Monsters and Men

Be The Hero

But you gotta try / Wherever you may go / Sometimes, you gotta be the hero

~~~

Welcome to a world slightly outside of the norm. This is where our little story starts. A peaceful area, with a cute little, unfinished house taking centre stage. With a variety of biomes from the extreme savanna to the cool jungles, this world is perfect for a small single player, a man trying to find his place. He's taking his break, with his dog by his side and a world he can keep to himself, where he can do his work without feeling stressed. A place he can lie down.

Thinknoodles, or Justin, is the inhabitant of this small world. He used to be a major admin and a founder of the server Shady Oaks, before he made his leave. He had to run away, he just had to. The court date was coming up soon, and he valued his freedom. Either way, he'd lose, and he didn't want to lose everything... Oh, and he didn't exactly want to get smited for blowing up Kraken's Hollow. Squid sent a hired hitman to kill him for goodness sake, why wouldn't he get revenge?

He is simply out on a walk, with nothing much to do. He's simply taking in the cool air and the sun shining down upon him. The occasional breeze flows through his hair, which he grew long before going to Shady Oaks, and didn't bother cutting when he left. (He's...unsure if he regrets it. The long hair at least makes his hair look healthier, especially since it's greying so badly.) The endless plains seem to stretch on for miles, with not a single hitch in the road other than a few cows he has to dodge and the few forests he can see along the edges.

The peaceful silence is interrupted by a loud ping from his pocket. A notification from his communicator. But who would be texting him at this time? Pulling his comm out of his hotbar, He flips to his messages and sees a text from Dan. But why would Dan be needing to DM him - he's in his hardcore world, no? That's singleplayer, he won't be needing any help from Justin. He knows that Dan's been quiet as of recent, but still.

He hesitates, thinking it might just be a misclick and that he would accidentally embarrass Dan. Still, out of curiosity and confusion, Think clicks to the text.

<DanTDM> xliziblezigsrxvsp.play.me 19145

Think scans over the strange text that is laid out on his communicator, flashing due to the extension. After making sure what he's reading is correct, he sends a text back.

<Thinknoodles> You want me to join?

But even after waiting a minute, Dan never responds. Odd, for someone who's constantly checking his communicator.

"Well, that's out of the ordinary." he thinks out loud. And he's not wrong. Not because Dan never responded, it's more what Dan actually sent. The context of the message. Because to any ordinary person, that may look like a random strip of numbers and letters Dan accidentally pasted into the chat bar. But to Think, whom I've stated was the admin, that wasn't any old set of numbers.

That was a server IP and port.

Dan was inviting him to a server, with no context as to why.

Now, there could be many forms of context. With an IP like that, it looks to be a throwaway server. So one likelihood is that Dan is sending him to this server as a prank. But why did he need to drag him to a whole other server just to prank him? He still has the IP to Shady Oaks, he could've just asked Justin to come back online. Then again, Dan would know that Justin didn't want to go back...No, that couldn't be the case. If Dan were pranking him, he would've sent something else, like a threatening smiley face or something. But no, he sent the IP and port alone, with no explanation. There must be something deeper in store here. This was a text to Thinknoodles, after all. He ran away to escape from a crime, and Dan was aware of that. If it was just a prank, he would've sent it to someone still at Shady Oaks. Dan sent it to the main admin and coder he knew, and there's only one reason for him to feel like that.