Jimena was lying down on the grass, staring at the sky. The clouds were rolling moodily across a blank gray canvas, crackling with unseen electricity. It'll storm soon. Rain first, and then the lightning. Despite the depressing forecast, Jimena felt calm watching the sky as she did. It was peaceful and quiet. Not physically, of course; the wind was rattling the shutters of nearby houses and thunder would erratically bang its drum every so often. But it was peaceful and quiet inside her mind. The voice hadn't bothered her yet that day.
"Jimena?" She turned to see False standing there, twiddling her thumbs. "I'd just like to say that I'm sorry for adding to your build without asking you first." "Oh, it's okay," Jimena said, turning her gaze back to the sky. "I got over it." Indeed, she felt no lingering resentment toward the empress for doing so. If anything, she wondered why she'd previously made such a big fuss about it.
"Oh. Okay... Thank you." False said, looking awkward and grateful at the same time. "Hey, do you want to help me with a build? I built a tavern but I didn't do an interior." "Okay, why not?" Jimena said, getting up. Then she frowned, something stirring in her memory. "Speaking of my tower and interiors, I don't think I put an interior inside my tower yet." "Do you want my help with that?" False asked. Jimena shook her head. "Nah, I'll practice helping you and then I'll try it by myself."
So False took her to the Stupor Saloon. They did the bar area first; stocking up the pantry with barrels of drinks while they did so. And then they did the bedrooms; trying to figure out what other people might like and making it comfy was surprisingly fun. The beds were really soft; a fact that Jimena proved by flopping down on top of one and almost falling asleep on it. With the two of them working together, they were soon done.
"I'll be in my house taking a nap if you need me!" False called to Jimena, who was flying toward the Cogsmeade bridge. "Don't worry, I won't!" Jimena called back, feeling the wing rush around her feathers. Flying when it was about to rain soon was apparently fun. I wonder what flying in an actual storm would be like. She angled her wings to the tower and aimed for the window; trying to see if she could get in that way. She managed to do so, but she painfully bumped her wings against the edges of the windowsill. And then crashed into a nearby cabinet.
Jimena tumbled on the floor, groaning. Okay, I should never try that again. She slowly got up, using the cabinet that she'd collided with as a support to pull herself up. Then she realized something. Cabinet...? I didn't put a cabinet in here... Did I? Jimena got to her feet and frowned. There was something very wrong with her tower.
A telescope on a stand stood by another window, pointed at the ground rather than skyward. The open cabinet door betrayed its contents: a pile of hastily-scrawled notebooks with worn pages sticking out of the binder. A single oil lamp sat on the table, unlit and providing no light. At a glance, the room decor seemed normal, if a bit spartan. Not at all strange. Except for the fact that Jimena hadn't done a single thing for the interior yet.
Jimena stared at her surroundings, taking it all in. Did False do this? When she added stuff to my tower? No, she would've told me. Unless she didn't want me to get even madder. Unsure what to think, Jimena started anxiously ruffling her feathers. Which made her a little more calm, because it showed her that her wings still worked fine even after crashing through the window. Speaking of the window... She leapt out of it and spread her wings at the last second, heading toward False's house.
---
False heaved a sigh of relief as she stared at her computer. The hidden camera in the top floor of the tower had caught video evidence of an intruder sneaking around while she'd been at Hermitopia. It was Jimena, the girl who she'd accidentally pushed out the window. Luckily, she didn't poke around much, she just stayed in the top room and then left the way she came in.
False turned her computer off and then started planning her next move. She needed to increase the security around her tower if the other False and Jimena were going to poke around it more often. She'd already narrowly escaped exposure when the other False had built a house attached to the tower the one day that week she'd been away with the hermits. And she'd just missed Jimena sneaking around.
What should I do about the security system? The first thing that came to mind was to put bars in the windows. That way Jimena wouldn't be able to fly inside again. Or fall out the window again, although since she had wings now somehow it would be less deadly. And maybe I should rig the cameras to alert me if anyone other than me somehow gets inside again.
