<TW> mention of possession, speaking lowly of someone

<CW> fear, banter, fluff..

Made this one more lighthearted! Fear the future heh. :)

This is made in collaboration with Roxy-Rox0!!

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷✦༺ s n a i l ༻✦꒷︶꒷꒥꒷

Joel yawns and wakes up to Iskall's face.

"Oh! My goD-! Iskall!?" Joel shouts, rolling off his bed and onto a soft blanket. Iskall looms over him, smiling—this man has the audacity to smile!?—calmly.

"Hi and good morning Joel," Iskall offers a hand to help Joel up and he smacks at it, but he takes it and hefts himself up and looks around the room. Last Joel checked only Mumbo, Scar, and Gem were allowed to be sleeping in his room, but their beds are gone.

"Where is everyone else?" Joel asks, having to forcefully pull his hand out of Iskall's.

"Joe and Zedaph are also still asleep, last I heard, but the others are setting up and eating," Iskall tells Yoel—sorry, Joel—and steps back for Joel to have more space.

"Okay... and why are you in here?" Joel narrows his eyes at Iskall and reaches out to find his vest without looking away.

"Oh, what's for breakfast? I think Impulse, Keralis, and Beef teamed up to make something!" Iskall answers, already sidling to Joel's door. Joel glares at him.

"NO, that's not what I asked Iskall-" Joel cuts himself off with a sigh and, like the great man he is, watches and lets Iskall go.

Joel grumbles to himself and looks around for his shoes to put them on so he can see if the Hermits have absolutely trashed his base. Hopefully not, they're too nice for that. Sometimes. Most times! ... Sometimes.

Joel quickly laces up his boots, leaving one of them loosely tied, so he can rush outside and assess the damage. Lucky for him, there's no destruction, crying, screaming, or smoke in his direct vicinity. Though a stupid trapdoor is flipped the wrong way right in front of him, so he stomps over and fixes that before walking down his streets to find everyone.

It takes him a minute or so before he sees a colour blur of bright white, blue, and orange, and a brown tail, and relief floods through him. "Ren!" He calls out, jogging to be right behind him.

"Oh! Joel, good morning," Ren turns and smiles at him, but his tail is drooped and his ears are alert and twitching ever so often.

    "Have you eaten?" Joel asks, tilting his head and studying the orange and blue stripes on Ren's arm.

    "No.?" Ren answers, his ear flicking again.

    "Well.. good! That means you can come with me to get food so I'm not wanderin' around wonderin' if you guys are trashing my blummin' base," Joel huffs and nudges Ren onward with him.

    Ren smiles again and follows behind Joel, not mentioning Joel's firm grip on his arm, even if the other brunette didn't notice it.

    "IMPULSE! I heard Skizz's stupid nickname for you, so don't try and hide. Do you have food?" Joel finds himself by his horse head juggling statue, his antennae twitching furiously as he drags three hungry Hermits behind him in  a chain in search of at least one of the blumming people he was told had made food.

    "Right here Joel, Skizz just almost died to fall damage after trying to get to Zed," Impulse appears, coming around the corner down the steps.

    Impulse looks tired, Joel notes, and behind him Skizz is chattering away quietly into Zedaph's sheep ear. Zedaph is awake now. And he looks like a mess himself, his hair's a mess—though, that isn't too abnormal—and his clothes are all wrinkly.

Joel glances at the three Hermits behind him—xB, Pearl, and Ren—then repeats his question from before. "Do you have food?"

Impulse smiles a little smile that Joel wishes could be bigger and looks at the group, his eyes lingering worriedly on Ren. "Yeah, I'll get you all some."

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷✦༺ s k u l k ༻✦꒷︶꒷꒥꒷

Jevin stares down at the blue and white lights against the inky darkness around it, blinking slowly. He looks up and sees the rest of Cub's base—the house, and skulk covered decorations.

On top of the skulk covered diamond blocks is Echo, scrolling through whatever settings they can on Xisuma's communicator. Jevin's slime drips onto the skulk, its black covering his green almost immediately.

    Echo is scrolling through the list of Hermits available on the admin's communicator again, completely ignoring iJevin and enjoying the slight familiarity of sitting on the diamond and skulk decoration.

They focus their attention on the two unfamiliar player names—Skizzleman and Smallishbeans. Echo taps on one of the names, like they had done on Zedaph's and iJevin's previously, watching the name move to the top of the screen and more words follow under it. Like some kind of mini-profile with information that the admin thought to save.

Skizzleman    [a.k.a. Skizz]   
Join Date: 1/29/24             [Season X]

SPECIES: angel

SPECIAL NEEDS(?): his wings need to stay clean
Too much heat isn't good for him
Too much sugar or spice bad idea

ABOUT: he can be really kind, and likes to help people. Passionate
Pretty funny

EXTRA: he's closest to Impulse
Has purifying powers
Halo can change size and brightness
Can sprout more eyes only on wings? Or other places too?
Lives with Mountaineers, beside the mountain

    Echo hums and focuses on two words: really kind. That honest feeling he used to get to Zadkiel too. Kindness easily can lead to gullibility, and that leads to easy targets. Collecting a few possessed Hermits is definitely Echo's second task.

Echo mentally notes the words "Skizz" and "angel" to save for the future and exits off of the section. They cross their legs under them, slipping slightly on the skulk covered decoration, and adjust their grip on the stolen communicator.

