#mfw: this predacious song

[sleepless-in-southlands]

And I am a Witness Watching it

Ao3

Epilogue of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Epilogue’s title from Mitski’s “A Burning Hill”

~

    There’s a disease that poisons the blood.

    A boogeyman curse, they call it. One that infects the brain, takes over the body. It lives in the bloody splendor of its unwilling hosts’ veins, camouflaged in the carnage of a beating heart. It searches for itself, seeking to tear limb from limb anyone and anything it encounters that might be the home of a fellow parasite. 

    It goes from host to host, body to body, mind to mind. There is no rhyme nor reason to how it spreads, no way to protect oneself from it. It comes and goes as it pleases, taking its pound of flesh one way or another.

    Only luck can protect one from it, and there is only so much luck can do in the face of such wickedness. Escaping the plague means nothing if it slaughters you by another’s hands instead. And no one’s luck can last forever.

    Yours didn’t, and it cost you everything. Your base. Your friends. Your life.

    Even when the curse lifts, sated by your sacrifice on an altar of harsh obsidian and blood-watered grass, you can still feel it at your back, a spirit of violence silhouetting you. Death does not drive it away. Nothing can scare it from you.

    Instead, it haunts you, pacing your world turned red beside you, watching as you craft destruction, twisting around your arms and inside your head as you strike and telling you to make it deadly, to show no mercy. There is no room for yourself in a body possessed, and during what few days you have left it prompts the question- which one of you is truly the ghost?

    You can’t outrun yourself and you can’t outrun that lives within you either, although you try to.

    Oh, how you try.

    But there is nowhere you can go that will erase the memories of what your hands wrought. There is nothing you can do to silence the predacious song of your own heart, sustained by blood that is both yours and others’. You are ensnared, a beast captured by a beast, and all you know is how to claw and bite at any hand that might try and feed you.

    You are monstrous, you are detestable, you are hated.

    Yet still, as blood drips from your sharpened teeth and your cage tightens around you, you can see through a veil of blinding red someone reaching for you, someone still trying.

    ~~

    Mumbo sat up fast as he woke up, breathing quicker than he had any need too. In the echoes of the dream, he could almost hear a heartbeat laid under his hurried breaths, but he dismissed the thought as soon as he processed it. Time had made the reminders of the blood mod easier to put out of mind.

    Slightly behind him, someone kicked a pebble, the light sound purposefully giving away their position without startling Mumbo. He looked back after another moment of collecting himself, unsurprised to find Grian sitting on a layer of rock jutted out above Mumbo’s.

    “Nightmare?” He asked once he had Mumbo’s attention.

    “Yeah.” Mumo admitted, stretching out his back. Stone blocks made for a rather stiff bed. “Not that bad, though. Not as frequent anymore either.”

    Grian nodded, acknowledging the progress. He watched Mumbo do his best to make up for a (half) night spent asleep directly on top of his mountain for a few minutes before chuckling quietly, the sound barely carrying at all in the night air. “It’s kind of nice, you know. In a weird way.”

    “What is?”

    “Finding you passed out from your work.” Grian answered, grinning at Mumbo’s offended expression. “It’s just so… normal. Reassuring.”

    “Does that mean you’ll let me go back to working?”

    “Oh, no, you’re still getting moved to a proper, inside bed. I’m just feeling nostalgic about it.”

    Mumbo sighed as he stood up, ignoring the look Grian gave him for his dramatics. “Doesn’t that mean it’s bedtime for you too?”

    “Nope.”

    “Why not?”

    “I haven’t passed out yet.”

    “I’m not certain that’s how it works.”

    “Of course that’s how it works. I would know, I’m the one who made up the rules for it.”

    They continued on while Mumbo pulled on his elytra, trading words in the air as they made their way towards Mumbo’s nearest indoor bed, their winged forms casting long shadows across hanging bridges and colourful buildings.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Something Somewhere had to Die

Ao3

Chapter three of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter three’s title from dvoyd The artwork done by my artist, Yeti, for the event pairs with this chapter! You can find it here

~

    Mumbo wasn’t sure how long he stared at his hand until he moved again. Watching the blood slowly take over his hand, following the creases in his palm like water in a trough, was equal parts fascinating and horrific.

    It wasn’t as though he had never seen it before, but that had only been in Last Life’s server, the only one he had ever been to that had a blood mod. Blood was messy and added complications to heart and respawn mechanics that servers usually didn’t want to mess with. In Last Life, it had been used in conjunction with an increased pain mod for largely aesthetic reasons- death games were meant to be painful and bloody, after all.

    But Hermitcraft wasn’t meant to be. Hermitcraft didn’t have a blood mod.

    The fact that Hermitcraft didn’t have much of a pain allowance either was back on Mumbo’s mind as well, and before he could think it through at all, he was pressing a finger directly against the cut on his hand.

    More blood gushed from the wound as the pain in it seemed to flare up, Mumbo biting his lip to stop from making a sound and regretting that too when his lip began to hurt as well. Pain limits were a hard thing to gauge, but Mumbo had a sneaking suspicion that he had passed right by Hermitcraft’s.

    Mumbo took a shaky breath. Somehow, both Last Life’s blood and pain mods had followed him into Hermitcraft. None of the other lifers had reported having any similar issues, as far as Mumbo knew, and he hadn’t seen anyone else bleeding, so it seemed he was the only one affected. It wasn’t unheard of for something like that to happen, a minor glitch in the code accidentally binding mods directly to a player rather than a server. And it wasn’t that hard to fix- any admin could remove mod-code, granted that they were able to find it. All he had to do was ask Xisuma to clear it out for him.

    But even just thinking through his plan, Mumbo hesitated. Xisuma could only remove the code if it was actually there. Which, logically, it had to be. He couldn’t be bleeding without it, nor hurting this much.

    He curled his injured hand into a fist, watching as the blood he had let gather in his palm rushed out, dripping onto the floor and tracing lines down his wrist. His thoughts drifted back to Last Life.

    Mumbo had never seen blood before then. He knew what it was- red, liquid, found within players like redstone was found in rock- but there was a difference in understanding the concept of it and actually seeing it. In theory, blood was a hassle, something hard to clean up and annoyingly vital, that made a player’s actual heart more important than ten of health. But in reality-

    Mumbo’s fingers pressed harder against his palm, tightening his fist, the pain momentarily a positive as he forced himself to focus on it rather than his thoughts- the blood staining his friends-turned-foes’ armor and skin, how bright the red looked against the flesh it escaped from, how dark it looked when stained on ground and walls as an ominous reminder of what had been shed, how it seemed to burn when Bdubs’s hit his cheek after Mumbo had razed him with an end crystal, killed in a puff of rusty smoke.

    But the pain turned against him, and Mumbo gasped at the memories of lava burning through his skin, through his muscle, through his bone; the way his body had felt like torn paper when he was attacked with axe and sword; his own blood, his life, hot as the sun as he desperately tried to keep it in, still swinging his own blade as Grian cut through him like he was a zombie, like he was the monster, and Grian was merely protecting himself like every sane player.

    Blood wasn’t something logical, or defined, or cold. It was more life to a player than code, the foundations of every breathing thing, was. Even now, he could hear it roaring in his ears as he opened his fist, making a further mess of his floor as it fled from him.

    What if Xisuma looked in his code and couldn’t find a mod for the blood, for the pain? What if everything was the same, what if Mumbo was the same, bloody and tortured and foul but still just Mumbo Jumbo?

    Last Life was a game. Nothing serious, nothing real. That’s why it hadn’t affected Mumbo. That’s why he was okay. That’s what he told everyone who asked. He was fine, because he knew it was all just a game.

    He couldn’t let them know the truth. That, enthralled by the ringing echo of Last Life’s madness, gripped in the rush of blood, the power of being the boogeyman, the allure of being a red life, it hadn’t felt like a game at all. How, at times, everything wrong about the server only felt right. His heart, pounding with blood, had felt no remorse at Bdubs’s slaughter, no anguish in betraying the Southlands. He had been dying on his final life and he had still turned back to kill.

    How would the other lifers- how would all of Hermitcraft react if they knew that it wasn’t an act? That what Mumbo had become wasn’t for the fun of the game? That even now that Last Life was over, it still lived within him, staining him?

    People suddenly started talking somewhere outside of his house and Mumbo nearly tripped over himself in his rush, his need, to retreat back deeper in Treesa. He couldn’t let them see the blood, on himself or otherwise.

    Not wanting to risk going back to the bus for the health potion he had left there- there were too many windows, it was too exposed- Mumbo pulled another from his chest, hastily pouring it onto his hand without even trying to clean up the blood over the wound first. Where the blood and the health potion met, froth and bubbles formed, red fighting red as his hand seemed to get cleaner. By the time the potion closed his cut, it had cleaned up most of the blood as well, the potion apparently having taken care of it all.

    Using potions of health to clean his floors was probably a waste, but it was easier and faster than water, and Mumbo needed the blood gone before anyone else came for a visit like Scar had. For that same reason, he also ditched the suit jacket he had been wearing, shoving it in the corner of one of his less-used chests along with his one glove. The stain on its sleeve was a mix of blood and redstone, and he wasn’t sure the potion could get that out- it wasn’t like he didn’t have other suit jackets, anyways.

    Only once Treesa was free of blood did Mumbo stop working, having again moved within the tree itself after cleaning out the bus. His starter base now smelled almost overwhelmingly of melon, but it was a small price to pay.

    The longer he could keep the blood a secret from the rest of Hermitcraft, the longer he could stay. He wasn’t sure what they would do if they figured it out- not just the blood part, but what it meant, what he was- but he doubted it ended with him still being a hermit. And despite how he had acted in Last Life, these players were his friends. He didn’t know where he would go if he was kicked out. Didn’t know if he really had another place to go.

    So he would keep it a secret. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

We’re Gonna Pretend

Ao3

Chapter one of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter one’s title from Matchbox Twenty’s “How Far We’ve Come”

~

   There were a lot of things Mumbo appreciated about Hermitcraft. The creativity, the friendships, the subsequent support system, the well-balanced mix of calm and chaos. Only in Hermitcraft did games of sharpshooting with end crystals as targets make perfect sense, for example.

    But recently, one of Mumbo’s favorite things about his home server was how busy it could be. At any given time, nearly every hermit had at least one project running, if not more. There were always materials to be gathered, shops to be restocked, buildings to be raised, and so much more. If one didn’t have anything they were doing personally, there were always favours to be cashed and gained by helping others out with whatever they had going on.

    And Mumbo was amassing himself quite the pile of favours.

   It wasn’t that he didn’t have his own things to do- he always had four redstone projects ready to be started as soon as the last was finished, if nothing else- he just hadn’t had much focus in recent days. In such a state, his redstone would hardly turn out effective, and he didn’t want to see what his builds would become.

    Material gathering, however, required little to no active brainpower. And since there was only so much he could stock Harmless Harvests, Mumbo had turned to helping other hermits with their collection needs. Most had offered to pay him upfront for his services, some insisting to the point Mumbo did accept, but Mumbo had generally waved them off. He was bored, looking for something to do- really, they were practically doing Mumbo a favour!

    Some of the hermits had looked at Mumbo funny for that, but none had yet to raise any concerns with him. They were likely wondering what Mumbo was doing this all for, what grand plan he was building up to.

    (The answer was none; for once, there was no ulterior motive behind Mumbo’s actions. He just wanted some busywork. But it was easier to let everyone assume what they would than explain each time that he was just bored.)

    Many of the fetch quests had sent him underground. While Mumbo wasn’t willing to collect precious ores- if he was going to mine diamonds, he was going to keep them- there were still plenty of hermits happy to have a reason to not strip mine for hours. Especially those who needed deepslate. In his time since he became the most helpful hermit, Mumbo had mined a lot of deepslate.

    Most of the time, the mining trips were nothing exciting. Just Mumbo collecting deepslate for so long the sunlight above would practically burn out his eyes when he was done.

    Then there were the times the strip mine led him right into enormous caverns, sprawling across hundreds of blocks, filled to the brim with falls he couldn’t survive and monsters he couldn’t fight.

    And then there was the time the strip mine dropped him into one of said caverns without any sort of warning.

    Well- that wasn’t entirely fair to the strip mine. It hadn’t been trying to hide the fact that there were no more blocks to make up its floor as Mumbo mined forwards. It had been dark, nearing the point Mumbo would place another torch but hadn’t yet, and he had mistaken the void beneath his feet for more deepslate.

    Whether or not it was the strip mine’s fault wasn’t really relevant, however. Either way, Mumbo had fallen several blocks, one of his ankles smarting where he landed on it awkwardly. A lava flow further down in the cavern kept the place from being pitch black, but it wasn’t enough to sufficiently light the area directly around Mumbo. Not looking to make the same mistake he just had, Mumbo wasted no time in putting down a torch.

    And immediately came face-to-face with a zombie.

    Mumbo practically lunged backwards as the undead mob made a swipe at him, trying not to focus on how his injured ankle protested the action. Unable to return the attack, Mumbo was forced to keep retreating from the slow but persistent fiend. He glanced back as he went, ensuring there were no mobs waiting to get him from behind. There weren’t, luckily, but he was quickly approaching a wall instead. Not to mention, there were more mobs to his sides, and he was starting to attract their attention as well.

    Mumbo scanned through his inventory for end crystals, unsurprised when he didn’t find any. He hadn’t been carrying end crystals since- er- it had been a while, but he had hoped that, perhaps, desperation would cause them to appear.

    As Mumbo’s back hit the wall and his inventory remained empty of any possible non-statistic-altering weapon, he came to the conclusion that that theory was completely bust. The wall itself was useless to him, no cracks in it to provide suitable handholds to climb away with. All he found was a patch of redstone, the powder smearing on one of his hands as he dragged them against the stone in search of anything more helpful.

    He turned his head to the side as the zombie once again got within biting range, putrid breath making Mumbo gag as he tried to decide which he would regret losing more: his armor, or the hours’ worth of deepslate he had collected.

    But before he was forced to part with either of them, the zombie pulled back from him, not taking a bite. Mumbo looked towards it again, confused, until he saw the arrowhead sprouting right from the mob’s stomach. 

    Another joined it before the zombie could fully turn around, a third finishing it as Mumbo watched. A puff of smoke and a pile of rotten flesh replaced where it had been standing, and Mumbo waved them away, trying to spot the skeleton that had likely killed the zombie while aiming for Mumbo.

    Apparently he had suffered enough, however, as he quickly realized the one holding the bow was actually another hermit. Caught up in his zombie problem, Mumbo hadn’t noticed their approach, a path of torches behind them suggesting they had been caving normally when they stumbled onto Mumbo and his predicament.

    They notched their bow again, taking a few more shots to kill the creeper Mumbo hadn’t even noticed inching towards him, then replacing it in hand for a sword as they ran to join Mumbo. They slashed down a few more mobs as they went, placing down the occasional torch too, and Mumbo was finally able to glimpse their face.

    “Ren!” Mumbo called out, sighing in relief as the energetic man waved in reply. “You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you.”

    With a final swipe at a spider, Ren turned to face Mumbo, grinning as he leaned the tip of his sword against the ground. “No problem at all, dude! Even though I’m sure you had that handled on your own.”

    “I nearly died there, you know? Rather impolite to be rude to me right now.”

    Ren laughed. “Come on, I’m just messing with ya. Kind of surprised I didn’t catch you end crystal-ing it up, anyways.”

    “Yes, well,” Mumbo hesitated for a moment, “I did just fall in here, wasn’t really expecting a fight.”

    “You weren’t caving?”

    “Just mining.” Mumbo answered, gesturing vaguely upwards. “Took a bit of a tumble when I missed the fact my floor had a hole in it.”

    Ren nodded, taking a few steps back and looking up as he tried to spot Mumbo’s entry point. Evidently he did, replacing his sword in hand for cobblestone as he addressed Mumbo, “I was getting ready to call my caving quits anyways. Wanna head out, or are you still busy?”

    Mumbo checked his inventory, doing a quick-count of his deepslate stacks. A shulker full and then some should be enough, right? Jevin hadn’t seemed entirely sure he needed deepslate when Mumbo had asked anyway.

    “That rather filled my quota for excitement in a day.” Mumbo shuffled cobblestone into his hand as well. “I’m ready to head back.”

    Seeing that Mumbo was ready to go, Ren started to place his cobblestone, towering upwards. Mumbo matched him a block behind, deciding it would be best to follow his lead. Despite having been the one to fall, Mumbo wasn’t sure where exactly the gap was, and was somewhat surprised Ren had been able to spot it. Even with his sunglasses on, he still managed to have the best vision of the whole server.

    Eventually Ren stopped in his placing, briefly taking out his pick to clear the few blocks of wall between them and Mumbo’s mineshaft. He jumped the gap, pausing a moment at the entrance as Mumbo filled in the small gap to simply walk over.

    “Need a lot of deepslate for something?” Ren asked as they began to head down the tunnel together, Mumbo’s torch placement luckily sufficient to have prevented any mob spawning.

    “It’s not for me.” Mumbo answered, not needing to go into further detail. He had collected sand and gravel for Ren not too long ago- he had offered to complete the entire concrete-ifacation process for him, but Ren had refused to let him.

    Ren glanced over at Mumbo, expression hard to read with his sunglasses and the dark of the tunnel. “Still doing everyone’s dirty work?”

    “Mostly boring work.” Mumbo said with a shrug. “It keeps me busy.”

    “Normally people have their own projects with boring work to keep them busy.” Ren pointed out, face turning forwards again as he looked down the long, long stretch of mineshaft that still lay ahead. “I can’t even see the light at the end of this tunnel, man.”

    “I’ve got my own projects.” Mumbo protested. “But I can’t be working on them all the time, can I?”

    “But you can be digging tunnels all the way through the server?”

    Mumbo sighed, conceding to Ren’s point. “I’m just a bit stuck at the moment. Thought a little mindless work would help some.”

