Work Text:
If you asked any Hermit, Hermitcraft was a sanctuary server.
If you so much as glanced at the paperwork, you knew this couldn't be further from the truth.
Hermitcraft was a prison server, home to the worst of the worst bastards of the universe.
And Xisuma pretended to have even a fraction of control over the people within it.
He sipped his drink, and stared down at the very annoying paperwork pile in front of him.
Running a prison server was awful, but if he had to go back in time, he'd do it all over again without hesitation.
It hadn't been a choice. Not really. Not after he'd been a Mod in a prison server and decided that when he became Admin, he would do everything differently.
And so he had.
Hermitcraft was the result of years of hard work afterwards, and he couldn't be more proud of it.
Here, his Hermits could be actual people instead of numbers on a cell door.
Xisuma only really had two rules on his server: do not leave and do not cheat.
So far, they had only been broken once in all the years he'd been running Hermitcraft, which he counted as a success.
But he doubted things would stay easy.
He glared very hard at an envelope on the table.
What the Hubworld Admins wanted with his little prison server was a complete mystery to him, but he'd have to find out sooner rather than later.
He didn’t want to find out.
The paper was heavy in his grasp, and to Xisuma it might as well have been filled with lead. The Hubworld admins rarely needed anything from him or Hermitcraft, so any kind of letter that wasn’t the monthly progress report, or that wasn’t the request to house yet another criminal was highly unusual, and Xisuma didn’t really know what to think of it quite yet.
He’d have to open the letter to find out.
He grabbed his dagger from the void inside of himself and sliced the envelope open, pulling out the packet hidden within.
It started as a simple letter. Short and to the point.
It drained the color from Xisuma’s face all the same.
A new Head Admin of the Hubworld had been appointed without Xisuma’s knowledge, and they were from a (formerly) fringe group that was determined to (amongst others) reform the prison system and deal with the, in their words, ‘hybrid problem’.
They were going to start with Hermitcraft. It was the most famous prison server, and a perfect place to demonstrate their concepts, all outlined in the rest of the packet that was the size of a small novel.
Xisuma couldn’t let it happen. He had several Hermits with prison-related traumas, as well as several Hermits who would not do well under the oppressive thumb this political party wanted to demonstrate, especially not the hybrids.
Xisuma shuddered at the idea of forcing his hybrids into suppression collars. Doc alone had trauma enough around just that collar to last him a lifetime.
So Xisuma grabbed pen and paper and sent a very simple message back.
Dear Head Admin of the Hubworld,
No.
Xisumavoid
Admin of Hermitcraft
The message didn’t need to be any longer than that. They knew exactly what he was saying no to, and they could fight him on it all they wanted and he wouldn’t change his mind for the life of him. His Hermits were too precious for him to subject them to the torture this letter was implying they’d be subjected to.
Xisuma had seen what prison servers that ran like prison would do to a person - had inflicted many of the trauma the people there had experienced - and he would not, ever, go back to doing that to anyone.
Especially not his Hermits.
He’d rather kill a man.
So he pulled out his communicator and send out a very dangerous text to his Hermits.
Xisuma: there’s trouble brewing. If anyone comes on the server without warning, do your worst.
The proceeding flood of >:) emojis and promises they would drowned out any serious questions anyone might’ve had.
The answers could wait until the next meeting a few days away. They probably wouldn’t move that fast, since this was merely a warning that it was happening, not when it would happen.
---
Xisuma hated being hopeful.
Trouble rang the doorbell on Hermitcraft’s portal the very next day.
Xisuma had been out gathering resources, but he built a nether portal and threw himself through the void and to the Hubworld, the other prison servers with their portals all lined up neatly in a heavily guarded hallway, tucked out of everyone’s way.
“I told you no,” Xisuma said without greeting the people standing on his doorstep.
A plain-looking human wearing a suit spoke up from the handful of heavily-armed Mods surrounding her. “It’s mandatory for all prison servers to adhere to the new rules, as outlined in the document you’d been sent, or risk having their Admin be stripped of their rights as Admin of a prison server and have the world be disbanded, its prisoners being located to other prison servers that adhere to the rules.”
“I’m running my server my way and I have had only one incident in the ten years I’ve ran Hermitcarft.”
“You most of all know how important it is to adhere to the rules.”
“I’ve had one incident years. My Hermits have to adhere to two rules and there have never been any issues with that.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “That’s quite... worrisome for the continued existence of your server.”
“Don’t leave, don’t cheat. It’s enough.”
The woman opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head with a plaintive smile. “I’m afraid that’s far from enough with the level of criminals you have in your charge.”
