[Sig – 13 years]

"Hey, Lexi!" I greet her as we stop our ships beside each other.

This is a planned meetup between us, but it's "by chance" in the roleplay. I haven't told my viewers that we were meeting up, and I don't think Lexi's told hers. Not everything on the SMP is partially scripted, but some things are.

"Hey, Seb!" She responds. "Looting the seas today?"

"Yup!" I answer.

"Don't go near my team!" She warns. "You've stolen half of them!"

It's been a couple of weeks since the latest batch of new members joined the server, and four of them have joined the pirating ways. They fit right in with the rest of us, though aren't officers. Because of that, they have a separate cove to take their booty to, and we inspect it after. Abby is a part of their group, officially because she failed on her first attempt at joining and so isn't actually an officer. She doesn't know where our head cove is.

Unofficially, she's there as a spy for me, as I suspect that one of them is actually planning on betraying us.

In lore, of course. In reality, none of them are planning on betraying me, I just felt it'd be cool to pretend like I suspect one of them of it.

"Hey!" I laugh. "Just because they feel the Builder-Farmer Alliance is too strict, that doesn't mean I'm stealing them! And it wasn't half! Only four! Half would be four and a half!"

"One of them joining the Fairy Kingdom doesn't count," she snorts. "That just makes him excluded."

One of the new members somehow convinced Xander to let him join the two of them on those islands, and we're not entirely sure how. On the server, no one actually witnessed their encounter, we just know that he disappeared after a few days and when Lexi reached out to see what he was up to, he let her know that he was now "living on an island".

So it's not actually confirmed that he's on the Fairy Islands, but it's suspected that he is. An island could mean he just found an island somewhere rather than a massive cluster of them, but it's logical to suspect Xander's domain when it comes up.

Off-server, we do know that he's on one of Xander's islands. That wasn't really planned to happen, and his response to how he joined them was basically "It just happened". He was originally planning on being a full member of the Builder-Farmer Alliance as a landscaper. The fact that he was already doing stuff with plants a bit is part of why it's "suspected" that he's now in the Fairy Kingdom.

Things really do "just happen" around Xander, though.

Which is a fine example of how not everything on this server is partially-scripted. More than likely, Xander saw him doing some landscaping and asked him for advice, and that led to the new guy moving to the islands.

"Nah," I say. "It just means that he got kidnapped by the fairies and we don't know what he'll be like when he returns."

"Speaking of kidnappings," her voice lowers. "Be on the lookout, Seb. You didn't hear this from me, but one of our members disappeared for a couple of days. When they reappeared, they were… changed."

And into the lore we go!

"Changed?" I ask. "What do you mean?"

"Speaking nonsense," she answers, voice still low. "Incoherent. Nonsense. They were helping me with doing the lighting for the village before but now… they don't even understand how to use torches. And that's just putting them down."

"If it's only one person," I scoff. "Then they probably got lost and huffed something they shouldn't have. They'll be back to normal once it's purged from their system."

"It's not just that, Seb," she says. "It happened to someone else on Friday. They were doing stuff and then vanished on us. They should've been around over the weekend, but weren't. Kyle contacted me earlier and asked me to come over. When I got there, he had them in containment. They were the same way as the other. Excellent guard and now, they think swords are used to hammer. The nonsense is the same, too. And the thing is, they disappeared the same day the other one reappeared. We actually didn't notice they were gone at first because of that."

Keeping their sexes a mystery, huh? She's got two guys and two girls from the new batch, and I'm sure I can figure out which ones were the kidnap victims without too much issue. On the SMP's chat server or in the roleplay.

"That is a bit much for a coincidence," I say. "You think someone else is next?"

"Yeah," she says. "Keep an eye on your newbies, will you? Two of ours have already had this happen to them, and it might not be restricted to just ours."

"Will do," I tell her. "What sort of nonsense are they saying? You said it's the same for both?"

"Something about 'the flower' and 'endless waves'," she answers.

"Hm… so it's probably not related, then."

"Related?" She asks. "To what? You saw something?"

"Maybe," I tell her. "But it's probably unrelated."

"What is it?"

"I'll only tell you if you come with me to a village."

"I'm not looting a village," she says. "I'm not a pirate, Seb."

"Not to loot," I turn my character's head from side to side. "To show you something. Besides," I call up my map. "No one's going to notice you consorting with me, they're all busy doing their thing."

