Timreh {A Hermitcraft Story}

Where's TFC?

Ren stood in TFC's underground bunker, looking at a blank piece of carpet laid on the ground.

"I swear he was right here! He was lying face down, on the carpet!" Ren gestured towards said carpet obviously distressed

"Ren, without a body you know I can't respawn him, he might have just been sleeping or something," X said, slightly confused himself.

Ren crouched down, waving his hands over the carpet as if expecting him to be under an invisibility potion. Unfortunately, Ren didn't find anything. Not a trace of anyone being there. Ren sat down, defeated.

X felt a twinge in the code. TFC's player data was somehow removed, representing most likely permadeath. However, he shook off the feeling as paranoia.

"We need to find who did this" Ren said with a sudden outburst of energy. "There should be a clue somewhere!"

"Sounds like you've been hanging out with Sherlock Grian too much lately," X said, trying to lighten the mood.

It succeeded, as he got a light chuckle from Ren. Ren stood up and thought for a second before deciding on what they should do.

"We should split up, so we can check 2 tunnels at a time" Ren declared, being Scooby Ren taking his mind off TFC for the time being.

"Doesn't that break the first rule of horror movies?"

"We're not in a horror movie! We're in a fanfic!"

X stared at Ren for a second. Lately, a lot of the Hermits have been randomly spouting nonsense about "being in a fanfic". Maybe another clue to the puzzle? Or was everyone just going insane?

"I'll take the left branch mine, you can take through the vaults" X decided, masking his sheer confusion.

X headed down the branch mine, in awe at how long and dug out it was. How was he ever going to be able to find clues if it was so expansive? He decided to head down the main trunk of the mine, taking it slow and attempting not to think about all the ways that could go wrong.

After a long trek up the mine, finally reaching the end, he sat down to rest before he walked back. He must've almost fallen asleep, a testament to the long way he had walked, before noticing Ren running down one of the branches.

"Ren?" he asked, following him down the branch. He turned the corner of the corridor, to see Ren gone. As the hallway ended in a patch of water, X was preparing himself to jump in.

"X, I found something" Ren texted.

Xisuma was very confused. He shrugged and headed down towards the main base.

Ren ran his fingers over TFC's prized pickaxe. It had a slight shimmery sheen, notifying it was enchanted, most likely with efficiency and unbreaking. TFC had many pickaxes, but he always kept one on him. TFC had shown him his pickaxe collection one time. There were more diamonds there that Ren even owned! Setting his thoughts back to the mystery, he looked at the other clue he'd found lay beside him. A piece of reddish-brown fur.

The fur was interesting as there was no mob or hybrid that could produce it on the server. Foxes had the same colour, but the hair was more furry, similar to a dog's. Or a wolves. He was ejected out of his thoughts as X returned.

"Hey, by the way, were you up in the branch mine just then?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder towards the mines.

"No... Why?"

"Don't worry about it" X knew he should tell Ren, but he wanted to try and fix the problem himself

"Well, I found TFC's pick, and this piece of fur as I was walking back"

"Doesn't TFC have like, a bajillion pickaxes?" X replied

"Yeah, but he always keeps them in a vault" Ren answered

"Well, It's getting late, we should go home" X decided, instinctively knowing the time, and wanting to go to sleep. "I'll call up an all hermit meeting tomorrow"

Ren shrugged and left, obviously remembering why they had to play detective. X knew TFC's death wasn't certain, and many Hermits had never even spoken to him, but he still wanted to tell the Hermits.

What scared X the most, though, was the fact that this happened exactly on the one year anniversary of Evil X's banning. This smelled like Evil X all over.