(𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅)𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒔: 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒚 >.<

𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕: 𝟐,𝟎𝟏𝟑

Progress has been slowing down in the server. Not a lot of hermits were making any progress, first of all, but mostly because it seemed like all of them were waiting for something. While some were exploring out of the server to different hubs, others stayed mainly one hermit in particular, Xisuma.

Xisuma wasn't really the best at entertainment but still run as the head admin because of how much he loved his hermit family, occasionally helping out Iskall with the wither roses stock at Sahara. But upon heading back to his base, he overheard Stress and Ren talking. From what Xisuma can make out, they were both discussing about Sahara and something about baking.

Baking? Huh, no one on this server barely bakes any sweets here. Xisuma thought in his mind, the hermits were more interested in buying golden carrots that's for sure.

Still strolling around the modern district of the server, Xisuma pretended to admire the amount of shops that were surrounding the pathway. Ren glanced at Xisuma before returning back to his conversation with Stress. While they were talking though, Xisuma had decided to eavesdrop what they were talking about.

Stress began by saying to Ren, "Why do I feel like this server has been slowing down a lot recently?"

Ren shook his head out of disagreement. "No? I've been working on my dojo this week, pretty sure this server isn't slowing down."

He does have a point. Xisuma said to himself in his mind, pretending to go into chests for items that could make good use for more grinding farms.

"I guess you're right but, come on! Nobody is even doing something fun, like baking a cake or something." Stress complained, holding her new pet chicken as she walked along with Ren to another district.

Ren had suddenly lost thought. "Uh, baking a cake sounds fun but honestly Doc is probably going to burn the server down."

Stress pushed Ren lightly, dumbfounded. "That's like, one small fire Ren! And plus, we'll kick him out if we have to!"

Ren placed his hand onto his head, Stress could be a little bit stressful sometimes, pun intended. Xisuma didn't realise how creepy it was hearing their entire conversation.

But Xisuma had another idea that suddenly sparked upon his mind. He knew that a third of the hermits were bad at baking, hence why they aren't even bothered to bake cakes for special occasions. Or another reason was that they just didn't think they could make good food source and they ended up stuck with golden carrots.

As Ren and Stress were saying their goodbyes and heading back to their bases at sunset, Xisuma chuckled. He then headed back to his base as well, he was very pleased with the result of his plan to get the hermits together.

—

The next week or so, every hermit would come to visit. Casually building, mini competitions were held and the server constantly being disturbed by the rubble noises of farms and bases. Once Xisuma had finished stocking up for Sahara, the architects were satisfied by how Xisuma was able to help them rather than helping the scamming of Concorp.

"Phew, that was exhausting." Grian sighed, putting all his items in his shulker box as he walked out of the Sahara building. "That took us way too long, plus the building competition Scar keeps being a tryhard at."

Iskall laughed at Grian's remark of Scar being a tryhard. "Says the one that built a dragon on top of his own building."

Grian groaned, he hated Scar for being such a tryhard at everything in general. Maybe it's just him, Scar was part of Concorp after all.

Once Mumbo had finished tweaking a bit of the redstone going on behind the scenes, the architects decided to go out for lunch. As they were heading off to Iskall's base, Grian had noticed a pamphlet dropped on the floor. In fact, they were everywhere!

Mumbo checked the chat room to see if they were any more of these floating around at the server. And to his surprise, their was.

cubfan135: whoever is putting pamphlets on the floor can you not do them on concorp country club -_-

biffa2001: i come back to this mess, oh dear.

pythongb: ^^

ijevin: god dammit, I slipped on one of these again.

zombiecleo: i will fist fight you all if no one owns up as to who put them pamphlets on my pirate ship.

joehillstd: IS ANYONE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE FACT THAT XISUMA HASN'T BEEN TALKING TO US FOR THE PAST WEEK?

zloyxp: joe i think we're all just dumb uwu

It was almost like a plague, almost everywhere each pamphlet was on the floor waiting for someone to read it. Iskall took the pamphlet, it was decorated with stickers and looked like someone had took graphic designing classes seriously.

Looking at the pamphlet, Iskall noticed how it was designed to look like a wedding invitation, at least that what Iskall would think. Did they miss another important day? He really hoped that this wasn't another departure like what Etho did last time.

"I don't understand, why is this everywhere on the floor?" Mumbo questioned, picking up each pamphlet to make sure that nobody accidentally slips over them.

"This is bonkers, I should say!" Grian exclaimed, you can tell by his annoyance that he needed this break and not having to deal with yet another issue aside from villager Grian disappearing once again.

"Sorry to break into you two's conversation, but my god! I need to read this to you two!" Iskall rushed towards Grian and Mumbo with the mystery pamphlet. They both drew near to what Iskall was reading. It states the following,

Dear fellow hermits,

As you may know, I wasn't here for the past week so I apologise. I've been working on something for you all.

It's a baking competition!

Do you want to take the grand prize of four shulker boxes of your essentials? Well now your in luck!