“If you start to mess with my server one of two things will happen: You will die in new and creative ways, over and over again until you leave, and if you somehow manage to avoid that fate, I have at least three Hermits that will simply vanish, at least three more that can and will cause the entire Hubworld to shut down if they so pleased, more murderers than I can count that would be glad to go back to their old ways if they could, and various other major offenders that can and will rebel against whatever you decide.”
“Ah but it won’t be me implementing these rules. It will be you,” the woman said with a thin, smug smile.
Xisuma took a deep, measured breath. “No.”
“It seems you need some... convincing,” the woman said and snapped her fingers.
One of the Mods pulled out a tablet and handed it to her, who handed it to Xisuma.
Xisuma took the tablet, and what he saw made his blood boil even more than it already was.
EX, tied down to a chair looking dazed and confused. Without any armor to protect him against the harsh lights streaming down from above, or to assist his breathing in the overworld air.
“It would be a shame if your... brother would be hurt now, wouldn’t it?”
Xisuma handed the tablet back to her and forced himself to breathe. Slow, deep breaths. “Yes terribly so. I’ll implmenent your rules immediately.”
“Good. Take these Mods with you to help you corral your Hermits. I’ll check up on you in two days to see the progression.”
Xisuma nodded and spun on his heel, entering the portal without warning his Hermits about the company he brought along.
Xisuma joined
Mod234 joined
Mod462 joined
Mod1034 joined
Mod1370 joined
Mod1905 joined
Xisuma: Showtime
With that, the murder started.
And, with respawn mechanics in place, did not stop. Chat was constantly filled with the Mods’ death messages. Xisuma was sure his Hermits hadn’t had this much fun in years.
It gave Xisuma two days to plan his next action.
For that, he rallied Keralis and Bdubs, the ones who could technically escape Hermitcraft whenever they so pleased, but stayed because they trusted Xisuma to keep them safe, and he rallied Joe Hills, who was definitely a normal guy and not a criminal, as only one aside from Xisuma who was allowed to leave Hermitcraft.
So he laid out the plan with this ragtag team and they got started.
Keralis and Bdubs disappeared near simultaneously, and Xisuma and Joe left through the normal portal in Xisuma’s base, to the Hubworld.
There was a Mod patrol just coming down the hallway, but they paid the two Hermits no mind as they passed each other.
It didn’t take long before they got the message from Keralis.
Keralis: he’s in The World Prison
Very creative name for a prison that was literally three portals down.
The worst of the worst type of prison, ruled with an iron fist, and any toe out of line was punished without mercy.
Xisuma knew it all too well. He had worked there as a Mod for a time. Too bad for them Xisuma was familiar with the layout, in that case.
They headed to the right portal and entered, knowing Keralis would hide any trace of their existence on the server.
No names popped up when they strolled right on in.
The prison itself hadn’t changed.
Keralis popped up besides them once they were in. “Lead the way Shashwammy.”
Xisuma led them down to the front-desk computer and the lady sitting behind it.
“Oh! Xisuma!” She greeted cheerfully. “It’s so good to see you! Who did you bring?”
Joe went around the desk, touched her forehead, and scrambled her memory data of today, knocking her unconscious for a good few hours in the process.
Xisuma went behind her computer, opened on some paperwork. He easily scrolled through the familiar system until he found where they kept EX. “Down the hall, down three floors of stairs, down that hall, second to last hallway on the left and it should be the door at the end,” he told Keralis and Joe.
Both of them walked off, and Xisuma stayed behind to open all the doors for them on the way there while hacking into their system - tougher than last time he did it, but still laughably easy compared to the defenses of Hermitcraft, and all that without triggering any traps embedded in the system.
It was ridiculously easy to loop some footage so it looked like they were never there, while Keralis and Joe took EX from his cell and carried him back up.
They reported to being halfway back to where Xisuma was waiting on them, when there was trouble.
“Xisumavoid~” a singsong voice called out. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving my brother from the likes of you,” Xisuma said, knowing Bdubs had his back even if he could handle himself. Besides that, he gave absolutely 0 fucks about the Admin of The World Prison after his rough departure eleven years ago.
“Oh- you know that’s illegal right?” the Admin asked.
Xisuma turned to her. “Not if nobody ever knew we were here,” he told her and walked over to her. He stuck out his hand. “It’s so good to see you again,” he said all faux politely.
She fell for it, shaking his hand automatically, and she had disappeared with a surprised scream a moment later.
To forever fall into the void, over and over without end.
Her Mods looked at where she’d been standing only a moment prior and attacked.
One by one, they disappeared until Xisuma was the only one left standing, and he only had to make half of them dissappear. Bdubs dealt with the rest of them in his own way.