    The light on the wall beside Mumbo flickered as Ren nodded in understanding. “I think we’ve all been there. I just don’t want to see you working yourself to the bone or something, alright? You do that enough as is.”

    “I’ll have you know I’m an exemplary example of a hard but careful worker.”

    “Multiple members of Boatem have found you passed out with no bed or shelter while you were building your mega-mountain.”

    “Well that’s different, isn’t it?”

    “It is?”

    “I knew they would probably find me before anything happened, so it was fine, really, if you think about it.”

    Ren laughed, bumping Mumbo’s shoulder. “This is what I’m saying! You can’t always count on one of us to show up and save you. Especially in the caves.”

    “Oh, you think that was on purpose?” Mumbo asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “You think I was just going to wait around to get saved or killed?”

    “It did sort of look like that.”

    “I was actually only waiting around to get killed. Wasn’t expecting to be saved at all. Quite inconsiderate of you to mess with my plans.”

    Another laugh from Ren, and Mumbo managed to crack a smile as well. “You’ve got me there. Just try to be more careful when you can, yeah?”

    “Yeah.” Mumbo echoed, the sound seeming to bounce somewhat in the tunnel, the stone’s own echo feeling like some sort of mockery.

    They continued on in silence for a while after that, Mumbo doing his best not to grimace as the ‘excitement’ from the near-death wore off and the pain of his various injuries came into focus. His ankle was still hurting from the fall, and the hand he had earlier smeared in redstone dust was smarting as though it had been scraped up.

    Albeit annoying, neither injury was life-threatening, and Mumbo didn’t want Ren to unnecessarily worry anymore than he already was. He kept the limp out of his gait, his red hand in his pocket, and did his best to pretend the stone-and-occasionally- deepslate pattern of the walls was a good enough distraction from both.

    “We’ve missed you at the LL meetings.”

    Ren suddenly speaking caught Mumbo off guard, pulling him harshly out of his thoughts. It took Mumbo a moment to actually process his words, the topic only throwing him more off-kilter as he realized what Ren had said.

    “Oh, er, well… yes, I suppose you would have been, considering-”

    “Considering you never come to them?” Ren finished for him, though he didn’t sound upset. Or at least, not angry. “You’re the only hermit lifer who hasn’t been to any of them. Martyn’s been to more of the meetings than you.”

    “Martyn’s been at the meetings?”

    “A few. I invited him.”

    “Ah.” Mumbo wasn’t surprised to hear that was who invited Martyn. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Martyn just invited himself over either- no, Martyn being at some of the LL meetings wasn’t what Mumbo cared about.

    When Mumbo didn’t say anything else, Ren continued on. “We’ve been worried for you, Mumbo. Last Life wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, especially for a new player. We don’t want you getting stuck in your own head about it.”

    “Me? Stuck in my own head? Why, I’d never.” Mumbo joked, getting a half-laugh out of Ren. Realizing that his current walking partner wasn’t going to let it drop that easily, however, Mumbo added on more seriously, “I’m doing fine, Ren. It was just a game, right? Nothing to overthink.”

    “It’s not that simple for everyone.” Ren reminded him, though he seemed placated by Mumbo’s reply. “We- I- just want to make sure you know you’re always welcome. Even if you don’t want to talk about it, just chill out with us.”

    “I’ll keep that in mind, I will.” The end of the tunnel was finally coming into sight, the blocky staircase back to the surface only a few torches away. Never had Mumbo been so dearly relieved to see such a sight. “But you don’t need to worry about me. I’m quite alright.”

    Ren made a show of looking back down the tunnel they had finally come to the end of before responding with, “I’m not sure about that, dude. You must have cave madness by now. I think a whole day cycle passed in the time it took us to walk that.”

    “You must think you’re hilarious, don’t you?” Mumbo asked as they both began walking up the steep staircase. Ren’s following laughter suggested he did.

    They parted ways once they reached the surface, Ren wishing Mumbo well before equipping his elytra and flying off in the direction of the Octagon. Mumbo waved as he went, waiting until Ren was barely a spec of colour in the distance to start his own journey to Boatem on foot. He could’ve flown as well, his elytra was on him, with plenty of rockets. And if Ren had seen him choosing to walk, especially given how far out he had chosen to dig, he knew there would have been questions. But he wanted to walk.

    Once he was back to his base, Mumbo would pack up all of Jevin’s deepslate and either bring it to him himself or have someone else take it out to him. Then there’d be Harmless Harvests to check in terms of supplies before he started looking for other hermits in need of collection help. He’d have to find a golden carrot or healing potion at some point, too, if the ache still present in his ankle and hand was anything to go by.

    But all that could wait until he was back home, which wouldn’t be for some time if he walked.

    So Mumbo walked.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

hold them up to the light

Ao3

Chapter thirteen of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter thirteen’s title from Trista Mateer

~

    Grian had left shortly after Mumbo called himself a monster, saying he had to get someone. Mumbo had assumed he was going to grab a different hermit to sit around with Mumbo, unable to keep interacting with him, until he made a second attempt at getting his communicator and saw that Grian had left the server.

    Did he need to get away from Mumbo that badly?

    Mumbo, for his part, had largely remained on his bed, aside from grabbing his communicator. His plans to server jump had flown out of the window after Grian’s visit, unable to bring himself to do that to Grian. Although, from the looks of it, Grian might have preferred if he did.

    “A monster? Wh- Mumbo, no, I said you might have thought that, not that you are that!”

    “Well, either way, you were right, weren’t you?”

    “No! I was very much not right! You’re not- you’re not a monster!”

    “Grian, I never treated Last Life like a game, not for a second. And I did the same in every death game server I’ve jumped into these past few months. As soon as I’m in, I treat it all like its real, and then I murder players without a bit of hesitation. What sort of person does that?”

    “But they’re not real. No one’s actually getting hurt. And- and if they do, they all signed up for it.”

    “And if I had hurt someone outside of those games? The amount of times I’ve unthinkingly tried to attack you, or any other hermit, and only been stopped because I don’t carry weapons… it’s not just in the games.”

    “You were spending all your time in those games! Of course you reacted the same outside of them. That’s natural. Ren’s done it, and Pearl’s done it, and Scar’s done it, and I’ve certainly done it- does that make us all monsters too?”

    “Of course not.”

    “Then why does it make you one?”

    “It’s not just that, Grian.”

    “Then what am I missing, Mumbo? What’s the secret? Where’s this monstrous recipe?”

    “It’s- it’s everywhere! Killing Bdubs, and killing Impulse, and ruining the Southlands, and all the death games, and avoiding everyone in Boatem, and scaring Xisuma, and- and- and everything!”

    “...I need to go.”

    What other reaction could Mumbo have expected? He laid it all out for Grian, past anything the builder could forgive or wave away, and he had made the smart decision to abandon Mumbo. Really, after everything Mumbo had said, everything he had done, it was no surprise Grian felt he had to leave the server to get enough distance between the two of them. Mumbo understood.

    “So, do either of you know why Grian wanted us to come here, or…?”

    “Well, he seemed off somewhere in a hurry, I figured he needed someone else to take shift watching over Mumbo.”

    “I just decided that if Grian runs up to you and yells something really loudly and also incredibly vaguely, you do it and worry about the prank you walked into afterwards.”

    The sounds of Impulse, Scar, and Pearl talking reached Mumbo before they did, Impulse holding the door for Scar to wheel in with Pearl following. Their conversation died when they realized Mumbo was awake, sitting in the center of his bed and idly fiddling with his communicator.

    “Mumbo! You’re up!” Impulse said first, smiling as the group moved to approach his bed.

    “I am, yes, hello.” Mumbo greeted somewhat awkwardly. Aside from Ren and Grian, he hadn’t had a chance to talk with any of the hermits since being brought back to the server on the cusp of permadeath, and he hadn’t exactly had a seamless chat with any of the hermits in quite a while.

    “You wouldn’t happen to know what brings us here, would you?” Scar asked, sounding brighter than he had the last time Mumbo heard him speak. “Grian was very unhelpful in explaining why we’ve all been gathered here together today.”

    Mumbo ducked his head at the question, avoiding the groups’ eyes. He was tired of lying to his friends, but telling Grian the truth had been harder than he expected. Especially when it had been followed by Grian running off with barely a word, so clearly disgusted with Mumbo there was nothing he could say.

    It was selfish, but now that Grian knew, they all would sooner rather than later. They didn’t need Mumbo to explain it to them. He could have these last few minutes where they were still willing to talk to him, be near to him. He could allow himself a few minutes of selfishness.

    Mumbo didn’t need to see the others’ faces to feel the way the other Boatem members began to frown at his silence, glancing amongst themselves. One of them likely would have spoken up if it weren’t for sudden distortion of the world to the side of the room, incomprehensible shifting of space signaling a teleportation.

    The distortion faded as Xisuma appeared in its place, admin communicator in hand. He hit a few buttons on it before he looked up, surprise visible even through his visor as he noticed the group. “Impulse, Scar, Pearl? What are you doing here? And Mumbo, how are you feeling?”

    “Just fine.” Mumbo answered after a moment of silence, realizing everyone else was waiting for him to speak before themselves.

    “Any issues with your glitch injuries?”

    Mumbo shook his head.

    Xisuma nodded once, looking somewhat satisfied with the response. “Alright then, everyone else?”

    “We’re here because Grian told us to be here.” Scar said, shrugging. “He didn’t really say why.”

    “Odd.” Xisuma checked his communicator. “Grian messaged me asking that I come here with no explanation as well. I had thought something had gone wrong with Mumbo, but seems not.”

    “Doing the same as I have been.” Mumbo confirmed, ignoring the fact that his recent state could hardly be considered not-wrong. Thankfully, everyone in the room ignored it with him.

    “Well, there must be some reason Grian wanted us here.” Pearl said, though she didn’t get the chance to expand on the thought before their group size expanded instead.

    (Distantly, Mumbo noted the first floor of Grian’s starter base was beginning to become a bit crowded. Seated on the bed, in between everyone, it was hard to see the entirety of the room. Which hadn’t been a problem until it suddenly was very much a problem.)

    The newcomer was Bdubs, pulling off an elytra as he hurried into the building. He didn’t realize how many players were there until after he had closed the door and taken a better look around the room.

    “Oh. Hey guys.” He tugged the elytra the rest of the way off, looking sheepishly at everyone in the base as he shoved it in his inventory. “I thought this might be an emergency… no one tell Iskall.”

    Impulse laughed. “Your secret’s safe with us. If it’s alright though, can I ask why you decided you needed to be here in such a hurry to get here?”

    “And can I ask if it had anything to do with Grian?” Scar tacked on.

    Bdubs raised an eyebrow. “You guys too, huh?”

    He was met with a chorus of agreements.

    “I should’ve guessed he’d be up to something.” Bdubs said lightly as he stepped further into the base, not helping with Mumbo’s developing space issue. “But I thought there might have been something with Mumbo.”

    Mumbo sighed, feeling a pinch melodramatic. “Why is that the common assumption?”

    The looks he got from the collected hermits did nothing to help his exaggerated mood. “You’re all being rather rude to the injured one, here.”

    His plight got a few laughs out of the group, which Mumbo supposed he could appreciate. He couldn’t remember the last time he had simply joked with any of the hermits. It was nice. He’d miss it.

    The silence that fell after the laughter was broken by the sounds of six different communicators rapidly buzzing at the same time, every player fetching theirs to see what the messages were.

    Grian joined the game

    InTheLittleWood joined the game

    SolidarityGaming joined the game

    “Now Grian’s getting non-hermit players too?” Xisuma wondered out loud.

    “Not just any non-hermit players.” Impulse noted, looking over towards Mumbo. “It seems Grian’s reassembled the Southlands.”

    Pearl frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why he wants us all here.”

    While the others remained confused, however, Mumbo was finally putting the pieces together. Bdubs… Impulse… Southlands… Boatem… Xisuma….

    “I think… I should go.” Mumbo muttered under his breath, startling everyone in the room as he moved to the edge of his bed and stood up. As expected, he immediately began to sway, and at least two sets of hands (too many hands) half-pushed, half-helped him settle back on the bed before he could take so much as a single step. Someone- someones?- was trying to ask him something, but all he could hear was a buzz of static and voices.

    It took a long few minutes for Mumbo to get back to processing anything, and by then Grian had returned, standing near the edge of Mumbo’s vision looking grim but determined. Jimmy stood near him, clearly hesitant about what to do. Martyn was already in front of Mumbo, crouching down and frowning as he looked Mumbo over, eyes skimming over what glitch injuries and bandages were visible.

    “Back with us, Mumbo?” Martyn asked, apparently catching the moment Mumbo managed to pull himself out of his head.

    Mumbo nodded as he looked around the room. Most of the hermits had stepped away from his bed, giving him more space, but there were still too many of them for that to reassure him entirely, too much of the room he couldn’t see with them blocking his line of sight.

    “Grian, maybe we should give Mumbo some time-”

    “No, no, I’m fine.” Mumbo cut Martyn off, turning to look tiredly at Grian. “Just… just get this over with fast, please?”

    “Oh, Mumbo, you spoon.” Grian mumbled in response, ignoring the increasing confusion from the others in the room as he walked over to stand next to Bdubs, Mumbo’s gaze following him as he went. “Bdubs, do you hate Mumbo for killing you in Last Life?”

    Bdubs’s expression shifted rapidly from perplexed to panicked. “What?! Of course not! Why would you think I did?!”

    “I don’t, I promise.” Grian told him, moving from him to stand next to Impulse instead. “Impulse? Same question.”

    “Same answer.” Impulse responded defensively, glaring at Grian. “Did you call us all here just to accuse us?”

    “I didn’t.” Grian answered Impulse the same as he did Bdubs: vaguely. If Mumbo wasn’t so busy trying to figure out what his angle was, what he was trying to do, he might have found it funny. “Collective Southlands: do any of us hate Mumbo for breaking the alliance? I, for one, do not at all.”

    Impulse still looked upset by the questioning, but his tone wasn’t angry when he said, “I don’t hate Mumbo for anything.”

    “I think it would be a bit hypocritical of me to hate Mumbo for something I helped with.” Jimmy joked weakly, adding, “And, even if it wasn't, no. I don’t hate him for the fall of the Southlands. Or anything else.”

    “I don’t hate you either, Mumbo.” Martyn said quietly, still frowning when Mumbo turned to look at him. “Is that… is that why Grian’s asking all this? Do you think we hate you?”

    Mumbo didn’t speak, only looking away again, trying to avoid everyone’s gazes. It didn’t matter. His silence was answer enough.

    “Boatem, Xisuma,” Grian started, voice quieter as well, as if now that the ‘secret’ of his questioning was out he didn’t need to try as hard to hold the group’s attention, “I think you know what I’m going to ask.”

    “Like I said. I don’t hate Mumbo for anything, Last Life related or otherwise.” Impulse.

    “Just as Impulse said. There’s nothing to hate you for, Mumbo.” Pearl.

    “After everything you did to help us? Mumbo, of course I don’t hate you.” Scar.

    “I don’t hate any of my hermits. Just worry for them.” Xisuma. Something in Mumbo’s chest tightened at still being considered a hermit.

    As everyone said their piece, Mumbo saw Grian come to crouch in front of him with Martyn in the corner of his eye.

    “See? None of us hate you, Mumbo. None of us are upset with you, or think you’re something you’re not.” Grian’s voice had quieted even more, and despite how sure he had sounded only moments ago Mumbo could now hear raw desperation in his voice, as if he didn’t know what else he could do if this didn’t work. “Please, just… just let us help you.”

    “It’s not… it’s not that simple-”

    “Yes it is.” Mumbo didn’t have the energy to turn his head anymore, only listening as Pearl cut him off. “Whatever you’ve done, or whatever you think you’ve done- we don’t hate you Mumbo. Not for this. Not for anything.”

    Pearl’s statement was supported by hums and nods Mumbo could only half-see, each and every person in the room agreeing with her, with the idea there was nothing Mumbo could say now- or ever- that would change their minds. There was no anger, no hatred, no disgust to be found in the room. No monsters.

    “Less people.” Mumbo felt like he less said the words and more breathed them, closing his eyes. “I can’t- there’s too many people.”

    Somehow, both Grian and Martyn were able to understand him, and Mumbo let the sounds of the players being asked to leave and doing so float around him. There were no complaints, no arguments. Xisuma murmuring that he’d be just outside if they needed him. 

    When Mumbo opened his eyes again, the space was nearly empty compared to how full it had been. Grian remained where he had been in front of Mumbo, with Scar sitting a short distance behind Grian. Martyn had moved, standing close enough to the door Mumbo had the suspicion he wanted to stay but wasn’t sure if he should.

    With only three other people, it was easy to see all the walls and corners of the room again, see that there was nothing and no one hiding in shadows and waiting to strike. The need to check in Hermitcraft, of all places, still made Mumbo feel foolish, but he couldn’t deny the way it made it easier to breathe again.

    “Checking for hidden attackers?” Scar asked, chuckling at Mumbo’s wide-eyed look of a response. “You’re not the only one who had a bad time after a Life game, you know. I’m well-acquainted with the shadow people.”

    “...Yeah?”

    Scar nodded. “Consequence of putting my first base in a huge, open, well-lit desert. Going from that back to visual-obstructions-everywhere Hermitcraft… well, it wasn’t fun, that’s for sure. Never going to do that again.”

    Grian glanced back at Scar. “Didn’t Magical Mountain cause the same thing?”

    “I thought what was said in the LL meetings was supposed to stay in the LL meetings.” Scar replied, though his tone was lighthearted. “But, yes, alright, shame on me. At least it was easier the second time.”

    “How did you… get over it?” Mumbo asked, wincing at his phrasing even as he said it. He found it doubtful it was something one exactly ‘got over’, but at the moment it was the only way to put it that came to mind.

