“Alright, chat, that’s enough Minecraft for one day. Agatha should still be streaming for another hour, so go watch her. Or else!! Peace, nerds.”

I cut the stream, shove my viewers onto Agatha’s page, and check in with my assigned manager just to make triple sure there isn’t anything else I need to do before calling it. As soon as I get the okay, I leap off the computer and throw myself onto my big, comfy bed.

I breathe a sigh of relief and sink into the covers. The pillows, the blankets, the mattress, all of it perfectly calculated to be impossibly soft and supportive. I could stay here for hours, away from the rest of the world, away from all those glaring screens and the hordes of people behind them. A nice, happy break from the torments of the internet.

Instead, I immediately open my phone and start texting my friends, because I’m a digital addict and incapable of feeling shame over that fact.

Alexandria: heyyyy good stream good stream

Alexandria: she lied as easily as she breathed

Mike Trout: easier, even!

Alexandria: i hate minecraft

Mike Trout: Hey you take that back right now what the fuck

Mike Trout: You’re going to make me and my smoking hot girlfriend cry

a single femur: Is the girlfriend thing going to be a recurring bit or do you just need to get it out of your system today?

Mike Trout: Wouldn’t you like to know! Smile

Alexandria: okay that’s not true it’s fine, minecraft is fine, but oh my god i need a break from the fucking SMP bullshit. gonna scream and cry and rupture seven nineteenths of my organs if i have to spend any more time on that server this month

I’ve been playing Minecraft on and off stream for weeks, having joined the Visage survival server a month ago in preparation for doing collabs with other performers. I set up my base, I hoarded useful items, and I laid extravagant plans to mess with my prey.

It was all incredibly, atrociously, mind-numbingly boring.

Here’s the problem: the Visage server is completely sauceless. There are no fun mods to get into, everyone’s swimming in endgame materials, and there are a bunch of behind-the-scenes rules that limit what kind of griefing you can get away with.

Pit and cage traps are fine, along with anything else easily circumvented, but TNT traps? Lava inside a wooden structure? Any trap with a serious risk of harm to a player’s belongings or builds? Absolutely not.

Despite the kayfabe that surrounds our battles in Forks being such an emphasized part of the performance, it’s almost completely absent in the game world. Witches and magical girls have their rivalries—they even live on separate islands—but they share the same Forks-themed spawn town, frequently give each other gifts, and almost never kill each other.

It’s boring! Where’s the action? Where’s the excitement? They could have built warring kingdoms obsessed with control over resource-rich biomes between their respective bases! They could have put all of the witches in the Nether to come pouring out of portals! It could have been modded Minecraft with magic versus machines or rival companies racing to complete moon rockets! They could have done any amount of sincere fucking roleplay!

But alas, I don’t live in any of those far more interesting worlds. Instead, I got the neutered, dull, toothless version of an SMP, reduced to papering walls with funny signs and pelting other players with harmless snowballs.

Alexandria: this is all mordacity’s fault

Mordacity: I say that every day

a single femur: I say thatFUCK

Mordacity: get sniped, idiot

Alexandria: if you hadnt introduced me to those youtubers who dropped nukes on each other i wouldnt be in this mess! id be fine, happily lapping up the milk of mediocrity!

a single femur: When they say ignorance is bliss I do think they’re speaking aspirationally. Perhaps you should consider a lobotomy

Mordacity: first of all they’re not “those youtubers” they’re the Yogscast. put some respect on their name, clown

Mordacity: and second yeah no i did that on purpose to make this worse for you

Alexandria: AUGUGH i cant even tell if youre serious or not because you’d absolutely claim credit either way

Mordacity: that’s the mordacity guarantee ba-by

Mike Trout: What if instead of playing Minecraft on stream we all played Minecraft together on a server hosted by my smoking hot girlfriend?

Mike Trout: her name on discord is Samantha Altwoman and she has very pretty eyes and she’s even more normal than me

a single femur: Do you actually want me to invite her

a single femur: Because we will have to hold a vote

Mordacity: eh, the sanctity of the space was disrupted the moment we let that loser A join us, so i vote yes

Alexandria: i was here first you absolute goblin im going to strangle you with your own intestines and melt your hands to your spleen

Alexandria: also can she keep a secret about the witch thing that’s my only real concern

A ping from my other phone steals my attention. Visage hooked me up with a work phone when I joined to make it easier to separate my social media accounts and not accidentally post personal details to my professional persona. I bought a bedazzled case for it so the awful texture would discourage me from doomscrolling while on the wrong profile.