That was the moment Keralis and Joe returned, carrying and unconicous but alive EX in between them.
Xisuma returned to the computer and left them with one last goodbye present. He opened all the cell doors, and every prisoner poured out of their cell.
Then, they simply left the server to their chaos while returning to Hermitcraft.
Without leverage, they couldn’t do anything to make Xisuma change Hermitcraft.
Once back in Hermitcraft, Xisuma broke the portal to the outside world even if that was technically illegal. It could easily be restored by anyone with a flint and steel, but not without him knowing, and he needed to separate Hermitcraft from the rest of the world for a while.
Keralis and Joe put EX in Xisuma’s guest room, where Zed was already waiting to fix him up, and Xisuma thanked them before they left.
Zed made quick work of fixing EX up to the best of his ability, which was saying something, and then simply left him to rest.
Xisuma sat down next to EX’s bed, and then went over Hermitcraft’s defenses to ensure nothing and nobody could get in without him knowing, not even a Watcher.
“Hey X?” EX croaked out maybe two hours later.
“Yeah?” Xisuma asked.
“Thanks for getting me out of that hellhole.”
“You’d have done the same for me,” Xisuma said.
“I’d have let you rot.”
“I know.”
EX went back to sleep, and Xisuma got started on his endless mountain of paperwork.
The next day, there was a ringing on Hermitcraft’s portal, and Xisuma checked it out.
“Your court order,” the postman said with no emotion on his face. “For beaking and entering, murder, hacking, illegally removing a prisoner from its prison, illegally altering someone’s data, torture, and breaking your Hubworld portal.”
“Do they have proof?” Xisuma asked.
“Your court date is next week Thursday, 3 pm, Hubworld time.”
Xisuma took the paper and read through it. “They have none. I don’t have to attend. Good day.”
He returned through his portal and broke it once more.
That afternoon, there was another ring on Hermitcraft’s portal.
When he went to check it out, he wasn’t too terribly surprised to be greeted by the new Hubworld Admin Council’s representative who’d been here to deliver the news he had to change how he ran Hermitcraft.
“What?” Xisuma asked.
“I was hoping to see how your proceedings are on turning Hermitcraft into a respectable prison server.”
Xisuma grinned. “I’m not obliging. You have no leverage against me.”
The woman’s eyebrows raised. “I will have to start a court case against you for failing to fulfill your duties as a prison server’s Admin.”
“I’m fulfilling them just fine, thank you. Do you want your Mods back?”
Xisuma didn’t await that answer, he simply gave the signal to his Hermits and stuck his hand in the portal, and soon enough the beaten, broken and bruised Mods fell out one by one.
The moment they realized they were away from Hermitcraft, they scrambled to their feet and started running. All of them.
“Don’t interfere with my server again or I will do far worse than let my Hermits have some fun with your Mods.”
The representative looked downright furious. “Your court case is next week, Thursday, 1 pm.”
Xisuma grinned. “Sure thing, madame. Will that be all?”
The woman nodded and stormed off.
Xisuma returned and broke his portal again, just because he could. Nobody could pass through to the other side without being whitelisted, but it just made him feel safer knowing that the portal wasn't left exposed.
And he could always claim that one of his Hermits was at a risk of breaking out otherwise. They couldn't exactly disprove it and any Hermit they'd call up would defend him with their life, no matter what.
It wasn't exactly uncommon for prison servers to break the Hubworld rules in favor of keeping their prisoners secured, this was a known fact, that was usually looked away from in favor of keeping the criminals under lock and key.
Xisuma had broken the portal many times in the past, especially with new, unstable hermits joining the server and needing time to settle in without risk of them fleeing.
Now though? He doubted they'd buy into the closing off portal reason.
Gem and Pearl had joined a while ago, and they'd settled in nicely. Or as nicely as anything went on Hermitcraft.
EX wasn’t supposed to be here, so Xisuma couldn’t exactly use him as excuse on why he kept the portal closed either.
Oh well, everything was already fucked already. Some stricter rules were already going to be put in place, Xisuma was going to be demoted upcoming Thursday anyways.
He needed to get Hermitcraft out of the Hubworld.
It had been done before, but it had cost the admin his life.
Xisuma would do anything to see his Hermits safe.
He needed to plan this carefully.
So he dove into the code of Hermitcraft, and got planning.
---
He showed up on Thursday at 12:55 to the Hubworld courthouse server. It was jam-packed with all kinds of Admins, Players and Hubworlders. Xisuma swore he even saw a Watcher mingled in as a humanoid amongst the crowd.
The murmurs rose up to a deafening volume and people parted for Xisuma as if he was poisonous.
