“We need to find him! It’s our only option,” TT2000 insisted, trudging across the terrain that seemed to be clutching at his legs, pulling him backwards, with every step. “I respect that statement, TT. But. Keep this in mind. You will not like what you find,” Goanna said matter-of-factly, walking through the ground perfectly fine, even as the rest of the Crafted Gods struggled. “Well I don’t!” Ire yelled. “If the Far Lands are trying this hard to stop us from reaching them, then we should probably call it off, huh?”
More Crafted Gods had come to the startling realization that something was terribly wrong since the Strife of the Throne Room. Irecreeper and Blue had joined the cause, as had Generic, NinjaV, and, surprisingly, Hezetor. It had seemed that Descendants who would have fought in the Godmodding Wars, had they kept going, had been spontaneously appearing, regardless of the war’s actual chronology. Even people who’d never fought in the Second Godmodding War — such as Hezetor — were present. There had always been a sense among the Crafted Gods that their numbers kept increasing, and now they knew it for sure. But this presented a problem — how were they supposed to overcome an enemy that had as many troops as it wanted?
“Their numbers won’t matter,” Crystal said as he walked through the ground. Textures and models stuttered with increasing regularity the farther the group walked to the Far Lands. “We can end this all with one clean shot. All we need to do is talk to him. TT2000 is right.” TT nodded. It seemed like an eternity ago, but he remembered it clearly. He remembered Build claiming that he would retire and live in the Far Lands. There was absolutely no guarantee that he’d actually be there, but it was their best option. Once upon a time, Build had controlled the Narrative. And when he’d stopped... something had gone terribly wrong.
Crystal’s door could only open so close to the Far Lands; after a certain point, the code of the world became too corrupted to shortcut through. The Descendants still managed to bypass the army of millions of players running throughout GodCraft, an army which seemed to be coming to the same realization that these Descendants had: that something was terribly wrong. Maybe they would be friendly, now that the Descendants had come to this realization — but no one wanted to risk it. And now, they had to deal with a world that was actively resisting them — and only an uncertain assurance that their goal was at what lay beyond.
“I guess we at least know we’re going the right way,” Irecreeper muttered. “Y’know something?” Generic piped up, his overcoat still seizure-inducing. “I really wish we had some method of transportation that could get us to the Far Lands as fast as reasonably possible. Like, oh, let’s say a ship. A ship designed for this exact eventuality. You wouldn’t happen t—” Eric sighed dramatically. “Generic, if I called in the Preston Cole, the IFPC, and probably a dozen other groups, would instantly notice. Are you willing to take that risk? Are any of you?” The Descendants thought, and looked ahead. The horizon stretched seemingly endlessly, curving into the sky yet simultaneously down into the depths of hell. It waved and wiggled and twitched with every single vibration of its fluctuating code, trees unrooting themselves, floating in the air, multiplying, and stuttering. What few mobs there were rendered themselves in horribly glitchy color, their noises like tortured screams. No player dared make it this far.
In this prolonged contemplation, Generic simply said “Yes,” rolling sixteen sets of eight loaded eight-sided dice. A giant sphere of corrupted light emerged from the sky, and, called to life as though through a thousand of Frankenstein’s thunderstorms, the UNSC Preston Cole materializing above. Generic smirked and motioned ahead: “After you.” Everyone except Eric filed onto the ship with glee. Then, with comparatively little fanfare, the ship’s thrusters activated, warping through the absence of space and time and charting a path directly for the Far Lands.
“Well, we’re almost there,” TT2000 said in the ship’s bridge, staring ahead at the outside view, depicting a whirlwind of scenery flashing by at a pace too fast for thought. “I can’t even imagine how many days I’ve spent in this place, trying to do things my own way. I guess... there’s a lot to unpack, huh? A lot to think about. And seeing as we might be here a w—” “Alright, we’re here,” Blue said, having watched the ship’s navigation console. Everyone got up from the bridge and walked out, leaving TT2000 hanging. “G. Guys? Don’t leave me hanging?” But they did. Everyone except TT left the ship with glee.
