{ 8/29/20 - unedited ; tw - cussing, minor violence, out of character personalities, messed up timeline, long, etc.
well kids, we've officially reached the end of the first arc. it's safe to say that i'm going to finish this book maybe sometime next year, haha ^^;
jokes aside, updates will be slower than before, especially since now i'm working to my (usual) goal of 8,000-10,000 words per chapter, yikes. so maybe a one-two week pause in between? plus i'm in high school, gonna get a lot of projects and homework.
next arc may or may not take a while to come lmao, and oh if you can't tell, this is an angsty slowburn lol }
"𝓢top falling off god dammit!" Tommy yells at Wilbur for what seems like the fifth time that day.
"I can't fucking help it! This is hard you know!" Wilbur shouts at Tommy.
As Wilbur bridges to one of the mini islands in the Skyblockle map, Technoblade looks around. It's such an unfamiliar space to him, so different from what he had experienced in Skybark or what had previously been Hycreale.
To his back is a giant floating stone island, jagged ores and minerals sticking dangerously out. Phil was currently working his way into the center, where according to the guide there would be a chest partially filled with things the group may or may not need to be the last one standing.
"I'm going to go bridge to the right island if you guys don't mind." Technoblade says, and Philza offers Techno a nod of confirmation. He grabs a few stacks of slabs and starts bridging slowly and carefully.
Techno's halfway there when he's hit by something. He barely registers the cold because the caped man quickly jumps back and crouches, not allowing himself to be hit off the map by a bot throwing snowballs. "Fuck," he mutters, furrowing his eyebrows. As Techno brushes his pink hair off his face, he looks at the distance he was away from the island.
A few blocks. He's sure he can jump it. Technoblade takes a leap of faith, heart pounding in his chest in fear the bot would pull out another snowball,
but the snowballs all missed. Techno smirks, remembering how shit bot aiming was, and glad the creators didn't give the robots hack clients. The pink haired man lands safely on the small platform, remembering to give himself a larger platform so none of the valuable materials would fall into oblivion.
"Hey Techno! You need a hand?" Tommy yells, turning slightly to face Technoblade. Techno turns to the kid and shakes his head no. For such a simple one-man task as mining a few blocks of ore, there would be no use for outside help.
It turns out Techno making the platforms wider was a genius move, because Wilbur couldn't catch the iron block and it fell into limbo.
"You saw nothing!" Wilbur yells at Technoblade, who had witnessed the whole thing. Techno snorts at Wilbur's foolishness. It's alright though, letting something like that fall wasn't a fatal mistake.
"Alright, coming back..." Technoblade says, walking carefully on the cobblestone slab bridge as a few pesky bots continue to throw a barrage of snowballs. Because of their shit aim only one of them manage to hit him, but it barely even knocked him back a block. Nice. "Anyone need iron?"
"Yes, just throw it over here—" Tommy yells but is knocked over by the sheer weight of the iron block Technoblade somehow threw at the kid. "Hey! Don't fuckin' do that again, that hurt!"
He snorts at Tommy's foolishness, 'throw it here—' what a fool.
"I'm gonna start bridging to the next island 'kay?" Wilbur yells, and Phil offers Wilbur a thumbs up of confirmation. Techno watches Wilbur closely as the brunette bridges, before remembering to put down one of the buckets of water so when Wilbur falls he wouldn't 'die'.
Techno still doesn't understand the physics of it. At least it wouldn't be a real death, just... something like death. He has no choice but to trust the creators with this one.
'... don't worry about dying! If you hit the ground your soul will just be knocked out of your body so you'll just be astral projecting yourself!' He faintly remembers from the back of his head. But Techno would have no way of knowing whether Creator was lying or not. Only trust, forced trust.
"Oh fuck—" Wilbur yells as he slips off the cobblestone slabs. He now hangs by one hand, clinging desperately to a slippery stone.
"Goddammit Wilbur!" Tommy yells, running to the brown haired man, grabbing his hand and pulling Wilbur up with all his might. "Be more careful, really!" He says, somewhat spitefully.
Wilbur rolls his eyes, pushing his glasses up his nose and brushes the curls out of his eyes. "It's not as easy as you think Tommy." He groans before immediately going back to work.
The blonde sighs, before picking up the water and dragging it closer to Wilbur. "Use it next time." He says loudly before walking back to the previous island, yelling out profanities when a snowball smacks him in the ass.