It wasn’t every day the most famous prison server’s Admin was on trial, he assumed, but they didn’t have to look so scared about it.
He had no issue getting into the building and to the courthouse room, where the smug representative was already waiting. “Ready for your last moments as a free person?”
Xisuma shrugged. “You have no proof.”
They went in and the court case started at exactly 1 pm, with the entire room jam-packed with as much people as would fit in it.
The next few hours were honestly embarrassing for the representative.
Xisuma knew the law book just as well as as Admin ought to, and doubly so because he had had to fight for some of his Hermits. He had the tools to single-handedly destroy all but one charge on the basis of too little evidence, and the portal closing charge wasn’t that serious of a charge since he always opened it when someone needed him.
He had the funds to pay off that minor fine with no issues.
But then the 3 pm freeing EX charge started.
There was one pieces of evidence, which was sloppy from Xisuma.
They’d been seen by the cameras just outside of The World Prison’s portal.
And it had caught Xisuma, Keralis, Bdubs, Joe, and EX leaving.
Which amounted to two charges: freeing prisoners, and allowing one’s own prisoners to leave the prison world they’d been assigned to.
There was no arguing with that, really, so Xisuma admitted fault without hesitation.
Revoking of his Admin license was rough, as was the following insult-to-injury of being imprisoned on Hermitcraft itself to sit out the three-year sentence.
Especially since the new Admin was, to not Xisuma’s greatest surprise, the representative. She’d been aiming at Xisuma’s spot, and now she had it.
They had to shake on it to transfer powers, and Xisuma’s Admin rights were yanked out of his data.
Too bad for them they couldn’t yank out the voidwalker data, since that was so interwoven with his being they’d kill him if they tried.
And that’s all he really needed to enact his plan.
They put him in cuffs, and carried him outside just like that, in front of all the gathered crowd, who gasped and murmured in surprise.
Xisuma kept his head high as he was led back to the Hermitcraft portal, not caring much about what others thought of him. “I should be the first to go through the portal to inform my Hermits. They will attack if they don’t know you’re coming. It’ll be a smoother transition if they hear it from me.”
She fell for it completely, nodding with a grin. “Of course.” She pushed Xisuma into the portal.
Xisuma braced himself, and the moment he was teleported he halted in the void between worlds, and yanked all off the Hermitcraft server inside of his being.
He was a voidwalker. He was the void. He was nothingness, and now, when he stumbled back out of the crumbling Hermitcraft portal, he was something.
He was the Hermitcraft server.
Not that they knew that yet.
He stumbled forward and roughly knocked heads with the representative. It was enough to forcefully yank his Admin powers back, and nothing and nobody could take that away from him anymore, since it was so intimately interwoven with holding Hermitcraft inside of himself.
The representative looked at the crumbling portal and screamed. “What did you do?” she yelled and two Mods grabbed Xisuma by his shoulders and forced him to kneel.
He was still the height of her chest, so it wasn’t very impressive. “What had to happen. You’ll never get my Hermits now.”
“Hermitcraft is gone,” one of the Mods not holding Xisuma down said from where he was analyzing the data of the crumbling transportation portal.
“Not gone,” Xisuma said and grinned, even if they’d have trouble seeing it through his helmet. “Just relocated.”
“Where,” the representative snarled.
Xisuma shrugged. “Oh that would be no fun now, wouldn’t it?”
“Take him to the highest security prison we have,” she snarled.
“Uh... that’s Hermitcraft,” one of the Mods said hesitantly.
“Second highest then!”
“Emipres is just as troublesome as Hermitcraft.”
“Whichever is highest and approved.”
“That’s the... 21st highest.”
“Good enough, get him through it.”
The Mods holding Xisuma down dragged him up and along the hallway to an unfamiliar portal, and shoved him through, hands still bound behind him.
It took a long moment in which the representative furiously typed on her communicator before Xisuma was sent through.
He landed in an obsidian platform above a lava pit.
“Strip out of your armor and jump in the lava,” Came the speaker system.
“I need this suit to breathe.” Technically Xisuma could do without, but it wasn’t a fun experience nor one he wanted to repeat anytime soon if he didn’t have to.
“It was an order, not a request.”
Xisuma nodded, the cuffs fell away behind him, and he stripped until he was in just his pink jumpsuit he wore underneath.
It felt a bit like breathing underwater, since void air was very sparse, considering not much survived there, and overworld air was the exact opposite.
It hurt to breathe like this, his body struggling to accept the flood of oxygen forced into its system.
“Jump in the lava.”
Fucking hell.
Xisuma jumped, but no part of the process was any kind of comfortable.
He respawned in a small bedrock cell.
“Hands through the door.”
