Chapter Text
Spoke quietly moved down the hallway, aiming to be undetected. Well, he didn’t actually know if there was anyone here, but it was smart to be quiet anyway.
Typical to how he functioned, Spoke had accidently found a secret base while mining. At this point it just happened, he wasn’t even trying anymore. He had the magic touch or something.
However, atypical to how he normally functioned, Spoke didn’t know whose base this was yet. Normally, when stumbling upon a secret base, Spoke was able to tell almost immediately who it belonged to. There were always easy clues lying around like a pet or a recognizable set of armor, he even had chest organization memorized. If Spoke walked into a random base, completely unaware of whose it was, he could figure it out pretty easily, pretty fast.
Which is why this base was weird because despite seeing several things that Spoke would normally consider clues, he still wasn’t sure whose base it was. Which probably meant it belonged to someone who Spokes' chronic habit of discovering bases had yet to inflict. Meaning Spoke was going to be in trouble if whoever lived here found him.
Oh yeah, he’d opened a few chests, and someone was definitely living here right now. Whoever it was was stacked too, Spoke had to restrain himself from stealing. He did take some items though, just little ones, things people wouldn’t miss. Three stacks of golden apples.
Okay, to be fair though, there was like, an entire chest full of them. Who even does that? They must have spent an entire day just making golden apples and literally nothing else.
Despite his mild thievery, Spoke had been actually smart about what he took. Items like armor or potions would have been obvious if they mysteriously disappeared, whereas the chest with the golden apples was practically overflowing. Needless to say, this person was incredibly rich.
As he tucked the golden apples into his inventory, Spoke began thinking of the rich people on the server. It was a pretty weak lead, but it might help him figure out who owned this base. It would be helpful to know who was about to jump him for home invasion in the foreseeable future.
Reddons was the first stacked player to come to mind, but Spoke had been in one of his bases before, and this wasn’t his building style. Reddoons liked bigger rooms than these, which is an oddly specific thing to know, but Spoke had fair reason to know it, okay?
So, Reddoons was off the list. The next player to come to mind was Subz, who is definitely the type of person to spend time making a full chest of exclusively golden apples. Subz actually might be the correct guess, Spoke considered. From the amount of gear laying around, it looked like there were two people living here, which was common for Subz to do.
But now that Spoke looked harder, none of the weapons had the purple engraved handle that Subz always had. Also that shield in the corner was a normal shield with no pattern. Which was really not Subz’s style.
Before Spoke could entertain another thought, he was quickly distracted by a door innocently placed at the end of the hallway. That was weird. No one puts doors in their bases, there's no need to block off a room, especially when you’re trying to move fast. It was a solid door too, Spoke was instantly curious.
Hoping whoever lives here wasn’t home, Spoke gently eased the door open. The room it opened to was smaller than the other rooms in the base, but still a decent size. Directly in front of Spoke were three double chests stacked on top of each other, Spoke itched to look inside them, but decided against it as he hadn’t seen the rest of the room yet.
Moving to his left to walk around the chests, Spoke peaked into the rest of the room. Just a few feet from the end of the double chests, there were a couple steps down into a lower level of the room. Not enough to fully separate the room into two floors, but enough for Spoke to just barely be able to make out… wait-
Did he just walk into someone's bedroom?
Sure enough, from where Spoke stood squinting just inside the door, he could see a bed. His eyes traveled over the rest of the room, which was dimly lit with a single torch near the stairs. On the other side of the upper part of the room, opposite the chests were two armor stands, both holding full sets of armor. Spoke guessed looking in the chests would reveal gear that the players didn’t want on them while sleeping.
Spoke stepped further into the room and crouched down to see into the lower part of the room, careful to keep the door open behind him. He didn’t want to stay for much longer… but he really wanted to know whose base this was.
From the full armor stands, Spoke could assume that there were people in the bed, but it took him a second to find them over the pillows and blankets. The weather wasn’t what Spoke would call cold, but it was definitely a little chilly. Certainly not enough to warrant that many blankets though. But it was possible that one of the people sleeping was netherborn, making them susceptible to the cold, so Spoke would excuse them from judgment.
Spoke was right about there being two people, which would only make it more awkward if he woke them up. Small victories. Now for the harder task at hand, finding out who these people were without waking them up.
The person closest to Spoke had black hair that completely obscured their face, Spoke quickly went through his list of members with black hair, but found no matches.
A little bit disappointed in his deduction skills, Spoke adjusted the height he was crouched at to see the second person. They were curled up to the other person's back, face pressed into their hair.
Ohhhhkay, that’s definitely Branzy.
So either Spoke had found Branzy and another random person's base, or that was Clownpierce.
Basically, Spoke was screwed. He cursed under his breath and scrambled to stand up and get out, but in his panic he forgot how close he was standing to the armor stands and accidentally knocked into one. The harsh clang of metal against metal rang through the air at a volume that would definitely wake someone up. Especially someone with the rabbit-like paranoid instincts that every Lifesteal member had.
Hearing movement from the bed, Spoke began to slowly work his way backwards towards the door. Maybe if he was quiet enough leaving they wouldn’t see him and he could make a quick escape.
Yeah, nice try.
“Hi!” Sounded Branzy’s voice from the lower part of the room. Spoke risked a glance upwards and was met with the sight of Branzy pointing an obviously loaded and very dangerous at this distance crossbow at his face.
“Leave,” Branzy prompted. Oh boy was Spoke trying.
Clownpierce was still laying on the bed -basically in Branzy’s lap since he now sat up- but his form was prone enough that Spoke could tell he was awake. Branzy’s hand that was not pointing an extremely deadly weapon at Spoke was nestled in Clowns hair, which was definitely an image Spokes mind was going to conjure whenever he interacted with Clown from now on.
Spoke managed to force out a high pitched, nervous laugh and a hiccup-y noise that was not in any way a form of communication. He slowly shifted backwards in an attempt to escape without getting shot.
On the bed Clown started to move (scaring Spoke shitless) but was gently pushed back down by Branzy’s hand in his hair. Branzy murmured something to him which evidently assured him enough to slump back onto Branzy’s legs. Again, something Spoke would be unable to not think about next time he saw Clown.
Unexpected details of Clown and Branzy’s relationship aside, Spoke knew a moment to escape when he saw one. While Branzy’s focus was on Clown, Spoke darted out the door, thankfully avoiding the armor stands this time.
From inside the room Spoke heard a couple of shouts, but not the noise of anyone in pursuit. Well, Branzy did request for him to simply leave, so maybe they weren’t really worried about killing him. Spoke certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone their base coordinates, plus they’ll likely be gone within the week now that Spoke had found them.
None of that mattered through, because Spoke was outta there. In one motion, he jumped back into the tunnel he had arrived in and blocked it up at least three layers. Once he was sure they weren’t coming after him, he turned back down the tunnel and tried to calm his racing heart. That was definitely not an experience he would like to have again.