Lexi debates on it for a few moments, then agrees to come with me. All in character – she was going to come with me from the start as it's actually the whole point of our meetup. We decided off-server that the two of us will act as a secret alliance, the United Faction Leaders.

My group has a focus on the oceans, while hers has one on the lands. Together, we cover everything not in the sky. But our factions are natural enemies – they build and create, while we steal and semi-destroy.

So it's only natural for our factions to be enemies in the roleplay.

However, that doesn't mean that we don't have to be enemies. And with one of the things going on with the server's lore being that nobody knows how we got here or how we leave… it only makes sense for there to be some looking into it.

Which Lexi and I are doing. It's not something we're making obvious to our chats yet, though. This encounter here is going to explain why Lexi and I begin working together on stuff.

She came to warn me about disappearances where the vanished return different, and I decided to show her something I saw. Then, we form a secret alliance to investigate things further. To try and figure out what's really going on.

"Alright," I say. "Come on. It's this way, though it's a bit of a trip. Hide yourself on the map."

I do that, and Lexi does the same. We then travel for about twenty minutes, fending off sea creatures a few times, before arriving at our destination: a village.

Originally a natural village, it's now a poor village. There are more buildings than were here originally, each home with more beds than normal. Plenty of extra villagers, but only a couple of small farms. Many of the additional buildings were crappily-made, using just wood and nothing else. Some of them are falling apart.

Not that all of the issues can be seen from the riverside, but I was in it earlier and know about the beds and farm situation.

"Seb…"

"Wasn't us," I tell her. "Well, we did pillage it. Some villages come back stronger, others despair and do worse. This one bred up like crazy and produced a bunch more villages, but don't even have enough beds for them. Some of them have to sleep on mats on the floor."

That's a mod added to the SMP at some point, which we'd thought was to make sense for the pirates – mats and hammocks, not beds. But after encountering this village, I suspect they did it for server lore.

"They didn't just get bad," I tell her. "They're basically slums now."

"And that's why you shouldn't steal!"

"Eh," I say. "If they despair because we looted them, then they deserve it. Any smart village comes back stronger, with even better things for us to steal. But this one… I was checking it earlier to see if things improved at all. Thought maybe they'd gotten over this stage and started building up properly. And that's when I noticed… it."

"Noticed what?" She asks.

"Come on," I tell her. "It's in the village. And don't talk until we're back on the ships. It might be listening."

We jump onto land and head into the village. The admins did a really good job of making it look like slums with just what we have and the mod which added in mats. There are even cobwebs in a few spots.

After navigating through the poor villagers for a few moments, we come across the church. Built of cobblestone and stained glass, it's the only structure which looks healthy. There's not even mossy cobblestone, unlike on naturally-generated ones.

Inside the strangely-pristine church is a cleric. Not that unusual – the churches always have them. They trade for drops from undead mobs and are more than willing to sell healing and buffing potions. Minor ones more useful for new worlds than long-term ones.

But what's unusual is his outfit. They're normally plain black and white, but his has a golden eye emblem on the back.

The moment Lexi notices it, she looks between the cleric and me a few times, then attacks the air a few times. I make a nodding motion and we leave, returning to our ships.

"What. The. Fuck?"

"Yeah," I say. "Before we talk about it, we have another trip to make. So don't talk about it, not just yet."

We continue up the river until we reach another ocean, then sail across that. On the way, we fight off a couple of sea monsters, plus a ship of skeletons. Technically a shipwreck, but Lexi's fine with looting those. Claiming the goods on a ship whose crew has become undead is only fair.

No one living owns them and the inhabitants are finally moved into the afterlife.

On the other side of the ocean, we go up a river, past a lake, through the river leading out of it, and to another ocean. We travel for about an hour from the first village until we reach where we're going. When I logged out on Friday, I was actually already close to here, so I didn't have to travel all that far to reach it.

Meeting up with Lexi, then returning here, would ordinarily have taken me awhile, but we've still got over an hour left in my stream. But I discovered some stuff about the ships thanks to one of the new pirates, and it can make getting places via ship a little bit faster.

Fortunately, Axel happened to have a spare of a required item lying around, so we were able to use it to upgrade my ship. Now, I can get places faster, to a degree. In the right circumstances.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"That's an untouched village," she tells me. "We are not looting that, Seb."

"I was going to earlier," I tell her. "But then noticed something unusual as I was pulling up. Don't say anything as we enter, not until we're back on the ships."