"Coast is clear, let's go." Technoblade mutters to no one in particular, gliding gracefully along the bridge and blocking all of the snowballs being thrown at him. "Why do they have so many snowballs?" Techno thinks to himself, pulling out a few more snowballs to defeat two particularly annoying bots easily. One falls while the other manages to save themselves.
"Hey guys, the walls closing in! We need to get going now!" Phil yells, rummaging through the chests to see if there's anything of importance they needed to keep before following the rest of the group.
"Do we need these spawners?" Wilbur asks, but no one answers him. Tommy grins as he fits on a shield, and passes Techno the diamonds for him to use.
"What else do we need to make?" Phil asks, sounding a little out of breath. The man did run all the way there so some credit could be given.
"Dunno. We're running out of food too." Techno grumbles, shushing his stomach. For some reason in the arena he had been feeling more hungrier than usual, and he had been feeling fine before this. Maybe it was the way the creators coded the game. Maybe.
"Take the bread." Wilbur throws a loaf of bread at Techno that Tommy fails to intercept. The loaf is hard and smooth against Techno's calloused worn hands, and he manages to devour the whole thing.
"Okay, I'm good. What do we need?" Technoblade asks.
"To get to the next island." Tommy says. "Shouldn't we be getting there first?"
Philza sighs as he cuts down the webs for its string. "Craft the things first and then start bridging."
✁・・・
"I'm lost already."
The masked man groans. "Fuck."
In order to keep the training as real as possible, Dream had told George and Sapnap not to bring the maps of the labyrinth with them. And now he regrets not memorizing the labyrinth before doing this. Dream doesn't know where he's going, he doesn't know where he came from. All he's been doing is mindlessly collecting sand, grabbing coins, and slashing away at spiders and zombies.
"Fuck!" Dream throws his sword at a zombie out of rage, balling his gloved hands into fists as he slams his right hand into the wall. "This is so fucking stupid!"
He couldn't lead a team like this. They should've memorized the labyrinth first.
'But they're gonna change the labyrinth a bit in the Championship, it doesn't matter,' a little mini voice inside his head tells him.
"No, fuck off." Dream growls, stalking to the fallen zombie's body and pulling his stone sword out of its bloody, mutilated chest. The zombie's still alive as the man can still see his heart pumping, so the masked man makes sure to give him an extra stab.
Blood flies onto Dream's dark green cape. It's disgusting, but that's not what Dream's focused on. Instead, with near a thousand coins weighing his pockets down, and pounds of sand waiting to be used, Dream has to find his way out of the maze. Wonderful.
Dream continues to place torches down as he constantly discovers new monster spawners he felt like he had already seen. He runs from a room filled with illagers and vexes, and swishes through a hallway of silverfish.
It's getting a little tiring, honestly. It's good he's not running out of hunger or stamina, but it's getting a little hard for Dream. He doesn't really know what to do besides run around and waste his markers and torches. Least of all he doesn't want to die, because just really, how much pressure would that put on his friends? Dream would never do that to George or Sapnap.
Breath in. Breath out.
Dream focuses with newfound strength. Remembering to place down a marker, he makes a turn at a corridor—
"Fuck yes, finally." Dream groans in satisfaction, seeing the torch placed on a block near the middle of the room. Even better; the spawners are broken. He's been here before, and now he can start retracing his steps.
Somewhere in the heart of the labyrinth, a loud ticking noise can be heard. A minute has passed. Dream begins to sweat, because unless George or Sapnap can put sand inside the giant glass hourglass, he's probably not going to make it.
"Okay, I can do this." Dream mutters to himself as he sees another light at a right turn through the passage he was taking. "Light's a good thing, light's a good thing—"
A glowing vex stabs Dream's arm, and he howls in pain and surprise. With a wide panic, Dream's batting his pickaxe at the mischievous creature, before making a dash for it and throwing a marker down at the spot he was just in.
"Holy fucking shit!" He babbles out. That must've taken out at least three or four hearts out of Dream. He's still running as he grabs his arm and winces, pulling his hand away from the wound to see it covered in blood. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
At least flesh wounds like these somehow managed to heal itself a little faster than outside. Already the bleeding had stopped, and Dream didn't think he felt any more pain in his arm.
"... Alright. I can do this." Dream sighs, looking behind him carefully to make sure the vex was gone. Avoid all glowing blue lights from now on, he got it.
As he runs, Dream's mind starts to wander off Sands of Time, to the somewhat strange meeting before the two groups went their separate ways.
