Sam was dead.

Properly this time.

But it didn't make a difference.

Mumbo and Scar were still dead. Their bodies hadn't disappeared, which meant they wouldn't respawn. Grian still hadn't saved them, he was still responsible for their deaths. Sam was right, the rest of the hermits would hate him. He was a traumatised murderer who hadn't bothered to save his best friends from a sociopath. Who'd want him?

No one, was the answer to that question. Xisuma might ban him, or the other hermits might kill him permanently, or maybe they'd just avoid him. Maybe they'd hate him, or be scared of him, or maybe they'd pretend he wasn't there. He could be sure of one thing though; they wouldn't want him. They'd never look at him the same again.

A message came through on his communicator.

<Xisuma> Grian, are you okay?

The admin clearly hadn't figured out what had happened yet. Grian looked at the words, guilt twisting inside him. He didn't deserve anyone's care. Xisuma didn't deserve to have to deal with him, he was just a problem. He just caused trouble wherever he went.

Grian threw the small device at the ground far below him. He shouldn't burden them.

About an hour later, he arrived in his mansion. The first thing he did was set his spawn to the bed, he never wanted to go back to the mountain where his friends were buried. He never wanted to go back to that dark, cold room.

The next thing he did was find a quiet, secluded, hidden spot and he sat down against the wall, bringing his legs to his chest and crying out all his emotions.

Mumbo and Scar were dead. Forever. He'd never hear their cheery voices and see their happy smiles again. Ever.

And he was to blame.

The remaining friends he had no longer liked him, or wouldn't when they found out what had happened. He'd never tell them the truth, even though Sam was dead. If he did, Sam might come back. Somehow. There'd be a way and he'd suffer even more. It meant everyone would think he killed Mumbo and Scar, but that was better than any minuscule chance of Sam.

He'd lost everything, it was his fault. Now, he'd live with nothing for the rest of his life and never try to rebuild anything, that way he'd have nothing to lose.

The blonde hermit didn't even know why he'd gone back to his base, nothing was there but memories. He was in the middle of the jungle, where everyone else was. He was an easy target, a sitting duck, a death waiting to happen as soon as people found out. They might want to hurt him, they might want to kill him.

***

<Xiusma> Grian, are you okay?

It had been nearly an hour since sending the message and there'd still been no reply. To say he was worried would be an understatement.

He'd seen the death message; Samgladiator, whoever they were, was dead. Did that mean Grian was safe? Was there a second person he didn't know about? Was Grian simply busy or had something else happened?

He'd also seen Mumbo and Scar's death messages a bit earlier. Then he realised that for all Grian knew, they were dead permanently, not temporarily.

"Iskall, False, are your offers still open to look for Grian?" He asked, breaking the deathly and worried silence that had previously been filling the room.

"Of course!" False said as Iskall nodded.

"I can go too." Doc said.

"Me too." Etho said.

"I'm also up for it," Ren said. It looked like nearly every other hermit was also about to put themselves forward, so Xisuma spoke before they could. He wanted to put as little amount of people in potential danger as possible.

"Ok, that's enough people. Get your armour on and I'll give you some brief information." In the last few hours, most people had emptied their inventories and taken off their kit for comfort. Xisuma hadn't told them much about what was happening since he was too busy trying to get an idea of what was happening himself. He didn't know much.

There was some shuffling around as he explained, but everyone was listening intently.

"As I said, there was a danger which was why I called you all here. I turned off death messages for your communicators to keep you from panicking." A few people glanced around, there was reason to panic? "I found the person endangering us, their username was Samgladiator, so it was probably the person called Sam who Grian mentioned. I turned Mumbo and Scar off hardcore mode and onto a spawn setting which causes them to take a chosen amount of time before they can respawn - they won't feel the time though. I set it to 24 hours. That way, it would look like they were dead permanently to Sam and he wouldn't notice I'd changed anything.

"Scar and Mumbo died." There was a small murmur and exchange of glances. "Then I put Sam onto hardcore mode and, from what I can tell, Grian found out somehow and managed to kill him. He's gone. I sent Grian a message asking if he was okay nearly an hour ago and he hasn't replied." There was another exchange of glances. "Sam's gone, so it can't have been him, but I'm still worried. Bare in mind that Grian probably thinks Mumbo and Scar are still, or were still, on hardcore mode. I need you to look for him and check if it's safe."

"Where should we look?" Etho asked. Xisuma opened a page on his communicator.

"Grian's communicator is currently at..." he skimmed through the words until finding the numbers. He said them. "but I think he dropped it there. It's about halfway back from where Mumbo and Scar's are so I think that means he was on his way back here." X said.

"That's really far." Ren commented.

"Can one of you check there?" Xisuma said, "just in case he's stopped there."

"I can," False offered.

"Thanks, and the rest of you can check around here to see if he's come back. If we find nothing then we should check the place Mumbo and Scar's communicators are just in case he's still there or has gone back, but I don't want to send anyone there unnecessarily just in case it's dangerous." Xisuma said.

"I'll check the jungle and his base," Iskall said.

"Me too." Ren said. The jungle was the most likely place Grian would be so it would be good to search it thoroughly.

"I'll look in the nether." Etho said.

"I'll search in the shopping district and around other places." Doc said.

"That sounds good." Xisuma said. "Keep us all updated through your communicators and tell us if you find anything or come to any danger."

They all nodded and started breaking the obsidian that sealed them in.

Quick A/N, just want to say thanks to the people reading this, the first book is already over 500 views and for me that's a lot for such a small amount of time, so yeah thanks!