We park our ships and head to shore, then enter the village. As we near the temple, Lexi starts attacking the air. When I look at her, she looks at the temple, then back at me, then back at the temple. I nod, then lead her inside.

The temple is as pristine as the previous one, and the cleric within has the same skin as the previous one.

In other words, an untouched village has the strange cleric.

We return to our ships and sail a bit away from shore, then Lexi stops and looks over at me.

"Seb," she says. "That's two villages with it."

"Three," I tell her. "I've asked my officers to keep an eye out for that. Abby let me know while we were traveling that she found one in a village which grew stronger after our looting of it. I've issued an order to my officers to ban entry to that village – tell our recruits that its defenses have been upgraded too much and we don't want to mess with them. Can you keep an ear out for if any of your folks see that?"

"Yeah," she answers. "Their starting trades at least looked normal, but that outfit isn't. What's going on?"

"I don't know," I answer. "But that's just another mystery of this realm. How people are arriving here, the kidnappings, and the strange clerics."

"I'll keep you updated if I hear anything," she says. "You let me know if you do, too, okay? We need to make sure that whatever's going on, we're prepared for it."

"Yeah," I tell her. "Our factions might not be allies, but if you have any information which can help us survive, we'll take it. And I'll make sure you get any which can make sure you survive."

"Alright," she says. "By the way, how did you get out here, then back, then back here, in just three hours? Isn't that at least four and a half hours' worth of time?"

"Oh, that?" I feel myself grinning. "Well, I was actually already out here when I woke up. Went to sleep not far that way. So I actually only came out here once, since I was already out here the other time."

"That's still about three hours," she says. "You've only been awake for two. And that doesn't explain the twenty minutes it took you to get to where we encountered each other."

"Right," I chuckle as I move to the wheel. "Well, see ya 'round, Lexi! Enjoy the trip back!"

I access an interface via the steering wheel, then select the sole option listed on it: Seb's Cove.

The moment I do, the ship appears in the cove, in the designated warp spot. There's apparently a feature which allows for teleporting entire ships, but the ship has to have a certain upgrade, and a special waystone is required to teleport to. Not setting things up right can also leading to breaking things

Lexi knows how to build ships, but she's not an expert on them. Eliza, one of our new members, is.

Wednesday, I'll make sure to get the stuff I need to pay back Axel for donating something for the ship warp feature.

"I might be a pirate," I tell my chat. "But I still pay my debts. And Axel had to fight a tough mob several times to get one of the core components. It's only fair he's repaid! For now, let's see if I can restock at spawn or if the Manager will show up with their lackeys a third time!"

[Xander – 13 years] → begins during Sig's PoV.

"Hi, Toby!" I land on his island, in the zone he's designated as the landing zone.

Toby's about a year older than me and mostly likes playing with plants in the game. Making gardens, building custom plants, things like that. Since he came over to help me out with some stuff last week, he's done a lot of decorating on his own island. He has a tree farm in one section growing each of the native trees for the fairy islands biome, a mushroom farm growing the native mushrooms, and a small little storage center for his things.

All of which is temporary. His plan is to build a big tree in the center of the island, but he needs a lot of wood and leaves for that. Until he has those, he's been doing terraforming to reshape the island's height levels to match what he wants. He's also been adding in gardens of what flowers he can farm here, and has added in a few bushes as well.

Right now, he's walking around, placing leaf blocks down here and there for some reason.

"Hey, Xander!" He greets me.

As a native Kenzibri, he speaks Zrebzialan. He lives in Crater Creek, so he's even local to me, but that's not why he was picked for the server. Grandpa Adrian picked him because he felt Toby was a good fit for the SMP and after reviewing the application and checks, I agreed.

Toby doesn't stream – rather, he makes videos and posts them. They're mostly cozy play videos and while he was just a small, newer creator, Grandpa Adrian still found him.

Then I learned that we can actually use XansonTV's magi-artificial intelligence system to locate content creators who meet specific criteria. Since he'd moved all of his content to XansonTV, it was easy for the system to scan it and determine he met them. Then Grandpa Adrian checked into him as a person and agreed that he'd be a good fit.

After that, I reviewed the information and agreed that he seemed like he'd be a good fit. His application was approved and he was excited to join us. He's keeping to his usual thing and is recording what he's doing rather than streaming, so he doesn't have a live audience. He'll make a video out of it, so I don't think I have to deal with him staying in character as much as I do with the others.

