Hermitcraft/Empires oneshots/drabbles

A deadly reality - Part two

Permadeath Au, which is a reality where respawn doesn't exist

Story type: Angst

Season: None (Alternate reality to S8)

Tw: Death, blood (Please do tell me if I miss any Tws in any of my oneshots!)

Mumbo slumped forward in his chair. 'Grian's dead?' He rasped, refusing to believe it. Xisuma nodded, and Mumbo sobbed, burying his face in his hands. Iskall placed their hand on his shoulder. 'How?' They asked, for Mumbo. Xisuma sighed.

'I'm not sure. Cub tried to ask Scar, but the only thing we found out was Grian and Scar were out flying, and Grian's wings broke. He fell...'

'Broken wings? Grian?' Mumbo murmured through his hands. 'He would never be that careless.'

'I think something else might have happened. Scar refused to tell us.' Xisuma explained. Iskall continued to pat Mumbo's back. 'Where's- Wheres Grian's body?' They ventured.

'I retrieved it. Its... coffin.' Xisuma muttered the last part. 'Listen, I'm trying, really trying, to fix this glitch. I'm sorry I couldn't save Grian...'

'X, nobody blames you.' Mumbo looked up for the first time. 'We have no right to, anyways. You're the only one who has the slightest inkling of how to recode the glitch. We all wish we could help, but all we can do is... not die.'

Iskall nodded. 'We don't blame you for the other deaths, either.' The three fell silent for a moment, thinking of the other lost Hermits. Etho. Jevin. Pearl. And now Grian.

Mumbo cracked a small smile. 'X, don't worry. You're doing more than the rest of us, which is nothing.'

Xisuma sniffled. 'Still...' Iskall moved forward and hugged him. 'Xisuma, you're going to figure it out. Don't worry.'

'We won't lose anyone else.' Xisuma promised.

______

Xisuma huddled in bed, working on his admin screens. The permadeath glitch was proving hard to fix. He worked on a line of code, before a flashing screen labelled 'Wrong combination entered. Locked out for 12 hours.'  Xisuma screamed and threw his screen, watching it smash against a wall. Within a few seconds, it reassembled itself and flew back in front of him. Growling, he batted it to the side and removed his helmet, burying his head in his hands. Everybody is going to die. He thought wistfully. Everybody is going to die because I can't figure it out.

Turning over, he pulled the covers over himself, remembering all the deaths from before. Iskall had found Etho with one of his machines, caught between two pistons and crushed. Jevin had died in the nether, when one of his farms broke, releasing hordes of piglins on him. Pearl had fallen through the fake bedrock in the Boatem Hole, which caused the others to cover up the void. And now Grian. All of them were dead because he couldn't fix the glitch.

He started to cry, not bothering to quiet his sobs. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't exactly ban all the Hermits from leaving their houses until he fixed it- Most of their bases were more dangerous than the outside world. He couldn't even access the damn code, because it had locked him out. He could do nothing.

Taking out his admin screen again, he closed the current code and the warning popup. Scrolling through all the different files, he clicked on the one labelled 'Code Timeouts.' Looking around a bit, he managed to disable the previous lock on the other code. Going back to that, he tried again, only to get another ban. God damn it. He cursed, frustrated. Why had he made it so complicated?