your sheer affinity for taking the most convoluted routes to your deductions—but, hey, it works! Those people are only *really* annoyed because you very accurately psychoanalyzed them.
At high levels, Dialectics will help you reason with even the most convoluted of situations. You will be an unstoppable detective, who may occasionally suffer from some unintended side effects such as: your brain and mouth moving too fast, overcomplicating little things, becoming an insufferable jerk, and joining your local debate team. With low levels of Dialectics, you’re going to have a difficult time seeing through both worldly and interpersonal deceptions. You may find yourself being taken advantage of.
EVOCATION
Recall emotions and imagery. Paint complete pictures of the past.
Cool for: Visualizers, Chronic Observers, Witnesses Of Crimes
Evocation allows you to call forth memories that may otherwise be lost in the recesses of your mind. Previous instances of sound, touch, taste, feeling, sight—all of these are at your beck and call: able to be summoned within and around you in a great miasma of experience. You will be able to relive important events, even those that were only mere seconds, and examine them closer to reveal what you couldn’t comprehend in the moment.
At high levels, Evocation will help you reimagine scenes that may have happened years ago, lasted the length of a blink—or, perhaps, even allow you to picture memories that you were not present for. You will find yourself constantly transported to the past: a single whiff of a familiar perfume enough to completely derail your senses. With low levels of Evocation, you’re going to have a hard time remembering simple conversations and potentially important visual details. You will have to rely on others in such scenarios.
BODY OF LAWS
Know your rights. Remember fun courtroom trivia.
Cool for: Lawyers, Law-Evaders, Stick-In-The-Muds
Body Of Laws is responsible for your ability to follow the law at any given time—or don’t! Just because you know the rules doesn’t mean you have to play by them. Regardless, it certainly allows you to recall a, frankly, embarrassing amount of your government’s regulations, and may encourage you to ‘stay in your lane’, so to speak, regarding them. Governments aren’t the only entities that enact rules, though: you will also find yourself privy to understanding unspoken boundaries set by people, nature, and even your subconscious self.
At high levels, Body Of Laws will either make you an *extremely* insufferable goody-two-shoes, or a *wildly* effective cheat-of-the-system. You may end up feeling suffocated by all these restrictions you can so clearly see, causing you to become complicit with the movings of the machine—or potentially apathetic to why we need some of these restrictions in the first place. With low levels of Body Of Laws, you may find yourself accidentally violating boundaries you didn’t know existed—whether they be legal, personal, or cultural.
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hi there!! i really admire how lived-in your environment lineworks feel and that despite being just lines, they dont feel static at all.. how long does it take to line out a detailed background for you? I feel like i am so slow when it comes to it.. but maybe it just comes with practice?
DETAILED bg? oh my god it takes so long. this is actually a major pain point for me because i love drawing bgs and I really want to do a lot of bgs for personal art, it's pretty within my skill level etc. but i don't have a lot of free time and drawing takes. SO long. and I'm normally a fast artist.
I think a lot of people get around this by painting which has a little more flexibility with your detail drop off than line does..? but i love line... I would say a truly complex "establishing shot" bg where you rly get a sense of the construction of the space + a bunch of items/props/etc easily can take me 5-10 hours. especially for animation work when something has to be production ready i think 10-16 hrs is not unheard of. for my personal work... I can sometimes eke something similar but maybe less particular out in 2-5 hours. i recognize 2-16 is a crazy range of hours but yk art is kind of just like that... lots of variables
drawing is supposed to get faster the more you do it and i think theres a lot of stuff that used to take me way longer that i can now do in less time... but watch out because sometimes you get faster and that makes you want to draw more complex things that take longer. thats kinda my issue... you could be me so be careful what you wish for.
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