SpokeIsHere

Spoke really did set up his own demise, huh. Wrapped himself in a web of fine-tuned lies, the strings slowly grinding against his own skin and ripping it. At first, he'd leaned into it. Enjoyed the benefits of lying, of keeping everyone and himself safe from the biting dread of the truth, cut off what little vines of reality dared stay withing his own paragon of faux truth. Then the strings got tighter, and he couldn't get out no matter how hard he tried. If he did get out, if he did let the stems of the sharp roses dig into his throat as he finally let the truth spill, tears welling in his eyes - Mapicc would leave him. Jumper would leave him. Everyone would leave him. And he'd be alone, swallowing back his own blood, letting the soft strings of failed lies doused with the truth fall as the darkness set in. It's his fate, and it has been from the beginning. That's why he kept lying, that's why he'd kept everything to himself, that's why he smiled as if it were fine, as if all that came out of his mouth was for their own good.

Spoke's lie about Jamato's death was exposed when Jamato himself showed up, calmly walking up to Spoke, Mapicc and Jumper. Mapicc questioned it at first, yet Jamato brushes him off, saying there are bigger things to worry about at the moment, that being NULL and the missing players. With a graciousness that scared Spoke, Jamato gave everyone gear. Spoke knew Jamato was up to no good, even when he was helping them all. And he was right.

Opening his shulker, he saw it full of good stuff. Amongst it all, burried deep under the gear and food, there was a book. The title was scratched onto the front carelessly, that being Spoke's name. He held his breath, despite his lungs already burning from the previous chases he'd been through. Of course... Jamato threatened Spoke, telling him that he'll never find the players and that Mapicc and Jumper will turn on him, and that if he tries anything, Jamato would reveal everything and put an end to it all.

Spoke is unsure as to why exactly Jamato would be interested in threatening him at all, yet he noticed that Jamato made a crutial mistake. There, on the back of the book, it was signed. And it was signed JamatoP. Ah, amateur mistakes. Now Spoke could just tell Mapicc and Jumper, expose Jamato, and leave Jamato behind. It'd be for the better. Jamato just couldn't let go of past mistakes, holding onto them as if the things that haunted Spoke were his greatest treasures, the only things keeping him breathing.

Yet when Spoke asked Mapicc and Jumper to stay behind, and that he wanted to show them something. He was just about to hand them the book, show them what Jamato planned to do, expose him before he exposed him, before Jamato took away the only friends Spoke has, the only people he trusts. Yet, of course, Spoke dropped the book, and Jamato was the one to pick it up, a soft, pleasant smile on his face as he quickly switched the book with another one, and handed it to Jumper and Mapicc. After opening it up, the book was handed back to Spoke, and he read what was inside. Of course, of course he had to mess this up..! Now he couldn't prove that Jamato was up to no good, of course...

He sighed, and followed Jamato and the others up the stairs again. Before that, though, he stays behind for a second longer to burn the book. Accidentally, Spoke stumbles upon another book. He opens it, skimming through the contents. He realizes that all this time, Jamato was keeping track of EVERYTHING Spoke was doing. Spoke burns that book, as well. Then Spoke speaks up about how going back up the stairs would mean losing all their progress, since he, Mapicc and Jumper had worked so hard to even get this far, plus it took them so much time to go down these stupid stairs...

Jumper agrees, questioning Jamato, to which he calmly replies that they're moving forward. After making the journey up the stairs, they emerge in a new biome. Not the one that they had entered the stairway from, no, but a completely new one. A terrain of grass spike-like terrain with bridges built across each from each other, and hundreds of villager houses cover the floor appear right before their eyes. Mapicc wonders which bridge they should take, since there were probably thousands of them out here. Jamato offers to take the group to a secret back way to find NULL, since without finding NULL, they wouldn't be able to find the missing players either.