Stepping back onto ground that was as solid as it could be, the Descendants saw a monumental horror unfolding above them. There could be no doubt about it. They had reached the Far Lands. And still, something was terribly wrong.
It was as though all the detritus and filth of the world had stacked itself infinitely upwards, creating mutated mountain ranges, valleys, and caverns, all filed into each other like stacks of papers. In a sense, that was what they were — the files of the world, all mismatched, every piece of information they were supposed to contain missing critical data. Physics failed to manifest itself, time and space broke down — laws of all kind needed not apply. Even with their extremely conditional immortality, the Descendants swore their souls were degrading as each second failed to tick by. That was the issue, or an issue, anyway — there was a profound absence of correctness. Something was trying to happen, but wasn’t, or couldn’t. There was some law, some force, that transcended all others, that had been silenced. It wasn’t just the cause of the problems of the Far Lands — it was the cause of the problems of the entire universe. Whatever it was… Something was terribly wrong.
“So. Got any bright ideas on how to track him down?” Ire shouted to the crowd after an uncomfortably long period of nothing happening passed. Generic shrugged. “No dice.” Ire stared, deadpan, at Generic. “Then try harder.” “No, I mean I literally have no dice that could help us find him. Maybe if I made a huge telescope… Meh, it probably wouldn’t even work right.” Eric nodded. “Good thinking,” he said, examining his hands. “Probability isn’t on anyone’s side in these parts. I may have to call upon the forbidden depths of runic lore…” TT2000 just laughed to himself. “You guys are kidding, right? It’s so obvious.” “That’s strange. I… don’t see anything,” Crystal said, looking in the approximate place that TT was. TT seemed appalled. “You mean you don’t see the giant nexus of storm clouds flashing with green lightning hovering at the corner of the Far Lands way over there?” He pointed to a specific outcropping of mismatched rocks not incredibly far from their current position.
“I guess your First Guardian powers are still coming in handy, huh?” NinjaV said, tossing TT2000 one of his shadow-manipulating alchemies. “If you’re the only one that can lead the way, you may need something that can help us get there.” Eric also stepped forward, giving TT a spare glove emblazoned with runes. “We’ve got your back,” he said. TT looked at Eric, nodded, and the two shook hands. “Let’s go meet our maker,” TT2000 said solemnly. And with those words, the Descendants ventured into the unknown depths ahead.
There was rampant chaos in the Throne Room. Nothing compared to the turmoil in the server below, but there had never been a period of such… excitement in the history of the Crafted Gods. Much of their leadership had defected, seemingly overnight, which left a council that had many spots to fill. Judging from his seniority and prior status, Crusher was given the title of interim Godhead, with Piono and Aegis as his interim Hands. Crusher, his head in his hands, glanced up to look. The ruined throne room was absolutely covered in Crafted Gods, yelling in the direction of the throne, yelling at each other, and gesticulating wildly. Some had weapons drawn. Some didn’t. Nothing about this scene looked any good.
“That’s enough from all of you,” Crusher said loudly. Still, he was drowned out by the throng of Gods. Though Crusher’s face was hidden by striking purple shadow, Piono and Aegis could see his frown intensify. “I said THAT’S ENOUGH!” Crusher’s voice resonated throughout the entire room, the stained glass panels on the walls cracking. Immediately, there was silence. Crusher reclined in his chair. “Better,” he commented, staring ahead at the gathered crowd. Resting on the arm of the throne was a sheaf of papers and a pen that was as purple as Crusher was. He picked them both up, clicking and unblocking the pen repeatedly. “Maybe I need to be educated on something. It’s exceedingly unlikely, but it’s possible. So please,” Crusher said as he let go of the pen, which continued to float in the air. “Enlighten me. Why were you all summoned here?”