False shoved her laptop inside her bag and looked around for other things that she needed to bring with her. She was at Hermitopia, growing up bamboo, and she was pleased that the farm had been working alongside her moss farm. The hermits had efficiently worked together to upgrade their hermit empire with multiple different farms and living spaces for each of the hermits.
False's room in Hermitopia was cozy, if a bit restricting. The farms took up most of the space in Hermitopia, which despite supposedly being an empire was still just a giant glorified building, so the living quarters had to make do with whatever was left over. They were still good rooms, though. False's had sunmery orange walls and a queen size bed along with a socket that worked well to charge her laptop, so she could still keep tabs on Cogsmeade through the security cameras.
After unplugging her charger and fishing her elytra out from under her bed, she unlocked the door and headed out, making sure that her elytra was durable and securely attached. Hermitopia was like most of the hermits' builds: it was very easy to fall off of and die. Luckily, False didn't fall off this time; she managed to get safely down to the ground via walkways without railings, rope bridges, rickety ladders, curly slides, and uneven stairs without fluttering a wing.
"Are you from Cogsmeade?" False looked to see Doc taking some stuff out of one of the many chest monsters that consumed the first floor of Hermitopia. She wondered how he even kept track of all his stuff and not lose anything. Despite how tidy Pearl tried to keep everything, and how sorted the general chests were, chest monsters kept popping up like wildfire and breeding like rabbits.
"I'm hermit False," False replied, readjusting her elytra. "The other False should be taking a nap in Cogsmeade right now, I think." "You spied on her long enough that you memorized her schedule?" Doc asked. False nodded and headed out of Hermitopia so she could spread her wings and fly without the risk of bumping into any of the compact buildings and all the other things that the hermits had built. She was a terrific flier, but it was always better safe than sorry.
And then False remembered. Some of the stuff she needed for the security upgrade might already be in Hermitopia. So she turned her attention back to the chest monsters. One by one she opened up a chest or a barrel or a shulker box to see what was inside and if anything in there could be useful. "What are you looking for?" Doc asked, scooting over. "Stuff to upgrade my security system. Jimena was in my watchtower."
"Jimena's the best friend of the other False, right?" "Yeah, she is." "Do you know why Grian hates her?" "Wait, Grian hates her?" False stopped poking around in a shulker box to stare at the goat and creeper hybrid straight in his robotic eye. For a moment she wondered if she had heard him wrong through his accent, but she realized that she had understood him correctly.
"Yeah, he does. He's constantly glaring at her and scowling whenever she's around and you don't notice because you're almost always at Cogsmeade." "Has Jimena been to Hermitopia?" False asked. "No, she just spends a lot of time with the sheriff and you know how Grian likes pranking him." False did know. Grian's pranks were legendary. Even if you weren't the one he pranked; his tricks were so big that everyone knew about it.
"Try this," Doc said, passing her some stuff. False glanced at the pile of items. There was a sculk sensor, some tripwire hooks that already came with spider string, and a couple of computer chips that she assumed were Doc originals. "Sensor will go off when it hears noise. You can wire it to make it alert you when someone breaks in. And the computer chips come preprogrammed with functions to make the cameras watch out for intruders."
"Wow, Doc, thanks," False said gratefully, putting the stuff he'd given her into a shulker box that already contained some iron for the window bars and some redstone powder and wires. "I would come and help you set it up," Doc shrugged semi apologetically, "If I weren't so worried that my appearance would attract unwanted attention." He gestured at his green coat and robotic limb. "One question," False said. "Why do you just conveniently have that computer program lying around?" Doc grimaced. "Grian."
---
Jimmy was just going to spawn to check on the rift. He'd heard that it closed and, in Oli's words, looked really emo and spooky, and wanted to see it for himself. He deactivated his elytra and landed on the old fairgrounds of the rift festival. Some of the tents and stuff were still there, just lying around and collecting dust. Most of the emperors were apparently too lazy to clean up after themselves.