Xisuma’s hands were cuffed again, and he was led out of the cell and down a winding hallway until they shoved him down a hole onto another obsidian platform, this time with a bed and lava far below.
The room was boiling hot, and they must do that on purpose, because Xisuma was sweating bullets in moments.
“Sleep in the bed.”
Xisuma laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep with the dense, hot air burning his lungs.
“I said sleep.”
Xisuma hummed. “I heard ya.”
“What’s the matter little voidwalker, having trouble breathing?”
“Yes,” Xisuma spat.
“Too bad. This is you life from now on.”
Xisuma ignored the harsh laugh that followed and wrapped his hands over his face. He’d deal. He’s dealt with worse. He could deal.
He didn’t sleep that night. Thankfully it still set his spawn so he didn’t have any trouble with that.
It allowed him to roll out of bed the next morning and crawl under it just to get away from the harsh heat coming up from the ground at least a little.
Food was dropped from the ceiling in (thankfully) closed containers.
“Drop them in the lava when you’re done.”
Xisuma ate whatever was in it without tasting it before dropping the containers in lava, as instructed.
That was his life from then on. Heat and breathing issues and sleepless nights and three meager meals a day.
No entertainment, no nothing.
He was very fast going stir-crazy here, with the only thing keeping him tethered to reality being the simple fact that he had to be strong for Hermitcraft, even if the meals weren’t enough for him to keep his strength up, and he was sliding backwards day by day.
He was bed-bound in two weeks, unable and uncaring to get out of bed aside from the meals he still dutifully ate.
That’s when his Hermits rebelled.
They broke through Hermitcrafts carefully constructed defenses, and plunged themselves out of Xisuma by force, making Xisuma get up and forcefully expel just about the last person he wanted to see right now.
“X!” Joe said. “What’s going on? It’s been weeks without any news.”
Xisuma was shaking all over, the sudden removal of a Hermit not easy on his already weakened body. “I’m...” He hadn’t talked in two weeks, his throat was dry and raspy from the god-awful air around him.
“Where’s your suit?” Joe asked, steadying Xisuma’s shoulder.
“Destroyed, most likely,” Xisuma rasped. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh no. Don’t be sorry, there’s nothing to be sorry for. If anyone should be sorry, it should be us for not getting out sooner.”
Xisuma chuckled, which quickly went over in a raspy cough. Fuck that hurt his already fucked up throat.
“Where is Hermitcraft, anyways?” Joe asked. “Keralis and Bdubs can’t get out anymore.”
Xisuma vaguely waved at his own chest. “Fused.”
Joe stuttered over his words for a long moment, steadying Xisuma when he sagged forward.
“Hey! Hermit!” One of the Mods on duty shouted.
Xisuma grabbed Joe and shoved him back inside of himself, back to Hermitcraft.
There was shuffling from the guards on duty, and then an order.
“Break your bed, don’t pick it up, and jump in the lava.”
Xisuma forced himself out of bed, broke it without picking up the item, and jumped.
He respawned in the cool bedrock prison, and he just laid there for a long moment, not feeling like getting up and facing the world, despite the orders he was getting.
They got into the bedrock prison and cuffed Xisuma’s arms behind him, and Xisuma didn’t bother resisting as they dragged him up and carried him down a different set of hallways until they reached an interrogation room.
A nice, cool interrogation room.
Someone sat down on the other side of the glass and pulled out a notepad. “Where is Hermitcraft?” they asked. Feminine voice, Xisuma didn’t feel like seeing who it was.
He shrugged.
“We will find it, and then we will invade it and mold it into the perfect prison world.”
With that, Xisuma let out a raspy, crazed snicker. “Good luck.” He didn’t care what they thought of him anymore. He was tired, weak, hungry, and half mad due to the lack of stimulation.
“Check his data.”
Xisuma let them, and he didn’t need to look to know they had their eyebrows raised in surprise.
He was the Hermitcraft server. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out.
“Oh that explains a lot,” the person interrogating Xisuma said.
Xisuma shrugged. “It was the only solution.”
“That’s going to make it all the easier to break in. We just have to break you.”
Xisuma laughed, an insane sound that sounded wrapped to his own ears. Like it was coming from someone else. “You’ll be killed on sight, and then a few thousand times more while you regret life.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Xisuma shook his head. He wouldn’t say no giving his Hemits some entertainment, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an incredibly bad idea to bother his Hermits.
If they could even get to Hermitcraft.
Now that was an idea.
Xisuma’s void was bigger than just Hermitcraft.
And he liked to make people fall.
This could actually be good for him.
Xisuma was led out of the interrogation room, to a slightly bigger room filled with Mods.