    Scar didn’t seem to mind the word choice regardless. “With a lot of time, mostly. Getting used to a server where no one really wants you dead after spending so long in one that’s exactly the opposite isn’t really a fast process. But the more time that passes with no one attacking you, the better it gets.”

    “Sleepovers also help.” Grian added, good-naturedly letting the apple Scar got from his inventory at random and threw at him for the comment bounce off his shoulder.

    “Chivalry is dead.”

    “I’m right, aren’t I?”

    “That doesn’t make you nice! It’s my turn to talk to Mumbo about terrible death game things.” Scar said amusedly. “Anyways, Mumbo, as I was saying with absolutely no additional input from other sources-”

    “I’m right here.”

    “-sleepovers can also be helpful, for nights where the shadows are just a bit… too dark. Being with other people can help a lot in general.”

    “I see.” Mumbo said, fiddled with his communicator for a moment before continuing. “Thank you, Scar, I didn’t realize…”

    “That some of the other lifers might have gone through the same things you were going through?” Grian offered when Mumbo faltered on finishing the sentence, smiling a little. “I told you, Mumbo. You’re not alone in any of this.”

    Mumbo hesitated a moment before asking, “Even… thinking you’re someth- someone terrible?”

    Although he was certain everyone in the room had heard- and understood- his slip of tongue, Mumbo was thankful for the fact none of them decided to comment on it.

    “It’s rather common.” Grian admitted. “Comes a bit hand-in-hand with death games, I think.”

    “Guilt too.” Martyn spoke up from where he had taken to leaning against the wall near the door, a look Mumbo was more than familiar with briefly crossing his face. “Eh, at least in my experience.”

    “I think most lifers would agree with you, Martyn.” Grian confirmed. “Or I do, anyways.”

    “I’ll make it three.”

    Mumbo glanced between the three. “So we’re all familiar with the, er, feeling?”

    “More or less.”

    “And yet I’m the only one who ended up,” Mumbo gestured vaguely at himself as a whole, trying to keep his tone light; he wasn’t making an accusation, just an observation, “like this?”

    “We all had our own battles after the Life games.” Grian half-answered. “And, besides, we had help to lean on.”

    “After Third Life, me and Grian had, well, you, Mumbo.” Scar reminded.

    “And I had Ren, both after Third Life and to invite me to the Hermitcraft LL meetings.” Martyn chimed in.

    “Meetings that all lifers, hermit or otherwise, had access to.” Grian looked at Mumbo meaningfully. “But not all chose to attend.”

    Mumbo forced himself to not turn away and avoid Grian’s gaze. With all that Grian had done and was doing for Mumbo, he deserved that respect, at least. “I… I wanted to be able to help you all. Like last time. I didn’t want to be the one who had to be helped too, so… I tried not to be.”

    For just a moment, Mumbo dropped his eyes to look at his hands, the single moment from months ago that had, if not entirely, assisted in bringing him to this point, still playing out perfectly in his mind’s eye. “And I think I would’ve been, really, until… I realized I was bleeding.”

    There weren’t any glitch injuries on Mumbo’s palms, but he could still feel the redstone scratch he had sustained that fateful day caving. He could still see the flakey mineral falling off of it only to reveal red still present, red that wouldn’t go away, red that dripped and flowed and stained, and for a single moment Mumbo could’ve sworn he once again heard his now useless heart beat.

    Grian’s hands reached out, slowly, and layered over Mumbo’s, and the memories slipped away from the forefront of his mind in an instant.

    “I’m sorry, Mumbo.” Grian said, and before Mumbo could interrupt he pushed on, “Not for not noticing. Sorry because this never should have happened to you. The blood mod never should have stuck. You never should have had to deal with the struggle of fighting your own mind and your own body. Even as lifers, none of us know what that must have been like.”

    “Like… like even the universe knew there was something wrong with you.” Mumbo tried to describe, and Grian curled his fingers lightly around Mumbo’s hands.

    “The universe doesn’t know anything.” Grian said it like it was a fact, like nothing else could be truer, and if anything dared disagreed he’d fight them himself. “There is nothing wrong with you. You’re just hurting like we all were after the games. You wanted to help us, and you did. Now let us help you.”

    The vast majority of Mumbo wanted to say no. To refuse Grian, yet again, to go back over the points that were no longer relevant in reality but still felt like they should be. After so many months of trying to do what he thought was helping them, of staying as far from them as he could get, of not even entertaining their offers to give him anything, the thought of just saying ‘yes’ now, as if it were just that easy, felt almost like a trap.

    But Mumbo couldn’t bring himself to say no again, if for no one’s sake but Grian’s. All Mumbo had wanted to do, from the start, was help him, and Scar, and every other hermit. Staying away hadn’t done that. Nearly permadying hadn’t done that. If this was what they wanted- if helping him would help them- then Mumbo wouldn’t say no. Not again.

    “Alright.” Mumbo lightly squeezed Grian’s hands. “Since, er, my method’s not really been working at all, has it?”

    Grian blinked, seeming a bit surprised that Mumbo had actually said yes, but the confused expression was quickly replaced with a grin. “No, not especially.”

    And then Grian was moving forward, pulling Mumbo into a hug, and oh, yes Grian’s method of help was much, much better than Mumbo’s.

    Grian shifted to sit on the edge of the bed as Mumbo leaned more into the hug, not sure how he had forgotten the simple yet absolutely necessary joy of caring, genuine touch. After a moment, Mumbo could hear the sound of wheels pushing slowly along the ground and footsteps following them before two more pairs of arms came to wrap around him as well. The touch was light at first, unsure, testing Mumbo’s limits, but when he didn’t try to pull away their holds tightened, surrounding him on every side in a way that felt safe, not suffocating.

    For the first time in a long time, Mumbo allowed himself to believe there was still hope for him.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

decay is reserved for the living

Ao3

Chapter nine of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter nine’s title from Margaret Atwood’s “A Sunday Drive”

~

    After a while, everything started to blur into everything else.

    The different death game servers all had their own quirks and styles, sure, but the basics were all the same. The blood. The violence. The ruthlessness. The only guaranteed shared rule between them all- be the last one standing, at any cost.

    (There were death game servers that were team-oriented, where the rules were about bringing your entire group to victory instead of only yourself. Mumbo never played in those servers.)

    Even as Mumbo started to find himself in more and more ‘off the beaten path’ servers, nothing ever really felt like it changed. His competitors got meaner and stronger, but so did Mumbo. That’s what got him invited to the non-public back-server games, opponents in other matches pulling him to the side and telling him he could do better elsewhere. He wasn’t sure what about him drew in all the offers- was there a look in his eyes? was it his fighting style? was it the steadily increasing collection of never healing wounds decorating his skin?- but he didn’t question it. As long as he didn’t run out of death games to participate in, he didn’t care what got him invited to them.

    At first, he had been wary of such offers. He remembered what Wilbur had said about the harder to find servers, the corners they cut, the chances they took with their players’ code. Mumbo wasn’t looking to actually endanger himself.

    But he soon found the safe servers could only hold his attention for so long, a length of time that seemed to shrink every time he went back to them. They were servers made to treat death games like- well- games. Their primary players were first or second timers, players who didn’t put much stake in the actual fighting or killing.

    Faced with Mumbo, who understood the gravity of such situations, who was skilled in such situations, matches that should have taken days took one, at most. They stopped helping Mumbo, and as such he had been forced to turn to the harder to find servers, places that demanded by their nature only the most dedicated of fighters.

    So far, the cost of playing in those servers had only been a handful of cuts that never ceased bleeding. Annoying, certainly- Mumbo would have preferred to do without them- but nothing terrible, nothing life-threatening, nothing that couldn’t be patched with a handful of bandages and hidden under clothes.

    Even if Mumbo did find himself suffering from something truly dire, it still wouldn’t matter. There was no cost the shady servers could extract from him that would ever come close to the one Mumbo would have to pay if he stopped indulging the beast of his blood.

    There was a cruel irony in the fact that, to both protect Hermitcraft from himself and also protect his place in Hermitcraft, Mumbo could only rarely be found in the server. Nearly all of his time was spent in death matches instead, letting out the inherent violence inscribed on his living heart where the only people it could hurt were strangers who had signed up for such and doing his best to ignore the sickening feeling of inescapable guilt afterwards.

    To add to the cruelty, the few visits Mumbo did manage to make to Hermitcraft were… unpleasant, at best. His conversations with the hermits only became more and more stinted, their concern ever growing as Mumbo failed to provide them with adequate reasons for his long absences, his cagey behavior, his extra layers of clothes. Even when alone, Mumbo found he couldn’t relax in Hermitcraft like he used to. Unlike the other servers he had taken to frequenting, none of the hermits ever tried to attack Mumbo or hurt him, but that had served only to have him increasingly on his guard. Waiting for a hit to come that he knew never would and yet was certain had to soon left Mumbo constantly on edge, always watching for the first sign of danger, always waiting for the first strike to fall.

    Hermitcraft wasn’t safe. Not for Mumbo. Not anymore.

    But that was fine. He didn’t need Hermitcraft to be safe for him. As long as the hermits were safe- as long as they didn’t know- as long as they had no reason to hate him- that was all Mumbo cared about.

    So he continued throwing himself into the games. Never stopping, never wavering. Jumping from servers that just barely dipped beneath the surface of public all the way down to ones that could only just barely be found, stuffed in the cracks and dirtied by their users. Going from fight-

    Mumbo was a shadow at the group’s collective back. If he was a lesser fighter, a foolish fighter, he might have laughed at their optimism in trying to team up. Didn’t they know, in the end, it wouldn’t matter? Their partnership, their loyalty, their trust? They would all turn on each other soon. Mumbo extracted an end crystal from his jacket pocket, the purple light glinting in his eyes. He was doing them a favour.

    -to fight-

    Pain lanced through Mumbo’s body as he forced himself to sit up in the end-game bed, having been cut down only moments before he might have claimed (another) victory. He took a quick inventory of himself. There was a new respawn-avoidant injury stretching down his leg. It was already dripping blood, staining the bed beneath him after he pulled back his pant leg. That was his sixth one. Or was it his seventh? Mumbo rolled the pant leg down.

    -to fight-

    The moment Mumbo felt the blade pass through his stomach, he knew it would leave another injury he would never be rid of. He had begun to get a sense for it. His competitor who had managed to bury the sword in him began to grin, clearly thinking they had won this battle. Mumbo clasped his hands around the weapon’s handle, pressing down hard, listening with disattached interest to the way the other player’s fingers cracked before they were able to free them. He pulled the sword out of his own chest with ease, a twisted parody of Arthur’s sword with an open wound for a stone. As the other participant looked on in fitting horror, Mumbo took pity on them. He made it quick.

    -to fight as though he was simply breathing, going through muscle memory motions. He grew accustomed to the sound of his heart in his ears, the thunderous beat no longer as frightening to him when it accompanied his attacks, and the feeling of adrenaline constantly rushing through his veins, keeping him alert, keeping him ready, keeping him protected.

    During the games, it didn’t matter that he was the monster. It didn’t matter if his opponents hated him for it. And Mumbo did his best to keep himself from having too many spare breaths in between them to consider what that made him outside of the arena. As long as he could keep that up- as long as he could avoid the spaces in between, the questions from Hermitcraft- everything would be fine. Everything would be perfect.

    Of course it didn’t last. It couldn’t. Mumbo knew there was only so long he could escape what he deserved.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

You don’t get everything back.

Ao3

Chapter two of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter two’s title from Patricia Kirkpatrick’s “Survivor’s Guilt”

~

    By the time Mumbo reached Boatem, the pain in his ankle had become dull, strained to the point Mumbo supposed it had given up on trying to accurately register how much it hurt. He was surprised it had taken that long to get to that point, all things considered- Hermitcraft’s pain threshold for players was capped fairly low. Most things hit the limit fairly fast.

    Mumbo didn’t try to think on it too hard. Pain was hardly an exact science anyways. He’d apply some healing and it would be all right as rain again.

    He waved at Pearl when he spotted her getting something out of her starter base, deciding on a second thought to alter his course for a moment and approach her. Pearl smiled as he did, looking cheerful as she navigated her impossible doors.

    “Hello, Mumbo! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

    “Just thought I might pop by for a second.” Mumbo replied, doing his best to look like he was distributing weight between his feet equally as he stood still. “Where are you off to?”

   “False’s place.” Pearl answered, gesturing in her direction as if Mumbo didn’t know where her base was. “Going to chat a bit. What about you? Finally back to populating your mountain?”

   Mumbo resisted the urge to glance back at his mega-base, as if looking at it would somehow change its appearance. “Not quite yet I’m afraid, lots else to do. Though, if I might beg a favour-”

   “I think I already owe you several.” Pearl interrupted, sounding amused. “Since someone’s suddenly uninterested in diamonds.”

   Mumbo managed an awkward chuckle. “Yes, right, er, since you’re heading near there already, would you mind taking some deepslate to Jevin for me? Most is in a shulker, though I’ll need to grab a second for some of it.”

   Pearl stopped him before he could walk off. “It’s alright, my inventory’s not too full. You can give me what you have.”

  Mumbo did so, handing over the shulker and extra stacks. Pearl took a sneak peak inside the box, checking it was truly full, and shaking her head a bit when she realized it was. “You work too hard, Mumbo. Take a break before you get to your next task, would you?”

   “I will.”

  The slight crease that formed in Pearl’s brow suggested Mumbo’s response hadn’t sounded all that believable, but she didn’t say anything if so. Instead, she nodded, telling Mumbo goodbye as she activated her elytra and flew off. Mumbo watched her leave for a moment before sighing, finally turning back towards his mountain.

   As a man-built mountain, it was still impressive. As a mega-base… well.

   It was just a mountain.

  Mumbo resumed his walk towards Treesa, now moving his gaze to the ground to avoid spotting the others’ mega-bases. At first, when they had all come back from Last Life, everything had been out of sync. Pearl and Grian had thrown themselves into their builds, making progress in record time, as if the sound of placing blocks would be enough to drown out screams. Impulse and Scar, on the other hand, built practically nothing for days, too caught up in the horrors they had only just escaped.

   And Mumbo? Well, Mumbo had been fine. Busy forcing half of Boatem to take breaks and the other half to leave their rooms at least twice a day before the effect of the support groups really started to sink in, but fine.

   It didn’t take that long for things to finally start going back to some sort of normal. Much faster than after Third Life, since they were actually prepared this time. Pearl and Grian took breaks. Impulse and Scar got back to their builds. Boatem went right back to growing as if nothing had happened.

    Except for Mumbo’s mountain. It had remained just a mountain, the moss artificially clinging to it giving it the natural look Mumbo had strived for before he left. The start of a few buildings had at some point popped up as well, bright square outlines and stacked up scaffolding the only signs left of them when Mumbo had quickly given up on the venture.

  People had asked him about it, of course. His fellow Boatem members and anyone who happened to see him while they were visiting. Why isn’t the mountain growing anymore? Did he want any help? Was he feeling alright? Was he doing alright?

   But Mumbo was fine, and he had told them as much. He was just unsure how he wanted to proceed with the build. He didn’t want to rush anything. He had redstone projects to work on in the meanwhile. He was doing fine.

   So far, everyone had accepted those responses. Mumbo wasn’t entirely sure if they truly believed them, or if they were just giving him extra time to recover since he had used up most of it thus far helping the rest of Boatem. Either way worked.

   Arriving at the base of his pranked starter base, Mumbo made the short climb into Treesa with his thoughts still wandering. He had considered going back to building his mega-base a few times. He knew he’d have to at some point, lest Grian or someone else finish it for him.

   Those thoughts always left his mind as soon as he went into Treesa for anything, however. The smaller his base was, the safer it was. No one could hide in Treesa. In a bigger base, they could.

   Which wasn’t a real reason to not keep building his mega-base. This was Hermitcraft. No one was going to hide in dark corners to try and jump him, save perhaps a zombie. But as long as that was his thought process, his mega-base wasn’t going to get worked on. That’s just how it was.

   No one else on the server- on any server- knew that was the real reason (or at least, one of the real reasons) Mumbo hadn’t gone on with his build. He knew if he told them, they’d fret about it, about him. Insist that he’d actually go to one of the Last Life support group meetings, that he needed help. Mumbo didn’t need any help.

   As the thought crossed his mind, Mumbo took a step forward on his bad ankle, the pain momentarily too much. He slipped into one of Treesa’s walls, wincing as he shifted his weight off of the injured limb.

   Clarification: he didn’t need help from anyone else. Some help from a potion he would accept.

  Hobbling a bit, Mumbo made his way over to his potion chest, happy that it was one of the ones actually on the floor. He sat down in front of it, stretching out his hurt leg as he rifled through the various bottles stored within.

   While he couldn’t find any drinkable healing potions, Mumbo did have a few splash potions on hand. Rubbing the potion into the area of injury was a bit more time consuming then drinking it down, but it was better than nothing. And it wasn’t like Mumbo really had anything going on anyways.

   Mumbo pulled the stopper out with his teeth, pouring some of the potion onto his ankle before placing the bottle to the side. He used his clean hand to start massaging the potion into the skin, the pain starting to recede near immediately. He would use some of it for his redstone-caked hand later, but he would have to wash it off first. Redstone didn’t usually react to potions, but Mumbo wasn’t really in the mood to experiment with the concept right then.

   The sound of his ladder creaking startled him from his work, the repetitive motions and soothing feel of the healing potion having begun to relax him. He looked in the direction of Treesa’s entrance, unable to see much from his vantage point on the floor.

   “Hey, Mumbo? You up there?” Mumbo instantly identified the voice as Scar’s. “I’m coming up!”

  Mumbo could hear his ladder creaking more as Scar began to climb, giving him no chance to protest the visit. Getting the potion put away and off the floor before he saw was out of the question, but Mumbo was able to use his limited time to grab some of his work gloves from another chest. He pulled one over his redstoned hand, hiding it, and left the other next to the potion bottle as if he had just taken it off.

