The Hermitcraft Plays

18: How not to learn lines

As little as he was already expecting, Joe was highly disappointed to see everyone arrive the next day with scripts in hand, even Cub, Wels and Ren who'd been doing really well on line-learning, and Scar who regularly forgot or lost his.

'Did anyone hear all the times I told you to be offscript by today?'

'The thing is, there's a problem with that.' Grian crossed his arms, smirking. Joe's face fell.

'What?' 

'If whoever has the script plays the role, then we can't play our roles if we don't have our scripts!'

'That's a very big brain thought...' Scar murmured back.

'So none of you learnt lines?!'

'I know my lines!' Bdubs replied. 'I know all my lines!' 

'So do I!' Zedaph agreed.

'No, you've made up all your lines and you've decided not to learn them.'

'My lines are better.'

'His lines are better...' Grian admitted.

'Fine. I don't care how many lines anyone knows, we're going through scene... 6... with no scripts.' Joe snapped. Grian seemed about to complain. 'IF you want to get all technical you can have them in your inventories. Now, onstage. We can also test out Mumbo's new systems.'

'Oh! Sure!' The redstone bounded over to backstage, followed by the others. 'It's actually...'

'...Quite simple, really.' Grian interrupted. 'You see the flux capacitor here, and the... t... flip-flop over here.'

'Grian!' 

'Ah, the t flip-flop...' Scar nodded.

'We don't need to explain it all. Where's the button?'

'Here.'

Grian beelined for the button, pressing it. The machine moved one set around to the next with a lot of pistons. He pressed it again, and then a couple more times, until the machine promptly broke.

'GRIAN!'

'It's not Grian-proof.' He insisted. 'If it was Grian-proof that wouldn't be possible!' 

'How long will it take to fix?' Joe sighed, as Grian gave a guilty little laugh. 

'Mumbo, I'm sorry I just- I just can't help myself. I see a button, I have to press it!'

'I should've realised that...'

'Well... we're not going to use the set... but everyone in this scene, get onstage. Ren, Pearl, Wels... I think that's all...' Wels entered, discussing for a moment about what scene it was before lying down and pretending to be unconscious. 

'Oh no!' Ren gasped as he entered.

 'Is he... ok?' Replied Pearl, trying not to forget her line, until Ren forgot his own. It didn't change much as Wels continued on anyway.

'Where am I?' He asked, sitting up. 

'We're Rendolf and Pearlie. We're hunting down the Christmas Vexes.'

'The Christmas Vexes...' Wels stood up slowly. 'Oh no... line?'

'I remember what happened.' Joe called.

'What happened?'

'Do you have a name?' Pearl spoke Ren's line for him in mistake. 

'Bellsknight, at your service,' He gave a bow, itching to pull out his script. 'The other toys were trapped... I just managed to escape...'