“Well well well,” the representative said. “It seems we found the missing puzzle piece, and it’s been right under our nose this entire time.”
Xisuma shrugged. “Good luck getting to it.”
“I’m going to send in a Mod, and they’re going to come back out in five minutes. If they’ve died even once we’re going to torture you until your criminals behave.”
“I don’t know how to warn my Hermits you’re coming.”
“Figure it out.”
Xisuma nodded and closed his eyes, standing there for as long as he could endure (about half an hour) doing nothing before opening his eyes. “Alright, they’re warned.”
With that, a young Mod walked up to Xisuma.
Xisuma gently knocked his head together with the Mod’s, and they disappeared.
And then they were falling in reality, but all they could see was Hermitcraft, completely abandoned.
Xisuma could do whatever he pleased with his void, even form projections, although that was rough on his already weakened body.
Five minutes later, he spit the Mod back out.
“Hermitcraft is abandoned,” they said, stumbling when their feet finally had solid ground under them.
“Explain yourself, Xisumavoid.”
Xisuma shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t control my Hermits.”
“You should,” the representative spat.
Xisuma watched her for a long moment, until she huffed and averted her eyes. “Will that be all?”
“No, send in everyone in this room.”
There were at least two dozen people in the room. Most of them Mods.
That would wreck havoc on Xisuma’s system, but he nodded nonetheless.
One by one they touched him, one by one they disappeared from reality and started falling.
Xisuma couldn’t stand by the last of them, his legs simply giving out from underneath him from how much power he didn’t have he was expelling.
But it was done, and they dragged him back out and to his cell, the representative looking smug that it was getting handled.
Good. Let her think that.
They dropped him back in his cell, and after replacing his bed he faceplanted in it and didn’t move for at least a few hours, his body tired but refusing to sleep still.
The meal was nothing more than usual, despite how weakened he was. It absolutely did not help to replenish his energy levels, and his hands were shaking the entire time he ate.
With the introduction of the projections and the new people just outside of Hermitcraft, Xisuma started sliding backwards even faster.
Only a few days later, he skipped his first meal, and at that point he should’ve died.
Should have, being the keyword there.
His Hermits were insane people, and they would not stand for their Admin (and host now, technically) dying.
While Xisuma felt like dying permanently, something was off.
He got this massive adrenaline spike, swallowing his conciousness and felling almost like he should have once the brainfog cleared up.
Xisuma got up, gripped his head, and cursed. Damned Hermits trying to claw their way out of his chest. They were supposed to be imprisoned, not running around causing havoc, and absolutely nobody could know they were anything but locked up.
Technically, if it was Joe, they couldn’t make him do anything. He wasn’t a prisoner inside of Hermitcraft. To keep him around, Xisuma had made him a Mod, but that was only in name.
Doc and Grian held more power than Joe could ever hope to wield, and as long as they didn’t use it for anything malicious, Xisuma did not care the slightest.
But he could also not monitor his Hermits right now, or at the very least he hadn’t figured out a way to do so while he was too busy keeping himself alive. Who knows what they’d found in Hermitcraft’s code that allowed them to apparently manipulate Xisuma from the inside out.
If anyone could manipulate Xisuma, he was at the very least glad it was his Hermits, and not the invasive Mods falling endlessly through the void.
Xisuma didn’t know what to do with this new bound of energy though. He was stuck on a five-by-five meter platform, and anything he wanted to do would be impossible, dumb, or pointless.
And then Keralis pushed himself out of Xisuma. Xisuma saw him for only a moment before he was gone, and he couldn’t help but grin to himself.
He’d be just fine.
Keralis whispered to you: Break your bed and die
Xisuma didn’t hesitate to follow the instructions, falling into the lava and appearing right in front of the exit portal.
Trust Keralis to relocate the world spawn, of all things.
Xisuma waited until Keralis returned and pushed a bucket of water in Xisuma’s hand with a wink before forcing himself back to Hermitcraft.
Like a little present.
Xisuma stepped in the portal. He waited until he was floating in the void to push out all the Mods before landing back in the Hubworld.
Xisuma broke the portal with the bucket of water and walked away from his own personal hell.
Hubworld air was, sadly enough, not any easier to breathe, but at least he wasn’t boiling alive anymore.
Now he had to find a way to get past the guards stationed at the end of the hallway, and he had nothing to convince them he was anything but a ciminal.
And then his code changed once more, so drastically it took Xisuma down to his knees, panting from the pain radiating through his body.
When he next looked up, he was the size of a toddler.
The fuckers had toyed around with his age.
Of all things.
Xisuma couldn’t help but chuckle at that. At least it didn’t affect his mental faculties, which was something he really needed right now.