Spoke intervenes, saying that they should try to get a bigger group together, because NULL had thousands of players to throw at them, and they're just four people. They'd be outnumbered in any fight, as they had been many previous times, only being able to get out of sticky situations because of quick thinking and using the surrounding terrain to their advantage. Jamato says the numbers don't mean anything, since they wouldn't be fighting anyway. Jumper jumps in and is on Jamato's side, believing they're getting closer. Spoke says it'll take time, but if this is their only hope, then he isn't willing to take that chance and decides to head north by himself. Mapicc is willing to follow Spoke, as he always is, Jumper sounds unsure, and Jamato agrees to go with whatever plan Spoke has, telling him he's making a mistake under his breath, the words laced with a bitter edge. North they go!

Spoke was curious to see what Jamato was willing to do to turn them back, but just as he has that thought, a Nether portal appears on the pillar right in front of them, the familiar purple particles clouding the air around the obsidian. Thee group uses water to go downwards and try to keep heading north, but more portals appear, more of those stupid NULL people walk out, which makes Spoke blow the bridges up to dodge them. The NULL hunters chase after them and they're forced to either fight them or knock them down. Although Jumper and Jamato think it's risky to keep going north, Spoke decides to keep on going and head towards the hunters and fight. They fend off the hunters and Spoke breaks their portal, Spoke starts bridging towards a new pillar as the NULL hunters wait on top for them. Spoke pearls onto a bridge nearby, the hunters catch up and get him down to half a heart. The other three kill off a few more hunters, giving some time to traverse. More hunters show up, Spoke and Mapicc use knockback swords to knock the hunters off and kill them.

Eventually, they find a new biome and they bridge towards it. As they enter Jamato tells them it's still not too late to turn back, trying to coo the group into believing that they don't have to cross back on the bridges, needing to instead head the right way. Mapicc says he recognizes this group because Revenant says a rainbow forest has a group of stacked players. Mapicc asks Jamato if he's been around here, in which he says he hasn't. Spoke is uncertain what Jamato even wanted, at one moment he uses his group to turn them back, and the next he's okay with following them. Little did the both of them know, they were headed towards a trap. They go deeper into the biome and find a player towering up a tree, Mapicc wind charges him off and they clutch. They try to ask the player, chromesanctuary, questions, but they don't have a mic and they start running, and they follow him.

A piston fall trap gets pulled, Chrome asks what they're doing in their biome, Spoke tries to convince them they're good and that they're trying to work with them. Chrome doesn't believe him when he has full netherite and a Null shield. He then says they'll let them talk to their leader, and Spoke says he can try and explain what they're trying to do with the leader. Jamato says they'll take off their gear in order for to gain the Rainbow Forest's group's trust. The players let them out and lead them back to the surface, Spoke tries to tell them he's trying to save them, but Chrome says they love the Farlands and getting rich.

They reach the leader of the group, DylPickle, who welcomes them to Pickletopia. He makes his group give them space and asks what they're here for. Jumper says they were taken by force, but asks for any gear if he has any, which he says all their gear is taken up. Chrome asks why he was willing to give them gear, and DylPickle tells him he sees they're good people by their vibes and puts Chrome in a cage. He says all the gear here is taken up, but there's a secret place with gear that he forgot where it was located, and so he gives Spoke a lodestone compass that leads to it.

They begin their adventure towards the stash, Spoke suggests getting the gear and coming back to camp to gather them all together to head into the Nether to fight NULL head on. While walking, Spoke thinks to himself, silently questioning what Jamato is trying to do and tries to figure out what his next play is, although of course nothing is that simple, not with Jamato anyway. Everything is difficult with him, you'd have to tear out your own mind into a bloody mess just to understand what he wants from you.

As they go deeper in the biome, more and more ravagers spawn, their armor begins to break, so they tower up. They come up with the idea to use lava to kill the ravagers, which works wonderfully, and so they set off to find the stash. The compass starts to loop around, signifying that the stash is just under where the group is, and Spoke digs around while the other three distract the ravagers.

Eventually Spoke manages to find a ladder, telling the others that he's going down first to check if it was legit, and then if it is, he'd go back up and get them. As he descends and finds a low of chests, he opens one, and he finds diamonds, golden apples, and enchanted books, and so he goes up to tell the rest of them to come down with him. As they go back down, the whole stash is cleared, no chests or ore blocks left. Spoke could swear on his own life that they were there just a moment ago, just a few seconds ago..!

