"We're excited to have you!"

"So was that all you were calling about, orrrr..."

"...Eh. I've gotten all I wanted," or, maybe; I'm taking the blank spaces as its own set of information, "Though I am already trying to network. Meet people, learn faces, learn voices and names. Laying out roots."

"--Oh, I didn't introduce myself, did I? I'm Vitalasy. Nice to meet you."

"I was gonna ask!" He laughs. "Nice to meet you, Vitalasy. I'm Fit. Also nice to meet Subz and Zam-- I've actually heard a little about you, Zam, but not much of Subz." This, ladies and gentlemen, is maybe bait.

"I don't do that much, honestly. Uh, I used to be a pacifist but I was really bad at it. I built half of spawn, that was cool."

"Wait, you've heard about me?"

"Spawn does look good." Actually, maybe that's not much from the 2b guy. "I've heard a little," he says, and he's low-balling, but not by much. "After the fight, I'd asked Mapicc why he was fighting you. I was actually wondering if I could get your side of the story, on that?"

Smooth.

"Oh. I, um."

Wow, it is so awkward to talk about why he left Team Awesome with Vitalasy in the call. Vitalasy who has a bedrock farm. Vitalasy who showed him a shulker of bedrock and wanted to build a prison with it.

"I, um, I left their team? And Mapicc didn't like that very much. So they killed me a lot about that. And then they claimed spawn even though Subz built most of it and I built the rest, and Subz challenged them, and it was really awesome and inspiring so I challenged them too and then they almost banned me and I didn't have anyone and I was on one heart so I went to Subz and he took me in and helped me and gave me hearts and gear and a team and it was awesome and we started actually winning against them sometimes instead of just them doing whatever they wanted with me. I owe Eclipse Federation everything."

It's true. He just has to--remember that.

1) Left their team. Not betrayed. He guesses a betrayer wouldn't call it betraying, maybe.
2) Starting to get the feeling Zam likes Subz.
3) Getting down to one heart is real, and he imagines it's terrifying.

Overall: he's lightened his hand on his opinion of Zam. A betrayer's a betrayer, but... the dude just sounds young. Not a lot without his partners. His cards are so on-his-sleeve it's impressive.

But he still doesn't say betray. Ah, well. "Impressive you're still around," he says. Anyone on 2b would've ground this guy into dust, on one heart. "And that's basically what I heard." Fit is not going to be cruel to Zam, especially because his other two teammates are in call at the same time. There is a large part of him that wants to compliment Zam on the aesthetics of his castle. Thankfully, he has self-control. "Just trying to get all the sides of the story."

"Of course. Yeah. Um, if you have any more questions you can ask us? I think? You can ask me, anyway, I shouldn't speak for everyone else, but I don't see why not."

"I appreciate it." Because he does! Zam and Ro both seem pretty-confidently ask whenever. Maybe because they have something to pedal, but that's fine by him, he's worked off of less reliable sources. "I'll call again when something comes up. Thank you for this, really. Very enlightening!"

There's a chorus of "thank you"s from Eclipse Federation, and then "bye"s, and then the call ends.

Woof. Okay. Time to update his mental map.

It's, at least, Leviathan versus Eclipse. It's interpersonal, and interesting, something he can really sink his teeth into. Dupes, break-ups, betrayals-- it's got all the trappings of a good story, a good video. Fit's played this type of game. It's higher stakes, here, slower burn given the timescale Ro's given him. 

...Increasingly, though, Spoke being like that is bugging him. It's not quite bugging, actually, but it feels like it shouldn't be a thing to ignore at all, even if he's balancing everything else at the same time. Spoke has op. He's not calling it full-backdoor, not yet, but even with Eclipse removing every single end portal and Leviathan finding out how to stop time, those are realistic. Insane, granular, intimidating, but realistic. Whitelisting people is not. Making weird, immortal endermites is not. Having bedrock is not. He should really talk to Parrot. He'd like to talk to Ash, and he'd certainly like to talk to Spoke, but he'd love to talk to Parrot.

But what about? He doesn't feel like he has the full story yet. For everything he's gotten about Leviathan and Eclipse, all I want to make Lifesteal a better place and phase one of five, there's maddeningly little on the Wormhole. And he's not actually sure how much he can plumb out of Spoke, either, with these cards in his hands. As much as he'd like to talk to Spoke, it might just be retreading old ground.

Eh. He can message the guy, at least. He does have a burning question.

FitMC whispers to SpokeIsHere: Legend has it someone found a dupe glitch?

SpokeIsHere whispers to FitMC: vc?

These boys and their verbal communication.

FitMC whispers to SpokeIsHere: Sure

It's Fit who starts the call. As soon as Spoke picks up, he laughs. "Lifesteal's really got it all, huh?"

"We do, we do. The legends are true, my friend."

"Well, come on," he says. Doesn't tack on so is your WHOLE thing being ominous for future reveals. He's not desperate, for this information, just incredibly intrigued. "How'd Leviathan do it? How'd it work?"

"When you get banned, you drop your inventory. When you get revived, you come back with that same inventory. Or, did, before they patched it."

...Hm. He's not going to say that doesn't take the wind out of his sails. "That's dramatic," he notes. Being patched isn't so bad-- 2b's bounced back from that plenty of times. "How long was it around? How bad did all the item economy get?"

"Long enough to dupe a few million items. A few weeks, give or take. Most of the stuff got destroyed, but a lot is still floating around."

"Well, that's the thing with dupes, isn't it?" The item economy back on 2b feels like it's choked with kudzu, for Christ's sake.

"So, okay. Was this the first time anyone learned how to dupe on Lifesteal? What happened when people tried to deal with it-- I'm not a betting man, but I know PrinceZam had something to say about it." A breath. "You were already in on it, right? My armor's duped, and you're the one that gave it to me. It could be that you don't know, but with the rest of the stuff you've been tellin' me... you're more involved than you're letting on, Spoke. What's the whole of it?"

"First large-scale item dupe, yeah. There were heart dupes before then, not so much of items. PrinceZam--" Laugh. "That is his armor you're wearing, my friend. He helped us before he left. Main people actually against it at the time were Parrot and Leowook. And yeah, I was in on it. I was the one that got banned for it, actually. Took the fall. Literally. But hey, I'm back now! Two bans later."

He thumbs at the dent mark, dupe-embossed into this chestplate, and Mapicc's chestplate, and so many more. This is why common practice is to dupe at full durability, but he can forgive the Lifestealers on this.

Okay. Zam found the exploit, was unhappy with its use, but by then it was too late. (Why didn't Zam just not say anything? Whatever.) Then it escalated, as anything is want to do: Parrot and Leowook, at least, against Zam and Mapicc and Roshambo and Spoke. The video in his head is shaping up to have a plot, but would be beefed out by talking to the opposition. 

"Good to have you back," he says. Hell, if Spoke wasn't here, Fit wouldn't be here either. He's almost going to ask what getting banned feels like (nine hearts, nine hearts, nine hearts...) but holds off. "Is all of this, eh, old-hat by now? Already ran through the news cycle?" Hm. "No moving parts still in operation to this day?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Uh, I think Leo and Zam are still working on their videos, but me, Parrot, Mapicc, ours are out. I mean, it's patched now, not much left to do there. Mapicc and Ro were going to do more when they still had a bunch of stashes hidden but Zam destroyed enough of them that it wouldn't really be worth it. Obviously there's still some stuff floating around, you're wearing it, but it's distributed, lots of people have stuff, a few extra shulker boxes isn't really dramatic enough to really do something with. Especially next to stopping time. Closest thing to a moving part these days is just the fallout. I mean, apparently you already heard about Zam."