He swallowed his jumpsuit and deposited it in his void. Voidwalkers didn’t have this concept of clothes like other humanoids had. He didn’t have a solid shape, being as young as he was, so he was just a blob floating over the ground.
At least, until someone scooped his little child-sized self off the ground and held it close against their chest.
Xisuma turned around without moving to see who it was. He recognized fWhip, his blue sweater standing out even in the busiest Hubworld market.
“What are you doing here, little one?” fWhip asked curiously and patted the top of Xisuma’s form. “You’re not supposed to be in this wing.”
Xisuma had to come up with a reply that didn’t sound totally stupid. “Oh really? I was just playing,” he said, not really surprised but still being caught off-gaurd by his own high-pitched, childlike voice.
“Where is your guardian?” fWhip asked.
“I don’t know.”
fWhip nodded and walked to the guards at the front desk. "Heya guys! I found this little fella playing in the hallway, why don't you take care of him while his parents come find him? I'm going to grab my stuff so I'll be back in about two hours."
Xisuma was deposited on the guards' desk and fWhip breezed past them, clearly in a hurry.
The next two hours there were three local messages made with a request to bring 'Xi's parents to the guards' station.
Nobody came, for obvious reasons.
fWhip returned after that time, and raised an eyebrow in surprise at the fact that Xisuma was still there. "Nobody came to pick up the little guy?" He asked the guards.
"Nope. Three messages and nothing."
fWhip nodded slowly as he looked at the blob that was Xisuma's child form. "How about I take him? Until someone shows up that is."
"You run a prison server."
"I'm well aware, but my Emperors are all nice people. They'll really love to coddle a kid. It's no worry really."
"They're still criminals."
"It's fine! Better than letting the kid hang around here."
"If you're sure." The guard didn't look happy about it, but did let fWhip pick up Xisuma and carry him back to the Hermitcraft portal.
Xisuma still wasn't sure if he could trust fWhip, but he let himself pass through the portal of Empires and onto the server.
fWhip joined
Xi joined
Thank his Hermits for changing his name. That would've been an awkward conversation otherwise.
Their landing platform wasn't very... naturey. More like an obsidian box. Unlike Xisuma had heard Empires be described by fWhip.
The representative had clearly gotten her claws into this server after Hermitcraft proved... Challenging.
fWhip walked to a door and was let through after one of the Mods checked to make sure it was him.
"Who did you bring?" The Mod asked.
"Oh! I found them just outside, they apparently got in here while playing, but nobody came to pick them up while I was gone, so I thought I'd bring them here."
The Mod nodded and allowed Xisuma and fWhip to walk inside.
Xisuma was taken all the way to fWhip's office and put down on his couch.
fWhip made sure to gently put Xisuma down first before sitting down at his desk and putting his hands in his hair. "There's not a lot of voidwalkers running around these days, ya know?"
If Xisuma had a head, he would've tilted it in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Especially not ones named Xi. What's your full name?"
Xisuma had a decision to make right now.
And with how pathetic fWhip looked, he wanted to help. fWhip didn't want his server to run like a prison as much as Xisuma did.
"Xisumavoid, to some."
And with that, he could feel himself shift again, and summoned his jumpsuit from the void until he was sitting opposite of fWhip like an adult instead of a kid. Still not comfortable, mind you, the air was too thick, but at least like himself again.
fWhip raised an eyebrow. "Nifty trick. Could've fooled me."
Xisuma shrugged. "Don't compliment me, complement my Hermits. They're apparently running the show in my data."
"I did wonder what happened to Hermitcraft."
"Safe," Xisuma said and patted his chest.
"Voidwalker magic?"
"Something like it."
fWhip nodded. "I'm impressed and wish I could do the same. I couldn't stop the representative from taking over my server."
"How can I help?"
"Get my friends out of here, do whatever you must."
Xisuma stood up and held out his hand to fWhip. "Make me Admin."
fWhip shook his hand without hesitation and Xisuma could feel the power of the server at his fingertips.
At the same time, he yanked fWhip inside of himself and furiously hoped his Hermits wouldn't tear him apart. He couldn't exactly communicate with them, but he hoped they understood his intentions anyways.
Xisuma sighed. "Please don't traumatize him," he mumbled out loud before going behind fWhip's desk and to his computer, typing in his Admin password and getting access to the whole system, just like that.
And with a few click, the entire prison disappeared, and he let everyone fall to their deaths once before going down to where they all respawned.
The entire ground was chaos, with Mods trying to take down prisoners and prisoners running away.
And it was fixed very simply. Xisuma banned all Mods.
That left him with 12 prisoners to deal with, who all looked very lost and confused as to what was happening.