He begins to dig around, destroying the surrounding walls, trying to find anything, something to figure out where all the loot went, to figure out what the hell happened while he was out there for just a few seconds. Tearing down a painting, Spoke finds a pathway behind the torn paper, and begins to sprint through the tiny space, the others following him suit. Eventually, the NULL hunters come into view, and they realize it was NULL who robbed them in the first place.

They follow and dig to the hunters and begin attacking them, successfully being able to take one down. Searching through their pockets and inventory, it shows no sign of the NULL hunter taking anything from the vault. Spoke gets infuriated at the fact that NULL took it all and possibly followed them underneath all along and thinks something is fishy. He points out that Jamato hadn't fought the whole time and was watching. They mine out and say they're dead if they ever come across Dylan again, so they just don't go back to his camp without all his gear.

They dodge the rest of the ravagers and reach the edge of the biome, entering a mythical forest biome. They try to mend their armour with the little amount of sculk blocks around, but either it's not enough or they don't have mending on their armour. Jumper spots a river from afar, Spoke tries to make a boat from the nether wood out of the forest's trees before realizing that it's impossible to make a boat out of nether wood, but Jamato had some leftover wood in his inventory and made them two boats, making everyone share.

The four of them sail through the river, Spoke goes silent again and begins to think. He doesn't know what Jamato's game plan is still, no matter what he does, he can't get away from Jamato. It's as if Spoke is a tiny bright flame and Jamato is a moth, hovering over Spoke all the time like that. He thinks killing Jamato is the only way to stop him, but doesn't have a way of how. He'll take whatever he can get, to be honest. Jumper spots a village nearby, Spoke suggests taking off any NULL-related gear they have and have Jumper be the one to talk to them without striking as a threat. The leader of the village, CookieBunsquat, welcomes them and mentions that if they came through the sand biome, they wouldn't have made it out alive. Spoke says that it was all Dylan's fault, and Cookie says to never trust him since he just wants everyone dead. Cookie slowly walks closer to Jumper and says she used to be one of her spies. Cookie takes a look at Spoke and says he looks familiar, too, and remembers that they have a file on him.

Spoke brushes that aside and asks for help and for food, Cookie leads them to their wheat farm. Spoke says they were misleading them a little bit and tells her their mission is to save the missing players from NULL. She's willing to help out and gives them basic necessities. Jamato asks if she has an anvil somewhere and she leads him into her house. Spoke watches, and his heart begins to race for a second. If he could just catch Jamato off guard, if he could kill him while his armour is off- everything will be fine. Jamato wouldn't be there anymore, and Spoke could stop worrying about Jamato ruining everything.

Spoke excuses himself, saying that he wants to go mine some sculk to mend his armour and walks off behind the house where Jamato is in at the moment. He goes out of distance from everybody else and gets an invis potion from his ender chest, he walks up to the window and spies on Jamato. He watches as Jamato takes off his armour pieces, one by one... He gets the idea of killing Jamato right then and there, as he sees that Jamato isn't holding a totem out either. Spoke thinks it's now or never, so he runs back to the group and mines an ender chest for the obsidian. He creates a nether portal, lighting it up and putting on the NULL armour, pretending to be a hunter.

He digs into the house from below and waits right behind Jamato. As soon as Jamato takes off his chestplate, Spoke pots with strength and crits him out, Jamato pulls out a totem at the last second and stasises out, leaving Spoke with the fading green and yellow particles. Jumper and Mapicc see Spoke and believe NULL is there, they crit out Spoke and the rest of the village comes to kill who they believe is a NULL hunter. Spoke pearls out the window and tons of Nether portals begin spawning all over the village. Jumper goes to assist Cookie in the village, leaving Mapicc and Spoke alone to fight.

Spoke knows he needs to run. He can't have Mapicc find out that it was him. And, on top of that, Spoke can't even fight Mapicc. Regarding PvP, Mapicc is stronger than Spoke. But unluckily for Spoke, Mapicc is determined to catch up, following him and fighting him. Now Spoke has to worry about two things: NOT having Mapicc find out who Spoke really is, and not accidentally killing Mapicc. As the chase goes on, both of their armour begins to break, pieces falling to the ground one by one.

