Mythical Artifacts

Chapter 3: Rumors to Reality

It had only been a single day when I saw the flyer. It was a regular Hypixel-like paper, with the fancy design and the subject in big, bold lettering. In the early morning, Melongan had texted me, telling me to see the news in the main lobby. When I had gotten there, though it was crowded, I managed to get a flyer fairly quickly.

[SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT]
Return on March 2nd for an exciting, in-person announcement
concerning recent rumors. More information on the back.​

It was shorter than others, but just as informative as needed. On the back, it explained that it would be in the main lobby at 2 p.m. and that there would be an additional pamphlet for anybody who couldn't make it. When I got a paper, I went straight back to my home, staring at it — I bumped into a couple of people because I hardly bothered to look up.

It's . . . real, I thought, but I could hardly believe it: I hadn't expected it to be real, but it . . . was? Maybe it's a different rumor, I thought, but I shook my head, knowing it's the exact same rumor. As I opened my house door, I wondered what that would mean.

Surely it would be nice to get it, I agreed, thinking back to the same words I had uncontrollably thought the day before. Together . . . find The Sword, as a team . . . with my friends. Part of the reason was that I wanted to get better at PvP — and I knew that a few people like Melon would benefit from it as well — but the main incentive would have to be The Sword to get anybody to agree to it.

There was little information known about The Sword, so I reluctantly set aside the idea, thinking I would figure it all out after the announcement. I don't even know where it is or where it could be, I thought. It's probably just a Bedwars thing. Maybe one sword per game like Blitz Survival Games . . . or perhaps it's like a corrupted game in Skywars, a rare occasion. Either way, I figured it wasn't really going to be as special as people seemed to make it out to be.

The days rolled by fairly quickly. I wasn't desperately waiting for the announcement, so it wasn't hard to "survive" until then; others weren't so fortunate, so obsessed that there were a couple of requests on the forums to have the announcement sooner — none of which had any effect, of course. Most of the time I just watched YouTube, played alone, worked on my book, or took walks through the lobbies.

Eventually, however, Wednesday came. Housing was practically deserted when I woke up, even though it wasn't anywhere close to 2 p.m. After changing into something more comfortable, I left home to play a few games before the announcement. Before I could do anything, however, I encountered Melon on the road. He was with Typoing, one of our mutual friends.

"It's today!" exclaimed Melon. "I can't wait."

"Yeah, me neither," said Typo. "It'd be cool to get it and win anything I played."

"You think that's how it'll work?" I asked. "I feel like it'll just be in a single game."

"Either way, I want it," he said. "Then again . . . a lot of people seem to feel the same way. I doubt any of us will get it."

"True, true," I said. "Want to play somethin' till the announcement?"

"Sure," said Melon, so I invited them to a party.

Our first round, we lost, but only barely; the next, we managed to win because most of the teams weren't that great and we had gotten obsidian; the last round we played went to the very end, and it eventually ended up in a dramatic fight between me and one other person: I won.

Ultimately we decided to head over to the main lobby. When we got there, it was already crowded, despite it only being 1:30 p.m. After finding a few friends, we went through a building onto a balcony to see clearly. It was now Melon, Typo, and me, along with Hulk1050 — Melon's friend — and Mine.