That's rehearsed. What a succinct pitch-- and a pretty reasonable mechanic, too. But if you don't die to a player, the heart's just lost? That's what the crafting's for. Okay. More rules than 2b, but that's true everywhere.

Ordinary players, though, cannot whitelist people. Bacon doesn't know this, and doesn't know Spoke is... op'd, or admin, or something. That's not something to bring up in polite company for sure, even less-so than the totem autofeed. Something is up, here. He turns to Spoke, claps his normal hand against the armor on his thigh, keeping friendly. "So, if you whitelisted me: how long am I staying? I'm your guest."

Thank you, Fit, for not calling him on that one.

"As long as you want to stay, my friend. Unless you get banned, but I assume you're not planning on that."

"Oh, not at all," he confirms, an edge of competitiveness sharpening itself with just the thought. "I'm sure a lotta people would love to have killin' me on their resume, though. Can I count on you?"

"Course you can." He means it, too, and only mostly because Fit could snitch on him to Parrot. "Bacon's on three hearts, by the way, you don't have to worry about him."

Sigh. "Five right now, actually." (He checks his inventory--he's got some fight supplies, if they decide to jump him about it, but definitely not enough to win a 2v1, even putting aside the heart disadvantage and the skill differential. Oh well, he knew when he came to spawn that he might die here. Worst comes to worst, he can let Poopies out and then try to escape in the chaos.)

Good to know. "Well, that makes me feel better." (For what it's worth, he doesn't feel like the killing type. Not right now, anyways.) "Alright! Now I've, uh, gotten the tutorial-- what's next?"

Hm. He could make a nomad hut, if he gets the obsidian. Fish, once the carrots run out, if they run out-- leeching on Spoke might be the most beneficial, even though that kindness is bound to run out eventually. Temporary alliances also mean he can't go out and kill indiscriminately. Bacon is spared.

"Whatever you want to do, really. It's your first day, after all."

Bacon checks his communicator. "Planet wants to talk, I should probably go." To Fit: "Feel free to whisper if you need anything."

"Will do, my friend. Take it easy."

(You always gotta hit 'em with the catchphrase.)

"Uh, Spoke. Let's check out..." He scans the skyline for a moment-- for the most part, the builds here seem pretty nice. Different design stylings, for sure. But that weird, nine-spoked water thing seems, at least, a little reasonable. "...Tell me about that one," Fit asks, a little mechanical point up at it. "How's it work?"

“That? Mapicc and Ro built it after they found the plugin glitch. The water streams keep pearls or gaps circulating through it. Like Bacon said—or, uh, implied—it’s a pretty good lag machine. It mostly doesn’t get used, though, just stands there and looks cool. They were being all—ohhh, look at us, we’re Leviathan, we control the server—and then they didn’t really do anything with it ‘cause Ro had some stuff to do off-server.”

"You hate to see it." A moment passes. "Stuff to do off-server, not the-- y'know. It looks fun. Wouldn't the items just despawn in five minutes, though? And then you'd just have to pump in more..."

Is Bacon gone?

“Five minutes is more than enough time to kill someone who’s lagged out. But also—okay, let me show you how it works.”

He puts down his enderchest and fiddles with his inventory and then he is spraying enderpearls, like a fountain, and the sun stutters on the horizon and Fit can’t move and everything is frozen, the sun and Fit and Spoke and even Poopies wiggling in the boat, a single moment preserved.

The world starts moving again a few seconds later; Spoke’s in a slightly different place, and there’s fire on the ground where there were once enderpearls. He picks his ender chest back up.  

“You just have someone doing that into it.”

Bacon is, indeed, gone; he left through the nether portal. 

Oh.

Oh.

Fit stands there, in awe fear awe, and also because he is stuck there. It's... uniquely terrifying, but it's not like he hasn't seen it before. Lag spikes are common, lag machines less-so (now that the ever-ephemeral Hause has cracked down, couple years back), but it's not novel. Just a little startling.

Anyways, Bacon is gone. It's just Fit and Spoke, now.

"So, you've for sure got op, right?"

Another grin. Fit's awesome. Admittedly, the whitelist was probably a bit of a giveaway. "Hey, you don't know that. I could be working with Parrot to make you think I do. Could be all sorts of things. Care for a walk?" Subtext: this isn't the sort of conversation to be having at spawn, even with everyone gone.