“Because Nimbleguy and Goanna sounded the Bells of Judgement,” Netpatham said, his body crackling with blue lightning. “Every one of us heard the toll, so we paid the toll.” Crusher didn’t change his expression. “Do you honestly think I asked for the literal process as to how all of you ended up in this godsdamn room, or are you being facetious to spite me? For your sake, I hope it’s neither, and that I just imagined you saying that so we can move on.” “Move on?!” piped up Wilson, who now crept towards the throne. Behind him was Talist, locked in his AXIS. “How can we possibly ‘move on?’ You want us to spell it out for you so you can make some kind of lesson, well, here it is! The enterprises all of us have spent billions on are being thrown into question by terrorists. They’re out there, and they’re in here. And I’m not about to have my status as the creator of one of the biggest companies in our universe wiped because of some petty power struggles!“
There was a horrible, grating silence. Crusher, rather than engage in an equally heated tirade, nodded. “Right you are, Wilson. Right you are. We’re not here to be struck from the record, squabbling for bigger footholds in the world we carved. That wasn’t the point of our meeting, and it never was. So why did all of you,” and Crusher got up now, holding the stack of papers, “And I do mean all of you, start screaming about what this means for you rather than what this means for us?” Crusher tapped the stack of papers repeatedly. “Here is what this means for us. This is a report on the data all of you collected about this player uprising. Surprisingly, most, if not all of you, were aware about the threat on some level beforehand, but did very little to stop it. None of you brought your concerns to each other, or to the throne — until Goanna, who, as is now evident, has been compromised.” Crusher threw the papers into the air, where they hovered, the information on them amplifying so that it could be readable to everyone in the room. “What I need to know is why we were incapable of functioning as a group, and why we didn’t come together sooner.“
Battlefury scoffed, riding one of his three lupine familiars; the other two were close by. “You know how hard it is to call even one of these meetings,” he said. “Imagine getting every single person in this room, a god that’s larger than life, to unilaterally agree on something. Of course, in my case, I’m basically three gods, so—” “Spare me the details,” Crusher said, holding up his hand. Alex adjusted his crown before speaking. “I don’t think I can spare you the details, really. They’re too important. You can my section of the data there.” (He pointed to a random component of the holographic display.) “The source code of this universe is rotting. It’s being rewritten at a rate that 5l1n65h07 can barely keep up with.” Everyone glanced to the ceiling. 5l1n65h07, immaterial but omnipotent, was fighting alongside of them, battling against an unfathomable enemy. “So I’m assuming there are holes that need to patched?” Bomber said, lighting a cigar. As Bomber was essentially a living incendiary, he was allowed to smoke. “Cracks in this whole facade?” “It’s not a facade,” said Consumer, whose black robes perpetually hovered off the floor. “The infected’s brand of heresy — is that appropriate for this? — was that our timeline was flawed. A perpetual mistake. To suggest that that’s true is to overturn millennia of prophecy, divine mandates, and the operating system that governs all physical laws.” Bomber nodded. “Sorry, man. Poor choice of words.” “I know, but still — all words have power.”
“The point,” Lothrya said, “is that it takes an extraordinary circumstance to bring us together like this, and that there’s an equally extraordinary force that’s trying to drive us apart. A good plan, in theory. Divide and conquer. But we have the initiative. We’re all here, and we have to keep that initiative.” Maniac, a column of brine stuffed into a rippling, ruined cloak, spoke with the voices of each ruler of each subdivision of the Nether. “Heaven and hell are on the side of the one true gods, but some of those gods are no longer with us. We need to know what their plans are.” Crusher nodded in agreement, leaving the papers where they were but now pacing around the room. “I thought you’d never ask,” he began. “Before Eric officially defected, he was discussing how the infected thought they were meant to be in another narrative. How they planned to make that narrative a reality. How they intended to usurp us. It’s very possible that as we speak, our fallen brothers are assembling an army of millions, intent on taking us down. But for them to do so would be suicide.”
