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Mumbo had been craving player blood recently.
Usually, villager blood worked just fine as a substitute, but recently…
He wanted to bite into Grian’s wrist whenever he saw him. He wanted to bite Scar’s forearm. He wanted to drink from Pearl’s ankle. He wanted to drink from Impulse’s neck.
It was beginning to drive him a bit mad.
Beef had been working in the Evil Emporium most of the day and was bone tired.
He grabbed a bed from his inventory, chucked it on the ground, and collapsed into it. A whoosh of air caught Beef’s attention. Mumbo was beside him, looking down with bright red eyes.
“Oh, hi Mumbo,” Beef greeted.
Beef let out a startled yelp as Mumbo grabbed his chin and forced him to look him directly in the eyes. His eyes were crazed like a starving animal--hungry and predatory. Beef instinctively recoiled, but Mumbo held his chin in a vice-grip.
“Relax,” Mumbo said, a distorted lilt in his voice.
Beef’s body obliged against his will, and Mumbo dropped his chin. Mumbo raised Beef’s limp arm to his mouth, and huge fangs like that of a snake’s unfolded from the roof of his mouth.
There was a whistle from nearby, and the rich, coppery scent of blood. Mumbo turned toward the sound abruptly. Beef blinked, and Mumbo had vanished.
Beef abruptly sat up, finding Mumbo drinking greedily from Xisuma’s exposed and bleeding wrist. Beef stood, drawing his sword, but Xisuma held up a hand. Mumbo continued to drink, panting like a dying man with water until the red glow faded from his eyes.
Mumbo hastily pulled away, horrified, from Xisuma’s wrist, “Oh my god—X, I’m so sorry--
And then Beef noticed something odd.
Xisuma’s blood was black.
Xisuma held up two fingers, gently tapping Mumbo in the forehead. Mumbo’s eyes fluttered shut, and he collapsed into Xisuma’s waiting arms. The admin carefully lowered him to the dirt and placed a bed beside him.
He turned to Beef, who stood shell-shocked in the middle of it all. Beef took a hesitant step back, but X was quicker.
X gently brought his knuckles to Beef’s forehead, as though he were knocking on a door, “Go to sleep, my friend.”
Beef felt a wave of exhaustion roll over him, and he collapsed forward, giving in to unconsciousness.
Mumbo awoke with a full stomach—something he had not experienced in a long time.
His first thought was, “Wow this is pretty nice.”
His second thought was, “Oh my god I bit someone.”
He started out of bed when Xisuma caught him by the shoulders, “Woah there, Mumbo, calm down.”
“X—X I bit someone, and I didn’t mean to—oh my god—”
“You bit me, Mumbo,” Xisuma said calmly, “You were going after Beef, and I stepped in.”
Mumbo froze, “I tried to bite Beef?!”
Xisuma gently moved to hold Mumbo’s head in his hands, looking him in the eyes, “Breathe, Mumbo, in and out, slow and steady.”
Xisuma exaggerated his breaths, and Mumbo quietly followed them until his own breathing had significantly slowed.
“I bit you,” Mumbo said, his expression pinched in pain and guilt, “I tried to bite Beef.”
“You waited to drink, Mumbo,” Xisuma tilted his head, “When was the last time you drank?”
Mumbo looked to the ground, “I’ve just been using villager blood. It usually works fine but…”
Xisuma sighed, “Villagers aren’t the same as players, Mumbo. If you don’t drink from a player, you can go into a blood fit, or worse, you can starve yourself. You’re undead, Mumbo, it’s hard to respawn correctly when you’re already dead.”
“I know but—”
“No buts,” Xisuma said sternly, “If you get hungry, go to someone. I know you don’t like hurting people, and I know you’re doing “Peace, Love, and Plants”, but that isn’t an excuse to starve yourself to the point of a blood fit.”
“Is—is Beef okay?” Mumbo asked.
Xisuma nodded, “He’s sleeping in his shop. He was already tired, so I just knocked him out. He shouldn’t remember.”
Mumbo sighed in relief, “I—I should apologize to him. Even if he doesn’t know, I wanna apologize.”
Xisuma chuckled, “He’s been working on a couple of new recipes. I bet he’d appreciate the help.”
Mumbo brightened, “Yeah! I’m not a great cook, but uh, I could put stuff in the oven? Well, no--the last time I put something in the oven I nearly burned down Pearl’s lighthouse.”
Xisuma laughed, “How’d you manage that?”
“Parchment paper is not meant to be put in the oven at one-hundred and fifty-five degrees Celsius.”
Beef woke up the next morning unbelievably sore and not at all where he thought he had stopped to rest for the night.
Welp. This was Hermitcraft where anything and everything could get weird on a dime, so he honestly wasn't surprised.
Beef shrugged it off and got to work on his latest recipes.
“Uh, Beef?”
Beef jumped violently, nearly cursing as Mumbo stood in the doorway of his bakery, “JE-Eez Mumbo, you scared me!”
Mumbo rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, “Sorry, I walk kinda quiet.”
“Really quiet,” Beef snorted, “You walk like my dad does. He’d come into my room at night as a kid, and I’d never know he was there because he walked like a ghost.”
Mumbo chuckled, “Some of my old friends were like that. They’d always sneak up behind me and spook me.”
“Thus is why I like having voice chat,” Beef grinned, pulling a container of flour out from a chest, “It’s a lot harder to sneak up on people. Speaking of which, what can I do for ‘ya, Mumbo Jumbo?”
“Oh, I wanted to know if you wanted any help working in the kitchen or cleaning up,” Mumbo said.
Beef caught the barest glimpse of guilt in his eyes, but he couldn’t figure out why Mumbo would feel guilty. Did he break one of Beef’s builds by accident or something? Well, nonetheless, it was always nice having another helping hand in the kitchen.
“Do you know how to cook?” Beef asked.
“Does chili count?”
“British Chili or American Chili? Because I’mma have to say no to the second.”
“British Chili,” Mumbo raised an eyebrow, “What’s American Chili like?”
Beef began chopping up a chorus fruit and a couple of its stems, “Depends on who’s making it. I make mine like a raccoon. I pick up the first thing I see and stick it in a pot. My friends from Mindcrack would have a chili contest and the person with the weirdest tasting chili would win.”
“One year,” Beef continued, scooping up the diced chorus fruit and sticking it into a mixing bowl, “I made a chili so thick that you could turn the pot upside down and it wouldn’t fall out.”
Mumbo burst out laughing, Beef joining him as he continued cooking.
“Well, uh, I don’t think my cooking’s as bad as that, but I’m a bit of a beginner,” Mumbo chuckled.
“Well, everybody has to start somewhere,” Beef shrugged, “Put on an apron and grab me the baking powder from the shelf on your left.”
“…Uh, what does baking powder look like?”