Proudly sponsored by Sahara and Hermitcraft Recap, and the cost you'll only have to pay is for you to have your own partner, you will have to bake for me and three other mystery judges.

Who will take the grand prize? To join, simply head over to the modern district. I hope to see you there :)

And remember, may the best cake win!

Yours truly,

Xisuma

You can almost feel Grian's heartbeat raising up, looking at both Mumbo and Iskall out of nervousness.

After a moment of silence, Iskall had officially lost his mind. "YOU MEAN, X DIDN'T TELL US ABOUT ALL OF THIS?"

"Maybe he wanted to keep it a surprise." Mumbo shrugged, placing all the pamphlets in a spare shulker box.

Grian was still in disbelief, this wasn't what he had expected. Probably the most reserved player aside from TFC had started up a competition that might as well start another war.

But who wouldn't compete for a whole four shulker boxes of everything that you needed? That was almost stacks of diamonds saved just by baking a cake. Even Mumbo agreed that this was much better than his own Storage Wars.

This was both Grian and Mumbo's chance of getting the prize of all the items they need for Sahara purposes. Even if it's more likely that Iskall would go for Stress since those two have been stuck together like glue and been keeping the server loud due to their obnoxious voices, Grian had a plan of getting Stress and Iskall to share the items if they happen to win this competition.

"So if we win, we get the prize of whatever we want basically." Iskall asked, still suspicious that Xisuma might have followed Concorp along and scammed them into this event.

"Well obviously not." Grian said in a sarcastic tone, probably inspired by Joe's also more harsh sarcasm.

"Let's go to the modern district, I'm sure this will be all worth our time." Mumbo flew away with his elytra, using his firework rockets. He was still guilty of pretending to sound like he was excited because in reality, he really wasn't. Mumbo isn't the best at baking cakes, judging by both in real life and in Minecraft of how much he almost burnt the house down.

Mumbo ignored his bad thoughts as Grian and Iskall followed along to the modern district. What could possibly go wrong? Almost everything, this is Hermitcraft after all.

Upon arrival, the first thing that signalled a red flag on Mumbo's mind is that Xisuma wasn't there. He had everything set up though.

From the cameras, to the baking stations that reminded both Grian and Mumbo of a show that they have used to watch together, it seemed like Xisuma had took so much time into making this fun. Unfortunately, that also came with the other hermits who were fighting for the winning prize.

Stress came in after the architects, pleasantly surprised to see that Iskall had been waiting for her. Giving Iskall a huge hug, Grian and Mumbo both asked if they could have a small team up with them.

"Well, considering your partnered with Sahara..." Grian explained, trying not to sound too awkward.

"I assume that if me and Iskall wins the prize, we'll both share it with you two." Stress finished off Grian's deal, pulling her hand for Grian to shake.

"It's a deal."

Thankfully it was more of a secret deal because already, Cub and Scar had arrived. Iskall giggled at the sight of seeing them bickering about how they were both bad at baking cakes. Joe was also with Cleo and False, casually talking about how this was going to benefit them. Joe wasn't in for the prize though, more or less as to why the hell did Xisuma suddenly disappear.

"'Ah, Joe you need to get yourself together! You're thinking too deep!" Scar teased, overhearing Joe theorising about how Xisuma might as well be Evil X in secret.

Joe rolled his eyes at Scar. "You better not be thirsting on that bald man's di—"

"JOE! STOP MAKING JOKES ABOUT CUB'S DICK!" Cleo yelled from behind, False can't help but laugh along to Cleo having to remind Joe that he does indeed have a daughter that was asleep at this time.

One by one, each hermit had arrived. Grian had become overwhelmed, almost everyone was here? I mean sure, nobody really knows where Jess and xB was again but Python and Biffa were also there as well? He guessed that the baking competition really brought most of the hermits back together.

Wels and Jevin were already sitting down by the circle of chairs, creating a friendly rivalry between Tango, Impulse and Zedaph about this bake off. And meanwhile, Doc was making constantly dick jokes to Ren about baking a dick cake, in which Ren threatened that Doc would've been banned on this server if he said those jokes in front of children watching his streams.

Python and TFC however, were more reserved and decided to sit out and watch the show. Sharing each other's shulker box full of snacks, they sat down by the grass fields and enjoyed the show.

As Joe was about to remind the rest of the hermits of how strange that Xisuma wasn't here as well for the 40th time, the door from behind another building had opened.

It revealed Xisuma... in a suit?!

Xisuma walked like a typical business man, carrying a notepad. He was wearing a headset microphone, complete with his fancy suit that was shinier than Jevin's slime skin.

"Greetings, fellow hermits. Welcome to the Grand Hermit Bake-Off! I'll be your host for today's special, Xisuma." Xisuma formally introduced himself in an orderly manner, as the hermits shuffled to the left next to their already chosen partners (aside from Biffa and Joe).

The hermits were all dressed formal. This was a bad idea as they are going to get messy with baking all of this.

X chuckled. "I guess this was a success. It was a surprise, wasn't it?"