Dream does acknowledge Technoblade's group is very formidable. Enough to call him maybe his rival group or something. But having three versus four wasn't very fair in his opinion, though he had absolute faith George and Sapnap could wreck the daylight out of Technoblade's lackeys.
Now Technoblade. He's definitely something different. It's just something about the pink haired man that stands out to Dream, and the masked man isn't so sure why and what it is.
Thinking about Technoblade makes Dream feel warm.
Dream slaps his face. "Stop it." He mutters to himself.
He can't stop thinking about the caped man's reddening cheeks, the dignified smirk he wore, a classy smile the crowned pinkette shined with. A confidence he could do with, yet humble enough not to regard himself as the best. A man with power who isn't aware of it.
How dangerous. How dangerous it is that Technoblade holds so much power over Dream.
Today Dream lets his thoughts wander, and he wonders how it would be if Technoblade and Dream didn't have to be rivals. What if they were strangers? Acquaintances? Friends? Best friends?
Lovers?
What would it be like to hold the pinkette who had ditched his heavy worn cape for his silken dress shirt and cloth pants?
To be allowed to share the amount of pressure so that the crown didn't crack?
To hold hands with a calloused wizened hand, to embrace the smaller and rid of stress, to press his lips against his soft pink hair?
Dream lets a smile play on his face. Techno is a genuinely nice guy even if he's done some questionable things in the past. Reformation, Dream had learned, was indeed something that took time, and he's glad Techno decided to follow through.
Technoblade doesn't look all that bad either, he can see himself dating him—
"Oi, shut the fuck up." Dream pinches his reddened cheek, just really why did he had to let himself think so hard? Now he can't unsee Technoblade's (cute) determined smile. "One day, you'll ask him out alright? If you win the Championships." He smirks, and all of a sudden his heart's pounding, his palms' sweaty, an uncontrollable grin forms on his face—
Dream sees the end. And he makes it through.
✁・・・
❝Well I don't recall that being the specified amount of coins you said you would be able to rake in, hm?❞
The lady rolls her eyes. "So? Accept the fact that not everyone is excited for the game, you fuckin' bastard." She slides a piece of paper over the desk to the man in the floating desk chair. "Deal's a deal, kid. Take it or leave it."
The mysterious person sighs, though they sound like they're trying to stifle a laugh. ❝Look, lady, I don't have time to deal with this bullshit. It's either you meet the quota, or get out of my face. I don't care who you are either, I'm not having any of it.❞
"Okay, look. Without you these contestants are definitely gonna die, and we do not want that. Is the safety of your people not what concerns you the most?" The lady growls, glaring at the person.
❝This is a favorite quote of mine: '... The only thing that matters in this world, is cash.' And I'm sure you know who that's by.❞ They smile, rhythmically tapping their fingers on their desk. ❝In layman's terms, it simply means I don't care.❞
"I knew it. I knew you would be an absolute bastard. When the press finds out about this, the people will have your head—"
❝But they won't. And I'll be making sure of that.❞ They're still smiling, but their tone has changed, and the lady is not so sure they like it. ❝The press will not find out about this, and the people will not have my head. You will not tell anyone about this meeting and how it went, and most of all, Bardella,❞ The person says the name carefully and with a threatening grin, ❝I will not be helping you anymore. Get out of my office now.❞
"You dare..." Bardella balls her fists, her sharp features contorting into a face of anger. "One day," she says furiously, "one day, you will not wake up. The people you failed to support will be the ones who bring upon your downfall. And if you ask how, we've found a way. The way of the permadeath."
The lady in the pantsuit, now dubbed Bardella, storms out of the office and slams the door behind her. Bardella's secretary Riley hurries to catch up with her. "Uh— ma'am— the papers—"
"Leave the papers the fuck alone! The stupid son of a bitch can deal with them himself!" Bardella yells angrily.
"Wait— Creator—" Riley yells, but she shuts up when Bardella shoots her a furious glare. "I— okay. I'll keep quiet."
"Thank you." Bardella grumbles, smashing buttons on the elevator. "I can't believe the balls of that man. I'm telling you, Riley, he's going to die early."
"If you say so." Riley says gently, raising a hand to pat the small of Bardella's back.
The lady sighs. "I'm sorry, Rye, I shouldn't have been so harsh on you, it's just—"
"It's okay, Creator, calm down. He's not that special if I know how to help you." Riley says, eyes glinting with mischief.
[ word count: 2638
it turns out homework is an ass, and i can't write more than three thousand words ]