The Crew's Book of Hermitcraft Season Six Oneshots

Once Upon A Time: The Sacrifice

You are quite the bard, aren't you? You have traveled far, collecting many a story of this world. But now you seek some of the rarer tales. The tales of elusive hermits, who live in the hidden reaches of the world. But you found their homeland. The loud dragon noises gave things away, a bit.

You carefully adjust your bow, after Zed ruffles your hair one more time. You thank him for his tale, and crash headfirst into someone wearing a black creeper t-shirt. He looks at Zed and Tango, who nod at him as if to say you're safe.

You explain your mission, and he pauses to rack his brain. Zed and Tango casually listen, too.

Once Upon A Time, there was a village.

This village sat proudly on one side of a large forest, twinned with the city of Canēs on the other side. The people of the two villages were close, and neither community could imagine a world without the other. And then reality took its toll. The people of the village had long known of the werewolf pack within the forest, but always thought as them as kind beings.

But one morning, a morning far too bright, the news reached the village. Their twin village ha'd been wiped off the face of the Earth by the forest wolves. Everything was burned to the ground, and many died in the flames.

Shaken to their cores, the townspeople sought something, anything, to spare themselves of the same fate. They found something in a local library, a ritual that would summon a demon that may take pity upon them. But it would most likely cost a soul of some kind, someone would have to make a sacrifice to save all the others.

That's when he volunteered. A boy, only just old enough to drive. He was the brash type at that age, rushing into things with no clue what the consequences would be, acting purely on impulse. He did this so often, that it had earned him the simple nickname of 'Impulse'.

But this was one time when he had finally thought things through. He'd seen the fear in his best friend's eyes when the news had first arrived. He'd felt the pain himself, thinking about his cousin, his friends, in Canēs. And so, he explained, he'd volunteer himself as a sacrifice to save the pain that would be caused if he didn't. More would die if there was no sacrifice.

So he alone entered the room with the gold dust circle. He alone read the incantation. He alone saw the swirls of brassy harvest-gold flames as the demon appeared. He alone begged for mercy for his town. He alone was told that the townspeople would never burn. He alone signed his soul away, to collect whenever. He alone thanked the demon for his graciousness in saving the town.

He alone, just barely, survived.

The sickness of the situation was like a knife to the boy's heart. Because none of the townspeople burned. They all had claw marks, ripping across them, but despite the flames nobody had a single burn. The boy stuck his hand in the fire, confirming that he was, indeed fireproof.

The townspeople hadn't burned, as the demon had promised. But they all had died anyway.

Impulse breaks down there, and is quickly engulfed in a hug pile by you, Zed and Tango. You won't let him suffer just to tell you a story, and you make that clear. You all care anyway.

This one's shorter than the rest. Huh. Maybe the message is shorter. Because I KNOW whoever is writing this is including secret messages, I'm just too busy.

Autocorrect, signing off from the past!