  By the time Scar was in Treesa, Mumbo was again applying the potion to his ankle, doing his best to look unbothered by the whole situation.

  “Oh, hello.” Mumbo said as he glanced up at Scar, looking apologetic. “Sorry for the mess, didn’t think anyone would be coming over.”

   Scar waved him off. “No need to apologize, my suited friend! What happened?”

   “Just had a bad fall.” Mumbo answered easily. “Is there something I can help you with?”

   “Well, now that you ask, ah- no?”

   Mumbo raised an eyebrow. “You came over for no reason?”

  “That’s not… exactly right…” Scar looked away from Mumbo, going over to fiddle with one of his chests instead. “You know you have a lovely storage system here.”

   “Not that much to sort in here.” Mumbo watched as Scar opened the chest a bit, both hands propping the lid open as he looked at its contents. “Do you need supplies?”

   “No, I…” Scar pulled back from chest to look at Mumbo sheepishly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be here, actually.”

   “You were trying to rob me? That’s not very good times of you.”

  “I can’t believe you would take me for a common conman!” Scar said as if he had been personally insulted. “I was, in fact, going to reverse rob you.”

   Mumbo laughed. “You mean give me something? Why can’t you just give it to me directly?”

  “Because the last time I tried that, you wouldn’t take it.” Scar answered. Mumbo frowned in confusion until Scar pulled a diamond out of his inventory, waving the gemstone around as if Mumbo might not see it without the motion. “So I was going to very nicely drop some off while you were out and unable to stop me.”

   “Scar, I already told you I don’t-”

  “-want anything, that you’re just bored, that really I’m helping you; I know.” Scar finished for him, his attempt at mimicking Mumbo’s voice weak at best. “But unpaid favours are a dangerous thing! They hold much more power than any measly diamonds ever could.”

   Before Mumbo could say anything about how he still didn’t need the payment, or about how Scar’s impression of him was some sort of crime, Scar added, “Besides, you’re… you’re going between everything so fast I haven’t gotten any real chance to thank you. With diamonds or otherwise.”

   “...thank me for what?” Mumbo asked after a second, feigning ignorance.

  Feigning it poorly, anyways, if Scar’s expression was anything to go by. “You were the only thing keeping Boatem going for a good week there, I find it hard to believe you’ve forgotten that.”

   “Oh, that- that was nothing.” Mumbo moved his attention back to his ankle, avoiding Scar’s gaze. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”

   “It was not nothing.” Scar rebuked, tone firm but not upset. “Helping to take care of four lifers in the aftermath would have been a lot even for a hermit who stayed behind. You really went above and beyond for us, Mumbo, and that meant a lot to me. To all of us.”

   For a moment, Mumbo pressed his fingers too hard against his leg, pain briefly sparking despite the healing potion. “It’s not like I’ve never done it before.”

   “That was different. Third Life, me and Grian…”

  Mumbo looked up when Scar trailed off. Caught up in his own words, the look in his eyes had become far-off. Despite his large hat and gaudy clothes, for a moment, he looked small, startlingly similar to how he had looked when he had just been back from Third Life, when Mumbo could barely get him to talk to anyone who wasn’t Grian, all while Grian would talk to anyone but Scar, both lacking their lively personalities, little more than shells of themselves for weeks.

   Then Scar shook his head, resuming his original train of thought, and Mumbo let his own slide off the rails. “...we were a handful, but it was still only two of us, and you hadn’t just finished going through it all too. Even if it really isn’t a big deal to you, it is to the rest of Boatem.”

  Part of Mumbo still wanted to argue the point. The only reason he had joined Last Life in the first place was to help everyone else- to ensure that what had happened with Scar and Grian wouldn’t happen again. How better to help than to have first-hand experience with whatever was causing the issue? He didn’t need to be thanked for it. It was the very least he could do for them.

   But he could tell Scar wasn’t going to change his mind, and if Mumbo fought too hard on it, Scar would only become concerned, which wouldn’t help anyone. Mumbo was doing fine- grand, even! His fellow hermits were just too easily worried for their own good.

   So Mumbo sighed as if he was giving in. “If I accept your appreciation, will you stop trying to reverse-steal diamonds to me?”

   “Oh, I suppose I can.” Scar agreed, sounding very put out by the compromise. “But only because you’ve bartered so nicely.”

  “Then you can consider it a deal.” Mumbo joked, standing up as he did so. He had applied more than enough healing potion at that point, and shifting his weight onto the previously injured ankle caused no negative reaction.

   “Shake on it?” Scar asked, looking amused as he put out his hand. Mumbo rolled his eyes good-naturedly before putting his own out as well, only realizing it was his gloved redstone hand as Scar shook it.

   He did his best to not let the spark of pain the motion caused as it jostled whatever scrape he had gotten show, keeping up his smile through the exchange instead. He didn’t immediately pull it back when Scar stopped either, letting it fall naturally to his side as if nothing was amiss.

   “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Jumbo!” Scar said as he stepped back towards Treesa’s entrance-exit ladder, smiling as he tacked on more genuinely, “Thank you for all your recent support.”

   Mumbo didn’t reply to that, only waving as Scar took his leave. He waited until he was sure Scar was truly gone before he took off his work glove, wincing as the drag of the material across his hand hurt. Ankle attended to and guest dismissed, the next thing he had to do was clean his hand and apply some healing to it.

  He pulled a bottle of water out of his potion chest before taking both it and the health potion to the bus section of his base, taking a seat on one of the counters in the small space. He grimaced as he poured the water onto his injured hand, using the other to brush off the clumps of redstone the water alone couldn’t get off.

   The process was going slower than Mumbo would have expected, a particularly stubborn bit of redstone right across his palm refusing to be cleaned off. It seemed stuck to his hand, in a way, mixing with his water in some spots to become a thick, sticky liquid.

   Mumbo frowned. Redstone didn’t mix with water. And while adding a lot of it to water might make it look red, it wouldn’t change the water’s properties. He didn’t know what on Hermitcraft the substance on his hand could be. Unless-

    Feeling as though there was suddenly not enough air in the room, Mumbo slowly wiped the edge of his suit sleeve over his hand, ignoring the sting as he finally got all the redstone off. For a brief second, his hand was clean, unmarred save for the red scratch diagonally crossing his palm.

   But then that second ended, the red scratch seeming only to get redder, until what he had mistaken for redstone water was spilling out of it, dirtying his hand as it began to pool. Despite the sickening warmth the liquid brought, Mumbo felt only cold.

   It was blood.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Last Cry Before Our Eternal Silence

Ao3

Chapter eleven of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter eleven’s title from France’s Coast Guard’s final morse code message

~

    As Hermitcraft’s admin, Xisuma had learned a lot of things over the years. No matter how well you patched the code, there would always be some glitch waiting to be stumbled upon, for one. Or, in related teachings, if there was a glitch waiting to be stumbled upon, there was always a hermit looking to take advantage of it.

    (He loved his servermates, he did, but some days they seemed intent upon giving him grey hairs.)

    But the most important lesson he had learned was that, if everything seemed to be going well, it wasn’t. It was just the calm before the storm.

    So at first, when Xisuma saw his communicator lighting up with a call from an unknown number, he sighed. The server had been too peaceful recently. Something was bound to go wrong eventually.

    “Hello?”

    “Is this Xisumavoid?”

    Ah, full name. Not the greatest sign for the incoming conversation. “That’s correct.”

    “You’re an admin?”

    And they were calling for admin-related reasons. Xisuma frowned slightly. Another bad sign. “For the Hermitcraft server, yes.”

    “Can you verify that a, uh, Mumbo Jumbo is part of that server?”

    It was suddenly much harder to breathe. “He is. What’s happened?”

    “There’s been a respawn error.” The person on the other end of the line answered, much too neutrally given the severity of the situation. “You’re listed as his admin contact. I’ve sent you the details for the server and request you come as soon as possible.”

    “I’m on my way.” Xisuma promised, hanging up the call right after and switching to his messages. A new one at the top came from the same number he had just finished calling with, nothing in the message outside of the server details. It wasn’t one that Xisuma recognized, and as he got to the bottom of the information, he realized it was a private server, complete with a passcode to enter.

    Xisuma tried not to overthink anything as he prepared to make the server jump. Respawn errors were incredibly rare, but they could technically happen in any server, no matter how safe or properly managed. Just because Mumbo was in a private server- just because all of Hermitcraft had spent the last few months making worrying about Mumbo a personal hobby- didn’t mean anything.

    The jump went by in less than a blink, but it was still too slow as far as Xisuma was concerned. When the world around him loaded back in, he realized he was in a large room, standard red beds lining the long walls to his sides. One of the beds near the back had been hastily blocked off, as evidenced by the dirt block walls around it. Other than a player standing near the center, fiddling with his communicator, the room was empty.

    The other player glanced up when Xisuma arrived. “Are you Xisumavoid?”

    “I am.” Xisuma confirmed as he walked past the man, beelining for the blocked off bed. “What happened?”

    “Like I told you, there was a respawn error.” The man reiterated as he hurried to follow Xisuma. “But if you mean how he died before it occurred, he was killed with a trident through the chest.”

    “Drowned?” Xisuma pushed, mentally running through respawn error probabilities. They most often occurred with evokers and their fang attacks, due to conflicting code issues with the ground layer, but issues arising from a drowned’s non-collectible tridents weren’t too uncommon when it came to errors-

    “No, a player.”

    Xisuma stopped right as he reached the spruce door, turning back to face who he assumed to be the server’s own admin. “A player?”

    The other man looked at Xisuma as if he was the one missing something. “Yeah, a player.”

    “Why- was there a fight? Did Mumbo do something?”

    “It’s… a competition. Last player standing is the winner. Mumbo Jumbo was the only other contestant still in the ring at the time so, yeah, I guess he did that.”

    Although the server’s admin avoided the exact term, Xisuma knew exactly what he meant when he said ‘competition’.

    This was a death games server. A private death games server. A private death games server Mumbo had somehow gotten an invitation to.

    Oh, Mumbo, what have you been doing?

    Not wanting to waste anymore time, Xisuma pushed open the oak door and entered the mini room. It enclosed a single bed upon which Mumbo was laid out, eyes closed and expression distorted in pain. His jacket and tie had been removed, and the top buttons of his shirt undone to better show the site of the killing wound. The three puncture marks showed no signs of healing, but no signs of injury specific distortion either, as was expected of a respawn error injury.

    What wasn’t expected, however, was the collection of wounds that stood out starkly against Mumbo’s pale skin, all dripping dark blood and glinting with glitched edges. On his arms alone there were at least a dozen, ranging in size from paper cuts to gashes that practically encompassed his arm. Another shadowed his collarbone, oozing blood that rolled down to paint the trident wounds vicious red. Xisuma couldn’t even imagine how many more there must be on the rest of Mumbo’s chest and his legs.

    “And how did all these happen?” Xisuma asked the server’s admin, who had wormed his way into the miniature room to stand on the opposite side of Mumbo’s bed. His tone was harsher than he had intended for it to be, but he couldn’t entirely bring himself to care.

    “Hey, hey, hey! No need to get so surly!” The other man said much too defensively. “Respawn errors can happen in any server! And none of those glitch injuries occurred here!”

    As unsavory as Xisuma found him, the server’s admin didn’t seem to be lying. And while glitch injuries were not nearly as rare as respawn errors, they primarily popped up in poorly managed servers, or servers where fighting between players was frequent. And Mumbo had so many…

    The other man cleared his throat. “I hate to, uh, rush you, but don’t you think you should get your player here back to your server? His chances of surviving the error really aren’t good here, and, well, he should at least be somewhere familiar, right?”

    Xisuma hoped the glare he was shooting at the pathetic excuse of an admin was coming through his visor clear and obvious. He only wanted Mumbo gone so there was no chance of him perishing there and bringing unwanted attention upon his regulation-ignoring server and player-endangering games. If it weren’t for the extremely pressing matters at hand, Xisuma would have personally ensured the entire place was wiped out of existence and the man’s admin rights permanently revoked.

    But that could be taken care of another time. For now, unfortunately, the other man was right. The longer Mumbo stayed in the painful limbo between death and respawn, the higher the chance he would permadie, code unable to latch onto any respawn points.

    Doing his best to not aggravate Mumbo’s multitude of injuries, Xisuma carefully picked up the unconscious redstoner and hit the ‘jump back’ command on his communicator. They appeared at his base for only a moment before he was teleporting them within the server, to Boatem.

    Grian, walking between buildings in the main area, glanced over at them as Xisuma’s feet once again settled on the ground. “Xisuma? What are you- Mumbo?!”

    “Grian, is there a bed on the ground floor of your starter base?”

    “I- yeah, yeah, come on.” Grian started heading in the direction of his base, Xisuma following behind as fast as he dared. Every few seconds, Grian would look back, eyes on Mumbo. It was obvious he had questions but was holding back on asking them all until Xisuma did whatever he had to do.

    Grian held open the door to his base, letting Xisuma through before pointing to the side of his house his bed was tucked away in. “It’s right over there. I don’t know if it matters, but I haven’t used it as a respawn point in weeks.”

    “That’s probably for the best.” Xisuma responded as he came to stand beside the bed. He laid Mumbo on it before stepping away, giving himself some space as he pulled up the server’s code. Lines of green filled with symbols he was more than used to appeared before him with a thought, and Xisuma quickly set about navigating it.

    Finding Mumbo’s code was easy. The hard part was finding the code for the specific bed he was currently laying on. Trying to connect Mumbo to a bed he wasn’t in contact with would only worsen the respawn injury, and Xisuma couldn’t let that happen.

    In the gaps between his code, Xisuma watched as Grian’s hands ghosted over the top of Mumbo’s unhealing, bleeding arms. His lips were moving, but whether he was talking to himself or trying to murmur something to Mumbo, Xisuma couldn’t tell.

    After too much time for Xisuma’s liking, he found the right bed. Taking its exact object name, he linked it as Mumbo’s respawn point, waiting a moment before the screen flashed at him in confirmation of the change. He swiped the code screens away as soon as it saved, coming back to Mumbo’s bedside and looking him over.

    The trident wounds had healed, and his expression had become relaxed with the fatal injuries addressed.

    The other cuts hadn’t changed at all.

    “Xisuma?” Xisuma, distracted by the grisly sight of Mumbo’s remaining injuries, had remained silent too long for Grian. “What’s happening? Is Mumbo… is he going to be alright?”

    Giving his honest answer to that question would likely cause Grian to panic, which would most likely end up in the entire server panicking. Xisuma would rather avoid that, if he could. “Could you gather all of Boatem here? I think it’ll be best if I can talk to you all together.”

    Grian glanced back at Mumbo, clearly hesitant to leave his friend in such a state. Xisuma crouched down so that he was on Grian’s level, doing his best to keep his voice reassuring. “I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re gone. Everything’s going to be okay, Grian.”

    The way Grian looked at Xisuma made it clear he didn’t entirely believe that.

    Xisuma couldn’t blame him. He didn’t either.

    Despite his doubt, Grian still got up and left his base. Through both the door he left open and the walls of the house, Xisuma could hear him yelling for the rest of Boatem at the top of his lungs. If, by luck, all Boatem members were currently anywhere near their town, they’d hear him.

    Xisuma used what short time he had until Grian and co returned to close his eyes and forcefully breathe. As admin, he had to offer his hermits a steady and confident front. Someone who knew what was happening and knew what to do about it, or, at the very least, someone who could handle the aftermath if it all went wrong.

    One breath in was too sharp and metallic and Xisuma’s eyes opened automatically; the sight of Mumbo, bleeding-in-Hermitcraft Mumbo, glitch-ridden-skin Mumbo helpfully reminded him that he had no idea how to handle this, in the aftermath or otherwise.

    Four sets of footsteps tore Xisuma from his spiralling thoughts, turning around to find Grian leading in the rest of Boatem. Impulse, Pearl, and Scar looked confused until they saw Mumbo, every player moving over to crowd out every edge of the bed as they realized what was wrong.

    “Try not to touch him.” Xisuma warned as some of them got too close. “We don’t want to aggravate any of his… injuries.”

    Aside from Grian, who had taken up his spot near Mumbo’s head once again and seemed unwilling to step away from it any time soon, all of Boatem immediately pulled away from Mumbo.

    “What… what happened?” Scar asked faintly after a long moment.

    “Mumbo had a respawn error.” Xisuma started, deciding it was better to begin with the issue he had actually understood and been able to fix. “He was in a different server and he didn’t correctly register as part of their respawn system. The injury that had killed him didn’t go away after he died, and he became unable to respawn.”

    “Is that still- is he still-”

    “Now that he’s back in Hermitcraft, I was able to manually link him to a respawn point. He’s no longer stuck dying, and will wake up soon.” Xisuma answered before Pearl could fully answer the question, not certain if she- if any of them- could handle actually hearing the phrase ‘is he still going to die?’. “It will likely be a few days before he’s able to do much more than stay in bed, however, and longer until he’ll be back at full strength.”

    Impulse shifted in place a bit, eyes caught on one of Mumbo’s arms. “And… everything else?”

    Xisuma couldn’t meet Boatem’s collective eyes as he responded. “I… I don’t know.”

    “No ideas? Nothing at all?!”

    “I know they’re glitch injuries. They’re caused by random code errors that stop injuries from healing, regardless of respawn. When Mumbo’s more recovered, I’ll be able to take care of them by repairing his code.” Xisuma offered with a sigh. “But that doesn’t answer why they’re bleeding in a server with no blood mods. Or how he got so many.”

    “Could he have picked them up in the server he had the respawn error in?” Pearl asked. “It doesn’t really sound like a very well-kept server.”

    “Glitch injuries aren’t as rare as respawn errors, but they’re still not common. To have as many as Mumbo seems to… this couldn’t have all happened overnight.”

    Grian looked up at Xisuma, speaking slowly. “What are you saying, Xisuma?”