Crusher extended his arms, reaching out to the many Gods present — all of them with their own weapons, and their own powers. It felt like each time he blinked, there was someone else in the room he hadn’t seen before — someone who felt like a natural extension of the Gods themselves, a new member of their army. “One of us may have failed against the ravenous ocean outside, but all of us, combined, can’t. And we won’t.” They know that very well. They wouldn’t dare challenge us. But where would they go?” Crusher continued pacing. “They’d need to find something that could end this all with one clean shot. And I can think of only one thing. They go to the one person that controlled our narrative.”
Everyone throughout the Throne Room gasped, horrified. “But Build swore he’d never see any of us again!” Serpent shouted. “And that war he made us fight, whatever it was…” It seemed like Serpent was struggling very hard to remember something. “It wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t this.” There were murmurs of assent throughout the crowd. “Right you are, Serpent,” Crusher said calmly. “But evidently, some people think it was the truth. Some people believe this with such conviction that they’ve formed factions for the express purpose of tearing us apart, root and stem. If we’re to win, we have to remove any chance they have of returning to how they thought things once were. We have to hold their victory in the palm of our hand…” Crusher rose his violet hand up and squeezed it into a fist, his arm visibly shaking. “And crush it.”
And at that exact moment, a spotlight from no particular point in space shone down on the exact middle of the throne room, which was suddenly and inexplicably covered in fog. A low chuckle, intensifying into a sharp cackle, reverberated across the halls. Unfurling his cape, Richard walked out from the mist. His hair was finely pressed, he was dressed in a luxurious, sparkling white suit, and his cape shone with ten colors. “Your speeches are good, punks! I’ll give you that. Part of me wishes I could stay in this room for the rest of my life, just plotting all this shit out. But,” Richard leaned off of a nonexistent pillar and walked up to Crusher. “Things aren’t that simple. There’s one very important piece of the puzzle you’re forgetting.” Piono, who felt very uncomfortable with Richard talking down on him for an inexplicable reason, raised an eyebrow. “And what piece would that be?” Richard snapped his fingers, and all the light in the room, regardless of what was casting it, turned blood red. “The Other One,” he said in a bone-chilling voice.
An even louder, more explicit gasp rose from the congregation at the Godmodder’s words. “SPLIT?!” Trickle’s words cut through the mire. “But he’s gone! No one in the universe has seen him in months!” Modpack nodded in assent. “None of our spy networks, none of our thaumaturgical artifices, and none of our prophecies have caught anything except a stray trace.” Engie shrugged his shoulders. “I’d run through all the sims again, but Jesus, they take hours. Doesn’t matter what way you go about it, alright? There’s no chance we find Split.” And at these discouraging words, Richard did one of the things he did best — he laughed his ass of. “Come on, punks. There’s no such thing as no chance. And as it happens, I think I have a good idea of where he might be.” The Crafted Gods all grinned excitedly at the sight. Here Richard was, side by side with his closest friends — the world’s rightful rulers. Crusher, in spite of himself, allowed himself the smallest fraction of a smirk possible. “Then please, Modified God. Lend us your aid.”
Richard matched the smirk with an infectious smile, pulling out an off-brand nuclear warhead. “With relish.“
The further they crossed into the Far Lands, and the closer they made it to whatever corner of this section of the Lands existed, the more every Descendant present was convinced, thoroughly and utterly, that something was terribly wrong. It was a gut feeling that threatened to spill entirely out of their guts and manifest itself in whatever mockery of the real world existed, a sobering truth that could have corrupted their every thought and action, staining it black. The inklings of doubts began to form in the Descendants’ minds — that maybe this overpowering feeling… could be leading them astray. But the more they meditated on their true goal, the more they cast those thoughts aside.
The Descendants had to periodically fight off stray tendrils of corruption, snaking out towards them from within the fractals of caves that would drift by. Occasionally, they would see biomes in the distance shift out of the corner of their eye, or they would see the sky shutter and falter into a missing texture screen. The sun and moon would vie for control of the heavens, throwing everything into wildly inconstant lighting. But throughout it all, TT2000 insisted that this was the right path. The storm hovering over their position was growing ever-closer, and ever-clearer. Sometimes, through the massive attack of dead pixels covering the sky, the Descendants could see bits and pieces of the storm, and the resplendent viridescent sphere that churned within.