Jimmy walked toward the rift and it soon came into view. Honestly, Oli had a bit of a point. The rift, which had once radiated purple with an otherworldly energy, was now dark and empty, like a blank void that threatened to suck within it all that came too close to keep trapped in another realm forever. But Jimmy had also heard that the rift was broken and that it wouldn't even take Oli's lunch that he'd regretfully thrown at it.
Staring at a creepy broken portal wasn't that exciting, as it turned out. Bored, Jimmy was about to activate his wings and fly back to Tumble Town, where he was going to work on his railway, when he was spotted by a couple of hermits. "Hey, Timmy!" Jimmy groaned. It was Grian. "Hello, Grian," He deadpanned, as the cod-like hermit walked toward him with a mischievous grin on his face. He wasn't alone; behind him was Bdubs and Cleo and Impulse.
"Hello, sheriff. Hey, have you seen Hermitopia yet?" Impulse asked. "No," Jimmy admitted. He'd heard about the hermit empire from fWhip. He'd said that they were threatening to crash the economy by building all possible farms without a single thought to taken exports. It had only been a month since the hermits had arrived though, so the sheriff wasn't sure if he should worry about it just yet. He also heard that hermits worked fast, however.
So the hermits took him on a tour through Hermitopia, and Jimmy quickly learned that yes, he should worry about economy. A hulking monstrosity of a superstructure squatted next to spawn. It looked like it had started with a single building, and then more buildings had grown off of it, most sticking out the sides and hanging in the air, and then more grew out of those, until the whole thing resembled a wacky artificial tree that was only a tree in theory, with the top being much wider than the bottom.
Jimmy had no idea what the think. Houses next to farms that were sometimes covered up, sometimes not; beautiful builds next to eyesores, random bridges to nowhere and elytra landing pads and ladders and slides and ropes sticking out the side at random intervals; the whole thing was an explosive rainbow of colors and amalgamation of houses. And the first floor, a place with the walls made of built-in chests that had been meticulously sorted and labelled, had been taken over by chest monsters.
"So, what do you think of Hermitopia?" Grian asked. "I think... that I have no idea what to think," Jimmy said, staring at the whole thing with his mouth agape. "If it's not a compliment, then it's an insult," Cleo declared. "Cleo, don't get all arsony and murdery, okay?" Bdubs said, sidling up next to her. "We don't want the place to get totally destroyed!" Jimmy glanced at the two of them. "Bdub, you look so cute next to your mom," He laughed.
"Cute?! I'm not cute!" Bdubs roared, shaking his fist at the sheriff. Jimmy didn't get the hint. "You're even cuter when you're mad!" "I think you're supposed to be intimidated," Impulse said sagely. "How am I supposed to be intimidated by a short person?!" Jimmy giggled, and Bdubs seemed to swell twice his size in pure rage. "I am not short!" "You all are, all the hermits are short for some reason," Jimmy pointed out. "And you're the shortest."
As if Bdubs wasn't mad enough. The glowstone-cloaked hermit stomped his foot and ran to a nearby chest. "Where's the thing?! The thing that Joel gave us?!" "It's over here," Grian said, opening a barrel. He tossed something to Bdubs, who then opened it and poured it onto Jimmy before he had any time to react. "Wait, what are you doing?!" Jimmy yelped. "I'll show you short!" Bdubs growled.
Jimmy felt dizzy and strange. He looked around him and then realized that everything seemed so much bigger. The chest that had barely reached his knee now towered over his head. The miniature cracks in the stone floor looked as if he was inspecting them under a magnifying glass. He soon realized what had happened. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no!
"No! This didn't happen! This didn't happen!" Jimmy yelled, as of denying it could change amything. Grian, howling with laughter, grabbed a mirror and put it down in front of him, but he didn't need to look at the reflection of his wooden features and doll clothing to know the truth. The potion that Bdubs had gotten from Joel and then thrown at him had turned him into a toy.