I hadn't meant to take him away from the Builder-Farmer Alliance, but he seems happy to have an island where he can just play with plants, even if he's not leaving it.

That's for his roleplay, though. I let him know he wasn't required to stay on the island, just please don't mess up other islands. But he said he'll stay on it for now for the roleplay, even though I didn't bring him here for roleplay. Since he's not streaming, it's not as if his viewers would know that he'd left, anyway. Not unless one of the others saw him while streaming or someone (like him) told others he left.

Also, his name is Toby, not Tobias. That's good. I hate my middle name and don't want to let anyone with it onto the server. But Toby isn't Tobias, even if his name's normally a shortened form of it.

The reason he's able to be on right now is because of emergency maintenance on the water lines in Crater Creek. The whole school district is out today as a result.

There should really be systems in place so that water service continues even when it's out. My rec center has that in place, and it doesn't need it that much. A whole town seems like a place where backup systems for when the main one is offline makes sense.

Even if school was in session, Toby isn't necessarily there. He only goes to the first four classes, then heads home for the rest of the day. Like me, he qualifies for a work exemption – his family crafts magic items and he's no different.

Though it's a family business and so he technically wouldn't qualify, there are exceptions which allow it. Toby meets those exceptions. It's like with Tyler and going hunting with his dad, how he's able to get out of school with that.

But today, Toby got on earlier since he didn't have any class at all, and he was already here when I logged on.

"How're you?" I ask.

"Doing alright," he answers. "What about you?"

"I think I'm doing okay?" I answer. "I've got a big ice cream sundae right now."

"Oooh, nice!" He says. "What flavor?"

"Mainly vanilla," I answer. "But there's some blueberry, some peach, and some strawberry ice cream. Mom and I made them yesterday. And the caramel sauce and blueberry preserves and peach preserves and strawberry preserves. And the sprinkles and the gummy bears. I cut up the bananas and chopped the nuts for it."

I didn't have the sundae at the start of the stream, I got hungry and wanted one, so I made it. But I let chat see me make it, so that they weren't left just watching my chair while I was in the kitchen.

"Sounds delicious!" He says. "Ma brought me cookies a few minutes ago, so I've got them right now. Chocolate chip! Still warm and gooy! Well, they were when she brought them, but they've cooled a little now.'"

"Oh."

"Anyway!" He says. "Did ya need something? Or just here to chat?"

"I think it counts as a little of both?" I ask. "So there's something going on with the others on the server where new members are getting 'kidnapped'. Not actually kidnapped, but they disappear from their areas for three days, then come back changed. Their characters have 'forgotten' how to do stuff and mostly talk in nonsense. It's related to some bigger stuff that's getting planned. And I was asked if it was okay to include you in that, since you're in my domain. So I wanted to ask if you wanted to be involved in that or not. If you did, you wouldn't be able to play with plants and do builds and stuff until it's resolved."

"Honestly sounds a little fun," he says. "But I ain't sure about the whole 'not being able to do builds and stuff' bit. How long would that last?"

"Um…" I say. "I dunno? I didn't ask that. Sorry."

"No worries!" He says. "I'm sure fairy food would cure me, so I'd be back to normal once I ate again after returning, anyway."

"I don't think that's how it works."

Toby goes quiet for a few moments and as I try to figure out what I said that's wrong, a message pops up on the chat server. He sent me a private message there, letting me know that he was staying in-character. He's using the lore the others established for me as being all-knowing in the world as how I learned about the kidnappings.

That I'm basically offering to protect him – that is, if he tells me he doesn't want to get kidnapped, then he won't be. That my magic will protect him. But if he says he wants to see if he can find out what's going on, then he'll get kidnapped at some point.

And that his comment about the fairy food is just his character's theory about it, not that it's fact. If his character's allowed to return to normal quickly after, then that could be one potential reason why he does.

Basically, he's trying to stay in-character even when I'm not acting when it comes to lore stuff. That's annoying, but I'm not going to change what I'm saying so that it fits into the roleplay of the others. The server is me testing stuff for Xanson Entertainment, not me roleplaying. Letting others roleplay is just letting them have fun with each other while they're helping me test stuff.

"So are you okay with participating in that?" I ask. "Or no? Participating means at least three days where you're not on this island, doing your stuff. You'd be doing… whatever it is they have the others doing. And probably not being on for as long each time? I ain't sure."