Agatha Cain: Hey, taking an ad break but I’ll be on again soon, just wanted to say thanks for the great stream and hope you’re doing good <3

Archon: ofc! Glad you had fun <3

Archon: Doing way better on the back and forth, damn girl

Agatha Cain: Aw, thank you! I think the practice really helped. I’ll make sure to get some more in before our next stream together, which I’m super looking forward to by the way!!!! Okay, gotta go, ttyl!

Archon: see you then! or sooner, if we’re still on for bagels at that place i know. good rest of stream!!! have good bye friend!!

Agatha seems like she’s doing good. More confident but still dorky, better at playing the tsundere game but still awkward. Everything worked out! So it’s fine, and I don’t need to worry about anything going wrong with her or the deimovore.

I toss my work phone across the bed and pick up my personal phone again, but I don’t rejoin the conversation yet. Idly, almost unconsciously, I check on the two emerald sparks still burning in the back of my mind.

To my relief, the embers I forged didn’t vanish in the night; my fix to the duration problem worked, and now I can cast persistent transformations.

One side effect I hadn’t thought about when I was casting the spell made itself clear when I checked my magic in the morning; through my link to the sparks I crafted, I now always have a rough idea of where both Agatha and the deimovore—Phoebe now, I guess—are in relation to me.

The sensation is only vague, luckily for them, though it still feels a bit like stalking. If I spent a few days triangulating I could probably pinpoint the exact building or even room that Agatha lives in, but for now I just know the direction it’s in from my place—assuming she’s even in her own home right now, which isn’t a certainty; if someone tracked me, would they be able to tell which of my apartments I considered my real home?

I caught a ping of Phoebe yesterday that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time. Today she’s halfway across the city from where I sensed her last, and she’s been moving all day. If I had to guess, I imagine she’s probably on a massive bender sampling all the mortal delights she ranted about.

At some point I should really track her down and talk to her, but first I need to figure out how to sneak that past the Jovians. Maybe I could arrange a meeting with Mordacity. Of course, I’ll have to signal that somehow.

Ultimately, I didn’t go into yesterday expecting to have a shapeshifter ally, so it’s pretty low on my priority list. It’ll be nice to have, but not strictly necessary for any of my plans. She can have her fun for at least a few days before I start scheming up how to make use of her.

Alexandria: hey im back i died i was reborn im literally jesus can someone recap whatever i missed so i dont have to scroll up

a single femur: It’s been less than ten minutes since your last message

a single femur: You cannot be this TikTok-brained

a single femur: This is iPad baby behavior

Mike Trout: we were talking about how excited everyone is to meet my smoking hot girlfriend, Samantha Altwoman, who’s going to join the server as soon as femur sends her an invite so we can talk about Minecraft and computers

Alexandria: oh good, nothing i need to care about

Alexandria: be back in a bit, thsi bitch is THIRSTY

Mordacity: thsi

a single femur: thsi

Mike Trout: thsi

My bed is so, so soft, but I valiantly struggle my way to the edge of the bed, drape myself over the side, and inch away until I have no choice but to stand up or fall. I fall.

Downstairs, I crack open the fridge and debate which drink I should inhale. Am I in the mood for alcohol? After three hours of fucking Minecraft, absolutely. I grab a margarita can, pop the lid, and start guzzling.

How many meals have I eaten since waking up, and does that number sound appropriate? Have I been drinking water?

I mutter aloud mutinously at my trained reminder, but regrettably, the Rachel who developed that habit had a point. I pour myself a glass of water to go with the booze and start picking through my freezer for something to eat. I settle on a bowl of buffalo mac and shove it in the microwave.

Outside, the sun has long set. The park outside my apartment is kept just lit enough for midnight pedestrians to make their way through, which lends it a nice, moody atmosphere.

While I wait for my dinner, I text Mordacity in our private DMs.

Alexandria: heyyyyy bestie, my beloathed, my dearest and most hated of friends

Alexandria: when are you coming over

Alexandria: you said january and its january so like, get moving bitch

Alexandria: on an unrelated purely hypothetical note how hard do you think it would be for you to hide our conversation from the CIA

Mordacity: are you asking me if i can twist the veil so thoroughly that it covers my location, your location, and the location of every data center that our messages bounce between or get stored in by discord, thus preventing the jovians and egregores from spying on our communique? is that what you’re asking?

Alexandria: yeah that

Mordacity: of course i can, dont be ridiculous

Alexandria: cool fuck you

Alexandria: hey i did something kinda crazy and i might need your help

Mordacity: is this about the deimovore you gave a meat body

Alexandria: how do yoU KNOW THAToh you’re still spying on my dreams aren’t you?

