Hermitcraft Randomness - S7 Oneshots

Nightlight - Zedaph x Grian

Zed couldn't hold back a sigh of relief when he saw that this part of Grian's base was well lit. He glanced at the multitude of shulker boxes lying everywhere, then at the giant sorting system that was built to solve this kind of problem.

"Erm, your storage system is kind of all over the place," he said.

Grian smiled sheepishly. "It's a habit, I guess. But, hey, it's your base! Your problem now!"

"So, this is the part of your base where you spend the most time, then?" Zed asked, shoving a shulker box to one side with his foot.

"Yeah. It's where I do all my trading, too." Grian gestured to a spot in the middle of the room where a small villager trading hall had been set up.

"Okaaay." Zed hesitated before continuing. "So...what's the actual mansion for, then?"

And do I have to go into that dark often?

"I'm planning to build some farms there." Grian held up his hands, drawing an imaginary diagram in the air. "A villager breeder, maybe. Melons and pumpkins for trading. Stuff like that. I was hoping you could build some of your contraptions there, too!"

Zed groaned inwardly. "Like...in the wings."

"Um, yeah. I mean, the foyer is occupied."

"Right, right. I knew that." Zed started to get nervous. Maybe he could back out of making contraptions at all. Maybe he could make them somewhere else. Anywhere else.

But Grian's hopeful expression made him reconsider his decisions. Cursing inwardly at himself, Zed gave him a smile he didn't really mean.

"Sure. I'll make some for you."

Bad idea.

A few hours later, Zed stood in front of the left wing of the upper mansion. His small white wings curled around his arms like they did when he was scared. He had to make a conscious effort to spread them again, but it felt much nicer when they were wrapped around him.

He clutched a lantern in his right hand. Even though it was one of the items that gave off the most light, it was nothing compared to the vast darkness in front of him.

Not only were mobs going to be jumping out at him from the shadows, but, well, the darkness itself was going to mess him up tremendously.

He hated to admit it, but he felt like the dark was tugging at him again, just like he had in the Void, even if it wasn't the same.

He did have an idea for a contraption, but it required space that couldn't be found anywhere else in the mansion. He didn't want to clog up the foyer, the back was out of the question, and the storage area underneath was chock-full of shulker boxes and chests.

He didn't want to swap bases back before he finished a contraption or two, that was for sure. He remembered Grian's hopeful expression when he quietly requested Zed to build a few contraptions in his base, and that made him feel worse. He didn't want to disappoint Grian, either.

"Alright, Zed," he lectured himself. "You can do this. This isn't void darkness. It's just...darkness. Plain old darkness! You're used to this! What's to fear about it, right?"

He paused, staring at the darkness again.

"...Right?"

He sighed to himself and plunged into the darkness quickly, holding his lantern in front of him like it was the only thing stopping him from getting lost in the pitch black. Which, in a way, it was.

As soon as he was surrounded on all sides by darkness, Zed started to panic again. Even though his feet were grounded to the floor, he still felt like he was plunging down a small tunnel, entering an infinite plane of suffocating dark every direction he looked.