    The tension in the precious few seconds of silence that passed between his question and Xisuma’s answer was thick enough to clog the air, generated by the grim set of Xisuma’s face before he even spoke and the look in Grian’s eyes that suggested he already knew the answer.

    “The server Mumbo was last on was a server that hosts death games. A private one. The chances are he… he has been participating in quite a few of such games.”

    For a moment, the shock of Xisuma’s postulation left the entire group stunned into uncanny silence. Then, that moment ended, and so did the silence.

    Impulse and Pearl spoke- at first, to no one but the air, then to each other, as if saying everything suddenly on their minds (their justified concern, the signs they missed, what more could they have done, poor Mumbo-) would help clear them out. Scar mimicked Grian and remained largely silent, but as he slowly lowered himself to a seat beside Grian, looking pale, it became clear to Xisuma it was less out of having nothing to say and more out of not having the energy to speak.

    Someone asked what they- collectively- could do. Xisuma wasn’t exactly sure who it was, or if they really meant it as a real question or a rhetorical. Xisuma took it as the former.

    “It might be a good idea to investigate Mumbo’s base a bit- nothing invasive, just, see if there’s anything that might give us an idea of how long this has been going on for. I’ll give his code a more thorough look-over as well, in case there’s anything there.” Xisuma said, tacking on as he glanced at Scar, “It might be best if someone could help Scar retrieve his wheelchair, too.”

    “I’ll be fine.” Scar dismissed before Xisuma had finished speaking. “Take care of Mumbo first.”

    “I can go check out Treesa.” Impulse volunteered. “And I can get Scar’s wheelchair on the way back.”

    “I’ll go with him.” Pearl added, the two of them already heading towards the door. “Keep an eye on Mumbo while we’re gone, yeah?”

    Neither Pearl nor Impulse needed to hear the answer to know what it was.

    As they headed off, Xisuma took a seat on the floor of Grian’s base. He once again opened the server’s code in front of himself, this time moving immediately to the player database and ignoring the actual world. He opened Mumbo Jumbo’s player code and began slowly shifting through, looking for anything that might clue him into what had happened, and how long it had been happening for.

    Across from him, Scar leaned against Grian’s shoulder, both players looking at an undefinable midpoint between Mumbo’s sleeping form and Xisuma’s working one.

    “This is all my fault.” Grian murmured, low enough Xisuma could only barely hear it.

    “No it isn’t.” Scar replied in an equally quiet voice. “We couldn’t have known this was going on.”

    “But we knew something was.” Grian argued back. “We should have done more to help him- I should have done more.”

    “And we tried to. It’s not anyone’s fault that Mumbo wasn’t… wasn’t in a place to accept that help.”

    “...Do you think he is now?”

    Scar deliberated for a moment before answering, “No, I don’t. But we’re not going to let that stop us this time. No matter what.”

    “No matter what.” Grian echoed.

    They lapsed into silence after that, and Xisuma continued with his work, scanning line after line in an effort not to miss anything. Mumbo’s code was riddled with the butchered, unreadable sections that represented his various glitch wounds. Time stamps marking the respawn times the wounds became glitched allowed Xisuma to pinpoint when Mumbo had been getting them as well. The most recent had been only days ago. The furthest went back months.

    Xisuma continued to search through the code even as the signs of glitched injuries stopped popping up. He had still been unable to find any reason as to why his cuts would bleed in a server like Hermitcraft where such a thing wasn’t possible. Surely, if he kept scrolling, just a little bit further-

    It took a minute to fully process the reason when he found it. He wasn’t sure what his expression was, but it caught both Grian’s attention and Scar’s, the players shifting their gazes up at him.

    “What is it?” Scar asked, or maybe it was Grian.

    Before Xisuma could get his mouth to form the response, the door behind him opened. Xisuma saw Pearl pushing Scar’s wheelchair as she walked past him, Impulse remaining at a point behind his back.

    “Xisuma, we… I think we found something.”

    “Was it blood?”

    There was a short pause before Impulse spoke again. “Yeah, uh- one of Mumbo’s chests was completely filled with blood-stained suit jackets. A lot of it is on the arms, but some of the stains are in pretty random places. The one at the very bottom of the pile was only stained on one sleeve edge. And it was rolled up with a glove that had blood stains on the inside of it.”

    “A glove?” Scar repeated, frowning as he accepted Pearl’s help getting into his chair. “I remember seeing Mumbo with only one glove once- but that was forever ago, back when I was reverse-robbing him.”

    “But- there’s no way he could have been hiding glitch injuries that long, how could-”

    “I know how.” Xisuma interrupted, staring directly at the lump of code responsible for Void knew how much of all that had happened over the past months that only he could see. “Last Life’s blood and pain mod pack… Mumbo still has it.”

[sleepless-in-southlands]

were there other worlds to crave?

Ao3

Chapter five of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter five’s title from Steven Heighton’s “Drunk Judgement”

~

    Mumbo didn’t remember agreeing to go to MCC to cheer Grian’s team on. He had always done so in the past, but just this once, he was looking forward to the chance to have the server practically all to himself- he wasn’t the only hermit who liked to support his server mates, after all.

    But apparently he had, most likely a thrown away agreement to a question he hadn’t even heard while attempting to escape the conversation. A few of those had been popping up recently.

    He could have tried to argue the point that morning, when Grian woke him up with the rest of Boatem to make the server jump as a group, but Mumbo knew there was no good way to do so without garnering concern. He had never had any issues going to or being at MCC before, so why would this time be any different?

    For one, Mumbo couldn’t breathe.

    The various halls and lobbies surrounding the main event rooms and team quarters were packed with friends and fans of the different participants, making it impossible for Mumbo to get anywhere without brushing against and bumping into dozens of other players. Every point of contact had him flinching away, always expecting a sharp edge to tear into him, the lack of such a thing happening (yet) failing to calm him. The sounds of every chattering person or hard step seemed to amplify in the tight spaces, until the only thing Mumbo could hear was his own (lack of) breathing and his bloody heartbeat racing.

    His plan to spend the majority of MCC in the reserved seating for requested guests of the Ginger Breadmen had stopped being viable as soon as he had learned that Jimmy was on the team. He had ducked away from the section before the former Southlander could spot him, attempting to find his way to the main seating area instead.

    Confronted by so much, however, all thoughts of trying to get anywhere specific were thrown from Mumbo’s mind. All he cared about was escaping all the noise and uncountable eyes.

    After hugging the wall for far too long, Mumbo finally found the get-away he was looking for- a door marked ‘storage room’. Finding it unlocked, he hurriedly slipped inside, ignoring the secondary note saying it was for staff only. If someone told him to leave, so be it, just as long as he could get even a minute to himself.

    Mumbo still gave the room a proper look-over as he entered, knowing there was a chance that some staff members might already be inside. None were, but there was a participant, as identified by the bright pink band wrapped around their wrist. Communicator held up to their ear, it seemed as though they had sought out the quiet of the side room just as Mumbo had, albeit for vastly different reasons.

    Before Mumbo had a chance to step back out of the room, or even hide behind one of the chests haphazardly dropped through the space, the player making the call turned around and Mumbo realized he knew him. Not well- they had only had a few conversations at the end of other MCCs- but well enough there was a real chance that he would recognize Mumbo. Which would make it hard for Mumbo to make up a quick lie about getting lost and head back out.

    And because Mumbo’s luck was just that bad, Wilbur Soot did indeed recognize him. He looked confused even as he smiled a bit and waved in greeting, rushing through a goodbye to whoever he was talking with as he did so.

    “I’m, er, sorry I interrupted your conversation.” Mumbo started before Wilbur could, already starting to turn the doorknob once more. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here- I’ll be going now-”

    Wilbur waved him off before Mumbo could finish fleeing. ���I was done anyways. Besides, it’s not like I’m supposed to be in here- though I didn’t realize you were working MCC this month, Mumbo.”

    “I’m… not.” Mumbo admitted slowly, deciding the risk of being caught in such a seemingly unnecessary lie wasn’t worth the benefit of being left alone in the storage room. “Was just looking for somewhere quiet.”

    “It’s hardly like I can fault you for that.” Wilbur said with a grin, leaning back against the wall behind him. “How have you been, man? It feels like it’s been forever since we last talked.”

    ‘Forever’ was a bit of an exaggeration, but given Mumbo hadn’t attended either of the last two MCCs, it had been a bit since the two had last chatted. And while Mumbo hadn’t exactly been looking to strike up a conversation, right then, he would take it over the Nether that were the main areas. “Oh, just, fine as ever. Keeping busy.”

    Wilbur nodded. “I’m not surprised. You were on the Life server a couple of months ago, right? That would fill up anybody’s schedule.”

    Mumbo tensed at the mention of Last Life. “Yes, I… I suppose it would.”

    Not noticing Mumbo’s unease, Wilbur went on, “At least you were in that server and not one of the others. Safety’s a bit of an ironic concept for death games, but when it comes to secure respawns and final regeneration, you really can’t beat the Life server.”

    “There are other death games?”

    “Of course there are.” Wilbur tilted his head a bit. “Did you think Third and Last Life had a monopoly on the concept?”

    “I’ve never put much thought to it.” Mumbo answered honestly. Death games weren’t usually his style, after all, and he only knew about the Life server ones because of other hermits getting into them. The idea that there might be enough demand for them to warrant more than one server’s existence had never crossed his mind before.

    But now that it had…

    “Can anyone join, ah, other death games?” Mumbo asked, trying to feign indifference about the concept.

    “Depends on the server. Some are private, and even some that aren’t can be pretty hard to get into- not that you should try, since those are the ones that usually skip basic protections for the sake of easy and cheap games.” Wilbur replied, apparently well versed on the topic. “But there are plenty of public ones that run pretty similarly to the Life server. You just have to be careful they’re not cutting any corners.”

    Mumbo nodded as he processed the information, mumbling under his breath, “Interesting…”

    Wilbur chuckled when he overheard him. “Had a lot of fun in Last Life?”

    The statement was obviously teasing, a lighthearted joke from someone who could actually understand the difference between killing for a game and killing for reasons far more serious. But to Mumbo, it felt more like an attack, an accusation pressing him about why he was suddenly so interested in other death games, asking him what part of him was so incessant upon returning to somewhere meant only for bloodshed.

    Mumbo quickly avoided Wilbur’s gaze. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Wilbur frown slightly, straightening and pushing away from the wall. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but before he could, loud speakers outside of the room started blaring, informing the crowds that the event was beginning shortly and that all teams were needed at their starting zones.

    “I should probably get to that.” Wilbur said after a beat, clearly unhappy with the timing but not having any recourse for it. “Do you need any help finding the reserved seating?”

    Mumbo shook his head, moving out of the way of the door as he did so. He figured he would wait a few more minutes in the storage room before finding the regular seating, well aware that Wilbur would notice him walking in the wrong direction if they left together.

    Wilbur seemed hesitant to leave first, but when Mumbo showed no signs of moving any further than the room’s corner, he began to. The door was part way open when Mumbo spoke again.

    “Wilbur?”

    “Yeah?”

    “Would you mind… not mentioning this to any of the hermits? If you happen to see them, anyways.” Wilbur’s frown grew, and Mumbo once again looked away from him. “Ever since Last Life, they’ve all been rather, er, overly concerned. I don’t want them to worry for no reason.”

    It was hard to discern Wilbur’s expression using only the edge of his vision, but Mumbo had the uncomfortable suspicion that it was strikingly similar to that of his aforementioned server mates after a less-than-believable reassurance from himself.

    Despite that, Wilbur acquiesced. “Alright, I won’t mention it. But, Mumbo…”

    Mumbo glanced back at Wilbur when his pause stretched on a moment too long, the usually sure and unflappable player looking as though something about the situation- as though something about Mumbo- was truly distressing him.

    “If anything’s wrong… you’ll let Hermitcraft know, right?” Wilbur finally continued. “You guys are like the poster-child of close servers. If your fellow hermits are worried about you, they probably have a reason to be, so just- just let them help you, yeah?”

    Not knowing what to say to that, Mumbo could only silently nod in apparent acceptance of Wilbur’s advice. Looking somewhat satisfied, Wilbur nodded as well before opening the door all the way, disappearing out into the now much emptier hallway. 

    Finally alone, Mumbo leaned back against the wall next to the door, Wilbur’s parting words seeming to echo around the storage room. It felt emptier than it should have.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

I am the Fire and I am the Forest

Ao3

Prologue of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Prologue’s title from Mitski’s “A Burning Hill”

~

    There’s a disease that poisons the blood.

    Some call it a curse. Some a blessing. It’s a matter of perspective, so to keep things simple, most people just call it by its colloquial name.

    No one knows how it started. No one knows how it spread. There is no immunity to it, no way to avoid it. No one is safe from it.

    The symptoms are definable, but not understandable. How it transforms blood into something unnatural, something wrong, something living; solid as lead even as it writhes within the skin, burning, beating, bashing, trying to get free. How the heart seizes, the brain freezes, and thoughts the victims had never thought before suddenly drown out everything else. How ears constantly ring with screams and tainted vision paints the world in red.

    They say it’s easy to notice when it gets you. The ideas. The wailing. The blood. How it changes its victim into little more than a shell of themself, a puppet to the disease’s whims (since when do diseases have whims?).

    But you wouldn’t know. This place, for you, has always echoed the cries with violence, has always been coloured with the tint of bloodshed. All the cruelties your hands have wrought.

    No disease nor curse nor blessing fills your head, controls your actions. It’s all you. It has always been you, even before you came to this wretched (wondrous) world.

    The trees are green, the trees are red. Their eyes are multi-coloured, their eyes are reflective smokey purple, their eyes are fading into grey. The grass is red, the grass is splattered red, the grass is littered with corpses that won’t stick.

    The fire is yellow, the fire is orange, the fire is red, the fire is blue, the fire is red. A fire for every tower (there were only ever really four towers). The steel in your hands is silver, the steel in your hands is freezing. The flint in your hands is grey, the flint in your hands is burning. The ash in your lungs is black, the ash in your lungs is glorious.

    Your hands are red (can’t you see how they’ve never been anything else?). You stain everything that you approach, that you touch, that you kill. You are a creature of carnage, you are a beast of blood, you are an abomination of annihilation.

    This blade a cleansing. This blade a reckoning. This blade a betrayal.

    This blade a full circle.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

the blossoms of a future flower

Ao3

Chapter fourteen of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter fourteen’s title from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Think Not All Is Over”

~

    It was the little things he noticed first.

    It had been two weeks since Mumbo’s near-permadeath, and one since he had gathered back enough strength to walk around without much issue. He had moved back into Treesa at that point, not realizing how much would be so different in such a short amount of time.

    For one, his starter base no longer smelled of glistening melon so fragrant he could barely stand it. All of his suits had been cleaned and folded, no longer bloodied or shoved gracelessly in chests. The diamonds Scar had reverse-stole from him had been moved to the proper chest (and had, somehow, at some point, multiplied).

    They were small details. To Mumbo, they were the most important.

    He thought about it as he considered his array of suit jackets, deciding which one to wear for the day. It didn’t really matter, they were all more or less the same, but the simple joy of having the full range of his choices once again had yet to wear off.

    “Mumbo?” Xisuma called up from the base of Treesa’s ladder while Mumbo continued pursuing his selection. “Mind if I come up?”

    “Not at all!” Mumbo yelled back, finally picking a jacket and pulling it on as Xisuma entered his base. He smiled at the admin as he straightened his sleeves. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

    “Just wanted to check in.” Xisuma answered. Mumbo wasn’t surprised. He was past the point of needing someone watching him twenty-four-seven, but that hadn’t stopped any of his fellow hermits from wanting to make sure he was doing okay. He had gotten a lot of visitors, all of whom Mumbo was happy to see. “The glitch injuries aren’t acting up or coming back, right?”

    “No issues to report whatsoever.”

    Xisuma nodded. “That’s good. Though, again, I’m sorry I couldn’t-”

    Mumbo waved Xisuma off before he could finish his thought. “It’s alright, Xisuma, I don’t mind them. Really! As long as they stay closed, they’re fine.”

    Once Mumbo was able to move back to Treesa, Xisuma had deemed him stable enough for more code tinkering. He had been able to ‘heal’ all the glitch injuries, and completely remove most of them, but some of Mumbo’s oldest ones had been around long enough they had started to integrate into his regular code. Xisuma couldn’t safely remove them, a fact he was very apologetic about.

    But they didn’t bother Mumbo. Aside from the fact they were typically hard to spot- the ones on his upper arm and under his collarbone were usually hidden by his clothes, the one on the back of his neck was somewhat covered by his hair, and the assortment of tiny ones on his hands were, well, tiny- he really didn’t mind them. They didn’t hurt anymore, and the fact they were technically still glitches meant they looked iridescent when caught in the light. Mumbo loved them.

    “If you’re certain.” Xisuma replied, smiling from behind his visor. “I’m glad to see you’re doing so well.”

    “Well, since I’ve cut death games out of my diet, I’ve been feeling grand.” Mumbo joked, checking himself over before looking back towards Xisuma. “I hope you don’t mind, but I should probably be on my way.”

    “Don’t want to be late to your meeting, I know.” Xisuma said easily as he walked back towards the ladder, Mumbo waiting for him to climb all the way down before doing the same. “In that case, I’ll be off as well. See you later, Mumbo.”

    Mumbo waved his goodbye at Xisuma as the admin headed off, waiting a few seconds before turning to find Grian waiting for him near Treesa’s base. “There you are.”

    “Where else would I be?” Grian asked amusedly, falling into step next to Mumbo as the two made their way towards Impulse’s iDimpy factory.

    “Out causing mischief.”

    “That is a very me thing to do.” Grian conceded. “But you know that I wouldn’t even think of missing your first LL meeting.”

    “Which I’m thankful for. Though I still think it was a bit much.”

    “Nothing’s too much if it’ll help you out, Mumbo.” Grian reminded him.

    Mumbo’s smile softened. “I know, I know. Thanks again.”

    “It’s the least I can do. The least Hermitcraft can do, too.”

