This was bad.

This was really, really bad.

The mask was gone.

Xisuma dug up some dirt on the jungle floor and dropped down, down into a chamber he had hoped he would never need.

A large stone chamber echoed as Xisuma splashed down, a small pool of water breaking his fall. A rough, unadorned alcove held a single chest. Xisuma approached it, removing his helmet. He took a deep breath. The underground air was musty and stale, but he didn't mind.

After Generkib had passed on his role as admin, he had shown Xisuma a secret. The thing that gave admins power over their servers.

Rust fell to the floor as Xisuma creaked open the latch of the chest. Inside, small, grey objects sat. They were blurry, as if you were seeing them on the edges of your vision, and no matter how hard you tried to focus on them, they remained blurred. Xisuma reached out and grasped one, taking a deep breath in. He closed his eyes, and let go.

~ ⬩ ᔑリ↸ ⬩ ~

It was like a fever dream. He saw a surge of files and code. The name "Minecraft," flashed before his eyes. He saw the nether shifting, new fungi and structures rising from lava and netherrack.

~ ⬩ ⍑ᒷ ⬩ ~

He opened his eyes. A cool draft swept in from the outside of the cavern as he lay there on the ground. The world felt different. A shiver ran down his spine and he shook himself.

It was chilly, far too chilly. He needed to get somewhere warm. Rubbing his arms, he checked his communicator.

Currently, every single player except himself was in an offline state.

Good. No problems there.

A player who enters the offline state simply disappears. No one knew quite where they went, but they were no longer shown on the "tab" screen of the communicators. Different hermits would come online at different times, but it was very rare for all of them to be offline at once.

Very lucky, I suppose.

He flew out of the underground chamber and covered it up, placing grass and stone over it, and finished the job by replanting some shrubs. Once he was finished, it looked as if he had never even been there.

He realised that his elytra no longer resembled bee wings. It was back to its normal silvery appearance. His doomsuit was now an odd shade of purplish-red. As he fastened on his helmet, he found that it too was purpley, several thin white feelers poking out of the sides.

Xisuma ran a few tests to make sure all was in order. He placed a torch and made sure it lit its surroundings correctly. He looked at the world around him, making sure nothing had glitched. There would likely be some issues with farms, but he was sure those could be easily remedied.

Now, to check out the new nether.

The bee man took off once again, darting up onto a hexagonal platform. An immense nether portal, surrounded by another giant hexagon, loomed above him. He was glad that he had repaired all of his armour and tools before the update; who knew what he would find on the other side. Without further adieu, Xisuma stepped in.

This was much better. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, basking in the warmth. When he opened his eyes, however, he was dismayed to see that he was completely encased in netherrack.
His suit now shone a beautiful crimson, and his body felt much warmer. With a twirl of his hand, he took out a pickaxe and began to mine his way out to explore the new nether.

He had been hoping to get all of his friends together to explore, but he couldn't risk it now. He had to keep it a secret that the server had updated. Surely if they all gathered together in the nether it would be obvious that he had updated, and that he was preparing for the worst.

Luckily, with all of the events in the overworld, Most of the hermits were busy trying to keep up to date as well as build their bases. No one had been or would be to the nether for a while.

Honestly, not much had changed in his current area. The biome was nether wastes, the only noticeable differences were the piglins wandering around. Xisuma had come prepared, however, and after being attacked by the pigmen one too many times, he had put on a golden helmet. That at least made the piglins tolerate him, even if they weren't exactly friendly.

Now, for his plans. It seemed best to get this done immediately, before any of the other hermits were back. He always tried to stay up to date about what was coming, so he now knew of a powerful new material...

Powerful enough to kill them.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that.

However, it surely wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

So he went to work. His pickaxe glinted in the mellow golden glow of the lava as he began to mine down, down into the depths of the nether. Once he had mined down far enough, he checked his communicator.

He inspected the y-coordinate, which currently displayed that he was at y-level 15. He would need to go down two more metres.

Once he had reached the correct depth, he took out two shulker boxes. The stiff purple shells each held different items. The first was overflowing with bushy grey wool, the other packed with wooden planks. That was all he would need. He set down a crafting table next to the boxes. He sat down in front of the workbench, grabbed some wool and wood, and began to craft beds. However, they weren't for sleeping in. No, these beds were going to become explosives.

An odd thing about this world was that you could only sleep in the overworld. If you tried to get into a bed in any other dimension, it would immediately explode, often leaving the unfortunate hermit dead. This could be used in Xisuma's favour, however, and the strider man was going to do just that.

Once he had filled all of the available space in his inventory with beds, he unstrapped his elytra and took off his golden helm. In their places, he equipped some shining diamond armour. Ghostly light rippled across the armour's surface. These would protect him from the blast.

The netherrack groaned as he broke it, as if protesting its destruction. A small 1 by 1 metre tunnel opened before him, and Xisuma placed one of the beds at the very end.

Well, here goes.

Hoping his methodology proved correct, he reached out and tapped the bed.

Red dust fell from the roof as the explosion shook his tunnel. Xisuma found himself engulfed in flame and quickly extinguished it.

Once the fire was put out, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. A flaming crater stood before him. No signs of what he was looking for, but he hadn't lost more than a heart of damage from the blast.

On only his third try, he found what he was looking for. A panelled block, brown and wrinkled with age, was embedded in the roof of the second crater. He mined it greedily, grasping the clump of debris and inspecting it. Only one. It would need to be refined quite a lot, but it would be worth it. This was going to work!

Xisuma grasped another bed and continued to repeat the process. Hole, bed, explode, extinguish. Two more debris. Lucky. Only 477 more to go. He sighed, but continued. It was a necessary pain.

He would also need a ton of gold, but he already had that covered. A gold farm he had made beforehand was already working away as he mined.

~ ⬩ ꖌリ𝙹∴ᓭ ⬩ ~

After about 2 weeks of mining, he was worn out. He had only had small breaks here and there to sleep or eat. He didn't have enough netherite - not even close - but he couldn't bring himself to mine a single block more. His shulkers of bed materials had been refilled multiple times, he had had to repair his battered armour at least 3 times, and he was covered in burns, some big, some small.

He would continue this tomorrow, but for now, he needed some rest.

He exited the nether and, without bothering to leave the portal platform, slipped into an offline state.

~ ⬩ ⍑ᒷ ⬩ ~

In the months following, Xisuma was not to be seen anywhere in the overworld. Instead, he was in the nether, blasting his way through the spongy maroon stone. It took him several weeks to finish. He was so absorbed in his work that, when he was about halfway done with work, the mayoral election date had come and gone. However, in the brief moments when he was in the overworld, he heard that Scar had won.

He would be a good mayor.

He had thought.

Finally, after 3 months of slow and steady progress, he was done.

In his inventory, he held 7 and a half stacks of ancient debris. Perfect.

He was ready.

...

Xisuma spent a long time mining, so why not leave him a vote?

Don't forget to let me know what you think in the comments, and subscribe so you don't miss the next one!