Spoke jumps into a huge cave, he tries to riptide trident away using the water around him, but Mapicc is still able to catch up. With a minute left, he doesn't have enough time to run and hide his identity, and unfortunately for him, Mapicc pops his totem, which gets rid of his invisibility. Spoke feels as the dread fills him from the inside. Spoke panics, yet tries to keep his composure. He can convince Mapicc, he can talk this out. Everything will be fine, in the end. It always has been...

Spoke tells Mapicc there's a lot he doesn't understand, Mapicc asks Spoke if he's insane and tells him that Jumper was captured because of him. Even with the guilt on his shoulders, Spoke asks Mapicc if he understands that Jamato is the leader of NULL and that Jamato blackmailed Spoke since the very start. Mapicc says that he's lost it and is ludicrous, that he's the reason why they lost all their allies. Spoke still tries to convince Mapicc, trying to hold back the tears threatening to come out. He says they need to make a portal and save Jumper, but Mapicc says he's not going with him and that Spoke can go take on NULL with half his armour by himself.

Spoke loses his composure, yelling at Mapicc, who's walking away at this point, that this is exactly what Jamato wanted and that him and Jumper only follow orders and that's all they do on the server. Spoke is defeated, he doesn't know how else to explain it to Mapicc, he tells himself there's still a chance to win. With no food and millions of blocks out, there can't be anything worse than now. Spoke turns back, walking the other way as he begins to reminisce about old adventures he had with Mapicc on the server: blowing up farms, being hunted by the Invisible Mafia, he didn't think it could get any worse.

He comes across a dead end in the cave and looks up to a crack. He builds upwards and finds himself inside a maze full of moss. Spoke begins speaking to no one, telling Jamato to bring his guards to take all his gear and everything, he then thinks about how he could've rallied up Parrot's guards, going to Planet, to Dylan, to Cookie, to create an army of his own. He begins to realize he's going to the be the last person to know about these players, he starts to blame himself that these missing players are going to be missing forever.

If only Spoke had been smarter, maybe then Mapicc would still be by his side. Maybe then he wouldn't even be here. Maybe then, he'd still be at spawn, trolling and griefing other people while giggling, his best friend by his side... He'd brought his own demise to himself, didn't he?

His vision begins to go blurry at the edges from both the exhaustion and the impending hunger. That's right... It's all his fault. He's stuck here, starving, restless, all because of his own choices, because of his own empire of lies finally crumbling and crushing him along with itself. A creature of deceit, sitting in his throne, as his surroudings fall and take him, while his loyal, misguided subjects get to escape... What an idiot.

As he keeps himself locked in his mind with those thoughts, everything begins to intensify. He keeps repeating to himself, mumbling crazed whispers that it's his fault, that if it weren't for him... His mind is betraying him, the panic, the anxiety, the paranoia... Jamato and his guards will probably come here. They'll probably kill him, and then Mapicc and everyone else'll be stuck here forever, and it'll be all HIS fault.

Spoke's footsteps begin to slow as he leans onto the stone walls to support himself, the cracks filled with moss and greenery so alive it almost feels mocking to him. His breaths become shorter, and his legs finally give out, shaking too hard to keep going. He slides down to the ground, back against the cold stone, as he gets consumed deeper and deeper into his own thoughts, like a trap he set up for himself but had no idea how to get out of.

Spoke finally lets the tears out, sobbing while mumbling to himself, not even trying to retain any composure anymore. He's got no idea what to do anymore... He burries his face in his knees as he pulls them to his chest, hugging himself as tightly as he could. If he didn't mess up, if he didn't lie, then maybe it would be Mapicc here, comforting him.

Spoke hears footsteps approaching, but he couldn't care less. If it was a NULL hunter, or even Jamato himself, he didn't care enough to look up. He genuinely didn't care if he got killed right here or not, since his life is essentially over anyway. There's no way he could get himself out of this situation, not even if he tried...

"Haa..haha..." Spoke breathes out the laughter as he grips his hair, pulling at the strands. He had to do something with his hands, somehow occupy himself with something. He knew he was hurting himself, but it was the only way he could keep himself relatively grounded. "It's all my fault.. haha...ahah..." Spoke continues crying out the words softly to himself, even as the footsteps approach.