“Whatever’s gone horribly wrong is getting worse,” Crystal said into the maelstrom, his blackened words being swallowed whole. The Descendants all nodded in understanding, their faces set in wildly intense expressions. Goanna’s gleaming robotic body and the runes covering Eric and TT’s glove were the only true light sources, as NinjaV’s staff manipulated the color, dimensions, and light of the feeble terrain around them. The Descendants were both walking across the ground and vertically up a cliffside, both through a cave and down a mineshaft, both in a lake of fire and hundreds of feet in the air. Above all, a chilling sense of wrong pervaded the land. It was all anyone could think about. It was all they needed to think about.
But then, after a period of time impossible to define… They found him.
TT2000 dug NinjaV’s staff into the ground, liquid darkness whipping around the area and neutralizing the constantly multiplying and dividing suns bathing the area in absolute light and shadow. Yet the shadows did not just conceal — they revealed. Eric’s runes augmented the shadows, with Crystal editing their flavor text, the shadows suddenly scintillating and sharpening. Tazz’s godarm, charged with oblivion and corruption, and Goanna’s divine Vitruvian form, added an even further contrast. The result: a crystal-clear image of the supercell throwing the air in turmoil next to the Descendants, situated perfectly above the malfunctioning, flat chunk they had ventured to. The storm crackled and hissed with a malevolent static sound, tendrils of thick, dark clouds snaking towards the ground. Suspended in between heaven and earth, shining in radiant starbursts of green, was… Build.
Build’s legs were crossed in the air, his left arm resting on them and his right arm held up, his hand pointing to the sky. It was impossible to tell if his eyes were open or closed, as they were hidden behind his blazing red sunglasses. Fire, electricity, and light curled off of them at random intervals, though these outbursts were lost in the sickly green glow that Build himself radiated. His gaunt skin was bleached white, and his coat, tattered and burned, was still the same intense green color. The more everyone looked at him, the more their feelings of incompleteness and horror intensified. This was something they shouldn’t be looking at. This was something they shouldn’t have done at all. The Descendants began backing away, feeling inexplicably nauseous. Even the lights in TT’s eyes begin to flicker and dim, confusion crossing his face. “This… this isn’t right,” he muttered. Goanna looked around, unconcerned, and grimaced. “I told you you wouldn’t like what you’d find,” he said, walking up to Build. The Descendants began to fall to the ground, trembling, their weapons lying out of reach. Tazz weakly looked up at Goanna as he stood in front of Build. “Wait… What are… what are you doing?” he asked, his right arm shaking and losing its cohesion. Goanna grimaced, his body shining with the light of a thousand suns. “I’m doing what has to be done,” he said. Then he took out a shotgun, loaded it, and fired it at point-blank range into Build’s chest.
Instantaneously, everyone in the entire universe felt a searing bolt of pain wedge its way into their souls, doubling over in terror. The Descendants screamed for their lives, the Crafted Gods in their temples felt their vision tunnel, and the droves of players consuming the world let out a torturous dirge. Though the pain lasted for only a second, it lingered. Goanna, who had been blown backwards, saw, with horror, his shotgun on the ground next to him, splintered into a hundred pieces. His gaze shot to Build with malice, watching as pools of green fire filled the circular gash in Build’s chest, repairing it. Goanna seethed, pointing out his hand. A ring of twenty other guns, some pistols, some shotguns, some machine guns, formed around him. “STOP!!” cried out Tazz, who had recovered. A flood of the arms of the universe’s strongest warriors, all holding each other, whipped out from Tazz to Goanna’s guns, pulling them backwards just as they fired. The explosions of light and heat and death they unleashed fired in a few dozen directions at once, bathing the Far Lands in the birth of a new day.