    “I still greatly appreciate it all.”

    The two of them lapsed into silence after that, enjoying the rest of their short walk to the factory. As they got closer, Mumbo could hear the sounds of hermits (and a few out-of-server visitors) chatting, laughing, moving about within the factory’s courtyard.

    Every lifer had been invited to the meeting, and despite the fact they had been over for a good bit at that point, Mumbo had heard that everyone had agreed to come, hermits and otherwise alike. There was no need for them to, he knew, which meant they had solely come for Mumbo’s sake.

    While there was still a part of him that recoiled at that knowledge, loathing the idea that anyone might have taken time out of their life for no reason but helping him, Mumbo focused on the kindness of them all. They had taken time out of their lives to do something they thought would help him. Not because they would do it for anyone, not because they were all naturally kind, but because it was Mumbo specifically, and they wanted to do what they could to aid him. Mumbo mattered to them.

    It was a refreshing train of thought to follow.

    Mumbo shook himself out of his thoughts as he and Grian reached the entrance to the factory’s courtyard. On one side of the centerpiece fountain, chairs were arranged in a circle, ready for the meeting itself. Some tables of snacks had also been set up across the courtyard, stocked with a variety of snacks and an excess of iDimpy chocolate. Lifers idled around the space, talking and eating while they waited for the meeting to start. Mumbo did his best to not get caught up on the bits of walls and corners he couldn’t see because of them. The courtyard was wide, open, and well-lit. It wasn’t going to have any shadowy attackers hiding in it. He knew that.

    “Mumbo! Grian!” Both hermits turned their heads at hearing their names, finding Pearl and Scar standing to the side and waving them over.

    “We were beginning to wonder where you two were.” Pearl told them as Mumbo and Grian joined her and Scar. “We’re still waiting on a few more out of server players though. And of course, Impulse is busy trying to sell his product.”

    “How shameless.” Grian said teasingly, the group watching from afar as Impulse animatedly waved one of his iDimpy bars at BigB.

    When Mumbo’s gaze began to wander from him, once again falling to the edges of the courtyard that he couldn’t quite make out, Scar lightly elbowed him in the side.

    “I did a once-over of the place when I got here. Just to be safe.” Scar told Mumbo in a low voice, not drawing Pearl and Grian’s attention while they passed their own comments making lighthearted fun of their factory-owning Boatem resident. “It’s only us lifers here. No one else.”

    Mumbo let out a small breath he didn’t realize he had started holding, offering Scar a slightly sheepish smile. “Thank you.”

    “Why of course!” Scar returned the smile. “It’s no problem, Mumbo.”

    Grian and Pearl eventually stopped paying attention to Impulse, and the group fell into bouts of small talk while they waited for the last lifers to arrive. Mumbo’s conversational skills hadn’t quite gotten back up to snuff after so many months of barely using them, but no one commented. And even when he fumbled for the right words, or struggled to put his thoughts together right, the conversation was easy and steadily flowing. There was no pressure to it, no secrets Mumbo had to fight to keep unspoken. It was just talking with friends. Mumbo had missed that.

    The four of them were in the middle of what Mumbo felt was a very important debate about the usefulness of waxing services (more accurately: Scar was failing to successfully argue for his ‘business’) when Ren joined their group. He patted Mumbo on the back as he reached him, briefly stealing his attention away from the waxing dispute.

    “Glad to see you made it, dude.” Ren told him, as if they hadn’t put the whole thing together explicitly for Mumbo.

    “Well, I’d hate to have never even come to one LL meeting.” Mumbo replied, going along with it. He appreciated that it had all been put together for him, but that didn’t mean he needed, or wanted, to be the center of attention for it. 

    “It would’ve been a shame if you hadn’t.” Ren said in a way that reminded Mumbo of months and months ago, of a long underground walk and endless favours to distract himself from Last Life and the way he had barely been able to convince his fellow hermits he was alright even before he had realized he was bleeding. “I think they’ll really be able to help you.”

    Mumbo glanced past Ren, eyes once again drifting over the whole courtyard, the uncramped and uncluttered space with its corners carefully checked, the collection of people who didn’t need to be there, the collection of people who were still there regardless, the group right next to him laughing about nonsense, the group right next to him more than willing to laugh about nonsense with him, the entire meeting’s worth of people who cared for Mumbo despite what he thought, the entire server’s worth of hermits who felt exactly the same.

    Mumbo smiled. “I think they will too.”

[sleepless-in-southlands]

there is nothing to forgive

Ao3

Chapter twelve of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter twelve’s title from Jane Hirshfield’s “It Was Like This: You Were Happy”

~

    Mumbo wasn’t sure how long it took for his sense of time to return, for obvious reasons. Too long, he knew that, but that wasn’t much to work off of. Where he was, too, was something he couldn’t answer. He knew where he should be, but Mumbo had the sneaking suspicion that he was no longer there.

    The last thing Mumbo could remember before he lost track of everything was fighting, which didn’t narrow anything down. Killed by a trident through the chest? Not as common as a sword, or an arrow, but not unheard of in the slightest.

    No, the death was average. The pain that followed…

    Well. It didn’t last forever. Mumbo would take the silver lining.

    The first few flashes of consciousness he got were unhelpful in figuring anything out. A bed underneath him, voices that sounded familiar conversing nearby, something soft being wrapped around his limbs. The indescribable pain of his earlier death was completely gone, and even his ever-present aches seemed dulled.

    It was during his third or fourth half-awake moment that Mumbo realized he was back in Hermitcraft, still unable to understand the words being spoken over his head but able to identify them as belonging to various hermits. The chances of him having somehow ended up back in Hermitcraft without any of them realizing what he had been up to in recent months were slim, but as Mumbo fell back asleep, he hoped they weren’t impossible.

    In his next stint of awareness, he was just able to make out two hermits- Impulse and Tango?- discussing something that had to do with ‘death games’ and ‘how many months’.

    Mumbo forced his eyes open, only managing to get them to slits. He had meant to see where Impulse and Tango were in relation to him, to see if watching them talk might help him understand them better. But neither of them were anywhere to be seen, the space between Mumbo hearing them and opening his eyes longer than he had thought.

    Instead, there was Grian and Scar, only a few blocks away from Mumbo. While Grian leaned against the wall closest to him, Scar was seated in his wheelchair. They were in the middle of a quiet conversation, voices low enough Mumbo had to strain before he could make out what they were saying.     “-eeding, Grian, and I was just standing there, making stupid deals-”

    “Your deals aren’t stupid.”

    “That’s not the point I’m trying to make here.”

    “You didn’t know, Scar. No one did. No matter how much we wish we had.”

    “Mumbo didn’t know anything either, when we came back! No one knew anything after Third Life! But he was still actually there for us! And then he needs us, he needs us and we- we just-”

    Scar doubled over, pressing a hand to his face, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop Mumbo from glimpsing the way the light caught on something moving rapidly from his eyes to the ground. Tears.

    Mumbo barely had a chance to consider what he saw before Grian was lowering himself to be roughly on Scar’s level. With the change in angle, it was easier for Mumbo to see the expression on his face, see the guilt etched into every line and the wet trails gracing his own cheeks.

    “You and I both know Mumbo Jumbo is a force to be reckoned with.” Grian said, Mumbo’s full player name sounding weird coming from him with no hint of joke or amusement. “Once he puts his mind to something, for better or for worse, there’s no stopping him.”

    “We could have tried.”

    “We did try, just… not hard enough.” Grian said the words slowly, as if they pained him to speak out loud, closing his eyes before he continued, “And that’s our fault. That’s all of Hermitcraft’s fault. But we have a second chance now. And we’re going to get it right this time.”

    “We will.” Scar agreed, even though neither of them looked satisfied with that.

    The phrase ‘too little, too late’ popped up in Mumbo’s mind unbidden, and he quickly chased it out. If anything, his servermates had been ‘too much, too soon’. They hadn’t done anything wrong. If it weren’t for the fact that Mumbo was only barely holding his eyes open, he would have told them so right then.

    “What do you think he thought? When he first realized he was still bleeding outside of the LL server?”

    The amount of time it took for Grian to answer Scar’s question stretched out long enough Mumbo nearly thought he had fallen back asleep and completely missed the response. And though he hadn’t, he was still fading, strength running out with nothing to distract him.

    “He thought he was a monster.” Grian finally replied, sounding as certain as if he was telling Scar that redstone was red; sounding as certain as if he had personal experience.

    He began to say more, but Mumbo couldn’t hear any of it, eyes slipping back shut with those specific six words swirling through his head.

    Coming to awareness for the who-knows-how-many-th time, Mumbo found himself once again catching the second half of some players’ talking.

    “-and then, me and Martyn, we kinda just started avoiding our servers.” It was Ren speaking, not sounding nearly as upbeat as he naturally did. “It was nice for it to be just the two of us, at first. We could talk about things or we could distract ourselves or whatever else we wanted. It really helped us, and I thought… I thought it might be helping you too.”

    Mumbo didn’t need to exert quite as much effort opening his eyes this time, trying to find the person Ren was speaking to. But there was no one else in the room, as far as he could tilt his head; just Ren, sitting right next to Mumbo’s bed, looking down as though he were speaking to a spot on the floor.

    “Everyone had their own ideas on where you were going when you started leaving the server so often. Mine was that you were meeting up with non-hermit lifers, or someone else you thought could help you more than us. It made perfect sense to me at the time. I had done it, hadn’t I? But now, looking back… I should’ve known there was nothing good about what was happening with you.

    “So I want to say I’m sorry, Mumbo, for letting things get this bad. I don’t think anyone could have stopped you, but I could have noticed sooner. And I didn’t.”

    Ren… was talking to Mumbo. Ren was apologizing to Mumbo. For- what? Not noticing what Mumbo went to such lengths to hide? Not realizing what sort of person his servermate was sooner?

    As if that was his fault. As if he needed to apologize to Mumbo for it.

    Again, Mumbo went to put his thoughts into words and, again, was stopped. This time due to the fact that, caught up in what Ren had said, he hadn’t realized Ren had turned his head to look at Mumbo. He did notice, for the brief second he had, that Ren had taken his sunglasses off, the look in his eyes before surprise took over distant and heavy.

    And then his shades were back on, his expression still giving away his shock despite them. “Mumbo? You’re awake?”

    “Er, yes, I suppose I am.” Mumbo fumbled through as a response, coughing as his voice seemed to catch on every other word. Speaking had helpfully reminded his body he hadn’t used his throat for anything more strenuous than breathing for Nether knew how long, leaving it scratchy and dry.

    Ren quickly retrieved a bottle of water from his inventory and passed it to Mumbo, pressing it directly into his hand. He hesitated a moment before asking, “Do you need help drinking that?”

    Mumbo shook his head. How much effort could it take to prop himself up a bit and raise his hand to his mouth?

    …A lot, apparently, if the way shifting onto one arm alone nearly had Mumbo passing out was anything to go by. Not that he was going to ask for help now. Not from Ren, who was looking at Mumbo in a way he couldn’t put a name too without seeing his eyes but had a feeling he didn’t like. Not from any of the hermits, who shouldn’t be offering him any help at all.

    The numb pains across his body that Mumbo was more than familiar with by then flared as he pushed himself up enough he wouldn’t choke on the water, the ones stretching across his arms and hidden by the light sleeping-wear shirt someone had changed him into protesting the loudest. Despite the strain, they still didn’t hurt as much as Mumbo knew they normally did. Was he too tired to fully process the pain?

    Mumbo only managed a few sips of the water before he had to drop back to the bed, unable to keep his body up. He let Ren take the water bottle back from him, placing it on the floor next to the bed. Over-exerted after a half minute’s worth of slight movement… Mumbo was fairly certain that wasn’t right.

    “What happened?” Mumbo asked Ren, both happy to find he could say the words without immediately breaking into coughs and greatly disappointed to find his voice was quieter, weaker.

    “What do you remember?”

    Something seeping into his lungs, choking him, slinking through his veins and tearing through his flesh as it went, sticking torches against the walls of his brain and leaving end crystals digging dangerous points into his heart- one beat too loud and it would be all over, one beat too many and there would be no coming back, one beat, one beat, every half second passing Schrödinger’s cat, one alive, one dead, one more beat and it would all be-

    “Dying.” Mumbo said the word stiffly.

    Ren’s sunglasses couldn’t hide the way he looked at Mumbo. “You had a respawn error, in a- a different server. Xisuma brought you back and fixed the problem, but that was a few days ago. He said it might take a while for you to fully recover.”

    Mumbo nodded. Respawn error explained why being dead had felt so wrong, why it had lasted longer than he knew it should even without having a way to track the time. It also explained how he had ended up back on Hermitcraft.

    And how the hermits had figured out what he had been up to.

    But not where his heartbeat had gone, Mumbo realizing in the recall of his painful limbo that he could no longer hear it. He tried pressing a hand to his chest, but he couldn’t feel his heart either, nor could he find the gaping hole that it surely would have left behind if it had been removed.

    Mumbo let the hand fall back to his side. Surely there was an explanation. He did his best to ignore his rising panic at the increasingly obvious silence from something that had always been so consistently loud.

    “He also realized you… had a lot of glitch injuries.” Ren said after a long moment, no longer looking at Mumbo’s face. “He wants you to be back at full strength before he fixes them too, so for now we’ve just, uh, wrapped them up a bit.”

    Mumbo jumped on the chance for distraction, rolling one of his sleeves down to see what Ren was talking about. Soft white cloth had been pulled around his wrist, covering a small cut that had nearly taken his hand off when he first got it. The wrap job was neat, done attentively, and the material had yet to become stained red. How recently had they changed the wraps that they were still clean? How many hermits had seen, first hand, the ugly truth of his blood?

    As if reading his mind, Ren added, in a quieter tone, “Xisuma found the Last Life blood and pain mod pack too. It was… it was stuck to your code. Another error.”

    Mumbo froze, fingers that had been idly running over his wrist bandage stopping as suddenly as if they had turned to stone. “He… he found a mod pack?”

    “Yeah. It must’ve carried over with you from the LL server- Mumbo, I’m so- Mumbo?”

    Mumbo didn’t hear a sound past Ren’s second confirmation, too busy ripping off the bandage he had just been admiring, barely registering as his hand slipped and tore into his skin instead of the cloth for a second. Compared to what he had grown so used to dealing with- compared to the pain mod’s limits- the Hermitcraft scratch was nothing.

    Ren, seeing what he was doing, moved to grab Mumbo’s wrists and hold them away from each other. By the time he did, however, it didn’t matter. The bandage was off, and Mumbo was able to see for himself.

    Although the glitch injury was still there, edges still blocky and colourful, not so much as a drop of blood graced the wound. Not in the cut, not dripping away from it, not anywhere.

    The blood was gone. The pain was nowhere close to the bearable agony it had been since Mumbo had started collecting cuts that nothing could heal. His flesh heart, no longer necessary, had fallen silent.

    Had it all truly just been a mod? Had everything- everything he felt, everything he thought, everything he did- had it all been the remnants of the Last life server and nothing more?

    “Mumbo?”

    Ren was still holding his wrists. Ren was still holding his wrists because Mumbo… had hurt himself. Without meaning to. Without trying. The lack of blood to mark the spot didn’t make it less real. The lack of red on his hands didn’t make him any less guilty.

    Nothing had changed.

    “I think… I’m going to go back to sleep.”

    Ren’s hands released Mumbo’s as he let himself drop back onto the pillow, eyes falling shut as he waited for darkness to overcome him. He didn’t have to wait long (really, he didn’t have to wait at all).

    The next time Mumbo woke up, Ren was gone, and Pearl and Gem were arguing.

    “You can go on, I’ll just wait for Grian to arrive.”

    “No way. You’ve been here plenty long enough already.”

    “It’s fine, Gem. Just a bit more.”

    Mumbo listened as someone walked towards his bed. Gem, if he had to guess. He hadn’t opened his eyes, not wanting either of them to realize he was awake.

    “Pearl,” Gem started, voice softer even though it was closer, “I know you’re worried, and I know you want to help. We all do. But if you try to take on all that help by yourself, you’re going to wear yourself out.”

    “I- I know, but I can’t- I’m just-” Pearl cut herself off, and Mumbo could hear the deep breath she took. “I’m trying to make it up to him.”

    “I think we’re all trying to do that, a bit.”

    “He’s Boatem. We should’ve never let it get this bad.”

    “He’s a hermit. We all should’ve been there for him sooner.” A slight shift of air next to Mumbo indicated that Pearl had stood up, two sets of footsteps leading away from his bed confirming it. “Now come on, let’s get you something yummy.”

    Mumbo waited until their voices completely faded out of his hearing range to open his eyes. The room around him was empty, Grian not yet arrived. Perfect.

    Sitting up took more effort than Mumbo expected, but he managed it, pausing for a few seconds to collect himself before attempting to stand. He wasn’t entirely sure what his plan was, but Mumbo figured standing up would be a step in the right direction, whatever that direction might be. 

    That particular step, unfortunately, took several tries to accomplish. Each time Mumbo fell back on his bed, he glanced towards the door of what he had some time ago realized was Grian’s starter base. It had yet to open since Gem and Pearl’s departure, but he knew his time was running out.

    Steeling himself, Mumbo tried again. He wobbled as soon as he was on his feet, fighting for his balance for a few beats before he stabilized. He waited a few more seconds before trying to walk, not wanting to go too fast and end up on the floor.

    Finally on his feet, Mumbo considered his options. Instinctively, he reached for his communicator, various servers he could jump to popping into his mind as he did so. Mumbo wasn’t sure if he was still allowed in Hermitcraft because the hermits were too kind to kick him out when he was still recovering, or if it was because they hadn’t yet connected all the dots, but he didn’t need to stay around and find out. It would be kinder to them if he left on his own terms. Better.

    But his communicator wasn’t where he usually kept it, his fingers closing around empty air. It hadn’t been moved elsewhere in his pockets either, Mumbo attempting the pat-down method and still finding nothing.

