It's a myth that sometimes a mob gains just a little sentience. Sometimes, the mob goes off just like a normal player. People say this was the origin of the hybrids and mutants. That the originals were blessed with creativity and mind, that they were permitted to walk along humans.
There's another myth; skeletons are rumored to be the shell of unfortunate players to meet a very specific demise. That demise is lost through time.
But any of that hasn't happened for a long, long time. There's no one witnessing such thing, it's just a myth.
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A skeleton stalks two players, who are fighting, pvp-ing for whatever reason they're doing so.
The skeleton calls themselves “Exotic.” Not that anyone would care or know, it couldn't speak. It couldn't reveal itself or it would be pulled into the Harmful Void.
Plain diamond boots and a helmet is all the armor it wanted to put on. It had a jacket-like cloak, something it had woken up with, not knowing where it appeared, not knowing whos it was. All it knows was that it was important.
It stalks, through and behind the bushes and trees - the fight was happening on the edge of a forest. It watches as the players dodge and slash each other, healing quickly with golden apples or carrots.
But a player gets the final blow, before the other can. The latter dissipates with white solid colored fog, going into code and respawning somewhere else, or probably getting in spectator mode.
The skeleton suspects the server it respawned in was a combat or pvp server, from the way that the player victorious just loots for the golden apples, ender pearls, and potions other items they can cram in their inventory from the not-actually-there dead body, spews out the spare armor that they won't use, and just bolts away; just like the other instances it saw.
Exotic takes the advantage when the victor is out of sight and runs over to whatever's left, and with a shulker it stole from a previous server, shoves it all in it, with no pause to take in what was left behind. It dashes back to the thick dark trees before the sun could make a permanent damage.
It places the shulker and rummages through what's in; a surprisingly heavily enchanted chestplate, which is rare in combat servers, an enchanted axe, sword, and pickaxe, and what's most important; diamonds, two totems of undying, and only 5 god apples. No netherite, shameful.
Exotic crams every nine diamonds together to make diamond blocks, and places another shulker from its limited 10 slot inventory.
Really, that's the only thing it can do. Cram items together and hope that it wasn't too complex so it can create something without a crafting table. It sorts out other items from the other shulker, and decides which ones can be spared.
The enchantment-heavy chestplate, axe, 4 diamond blocks, 5 god apples, and one totem of undying.
Sorting out the main shulker, it had twenty-eight blocks of netherite and 20 ancient debris from the quick respawns of past servers, where it didn't last long with trying to explore the server nor get other ores, alongside a stack sixty-two blocks of diamond, and thirty blocks of emerald. Loose netherite ingots, diamonds, and emeralds, diamond boot and helmet, a fishing rod, a long since useless compass, and its Power II bow.
All but the bow has been stolen or salvaged from servers that Exotic respawned in, after it dies. It seems that ever since it awoke one day, its stuff that it would have on hand and its cloak were to die with it. It was all it could access; all that it could have. Each time its inventory goes along with it, like it's always in /keepInventory. The skeleton retrieves out a netherite pick from its 10 slot inventory and plucks the shulker out of the ground, into its slots.