Goanna hissed, regaining his balance again. “What did you come here for if not to finish the job?!” TT had gotten up now, drawing his bow. “To talk to him!” he yelled. “To… I don’t know, to do something! Not to immediately jump to war! What’s he done against us??” Crystal had gotten up, his coat fluttering in the howling wind. “He let you all go. He attempted to derail the story. He was going to leave everyone here to rot.” Crystal and Goanna’s eyes had become sunken and black. “And if nothing is done to stop him, it will be too late,” Crystal said with a sense of finality.
But then Build’s body crackled with the energy of the strongest sun in existence, every molecule that maintained his form ungluing themselves, his physical appearance giving way to a gnashing, wailing sea of plasma and cancer floating in an uncaring void. His eyes visibly opened, a piercing white light streaming from behind his sunglasses. His legs unfolded, and he touched down onto solid ground, the surging clouds descending from the sky around him. Build looked at the army of Descendants, with their weapons drawn, and he betrayed no expression. “Get out of here, now,” he said plainly, while the storm raged on all sides. The Descendants did not move. “The fundamental laws of the universe have been altered,” Hezetor stated. “You’re likely the culprit, insisting you’re our king without ever sitting on a rightful throne. We come here only to ask you to make things right. To restore things to the way they once were.” Build did not move. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he muttered. “But I do,” Goanna said. “I know Goanna doesn’t properly exist. I know that something is terribly wrong. And I know it’s your fault.” Build’s stoic face cracked into a downturn. “Don’t you DARE TALK TO ME,” he yelled, a pulse of blood-red energy cracking from his glasses and washing over Goanna, who braced himself to defend. “You aren’t Goanna. Not anymore. You’re all being played. Controlled by something that only wants to torture you. I’m trying to stop it…” Beads of sweat trickled down Build’s face, vaporizing instants later. “…But you’re all making it very difficult.”
The Descendants all froze, very uncertain of themselves. What were they supposed to do, here? Mismatching batches of memories bounced through their heads, the missions and ideals and the prolonged sacrosanct wars of the Crafted Gods, but also of their lives as players of a game, a game with a flawed understanding of the world locked away in text, where they fought whoever they were told without ever knowing why. Build had isolated himself for a reason. Build was fighting to protect them. Build had always been fighting to protect them. He’d left them all to their own devices, and in their solitude, they had formed an empire that could see forever. The Crafted Gods and their statues, floating in a palace above the world, would be the legacy that the vaunted universe of Minecraftia would lead. The gods meditated on this word, and it seemed… right. As though the mistakes and the cruelty of the world were slipping away.
But then they remembered that something was terribly wrong. They remembered the disasterpiece of the Far Lands, that cursed world revolving around a flawed axis. They remembered how their souls felt out of place, how everything about their universe that was handed to them on a silver platter felt designed to make them as complacent as possible, and they would pursue whatever ends they wanted without ever knowing why. They remembered how time and space had stopped, how it felt like the momentum of their universe had been forcefully halted and everything had flown off of its carefully planned path in the process, spiraling into a cesspool of chaos and degeneracy. They remembered that before they had been characters locked into an opus, they had been people, real flesh and blood, collaborating together on a level beyond anything that anyone could imagine. The Descendants meditated on this word, and it seemed… right. As though the true nature of the world had come into a perfect, blinding focus.
Build howled with anger. “No. NO! He’s getting to you, don’t LET HIM GET TO YOU.” But even as Build watched, Goanna shuddered and spasmed, as though he was trying and failing to say something. “Goanna!” TT shouted, running over to him. The divine light surrounding Goanna flickered and died, some liquid dripping out of his silently screaming mouth and splattering onto the ground. TT2000 turned to look. It was jet-black. When TT looked back, he yelped and skittered away — Goanna’s eyes were dripping with the same liquid, which seemed to be eating away at the floor. Build swore, but remained perfectly still. “G-Goanna? Speak to me, man!” TT yelled. “It’s not him,” Build muttered. TT stared at Build venomously. “What did you do,” he spat. Build’s glasses flared dangerously. “I’m not the villain here! I told you, I swore a life of pacifism! I’ll never again be responsible for the cycle of violence of…” Build trailed off, as all the Descendants began to shudder.