I don't know what it is they're doing while they've been "kidnapped", but have been told that the two who participated enjoyed it.

"Sure," he answers. "I'm curious about what's going on, so I want to see."

"Okay," I say. "They wanted to know if it's okay to do your session starting right around now. So it'd be today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, then you'd be back on Thursday."

"That works!" He says. "So I'll be getting kidnapped soon?"

"Yeah," I throw him a teleport scroll. "Use that," I put down a special waystone, then use another teleport scroll on it before throwing the second scroll to him. "Once you're done, use that to return here. It's single-use, and the waystone will break after. They ain't gonna kidnap your character from the fairy islands."

For a reason I don't know and didn't ask, but which I'm glad for. Leave the conflict and issues, even the fake ones, away from where I'm building a base in the game.

"Alright," he says. "See ya when I get back!"

Toby uses the scroll, then disappears. I then fly back to my base at the main fairy village, then check on the others and what they're all doing.

"Looks like another one of the new members is about to get taken to the Colosseum," I say. "I wanna make sure it's being done right and they're not getting bothered, so I'm gonna head over there."

My chat starts asking about the Colosseum. Has it not been called that on a stream before?

"Oh," I say. "That's the name the admin playing the Master of Trials is using for the trials. He got the name from the Colosseum in Italy. It's because it's a massive amphitheater, even if it only has me as a spectator. Oh! Speaking of going there, he added in a warp plate for me, so that I don't have to use commands and can just warp over."

I put down the accompanying plate in the spot I want it, then insert the shard leading to the other one after this one's shard pops out. Then, I step onto the plate and find myself standing in the viewing box for me.

It's at the northern end of the Colosseum and has a throne for me to sit on, some plants decorating it (the whole structure is designed to look overgrown, after all), and even a snacks table.

The seat was placed in such a way that I can view the arena below without issue.

I insert my plate's shard into the one in here, then sit so I can watch the challenge.

As I watch, the member undergoing the trial has to solve a puzzle maze. I can see the full thing from up here, but I don't understand it. It uses some of the technical blocks and stuff and I don't understand that. As for the member… he can't even see the full thing.

Which he means that he has to use levers, buttons, and stuff, then look to see if they changed anything. He has to try and remember what changed what and how the affected thing changed, and use that knowledge to get through the maze. Sometimes, that means going back several gates to redo something.

"Personally," I tell my chat. "I think the maze is too… uniform? I don't like texturing and stuff that much, unless it's supposed to look run-down or overgrown like the Colosseum is. But the maze was just built with stone brick walls. Not even, like, a variance for pillars here and there, or just to break up the monotony. Like chiseled stone, or maybe some other stone."

My viewing booth is far enough away that even if I don't mute my microphone to talk with chat (which I did), anyone going through a trial down below wouldn't hear me talking.

"Hm?" I read a message. "Oh. The reason these are sometimes similar is because they're trying to see how players like some of the stuff here. It's for future events on the server, but also lore stuff that might happen later. By having players test smaller bits, they can get feedback to help them design the bigger things a lot better. Also to know whether or not it's something that'll be enjoyed."

I read chat a little while still watching the player going through the trials issued.

"Oh," I say. "Part of the reason they're never exactly the same is so that they can't give each other the solutions when a puzzle's involved. And making small tweaks to things also gives more feedback than if they just did the exact same thing every time. Lets them test similar things rather than just the same thing every time."

The player finishes up their trial and receives their reward for completing it, then they're teleported back to wherever they were before the Master of Trials took them here. Now that it's over, I head back to my main house on the server.

I want to get a little bit more detailing done for the area around the house before my stream ends. Then, it'll be naptime before I go to hang out with Sig and the others at Sig's place.

Overall, today's stream has been pretty nice and calm, which I really like. Even if I did end up accidentally participating in Toby's lore. I hate that others try to keep in-character for stuff like that, but I won't ask them to stop. They're having fun and it's not hurting anything, even if it bothers me that I might mess up their roleplay because of it.

That's their fault, not mine. I have to remind myself of that.

But it's good to know that the issues on their side are their fault and not mine. That means it's not my fault so them getting mad at me isn't my fault, it's theirs. Thankfully, none of them have gotten mad at me.

They probably won't.

"Alright," I tell chat as I look at some of my decorations. "Do you think that needs more green?"

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