They tap on the username under the angel's, "Smallishbeans." A similar, shorter list jumps under the name. Echo wonders if all the other Hermits' communicators can do the same thing and save 'notes' on the player names, or if only the admin's communicator can.

Smallishbeans    [a.k.a. Joel]   
Join Date: 1/29/24             [Season X]

SPECIES: alien? Other?

SPECIAL NEEDS(?): his antennae are sensitive to most temperature and can be sensitive to touch

ABOUT: protective. Humorous, rude in a joking way? I hope-
'Secretly' caring

EXTRA: he's closest to Grian(I think)
Lives with Mountaineers, beside Impulse on the mountain

Echo stares longer on the SPECIES section, wondering why Xisuma had been unsure about one of his member's species. Wouldn't they have to tell their admin? Or it would be obvious?

    Echo exits off of the section and decides to leave that curiosity for another time, maybe when they aren't busying themself with finding victims. They look down and see iJevin below them, green slime losing its shape and getting dangerously close to becoming a blob of green slime and bones. Echo narrows their eyes, sure that that isn't normal.

With Echo's attention back on the slime, though, iJevin's form oozes back into existence. He looks up at Echo silently for a moment before sitting against the pillar—correction, many armed diamond decoration, possibly fake tree, covered in skulk—under Echo.

Echo looks away from the slime, noting silently that they can't let iJevin's form get that way again. With his will, and mind, not under his control and in Echo's iJevin must not be able to keep his form properly up on his own anymore. That might be bothersome.

Echo fiddles with more admin mechanics on the communicator, focusing on the tracking and vitals scanning features. Xisuma might be a bit obsessed with knowing his Hermits are alright.

And Echo is going to use that to their advantage.

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷✦༺ h o n e y  h o n e y  h o n e y ༻✦꒷︶꒷꒥꒷

Joel is sitting high up—on a ledge used to afk for his creeper/disc farm—instead of down closer to ground level with a group of other Hermits dealing with construction. They're building walls around Joel's city out of whatever materials they had and stole from one of Joel's many barrels lying around as decoration in his base.

He yawns and leans against the wall behind him, hearing the distant hiss and the rattle of bones of a creeper and skeleton. Joel closes his eyes and thinks of anything and everything that comes to mind.

First thing to come to mind for Joel is the weird encounter with Iskall, the man's just a weird fellow in general though. Though, he really does continue to wonder why Iskall was there, and how long the Swede had been there.

Joel tilts his head to the side and blinks before closing his eyes again. He thinks about his appearance next, and his hand almost subconsciously wanders up to feel his antennae. Are they too long? Too bright a green? Joel lightly grabs the delicate things and frowns, letting his little criticisms wander to other things. Questions formed in Joel's head.

Questions like: "Are his eyes too close to black or orange?" Is Joel just overthinking on that part? Last he checked—this morning—his eyes looked like their usual chocolatey brown. "Are his arms too long?" Maybe Joel's shoulders have just been slumped all day, from exhaustion or worry Joel didn't care to ponder on for longer than he just did. "His hands too big?" Humans and hybrids alike have big hands sometimes, right? So he's fine if they are. Completely fine... "His hair too uneven?" He can blame that on a bad haircut, but that can't stop Joel from stressing over it all the same.

"Do the Hermits notice any of those things like Joel does?" Joel really hopes they do not.

Joel startles from his thoughts as he almost falls down into the gap beside him and into the building, he curses and grips the sides of the block he is on for stability. Joel's a bit thankful for the shock to reality, honestly. He doesn't like spiralling.

So instead Joel focuses on the problem of the server currently; Echo. The blumming idiot that hurts Hermits. An Entity, and the glowing ball Joel saw flying past him only around a day ago—huh, it feels more like a week ago. Joel wonders if they're exactly the same as... what Joel has as an example of an Entity. Well, they're the same species—at least, Joel thinks so; and hopes isn't true—so it makes sense that they'd be at least mostly the same.

Joel pulls on his antennae, causing pain to throb through his head and tingle down to his shoulders. Tears well in Joel's eyes and he quickly blinks them away, using the pain as a distraction to change the topic. Tugging on delicate features is definitely not one of Joel's best ideas, considering the dull headache he's given himself.

    So, this Echo person sucks and is stupid. At least that's what Joel decides, even if it's false and mostly to comfort himself. Then Joel moves on from the topic of Entities and hops off of his high up spot. He always has liked the feeling of being high up, wind blowing and being able to see around him nicely. He wonders if Echo has the same feelings with heights.

    Joel cringes and pinches himself and glides down using his elytra, avoiding the topic reversion to Entities, especially in a casual way. Instead, he'll glare at Doc while he builds a tall wall while handing Doc materials. Yeah, that sounds good.

    Joel smiles and uses a rocket—Cub just gave him a bunch for free, which Joel had joked was Cub's rent for staying in Joel's base—to get higher in the air and find Doc. He doesn't know why he wants to help slash bother Doc, the cyborg creeper hybrid just seems like the right choice for Joel to bless with his presence.

    He wonders if Joe's still piggybacking and clinging to Doc, and snickers at the thought of Doc working with the Muppet half asleep and clinging to him.

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷✦༺ w i l d c a r d s ༻✦꒷︶꒷꒥꒷

Done! And waitin' on the next round of Wild Life episodes to be out.. I hope you enjoyed reading!!

See you next chapter o/!

2064 words