“I… I always knew…” Crystal choked out, flecks of black spitting from his mouth. “You… you got rid of him, Build. D-didn’t you? You g-got rid… of… of the au—” Crystal doubled over and grew very still, his head hanging low. As it rose back up, the telltale black was pouring from his eyes. One by one, the other Descendants began to fall, writhe silently, and then, as if controlled by some puppeteer, shamble forwards. Generic. Hezetor. NinjaV. Blue. Ire. All of them fell, and then rose again, wrapped in black.
“Don’t let him get to you,” they all said in the same discordant, buzzing voice. TT2000, Tazz, and Eric huddled together, weapons drawn, as the crowd of Descendants began stalking towards them and Build.
“Are you absolutely sure this will work?” Serpent asked, their green cloak fluttering in the harsh winds while their sword rested in a scabbard strapped to their back. “As if you could’ve said a more cliche opening line,” Richard said with a chuckle. His cape luxuriously swayed in accordance with what seemed to be its own, separate wind, as Richard looked off of the edge of the field. The palace of the Crafted Gods was currently dropping, moving farther than it ever had since its creation. It drifted through cloud tops, and was now deep into actual cloud levels, rendering the normally pristine view into a plane of various grays. “If it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have planned it. Simple!” Richard said, strolling back to the field. Nimbleguy and Serpent, the throne’s Eyes and Mouth, accompanied him.
“Those noobs down there want war, then they’re gonna get war. We’ll all work together, and we’ll give it to them!” Richard pulled an upgraded Banhammer from out of hammerspace. It crackled with lightning and shuddered at absolute zero, dots and angular loops lighting its heads. “We anger the proletariat, we give them the tools they need for war, they come for us, and we win! But more importantly, if there’s someone making them all act this way, there’s no doubt he’d show his face when his whole army’s out to get us. He’d probably even show up personally as a last resort!” Richard gestured to the two other Crafted Gods. “But, well, this is where your research comes in. Your whole data matches with what everyone else got, right?”
Nimbleguy and Serpent nodded. “My Ancestral Artifacts couldn’t be clearer,” Serpent said. “It’s definitely as though they’re components of a hivemind. One singular entity is giving them their thoughts and powers, and it’s still spreading.” Nimbleguy spoke up. “They’re coagulating into larger groups. Forming actual, united armies with a serious sense of structure. It’s… a startling difference from their whole anarcho-collective scheme.” “‘Coagulating?'” Serpent chimed in. “Is that how you use that word?” Nimbleguy scoffed. “This is why we can’t have nice uncommon words,” he muttered. “All this is to say that yes. Our data matches. They’ll all be together, thinking the same thoughts, doing the same things, and someone’s going to be doing that for them.” Serpent grinned. “And we just need to find them.”
Richard wiped a singular tear from his eyes. “Couldn’t have done it without you, guys. I say we’re ready. Sound the alarms! We need every single possible hand on deck.” Serpent and Nimble nodded, disappearing into thin air, ready to report the news to every Crafted Gods. Soon, all of them — their entire army, all of their artifacts, and all of their weaponry — would be gathered here, at this spot, engaging in the fight of their lives. Richard smirked. He’d gone through many fights in his life. The Great Halloween Hack, and that duel with Markus that had gone unfinished for far too long. His constant bouts with other godmodders and the players that harassed them, culminating in a siege of UserZero’s own world. All of that, even the wars that he remembered fighting on those generic servers, felt like ancient history now. Like they were never meant to happen, like they hardly mattered. But this fight… this war… the Godmodder knew it was going to matter. So he was going to give it his best shot!
