For the most part, the start of Hermitcraft Season 8 had gone off without a hitch. Gem and Pearl had easily fit into the community, and everyone's starter bases were well underway. There had been a bit of a kerfuffle with Evil X appearing, and X had noticed something off in the coding of the world's skybox, but it was probably nothing to worry about. All in all, things had gone off about as smoothly as they could have.
It was no secret that a vast majority of the Hermits were something other than human, but in the couple weeks that Gem and Pearl had been members of the server, nobody had asked either of them whether they ought to join the Nonhuman Hermits Club, as it were. As far as anyone was concerned, both new Hermits were as human as they came.
Both of these pieces of information changed after the Incident.
See, Gem hadn't really had the opportunity to talk with the Horse Head Farms guys, other than the deal she was making literally right that moment. And maybe, just maybe, she'd forgotten which one was Hypno and which one was xB. In her defense, they were both loner guys with dark clothing and a general ominous vibe about them, so she tended to think of them as one weird unit rather than two separate, equally weird guys.
"So yeah, you can have anything you want, just for an IOU!" one of them, the one with the guardian tail and the hoodie, finished the sales pitch, grinning a sharp grin.
"Can I have your name?" Gem asked, laughing. She was a fae, of course, so if the Horse Head guy didn't know his stuff he'd be in a bit of trouble, but she figured that with deals this convoluted the guy had to have at least some experience, you know?
"xBcrafted," said xBcrafted.
"Wait-" said GeminiTay.
"Oh no," said Hypnotizd.
And then GeminiTayxBcrafted had two names, and System.Func'[System.String] had no name. System.Func'[System.String] took a moment to process this, and then he made the very normal and reasonable decision to start screaming.
"Oh no," GemB repeated. "That... wasn't supposed to happen."
"Why," Hypno remarked, gesturing vaguely at the everything.
"Aaaaaaghagh," said System.Func'[System.String], because he was too busy screaming to contribute anything useful.
"Put it back." Hypno folded his arms.
"I don't know how! I've only ever taken one name before, and Tay got stabbed immediately after!"
"Maybe get him to ask for it back?"
"Aaaaaaghagh," System.Func'[System.String] kept screaming instead of asking for his name back.
"xB, please stop screaming."
"Aaaaaaghagh," System.Func'[System.String] did not stop screaming, because his name was not xB.
"That's... not gonna work then," Hypno observed.
"Uh..." GemB paused to think. "Your name is xBcrafted?" she tried, attempting to put the same power behind it as she did when asking for a name. It didn't work, but there was definitely some power flow there. "Your name is xBcrafted!" she tried again, more commanding this time.
There was a moment of silence, and then an outpouring of power.
"Did it work?" Hypno asked Gem.
"Maybe?" Gem guessed. "His name went... somewhere, at least."
"Lesson learned," xBcrafted informed the two, hoarse from all the screaming.
"You're on a server with Cub and Scar," Hypno pointed out, "How has this never come up before?"
"Luck?" xB offered.
There was a momentary awkward silence.
"So, uh, is that IOU still on the table?" Gem asked.
"For anything but our names," xB amended. "That's not a mistake we're gonna repeat."
And so, GeminiTay was officially added to the roster of nonhuman hermits. The story of how PearlescentMoon got added, on the other hand, is one for another time, simply because it contains similar amounts of screaming, and that amount of screaming contained in one page isn't good for anyone's mental, social, or physical wellbeing.
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Late, short, and ooc! the trifecta of death!
My excuse is mafia
I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!