"Right, right." Can't have discussions about server security just at spawn, right? Any spawnpoint-less ol' schmuck could respawn in. "Lead the way, my friend!"

Spoke is absolutely not close enough to Fit to show him any hidden bases, known bases have some of the same problem as spawn, and he’s pretty sure Bacon’s on the nether roof right now. He picks a direction at random and starts walking.

When he deems they’re far enough out: “What did you want to ask me, again?”

Fit, while he's led, looks out more at the remnants of player activity than he does Spoke. Creeper hole here, chopped-down tree there-- some stuff from the early days, some stuff from the later days. (On 2b, this close, everything would still be wiped out. Odd juxtaposition, huh?)

Right. "You're op'd," Fit states, laid-back but not any less accusatory. "Bacon brought up... Parrot, right? Said he's the guy banning people when they break the rules. So you can't be the server owner if he is. You're an undercover admin, maybe?"

“Parrot’s the server owner, yeah. But you’re still not considering all the options. Even the console doesn’t say who whitelisted you—if you had console access to check, which you don’t. You know I’m the one who reached out to you, that I claimed credit for it, and that I lied to Bacon about how whitelisting works. No actual evidence it was me, just circumstantial. Could be teamed with Parrot in secret. Could be teamed with a different undercover admin who doesn’t want their name associated. Or, yeah, could be op’d. Who can say? The tell-all isn’t until the wormhole opens. Gotta keep some secrets until then.”

This is a mystery. A puzzle, an unfolding story. Usually, Fit gets to these after they happen-- after the smoke clears. Hell, sometimes he's asked to cover things after they've happened, because nobody can resist the notoriety. The mission gets more interesting by the second, huh?

But either way, thinking about things isn't gonna make them happen. He needs something more substantial; Spoke is right, anyone could've whitelisted him. How about... "Well, what about your totems? Didn't exactly see you passing them from mainhand to offhand, dealing with Poopies." (He hopes someone out there is getting a laugh about him saying Poopies with the amount of strength and gravitas he gives every word. It makes him feel silly as hell.)

Spoke does an exaggerated gasp and clutches his chest in mock offense. “Didn’t you hear Bacon, hacks are very illegal here.” He pauses, tilts his head. “Are you planning on telling Parrot? Be honest with me now.”

So it's funneling. Again, popular choice! And it's not flashy like flyhacks or anything like that, it's pure utility. A closer look reveals the cards at play, but if you do it right, if you do it smart, not many people notice.


Fit spreads his hands up and wide, like he's trying to assure Spoke, all "no weapons, officer"-- and, with a precise whir of the joints his mechanical arm's seated on, Spoke can see the communicator embedded right into Fit's prosthetic forearm, see the unopened dropdowns that, of course, betray the configuration windows of a hack client. "I might," he says, sarcasm thick. "I'm very straight-laced, Spoke. I would never do anything illegal."

Spoke claps once, clearly delighted. "That is exactly what I like to hear, Fit. Nothing illegal here, no sir."

"We're by the books, here on Lifesteal. I have never even heard of anarchy. I love rules."

He gives an assuring nod, drops his arms back down to his sides. Fit's still... pretty sure something is up with Spoke-- how'd he get the god potions, if not some sort of exploit, or backdoor, or administrative abuse-- but he's not going to get anywhere from asking Spoke directly. But then again, people love to brag about their accomplishments. We'll see if he bites at this one: "Care to give me a lead about the wormhole, then? Seems pretty important."

Another rehearsed-sounding line: "In two months, the wormhole will open. No one is ready for it." And then, less rehearsed: "You're actually the first person I've told about it. Well, arguably. You're definitely the first person not on my team who I've told. So you've already got more of a lead than the rest of them." He hums a little. "Actually, for what you gave me just now, I'll give you something that everyone else does already know: the bedrock at spawn, that was me. Well, me and Ash."

Alright. Spoke just seems to enjoy dramatics. Can't complain. The big reveal, that's sacred.

"So I'm not on your team?" No hard feelings, but it's fun to poke, anyways. "Suggest I strike out on my own, then?"

(To-do list grows. Talk to Parrot and Ash, for sure.)