"You've got yourself a deal, my friend."

Alright, don't overthink this. It's an easy plan; put the boat down, play keepaway with his own body. Can't be too hard!

He drops. He takes nearly no damage, because netherite, you love to see it. He places the boat a bit in front of him, shifting his weight between his feet, feeling the adrenaline kick up again. He waits like he's baiting prey... which may be stupid, because whatever Poopies is, it's fast. Ah, well. He dug his grave.

FitMC was slain by poopies

When he respawns, he only has nine hearts.

Well, shit. That was fast-- and Poopies is probably still where he died, so it's not exactly safe to grab his stuff. He'll just... stay over here.

<FitMC> Had a good run, guys

Uh. Hang on. When he respawns, he only has nine hearts. As opposed to ten. What did-- is that something wrong with him? Maybe the hack clients caught up with him, jostled the player code. Either way, he grabs a couple dirt to tower up on, mimicking the greats before him. Nine hearts. Nine hearts?

When he grabs the dirt, he will notice that spawn is a hollow shell: a one-thick layer of dirt over a massive crater.

(In the background, Spoke pops another totem as he tries to lure Poopies away from Fit's stuff.)

And: yep. Nine hearts. No matter how much he checks or double-checks, it's nine hearts.

Yeah, he figured something weird was happening about spawn. Picturesque rolling hills were too good to be true, anyway.

Nine hearts.

He sees totem sparkles-- Spoke's popping them like candy. Nine hearts? Seriously?

<FitMC> Be honest
<FitMC> Did I have a chance?

Nine hearts.

Spoke runs far enough away, Poopies on his tail, that he feels good about yelling back: "YOU CAN GRAB YOUR STUFF NOW!"

Meanwhile, in chat:

<baconnwaffles0> I've gotten him in a boat before, it's definitely possible
<baconnwaffles0> then again I've also seen him run over a boat, so

Spoke gives the okay, and Fit drops off the stubby little pillar and makes a break for it. It's not far, and it's not like any 2b player's unused to dying within minutes near spawn-- y'know, it's normally just environmental hazards that drive the nail in the coffin. It's easy, once he's there, to gear up and pearl back up to the top of the model computer.

One totem, now. Poopies shredded his second and him like cheese. He's not too upset; Spoke must have a stash, somewhere, if he's this okay with using so many. No big deal. Save for, uh... Fit spreads the fingers of his normal hand over his heart like he's trying to push something back in there. It's not quite heartburn, what he's feeling, but it's weird. But he doesn't make a big deal of it-- he just watches Spoke.

Spoke loops back around to the boat now that Fit’s safe. He hasn’t actually popped yet, but—yep, there it is—wow, it’s hard to tell if it got in the boat, given the invis. He keeps running, does another loop just in case before stopping at a safe distance. Yep, there are particles coming from the boat. “There we go. Second time’s the charm, as they say.” Invis is probably running out soon—does he have another? Not on him, he’ll have to grab it from his enderchest if he wants. …His armor durability is almost gone; he starts throwing xp bottles on the ground.

"As they say," Fit repeats wisely. And-- oh, that's why they need the xp! There's no obsidian around, not at spawn, at least; all the big hits to durability are usually end crystals. When in Rome. He's quick to place his shulker box, territorial enough to pick it up as soon as he's got what he needs. He throws his bottles high, lets them crash on his armor. Seemed to need it, too. These guys are sort of on the ball with this.

All done. Good as new. You love to see it. Okay, the last pressing matter, right now, is the fact that he has nine fucking hearts. But how to ask? Maybe... "How are your health bars looking? Y'all need gapples?" (That's good; not anything wrong. Earn your keep, right?)

"I've got a stack, I'm good-- actually." Spoke grins again. "Put some in a chest for me?"

"Don't listen to him, he's trying to crash you."

"Hey!"

"Okay, I've got a stack, I'm good." (How do you crash someone from a chest? Bookbans are shulkers, Chunkbans are chests, and there's only one here.) "Good, good, that's good." (Their healthbars are full, which means Fit is the weird one, right?) "Now how's this crash work?" (Anthropological interest.)

"The plugin doesn't let you have more than a stack but there's a glitch with it that lets you dupe them. Great for lag machines." Meaningful look at the nine-spoked tower, then back at Fit. "Wait, Spoke, does he not know the rules--"

"....No."

"Right. Of course you didn't. Plugin limits you to 16 enderpearls and 64 golden apples, no riptide tridents, no elytra, no crossbow rockets. You can use end crystals to respawn the dragon--well, you could do that, before Eclipse Federation removed the End--and you can use respawn anchors in the nether but you can't use them for combat or Parrot'll ban you. You can't craft hearts past ten. No hack clients, not that that's enforced outside of fights. No combat logging. Uh, no raid farms."

"Aw, no raid farms?"

"It's not a raid farm, it's an efficient raid platform."

"Whatever you say."

He's good at information; he logs the rules away. Seems to favor fair* fights that don't last millennia, okay. A group removed the end, that's not new, though he doubts the "Eclipse Federation" own the server. At least these guys have their heads on straight, finding that plugin dupe. He knows people like these! Parrot, though, does Parrot own the server? Spoke whitelisted him though, right? Weird.

"Craft hearts?" He asks, interview-steady, not a little confused and desperate. Not on nine hearts.

"Did you not--Spoke."

"What!!! I just whitelisted him!!!!!!!"

Bacon glares at Spoke for a solid five seconds until Spoke sighs and gives in.

He straightens himself up again before speaking again.

"Lifesteal is a server where if you die, you lose a heart, but if you kill someone, you gain their heart. If you lose all your hearts, you are banned."

"--You didn't actually--answer his question--uh, redstone blocks around a totem crafts a heart fragment, hearts are four heart fragments and four diamond blocks around a netherite ingot. --Wait, you whitelisted him?"

Shit. Play it cool. "Yeah, it's--remember that time Zam whitelisted Bormetheus? It's not just Parrot that can whitelist people." He laughs a little. Casual. He's being casual, he's making fun of Bacon for not already knowing this. "Little bro didn't even know he could whitelist people."

"...Huh." He doesn't sound fully convinced, but he's considering it, not calling Spoke out. That's good enough for Spoke.