Mordacity: yup yup

Mordacity: gonna get my hooks in that fucker as soon as i can, btw

Alexandria: you can do that? of course you can do that, dont even say it

Mordacity: never dreamwalked a deimovore, so that’s prooooobably gonna be a trip

Mordacity: but once i have it snared, getting the two of you in touch should be trivial

Alexandria: right! well. i guess that’s that. i can sorta track it so i thought we might end up chasing it through the city, but this way sounds easier

Alexandria: for me, which is the important part

Alexandria: but seriously thank you

Mordacity: eh, i was gonna want it in my web regardless of if you asked or not, and this still might end in a bit of running, but we’ll see

Alexandria: “in my web” oh my god you kin the spiderbitch so hard

Mordacity: spider8itch, motherfucker

I grab my meal from the microwave and consider seeing if the nerds are up for movie night. We’re overdue. The real question is whether I stay here or head back to Sophie’s apartment. A pang of pain runs through me at the thought. Earlier today, I mused about the difficulty of telling which apartment was my real home. To my discomfort, I’m not entirely sure about that myself. Just for a little longer. Just a few more weeks.

The urge overtakes me and I start texting Sophia.

Rachel: hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi

Rachel: hope work is not stabbing you with ten billion needles and extracting your Sophia energy to power a terrible machine beneath the depths of forks washington

Rachel: because that’s my job :3

Rachel: anyway. thinking about maybe staying over at a friend’s palce tonight since you said you’d probably be out really late and would crash immediately when you get home BUT if that’s not the case then plz text and tell me it won’t be an imposition at all just tell me

Rachel: no worries either way, obviously

Rachel: seriously though i hope you’re doing good and i’m really really really erally looking forward to this friday and the arcade

Rachel: it’s gonna be great! super awesome. worth the wait.

Rachel: sorry this is kind of a lot of messages haha please dont like freak out when you see eighty unreads from me lmao

Rachel: since i figure you’re not even going to see these for another couple hours

Sophia: I will be home late, sadly. You have my apologies, Rachel. I hope you enjoy your evening, and I can’t wait to spend Friday with you at the arcade.

Sophia: I always find time to check my phone when I see it’s from you 🙂 I promise, if you ever need me urgently I’ll see it.

“I love you,” I whisper, and then I throw my phone onto the couch and groan, followed by running over to pick it up again because I need to let the nerds know I’m ready.

Alexandria: okay im back let’s drag samantha into the server and watch morbius

Mike Trout: we are not doing that we are watching Parkour Civilization

Mike Trout: it’s literally peak

Mordacity: consider the many benefits of watching the Warcraft movie

a single femur: You mean the benefit of listening to you whine the entire time about how it’s not accurate to the books

Mordacity: yes obviously

Alexandria: you still haven’t offered a bribe high enough for me to agree to watch that

a single femur: What we should watch is Babette’s Feast the 1987 Danish classic

Mike Trout: it sounds like Parkour Civilization wins by default! yippee!

Alexandria: there are less painful lobotomies, i vote morbius

Mordacity: i survived vampire civilization in minecraft a feature film by visionary content creator mordacity, a mordacity pictures production

a single femur: Fuck it, Samantha can decide

<Samantha Altwoman has joined the server.>

Samantha Altwoman: Hello! Nice to meet you! TC 450k

Samantha Altwoman: Just letting you know up front that I am not an LLM and not currently being paid by Microsoft!

Samantha Altwoman: Ooo we’re doing movie night? I know a one hour video of aquatic sea life making noises that we can watch! It has captions!

I grab an edible from the cupboard, then a second. That’s going to be the best way to experience this movie night, and may future Rachel deal with the consequences so that I don’t have to.

[commentary]

Writing the chat segments is really, really fun. I need an excuse to do it more.

A special thank you to my Grandmaster-tier patrons, whose support has kept food on my table: Adrian CC, Ashlyn, CaosSorge, Crows Danger, Demi, Lirian, M, Mgbm, Mhai Wind, Morrigan, October, Paige Harvey, PR4v1 Samaratunga, and Selacanis. Wow that’s a lot of you! Thank you so much!

If you like this story and want to see more of it, please go to the RR page and leave a rating or review! Web serials live and die on audience support, and this one is no exception. The better the story does on RR, the more people click through and read, the more motivation I have (both on a mental health level and on an “able to pay rent” level) to keep writing and to write faster.

The next scheduled break week starts on the 8th of February.

[/commentary]