    “Mumbo?”

    Grian was standing at his starter base’s doors, slightly frowning. He looked tired, with messy hair and a slump in his posture, and if Mumbo thought he could have done so without falling over he would have tugged him into the bed he himself had only barely gotten out of.

    “You look awful, Grian.”

    For a moment, Grian’s frown was replaced with a smile as he snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

    Mumbo’s only response was to shrug, not sure what else to say. Already standing, the small motion caused him to grimace, Grian’s smile falling when he saw Mumbo’s own frown.

    “Really, Mumbo, you’re paler than usual. And that’s saying something.” Grian stepped away from the door, reaching out as though he wanted to help support Mumbo. Mumbo pulled away before he could. “Mumbo?”

    “Where’s my communicator?”

    Grian’s frown deepened. He didn’t lower his arms. “Xisuma was worried you would roll over on top of it and break it. We put it away.”

    “Where?”

    “In… in the chest. Over there.” Grian gestured at a chest against one of the nearer walls to Mumbo’s bed after a pause too long to be explained by not remembering the spot. “Do you need it for something?”

    Mumbo doubted there was any answer he could offer Grian, real or fake, that he would accept or believe. He also doubted he could make it to the chest before Grian either stopped him or demanded an answer, but he decided that effort was easier to attempt than a bluff.

    In the time it took him to take two steps, Grian had entirely rounded him, coming to stand between Mumbo and the chest. “Mumbo. Why do you want your communicator?”

    Mumbo tried to sidestep Grian, avoiding both him and the conversation. Grian, with unfair ease, matched him.

    “Please, Mumbo. Answer me.”

    Stalling wasn’t working, and Mumbo didn’t think he could keep himself standing for much longer. It didn’t help that, up this close, he could better see the weariness in Grian’s stance, his face, his eyes. That was his fault, wasn’t it?

    “I think you know why, Grian.” Mumbo finally said. He tried to dodge Grian’s eyes as he spoke, tried to keep them fixed on the chest, but Grian wouldn’t let him.

    “I really don’t.” Why did he have to keep pushing? Grian was smart, and a Boatem member, and a former Southlander. He had to know why Mumbo needed to leave. He had named the reason himself.

    “I can’t stay. I know I-”

    “Can’t stay? Mumbo, you can barely stand!” Grian interrupted, voice rising even though Mumbo couldn’t seem to find any anger in his tone. “You need to sit down, and rest, and let us help you!”

    That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? The hermits were too kind. Even to Mumbo. Even knowing what he was.

    “You don’t have to help me. I’ll- I’ll be alright. I don’t want to-”

    “Is this what you call alright?!” Grian waved a hand at Mumbo, incredulous even in the motion. “You nearly permadied! After months of secrecy and blood and injury and- and death games! You would’ve been gone, forever, without us- without us knowing anything, and-”

    Grian’s hand suddenly came back to press against his face, the base of his palm rubbing against the bottom of an eye, and suddenly Mumbo was the one reaching out, unable to hold himself back as Grian started to cry.

    “When Xisuma brought you back… when he showed up in Boatem, carrying you like some lifeless doll… you were bleeding. In Hermitcraft.” Grian was wise enough to not try and lean on Mumbo for support, but he did press slightly into his touch, layering his hand over Mumbo’s. “Even Xisuma didn’t know if you’d make it. What if next time you don’t? I can’t- I won’t let you go running right back to get yourself killed. I won’t.”

    “Grian, I-” What could Mumbo say to that? Offer an apology he knew Grian wouldn’t accept? Offer comfort for the problems he had created? He could try to keep leaving, to walk away, but that wouldn’t help Grian now. No, to help Grian now, Mumbo had to stay, even knowing that he shouldn’t.

    Mumbo was ‘saved’ from having to make a choice when his body made it for him, no longer willing nor able to keep him standing. He crumpled, semi-crashing into Grian, who did his best to catch Mumbo’s sudden dead weight. Inexplicably, Grian let out a small chuckle.

    “Forget letting you run off, I’d like to see you try to.” He half-joked, shifting Mumbo’s weight so he could more easily walk him back to the bed. Mumbo went along willingly, both due to his complete lack of energy and to let Grian have the moment.

    As soon as he was once more seated on his bed, Mumbo sunk into the mattress, nearly giving in to the urge to completely fall back on it and go back to sleep. He resisted, however. He still had something he needed to say to Grian.

    “I’m sorry.”

    “You’re… what?”

    “I’m sorry.” Mumbo repeated, not letting his gaze waver from Grian’s this time. “For scaring you. And lying. I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to hurt you. The complete opposite, in fact, but I, er, clearly missed the mark on that. So I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

    The effect Mumbo had wanted his apology to have was a positive one. What type of positive, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but the point of it was to try and make Grian feel better, along with genuinely attempting to address what he had done. All he had wanted to do was help Hermitcraft, keep it safe from him. Yet, despite his attempts, they had still ended up hurt.

    (Not that he should be surprised by such an outcome. Had he truly expected anything good to come from him? He had been fooling himself.)

    And his apology had quickly become another failed act of niceness, if Grian’s expression was anything to go by. He didn’t look soothed, or comforted, or positive in any way. He just looked upset. Hurt.

    “Oh, Mumbo.” The way Grian said his name didn’t fit right in his mouth at all. There was no disdain in his words, merely the opposite. “You have nothing to apologize for. The Life games mess with everyone’s heads. We should have tried to help you earlier. I should have tried to help you earlier. That’s not your fault.”

    “It’s hardly yours either.” Mumbo argued. “You, Boatem, all of Hermitcraft- you all tried to help me, all the time. It’s not your fault it couldn’t be helped. You couldn’t have known.”

    “We could have, if we had just asked you where you were going off server all the time, instead of accepting the answers even you didn’t seem confident in-”

    “No, no, I don’t mean about the death games. I mean about… me.”

    Something flashed through Grian’s eyes. It looked like fear. “About you? What… what couldn’t we have known? About you?”

    Mumbo laughed, the reactionary noise hollow sounding. He knew it wasn’t a joke, but it felt a bit like the mimicry of one to him. “You said it yourself, Grian.

    “I’m a monster.”

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Nobody ever survives.

Ao3

Chapter ten of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter ten’s title from Margaret Atwood’s “Roominghouse, Winter”

~

    Same scene, new stage. Mumbo planted his feet as he flipped the axe in his hand, waiting for his opponent to make the first move. They had a trident, an extremely lucky drop from a drowned Mumbo had tried to shove them at earlier. They were the only two left, the final fight.

    At some point in his battles, Mumbo had lost his suit jacket and some of his bandages as well, exposing the array of permanent wounds on his arms. The sight might have counted as a distraction if it weren’t for the colourful edges on the other’s cut chin. They knew what type of injuries they were. Their attention wasn’t going to be diverted by them.

    Mumbo caught his axe’s handle and didn’t throw it again. He was done waiting.

    He made it two steps forward before the trident was hurtling at him. He ducked and rolled off to the side, easily dodging it before continuing his forward approach. Mumbo again veered out of the direct path between his opponent and their trident as they raised their hand, weapon returning to them in an instant. Loyalty. When did they have a chance to give it loyalty?

    He wrote it off as unimportant as he swung his axe blade at them, successfully slashing into their arm before they managed to jab him in his shoulder. They both pulled away at the sting of pain, but the distance only lasted a few seconds before Mumbo was closing it once more. He was at the disadvantage in anything other than close-range combat.

    Mumbo made to attack their legs but only managed to nick their calf as they quickly danced away from his axe, responding with their own more successful stab into his thigh. His next slash was uncoordinated, largely reactive, but the angle at which it hit the bend of his competitor’s elbow quite nearly took the limb off, forcing them to drop their trident and stagger back.

    Knowing his time was limited, Mumbo tore the trident out of his leg, positioning it in hand before he rushed forward with both it and axe ready to strike. The trident was aimed at its owner's chest, held at a midpoint of Mumbo’s own. The familiar too-fast beat of Mumbo’s heart played against his chest and echoed in his ears, urging him on.

    Realizing Mumbo was once more rushing at them, his opponent once again held out their hand, summoning the trident. Despite how tightly Mumbo gripped it, the handle wretched out of his hold, flipping around effortlessly in what little space there was left between the two fighters, spears now pointed at Mumbo as it returned to its user’s hand. In such a small space, moving so fast, Mumbo didn’t have a chance to stop or change course before it was too late.

    The trident embedded itself through Mumbo’s chest, its uppermost prong stabbed dead-center through Mumbo’s flesh heart. The consistent melody of its work was replaced in an instant with the wet sound of the organ attempting to keep working around the metal rod now skewered through it, pushing out blood in the wrong directions.

    Mumbo’s axe fell from his hand as his body fell limp. There was no recovering from a direct injury to his actual heart, only death and respawn.

    Except, as Mumbo felt the pull of both things dragging him in, something felt… wrong. The darkness was closing in too tightly, like it was something real, something physical, something that was smothering him as his useless heart still attempted to pound. The pain of each failed pulse grew with every try, until it was spreading out away from Mumbo’s chest, through his limbs, up his neck, sharp points of agony drilling into his brain.

    By now, he should have respawned. Why hadn’t he respawned?!

    Mumbo couldn’t seem to make his vocal cords work to ask the question, couldn’t even force his mouth open to scream.

    All the while, his heart continued to beat.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

The Paper Cut that Kills You

Ao3

Chapter eight of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter eight’s title from The Amazing Devil’s “That Unwanted Animal”

~

    If Mumbo wasn’t already so used to something constantly being wrong with his body, the cut on his arm that refused to heal or disappear with respawn might have been more concerning to him than it was.

    As it was, it was mostly just another annoyance for him to have to deal with and hide.

    He had picked it up in one of the less-than-public servers, though now that he was back to Hermitcraft he didn’t really remember which one it had been. He had been dealt the blow shortly before his final death for the game, along with a multitude of others, but it was the only one that had stuck around after he respawned. He had thought it might fade when he switched servers, but that theory had been disproven as soon as he had returned to Boatem and found it still very much present.

    It wasn’t that bad of an injury, if Mumbo ignored the whole ‘not healing’ thing. It was a short and shallow cut on his upper arm, easy to hide and only minimally involved in his day-to-day activities. The way it constantly, albeit sluggishly, bled was unfortunate, but nothing that Mumbo couldn’t work around. And as to the fact that its edges were oddly straight-edged, seeming to move and even flash different colours at times… well, that had yet to be a problem Mumbo found necessary to address.

    He made his way to Treesa as soon as he arrived back in Hermitcraft, the sleeve of his suit jacket steadily getting redder as he used it to hide the wound. Mumbo had never thought he’d see the day he ran out of suit jackets to wear, but with so many of them bloodied, he was beginning to. He’d have to start cleaning them at some point, if he could figure out how.

    Mumbo went first to his potion chest, now well-stocked with healing potions of all sorts. He tried both drinking one and dabbing some splash directly on the wound, but aside from the splash cleaning up some of the blood, there was no result. Given the cut’s resilience to respawn and gradual regeneration, Mumbo couldn’t say he was surprised.

    Accepting that the best he’d be able to do for the cut, at least for now, was to wrap it, Mumbo started shifting through his other chests in search of bandages or something similar. As he opened one he quickly identified as being his primary non-potato food storage, Mumbo was briefly caught off guard by the blue shine of diamonds nestled between his carrots and apples.

    Faintly, the memory of Scar visiting him while he was attending to his ankle rose in his mind. His plan to ‘reverse-rob’ Mumbo, the way he had attempted to distract Mumbo by commenting on his storage system, both hands casually slipping inside a chest as he looked through it.

    Unconsciously, Mumbo began to smile. Of course Scar, that tricky businessman, would make a deal with Mumbo he knew he had already broken.

    Except, at the point where he would usually make off with more diamonds than he had earned, he had left them with Mumbo. Mumbo, who had endlessly refused them. Mumbo, who hadn’t wanted to accept anything for his help.

    Mumbo, who had only ever been his enemy in Last Life. Mumbo, who had watched helplessly as his own trap took one of his final lives.

    Scar… Scar had wanted him to take some form of repayment, of thanks, for his assistance, even if he had to trick Mumbo into taking it. Despite Last Life. Despite how easy Mumbo had made it to give up and just keep his wealth for himself. So had all the hermits who had refused to take no for an answer when they tried to pay Mumbo back. So had all the hermits who had insisted on not forgetting they owed Mumbo one.

    Mumbo didn’t realize his hands were trembling until he wrapped shaky fingers around one of the diamonds. If Scar- if they all- were this insistent about something as small as diamonds and favours, then… then…

    “Mumbo? Are you there?”

    Xisuma.

    Mumbo stepped away from the chest so fast the lid dropped with a loud thud. Of all the hermits he couldn’t let see his injuries- or his blood- the admin was at the very top of the list. If Xisuma saw them, he’d try to check Mumbo’s code for the mod packs, and if he couldn’t find anything-

    “Mumbo?” Xisuma repeated, having likely heard the sound of the chest falling shut. “Is it alright if I come up?”

    “Yes, of course, go right ahead!” Mumbo responded as he tugged his suit jacket back on, having taken it off when applying the splash healing. He didn’t have the time to get a new and clean one, so he hoped the dark material of the jacket would be enough to hide the red stain still soaking into the sleeve.

    Xisuma’s pink axolotl helmet popped up over the top of Mumbo’s ladder a moment later, artificial frills waving slightly as he fully entered Treesa. Mumbo remained standing next to his chests, keeping his injured arm and bloody sleeve partially shifted behind his back.

    “I’m sorry if I startled you,” Xisuma apologized as he walked into the main area of Treesa, facing Mumbo, “I heard one of your chests shut rather suddenly.”

    Mumbo waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about that, just looking for some misplaced blocks. Is there something I can help you with, or did you just come by for a chat?”

    “Little bit of both.” Mumbo was far too aware of his blood trickling down his arm. “Have you been working on any big redstone builds lately? Some hermits have been reporting lag issues and I want to make sure it’s not any player error before I check the code.”

    Internally, Mumbo let out a sigh of relief. Out loud, he chuckled a bit. “Running through the list of repeat offenders, are you?”

    Xisuma laughed as well. “Technically I’m asking everyone but, yes, you are one of the first people I’m checking with.”

    “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s not me this time.” Mumbo informed him. “I haven’t done much redstone work in Hermitcraft recently.”

    “The server appreciates your consideration for it.” Xisuma joked as he flicked his fingers through the air, marking something only he could see in his visor. “Been busy with the mountain instead?”

    “Pretty much, yeah.”

    “Need any help with it? Any extra materials?”

    Mumbo gestured at his row of chests. “I’m plenty well set on that, no worries. Would probably help if they were a bit better organized, but it’s still all there. Somewhere.”

    It took Mumbo a few seconds to realize his quip hadn’t only fallen flat because it was, objectively, unwitty. Even a joke of perfect comedic proportions would have failed to catch Xisuma’s interest right at that moment.

    Because, in motioning at his chests, Mumbo had unthinkingly put his darkly stained suit sleeve right on full display.

    “Mumbo,” Xisuma started slowly, brow creasing as he focused on the discoloured spot, “what’s that?”

    Mumbo resisted the urge to hide his arm away again, knowing at this point it would be much more suspicious than admitting to the stain’s existence. “Oh, just some redstone. Gets on everything, you know.”

    “I thought you hadn’t been doing much redstone work?”

    “Must have accidentally grabbed one of my older suits this morning.” Mumbo said with a shrug, ignoring the burn from his cut as he did so. As long as he acted casual about the whole thing, it would be fine.

    If Xisuma would be willing to believe his story, anyways. He knew the stain didn’t really look like redstone- it was too dull, too sunk into the fabric, too far spread- but nothing else Mumbo could think of off the top of his head would explain it either. He just had to hope Xisuma would buy his bluff.

    “Are you… sure?”

    “Positive.”

    Another long moment of silence stretching on too long for Mumbo’s liking. Even without looking through Xisuma’s visor, Mumbo could feel the admin’s eyes on him, trying to figure out what was wrong.

    “You’ve been off server a lot recently.” Xisuma said haltingly, as if he hadn’t wanted to bring the subject up but now felt as though he had to. “And I’ve had more than one hermit mention to me that you’ve been acting off for a while now. Is everything alright?”

    For a moment, Mumbo was caught off-guard. It had been a while since anyone had asked him that question directly.

    But his shock didn’t last long, a fake smile that had become practiced with use tipping up the corners of his lips with little conscious thought. “Is it that weird for me to be doing things outside of Hermitcraft? I really have become too much of a homebody.”

    “Is that really all it is?”

    “What else would it be?”

    Xisuma didn’t answer the question, worried expression remaining intact nonetheless. The hermits weren’t blind. Obviously they had noticed Mumbo’s frequent absences, and they had been noticing his odd behaviour for longer than that. But that didn’t mean they had any solid proof that something was wrong. There was nothing that Xisuma could accuse him with, a fact that pushed their conversation right into a stalemate.

    Finally, Xisuma sighed. “I still have to check in with the other hermits about the lag issue.”

    “Don’t let me keep you.”

    “It wouldn’t be a bother if you did.” Xisuma reminded him as he continued to frown. “Remember, Mumbo- my door is always open, and my communicator is always on if you ever need anything.”

    Mumbo just nodded in response.

    With their conversation having hit a dead-end, Xisuma was left with nothing else to do but exit Treesa, climbing halfway down the ladder before Mumbo heard him drop off to the ground. Mumbo listened to the light sound of footsteps across grass as he walked towards the center of Boatem, likely planning on talking with the rest of the group before he continued asking around the rest of the server about the lag issue. Not that Mumbo had noticed any such thing as of late, but what would he know? He wasn’t around that often as of late.