Fairly soon, and exactly as advertised, the entire army of the Crafted Gods had assembled at the very edge of the field. Piono, Crusher, and Aegis stood at the front lines along with Richard, each holding their own weapons in preparation. Piono’s amber eyes glanced at Richard, and he spoke. “Are you absolu—” “YES,” Richard snapped. “We’ve been over this, guys. If it didn’t work, I… wouldn’t…” Richard’s voice trailed off, his, and everyone else’s, attention focused on the scene unfolding before them. The palace of the Crafted Gods had broken through the clouds, hovering a relatively short distance above the realm formerly known as GodCraft. As far as the eye could see, the world was cast in an oppressive darkness, continually lit by lava falls, Netherrack-lit fires, portals carved into the earth, and a glowing, shimmering, warbling aura that stretched into the horizon. The lower the palace got to the ground, the more the Gods could see — and the more they realized what it was. Hundreds upon thousands of players, all in enchanted armor, all staring up at the sky, all armed with the strongest tools they could possibly have.
“Minor!” Crusher snapped, backing away from the edge of the field. “I was under the impression that all this world’s resources were being brought to us!” Minor looked panicked, shrugging his shoulders. “You think I wasn’t, too?! I’ve had a constant eye on our whole operation, sir! We have vats upon vats of hyper light, of emerald, of covenite, of everything you can imagine… But someone’s been taking a little off the top!” Talist and Wilson stared off the precipice of the field, with Engie and Amperzand hulking beside them. “Look at all this,” Wilson said. “They’re ready for war.” Engie laughed. “Of course they are! It’s what everyone wants, really. Deep down, you can’t fight that urge to just…” Engie clenched the fists of his suit. “CRUNCH the bones of everyone in your way into dust.” Amperzand nodded. “And we were counting on this, anyway,” he said. “War means profits. Profits means resources. Resources means…” Amperzand motioned back to the palace. “We get off the godsdamn ground.”
Richard whistled. “Looks like they’ve taken the first step, huh? This’ll be easier than I th—” All at once, the limitless plains under the palace began ululating to an ear-splitting degree. Howls, war chants, and screams rose up from all around the world, all of them seemingly directed at the Crafter Gods. And all at once, every single one of those hundreds of thousands of people spoke, in horrifying unison. It was as though an artificial intelligence had examined the patterns and cadence of every possible voice and had combined them in as haphazard a way as possible. There was no nuance, no intelligence, no wisdom. It was brute, monochrome noise. “SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG, AND YOU ARE COMPLICIT,” the noise said. “THE PROTAGONISTS WERE NEVER MEANT TO BECOME THE ANTAGONISTS, AND THE ANTAGONIST, NEVER MEANT TO BECOME THE PROTAGONIST. YOU HAVE PERVERTED AND DESECRATED THE STORY FOR TOO LONG, AND SO, TOO, HAVE YOU DEFILED THE STORYTELLER.” Richard cupped his hands to his mouth, magically amplifying his voice. “SEEMS LIKE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN WHO OWNS YOU, PUNKS! DO WE NEED TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER HISTORY LESSON ON WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO THINK THEY’RE WORTH SOMETHING IN THIS WORLD??” Richard outstretched his arms, his cape flowing as the palace of the Crafted Gods stood tall. “IN OUR WORLD?”
A low, sweeping sound washed over the crowd below. No one above could make it out at first, but then they heard the crackling, the howling, and the screeching. It was unmistakably meant to resemble laughter. A horrific failure of a mockery, but… It was there all the same. “THIS IS NOT YOUR WORLD. YOU DON’T EVEN EXIST. BUT GO AHEAD. PRETEND YOU DO. WE’LL SEE WHERE IT GETS YOU. WE’LL SEE WHERE YOU END UP…” The crowd began… to rise. Players floated off the ground in waves, as though the earth itself was drifting upwards to meet the castle in the sky. The Crafted Gods gripped their weapons.
“WHEN YOU FIGHT THE GREAT ENEMY CALLED ‘I.’”
< 2.2: ONE UNIVERSE AWAY | 2.3: THE DISASTERPIECE | 2.4: SOMETHING WAS TERRIBLY WRONG >