"Who are you?" One of them asked.
"You can call me Xisuma or X, I'm acting Admin of the Hermitcraft prison server, and I'll be here to take you away from this prison world for the time being."
"That's illegal."
"Not if you go to another prison world."
"I... don't actually know the rules well enough to dispute that."
"Do you want fWhip to confirm it's safe?"
"Yeah, that'd be preferable."
Xisuma pinched his brow. "Please work," he mumbled to himself.
There was nothing for a long moment before finally Xisuma felt the familiar tug inside of him and he expelled fWhip from within himself.
fWhip looked shaken, but more 'got a stern talking-to by Joe' than 'murdered over and over again by one of Doc's contraptions' kind of shaken, which was good.
They all waited patiently for fWhip to catch his breath before he nodded. "Yeah. It's safe. It's good. They're good people. Come on, we'll be better off inside of Hermitcraft."
Good people was a wrong thing to say about his Hermits, but he'd let it slide for now. Most important was getting everyone here out and to safety.
One by one Xisuma went around the Emperors and one by one they got pulled into Hermitcraft, until nobody was left on the Empires server but Xisuma.
So all Xisuma needed to do was wait.
They'd come to him, and they would figure out exactly why it was a bad idea to mess with Xisuma.
Because Xisuma might not like using his Admin powers, he absolutely would if he had to, and he didn't care one bit about the Empires server, especially not now it was empty.
Besides, spawn had enough area around it that he could have some fun without destroying any builds but the campfire.
He kept a close eye on their progression of hacking into the Empires server, and got started on building up his own defenses.
And, without having to gather the resources, he could do some interesting things surprisingly easy.
About halfway through, something got pushed out from Hermitcraft and Xisuma stared down at a copy of his armorer suit. He didn't hesitate to don the suit and finally be able to breathe properly again, before going right back to building.
Then, they broke through and many, many Mods poured in.
And ran straight into Xisuma's first trap, a simple pit of fire.
And, as bonus defense, they got stuck in the cobwebs above it first, so Xisuma could enjoy their cursing to the fullest.
Once the first started dying, they figured out exactly where world spawn was set.
In a box of water surrounded by obsidian and mining fatigue.
After that, it was a very simple drowning death loop, and one enough mods had entered, a very simple suffocation death loop.
And any strangers that did get out, Xisuma dealt with one by one, throwing them into the void to fall for ever and ever.
Then, the representative came through, and they were smart enough to stay within the nether portal leading into the server.
"Xisuma! Stop this madness immediately!" She screamed.
Xisuma walked over air towards her, towering over her mercilessly. "Why should I? None of this would've been necessary if you just left us alone."
"You and I both know that was not an option! You've gone mad with power! Is this what you want? To live in this desolate land until the end of time? If you ever put one step into the Hubworld, you'll be thrown right back into prison. Is that what you want?"
Xisuma shrugged. "It's preferable to have my Hermits and friends safe and happy." Even if, like this, he'd never see them again.
The representative grinned at that. "Oh you really thought I'll let you get away with it."
Xisuma looked at the code and cursed. They were slowly working on replacing the admin rights.
So he backed away from his own trap and landed on top of it instead.
Then, his Hermits started pouring out.
All of them.
And Xisuma had just enough power to make all of them Mods, to give them just enough power to do something more than be Players.
Ownership was transferred and the real chaos broke loose.
They were beholden to no rules, no notion of decency, and Xisuma watched as Doc, Tango and Mumbo got started on some overly complex device while the rest of the group held all the freed Mods and the representative back.
He assessed the situation for a moment before jumping into the thick of it, touching Mods left and right and making them disappear one by one, thinning them out alongside Bdubs and Keralis until Xisuma stood in front of the representative.
When he touched her, tried to yank her away into nothingness, nothing happened.
There were limits to Xisuma’s powers, and this was one of them. The inability to remove creative players from this plane of existence.
“Aww, can’t the big, bad admin touch lil old me?” The representative sneered.
Xisuma grinned. “I don’t have to.”
Behind him, the three in charge of the redstone building finished their contraption and activated it with a flick of the lever.
Before him, the representative disappeared.
Banned from their own server by some redstone magic.
Doc would probably be able to explain it, but that’d be about the only one that knew what just happened.
Xisuma was just glad it did.
After dealing with the last of the Mods, the Hermits all huddled together, for as much as a group of about thirty could.
“What happens next?” Cleo asked.
All eyes turned towards Xisuma.
Xisuma grinned. “We get rid of the powers that be, no more holding back and playing by their rules. Now it’s our turn to show exactly why they shouldn’t mess with us.”
Around him, the Hermits laughed in a way that spelled trouble.