    At the thought of his extracurricular activities, Mumbo’s arm began to ache again, and he resumed his search for bandages, the gifted diamonds forgotten about.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

my ringing heart

Ao3

Chapter seven of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter seven’s title from Emilia Phillips’s “Dream of the Phone Booth”

~

    At first, Mumbo tried to keep the number of death games he participated in low. He didn’t leave Hermitcraft very often, and if he was suddenly popping off the server every other day, someone was bound to notice. But even in small amounts, the contrast between how he felt during the games and how he felt just trying to exist anywhere else steadily grew sharper.

    Fighting in the death games, Mumbo felt… alive wasn’t quite the right word, but it was close. There was something oddly comforting about thinking someone was behind you and finding someone actually was, the usually unwelcome adrenaline rush it brought on appreciated in such circumstances. And while he still bled, everyone in the death games did. It didn’t mean anything there.

    Compared to Hermitcraft, where his fear only doubled and tripled when he failed to find proof he was being followed or set up, where his pile of blood-stained suits shoved in a side chest was rapidly growing no matter how hard he tried to avoid taking damage… could anyone hold it against him that he had started going to more death games?

    It wasn’t that Mumbo had anything against Hermitcraft, and he didn’t blame it- or any of its inhabitants- for issues that were solely his. If he was truly growing tired of Hermitcraft, why bother hiding the blood? That would have him kicked out rather efficiently.

    But he didn’t want any of the hermits to suffer because of him. Already there had been too many times he had thanked whatever there was to thank that he had decided his gimmick for the current server was ‘no killing’, the weapons he kept instinctively reaching for when players (friends) approached him too fast never there. Joining more death games was safer for Hermitcraft, and better for Mumbo.

    Not that he could just tell the hermits that. As he expected, they had already begun to notice how he was starting to be off server more often than he was on, and their reaction to it was to worry. He wanted to tell them that it was fine, that it was more than fine, even, that this was all for the best, but he knew they wouldn’t see it like that. It wasn’t their fault that they thought Mumbo was a better person than he was.

    So instead he told them he had been in his redstone private server more often, working on ideas for his mega-base. It wasn’t the most believable story, given that one glance at his artificial mountain made it clear he hadn’t been working on it for a while, but it was believable enough the hermits couldn’t call him on it.

    There were other things they could press him about, however. Such as him throwing the first thing in his inventory at Impulse when his fellow Boatem member unintentionally snuck up on him.

    (It was just a handful of seeds, accidentally picked up while collecting dirt. In Mumbo’s mind, it had been an axe, flipping through the air on course to crack a skull.)

    “Woah there.” Impulse said lightly, looking a mix of amused and concerned as he brushed the seeds off his shoulders. “Is this the pacifist equivalent of a violent attack?”

    “Impulse! Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Mumbo quickly apologized, hoping Impulse wouldn’t put in the two seconds of thought necessary to realize there was absolutely no way the seeds would have hit him so dead-on if Mumbo hadn’t seen him. “Do you need help with something?”

    “Just wanted to see what you were up to.” Impulse answered, looking slightly past Mumbo and at his mountain behind him. “I thought you were done terraforming the mountain?”

    “I am. This is only a bit of touch-up.” In truth, the mountain really didn’t need any ‘touch-up’. Mumbo had already put more than enough time into making sure it looked as natural as it could. But adding a couple of extra blocks here and there gave the impression of work even as he continued to avoid building up the houses on it higher than one block.

    Impulse nodded, accepting the somewhat weak answer. Hermits could be perfectionists at times, after all. “Hey, uh, you think you can spare a moment to talk?”

    From his tone of voice, Mumbo could tell this was going to be the sort of conversation he had typically avoided as of late. But he doubted he could effectively argue that he was busy. “As long as you don’t mind me continuing a bit while we do.”

    “Not at all, go ahead.” Impulse gave Mumbo a few seconds to turn back towards the mountain, pulling stone out of his inventory and making some slow placements with it before he went on. “I wanted to let you know the Last Life meetings are coming to an end.”

    “Oh?” Mumbo feigned interest. He wasn’t sure how Impulse was expecting him to react, but he doubted ‘cheerful’ or ‘indifferent’ would fit the bill.

    “It’s nothing official, but you know how it goes when less and less people start showing up.” Impulse clarified. “Group consensus is that the next meeting will probably be the last, so we thought you should get a heads up.”

    Mumbo hummed in lieu of a proper response. He heard the unspoken invitation to come, that it was his last chance to do so, to reach out in the group environment they had created for just such a thing. In turn, he left his polite refusal unspoken as well.

    Impulse waited a moment before speaking again, clearly hoping Mumbo would say something. “I, uh, also wanted to invite you to the Boatem LL meetings.”

    “Boatem LL meetings?”

    “They’re a sort of branch off from the all-lifers ones. Same thing, just with Boatem members only. You weren’t at the meeting where we formed- obviously, ha- but we have them every Friday night in my factory, if you ever want to come.” Impulse explained, shuffling in Mumbo’s peripheral before adding, “They’re usually pretty chill, just Boatem messing around and occasionally talking about stuff, so even if you just want to hang out, we’d love to have you.”

    It should have been a tempting offer. The chance to hang out with his friends in a way that both made them feel like Mumbo was accepting help while requiring minimal LL contribution from him- a month earlier, it would have sounded like a perfect win-win situation to Mumbo.

    But now, the idea left him uneasy. Impulse wanted Mumbo to come to his factory, at night, with only the theoretical promise of anyone else being there? Not to mention the people he said would come as well were people he had recently spent much more time with than Mumbo. What if they had something planned? What if this was a trap?

    Some part of Mumbo’s brain helpfully pointed out that this was Hermitcraft and there would be no use in any ‘traps’. Even if there was, those ‘people’ were also his neighbors and friends. Did he really think they would hurt him?

    That part of Mumbo’s brain very quickly fell silent at the memories of everything Mumbo had done to his friends. Turnabout was fair play, wasn’t it?

    Mumbo turned away from the mountain, relieved when he found his subconscious fear that someone else had come up behind him to be unfounded. Impulse stopped shifting between his feet when he realized Mumbo was facing him again. “Something wrong?”

    Mumbo shook his head, forcing his expression into a small smile. “I’ll see if I can make the Boatem meeting, but I am a bit busy these days.”

    If Impulse noticed the fact that Mumbo dropped the ‘LL’ from the meeting name, he didn’t mention it. “If there’s another time that would work better for you, I’m sure we could schedule for it instead.”

    “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” Mumbo wondered if the assurance sounded as hollow to Impulse as it did to himself.

    If it did, Impulse once again made no attempt to acknowledge it. “Alright. I’ll let you get back to your work, then.”

    Mumbo waited until he was certain that Impulse had truly left to let his smile drop, doing a quick search of the immediate surrounding area to ensure nothing and no one was hiding in wait for him to drop his guard. Only after he found nothing did he turn his attention to his communicator, clicking through various menus until he was scrolling through a list of up-coming death games and their corresponding servers.

    His reaction to Impulse’s approach had been too arena-like, and the same could be said about his first thoughts on the Boatem LL meetings. He had to keep that kind of behavior out of Hermitcraft, for everyone’s sake. It wasn’t as if he was getting much work done anyways, and it would give him an actual reason to be busy Friday evening.

    Mumbo’s attention settled on a server he had added to the list personally. It was public, but unlisted on most server directories. He had been recommended it by a fellow participant at one of his last games, the older player telling Mumbo he looked like someone who ‘needed a newer, harder challenge’.

    The speed at which Mumbo had turned around when he heard someone crushing grass behind him and the surprising accuracy of his sudden seed toss played through Mumbo’s head. Maybe he did need a new challenge. Maybe he was growing too used to the death games he had begun to frequent. Maybe that was why things still didn’t feel right with him in Hermitcraft.

    Mumbo made the server jump before he had the chance to overthink it.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

a taste for rapture

Ao3

Chapter six of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter six’s title from Paige Lewis’s “The Terre Haute Planetarium Rejected My Proposal”

~

    The public death game servers weren’t that hard to find.

    There was more variety to them than Mumbo had been expecting. Some ran almost identically to Third Life and Last Life, but most employed their own rules and styles. Number of players, map size, duration of game, methods of killing- anything that could be adjusted or changed was.

    Mumbo joined a game that was on the shorter and smaller side of things. The space available was larger than that of Last Life, but with only one life per player, the event wasn’t estimated to go on for much longer than a few days at most. With no restrictions on kills, and a set-up that frowned upon teams, it was exactly what Mumbo was looking for.

    Because the thought of joining another death game… well, it wasn’t exactly one Mumbo cared for much. Especially given it all had to be done behind the other hermits’ backs, lest they try to stop him.

    But he needed to find some way to make himself feel normal again. To stop checking his back every five seconds, flinching away at the sight of armed players, only ever feeling safe in covered corners where he could see everything and everyone that approached him. If his instincts (if his blood) wanted to keep feeling like he was still in Last Life, wouldn’t a bit of indulgence of the idea help soothe them?

    So, one quick game, and he would be all back to normal. If it didn’t work, he’d never join another death game again. If it did work, but wasn’t effective forever, he’d always be able to come back for another refresher. Successful or not, Mumbo was prepared.

    As expected, the game went fast, both in general and for Mumbo specifically. He was one of the first ones killed. Not that that was very surprising to him.

    But he didn’t die without any kills to his name.

    His grip on the bow was tight enough he was worried he’d crack it, holding the weapon unsteadily in his lap as he waited for his iron ore to melt, not having the time to waste on finding anything better. As Mumbo’s gaze flitted about his surroundings, looking out for threats, the sound of a twig breaking drew his full attention to its source. For a moment, there was nothing, until he saw the glint of sharp metal just barely visible around the body of a tree.

    In an instant, Mumbo’s bow was drawn, arrow notched. Realizing they had been spotted, the other player forfeited their hiding place, rushing at him with sword held high.

    Mumbo’s hands didn’t shake as he shot and swiftly reloaded his weapon, unflinching even as his opponent stumbled from the hits. His heart was racing as always, but for once, as the nearly dead player continued to move towards him, the sound was a calming one.

    In time with its rhythm, Mumbo let loose the killing shot.

    Even as Mumbo’s own life had been taken, that moment had still been running through his mind. For the first time since Last Life, his nerves constantly resting on the edge had felt right. The reminder of his blood had been natural when it was shed with others.

    But as soon as the game was over, the wrongness settled back in without missing a step. Sitting in the lobby, waiting to gather the strength to server jump back to Hermitcraft, the memories of how effortless it was to kill the player in the trees only made Mumbo feel ill. Did he have no natural heistantion? In life-or-death situations, was his first reaction always to slaughter without thought or pause?

    If the hermits ever knew…

    Mumbo looked up at the sound of someone asking for players to sign up for the next match. After a moment of consideration, he walked over to the sheet and put his name down.

    No amount of death games would ever change who Mumbo was at his core, he knew that. But if his hands were to be as bloodstained as his heart was, the least he could do was keep his violence to the places where it belonged.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

nobody gets out of it

Ao3

Chapter four of This Predacious Song, my multidimensional big bang fic! It’s a Mumbo-centric Hermitcraft/Last Life fic heavily featuring violence, blood, trauma, and horror-like themes. It is hurt/comfort with a happy ending. Please follow the embedded title link or the ao3 link for a complete summary and list of warnings for the story as a whole

Chapter four’s title from Mary Oliver’s “Dogfish”

~

    What Mumbo knew, however, could certainly haunt him.

    The smell of melon soon became sickening to him, even as it faded, which only added to the list of reasons Mumbo had to avoid getting injured at any cost. Should one of the hermits see him bleeding- Mumbo didn’t want to think about it.

    He wasn’t yet too worried about dealing with fellow player attacks, everyone practicing the common courtesy of not attacking anyone recently returned from death games, but he knew that would only last for so long. And in the meantime, there were still hostile mobs to worry about, and natural causes, and accidents of all kinds. Only in Treesa was he guaranteed protection from it all, and that was at the cost of the melon scent.

    Escaping the melon and the smell that truly made him ill kept the other members of Boatem from worrying about him too much, at least. Staying in Treesa too long brought suspicion, something else he had to avoid. He was fine, and he needed them to keep thinking so.

    Unfortunately, that was easier hoped for than achieved. The ‘deal’ he had made with Scar had seemed to help somewhat, since he was guessing that Scar had promptly let everyone know Mumbo had at least accepted their thanks for his earlier help. But that only did so much to waylay concern, and Mumbo’s insistence that all was well was getting less effective.

    He had tried to work more on his mega-base, the top of the mountain a good place to avoid melons and hermits alike, but it was hard to get much done when he couldn’t bring himself to build any walls higher than a block. He had placed enough torches that the place looked more like a volcano than a mountain, but a two-block high obstruction in his line of sight was just asking for trouble, he knew that.

    (He had known that in the LL arena, not Hermitcraft. It didn’t apply here, and he knew that too, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like he did.)

    Mumbo had managed to create the illusion of work for a while by laying out more building outlines, trying to make the flat shapes look more time-consuming then they actually were. He had even added more than he wanted, overfilling the mountain with one-note one-block structures. But there was only so much space to fill, and soon he found himself scaling the mountain for no reason other than to hide away on top of it, safe from the stench of anything red and free of the undeserved care of his server mates.

    The sound of shoes hitting stone pulled Mumbo out of his thoughts, glancing over to find Grian closing his elytra and approaching him. Usually free of undeserved care.

    Granted, at the moment, Mumbo wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to be busy. He was sitting on the edge of one of his pointless outlines, watching the horizon and doing little else. Grian had likely spotted him while going about his own business and decided it would be a good idea to pay Mumbo a visit. Mumbo couldn’t entirely blame him- if the positions were reversed, he would do the same.

    But they weren’t, so it was all fine, because Mumbo was fine.

    “Hello, Grian.” Mumbo greeted, hoping that by starting the conversation he might be able to direct it at least a little bit. “Fancy seeing you up here.”

    “I wanted to pay you a visit.” Grian replied, and if it was a few weeks earlier, Mumbo would’ve been double-checking behind him every minute Grian was up there, waiting to see the bob of an end crystal at his back, prepared for the explosion, the death, the laughter. As it was, however, it was still hard for him to not look back, even knowing the only primed end crystals were bouncing in his mind, even knowing that no one would laugh this time. “Trouble with your build?”

    It was an offer phrased like a question, and a two-fold one as well; asking not only if he wanted Grian’s help with the build, but anything else that Mumbo might be having trouble with. It was indirect, unspecific, non-incriminating, an easy way for Mumbo to say something was wrong without actually saying it.

    And for a long minute, Mumbo nearly accepted it. He did need help with his build, after all, and that was all the deniability he needed if he decided Grian took the opportunity to be too worried about him. The only things he would have to admit to were having issues with his mega-base, and just… being tired. He could be fine and tired at the same time, right?

    The beginning of a “yes” was right on the tip of his tongue when Grian, who had been slightly shuffling while waiting for Mumbo’s answer, idly glanced behind Mumbo. His gaze was up high enough that Mumbo could tell he was looking out at something far from the mountain, nothing more than a visual distraction, but all that registered for Mumbo was that he still didn’t know what was waiting at his back.

    The correct answer, of course, was nothing. Grian wouldn’t pretend to offer Mumbo his help just as a ruse to blow him up. This wasn’t Last Life, and that wasn’t Grian (and even if it was, he worked more with swords, didn’t he? something in Mumbo’s chest was on fire). But he couldn’t be sure without checking, and he couldn’t check without Grian noticing, and he couldn’t let Grian know that anything was off.

    “Nope!” Mumbo nearly blurted out, only barely managing to make the response seem genuine. “Er, sorry- I’m just planning out what to do with it all, right? Everything’s going fine.”

    Grian didn’t look entirely convinced. Or convinced at all, really. “Are you certain? You seem to have been, um, thinking for a couple of days now.”

    Something was crawling down Mumbo’s spine, an inching fear. “There’s just a lot to think about, that’s all.”

    “Alright.” Grian said, haltingly. He rocked on his feet, as if he was going to step away but couldn’t quite bring himself too. The sensation pressing into Mumbo’s back started to wrap around the back of his neck, tightening like a hard grip. “Do you mind if I stay and think with you?”

    If the circumstances were different, Mumbo would have let him stay. Refusing help was easier than entirely telling someone off. But with every passing second making Mumbo feel more and more certain something was behind him, he just forced a smile instead. “I’m sure you have better things to be doing than ‘thinking’ with me, Grian. It’s fine, the ideas will come soon.”

    Grian still didn’t seem satisfied by the situation, but he let out a small sigh in what Mumbo assumed he considered defeat. “I suppose I’ll just let you get back to it then, if you’re sure.”

    “I am.”

    Grian nodded, finally turning away from Mumbo and beginning to walk towards the mountain edge. He once again hesitated there, glancing back at Mumbo before Mumbo had the chance to do the same.

    “If you… change your mind,” Grian said slowly, as if he wanted to say more, as if he was hoping Mumbo would interrupt him and say something now, “I’m never too busy to spend time with you. For any reason.”

    The pressure in Mumbo’s back was starting to press into his lungs, and despite how dearly he appreciated Grian’s (unwarranted) concern, Mumbo needed him to leave. “I promise I’ll keep that in mind.”

    Grian hesitated another few excruciating seconds before he finally took off, waving at Mumbo as he opened his elytra once more and flew off in the direction of his base. Mumbo waited a few beats to make sure he was truly gone before he rushed to look behind himself, breath catching in his throat, waiting for there to be something- anything- there.

    There wasn’t.

    For a moment, Mumbo kept watching the space, as if looking long enough might cause something to appear, might justify his fear. But nothing did, the mountain remaining empty of any threat outside of himself.

    Mumbo could only hope against all reasonable hope that no one down below looked up at him right then as he collapsed in on himself, head falling into his hands. He had been right. There was no end crystal waiting to detonate, no silent adversary ready to strike. Everything was fine. He was fine.

    Mumbo tried not to think about how he could feel his heart counting out nanoseconds against his chest.