Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

The void tea party

           Halloween only officially started on the last day of October, but as it was nearing that date, all the empires seemed ready to get into the spooky ambiance. Creepy decor had sprung up around all the houses, costumes were made and bought, and a few eager citizens had already begun trick or treating.

           Not Jimena, though, not yet. That day, she was helping Grian tag Lizzie. Which meant they had to dig another hole into the void that lay deep below the surface of the earth. It was going to take a while, definitely, but they needed to pass on the tag soon or else Grian's Halloween costume would be ruined by the ridiculous jester hat.

           So they both got up bright and early and flew to Animalia to dig straight down again. Jimena noticed that Grian had a box with him. "What's that?" She asked, motioning to it. "It's my little treat for Lizzie," Grian said. "Since she'll lose all her stuff when we push her into the void, I got some things to help her get back on track. Enchanted diamond tools and armor and stuff like that." "Aw, that's nice of you," Jimena said.

           "Where did we plan to start digging again?" Grian asked, frowning as he tried to remember. "I don't remember either." Jimena said. The two of them looked at each other for a second. "Let's just dig in a random spot," They decided. "Why did we need to plan where it was anyway?"

           It turned out it was because Animalia had a lot of paved streets which meant that they would have to make a hole in the road to dig their trap, and Grian didn't want to have to do something as troublesome as fix a road once this was all over. So they just wandered around a bit and ended up near Lizzie's house. Suddenly, they heard a loud bloodcurdling shriek come from inside.

           Grian and Jimena looked at each other, startled. "Was that Lizzie?" Grian asked. "Whoever it is, we need to help." Jimena said. They rushed inside and came into a room with a long, fancy meeting table in the middle and several different animals sitting and soberly discussing something importantly at it. When they heard Jimena and Grian come in, the animals silently and simultaneously moved their heads to face them like clockwork.

           Grian and Jimena felt like they were intruding on something and all the animals staring straight into their souls were making them feel creeped out. "Hi..." Jimena waved awkwardly. "See, we heard a scream-" Just then, the goat who sat at the meeting table started screaming. "Oh, right, a screaming goat," Grian said, feeling embarrassed. He slowly inched away and made to leave, but an open door down a nearby hallway caught his attention.

            He went there instead. "Grian, I don't think we're supposed to be back there!" Jimena called, following him. Grian entered the room anyway and saw that it was a kitchen. There were ordinary kitchen stuff in it, but it was also full to bursting with flowerpots full of catnip and other herbs as well as raw meat hanging on hooks dangling from the ceiling. This was definitely Lizzie's kitchen.

            Jirman stepped into a creaky floorboard and it suddenly flipped up a little, like it was loose. Curious, she stepped on it again, this time harder. To their surprise, the floorboard came up like a trapdoor and revealed a deep hole underneath. They both looked down. They couldn't see the bottom, if there was one.

             "Why does Lizzie have a weird hole in her kitchen?" Jimena asked blankly. "Lizzie's weird," Grian said. "Well, I knew she was weird, I just don't know why she has a hole!" Jimena peered down into it and suddenly lit up with a novel idea. "Hey, what if we deepen the hole until it reaches the void?" Grian grinned manically and rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Not a bad idea at all."

            When one digs deep enough into the rocks and soil that make up the ground, they will inevitably reach a solid layer of bedrock. Bedrock is a very hard stone that is almost impossible to crack, even with the best tools hammering away at it for infinity, and when broken it shatters into a million tiny pieces no matter how carefully you mine, so bedrock wasn't very valuable. However, it must be broken if one wanted to reach the void.