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skybiome · 5 years

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Vexing Situations

another fic for @mine-sara-sp‘s shadow au! It’s my own take on the ConVex and their shadow’s relationship with the Vex.

content warnings: fighting, mentions of vomit (no one actually throws up), panic attacks, and at the end the Vex very briefly take control of someone’s body

Scar was restocking Cherry when he finally felt the pull of the Vex in his chest. He could physically feel the weight being pulled off his shoulder.

The Vex hadn’t contacted him since the latest server update. It wasn’t uncommon for the Vex to disappear after updates, but they had never taken this long to contact the ConVex before.

Besides the vex mobs, Scar and Cub were the easiest way for the Vex to effect the goings-on of players. Before the update Scar could always feel the Vex’s attention on him.

When Scar and Cub had first made their deal with the Vex, the constant feeling of being watched and gotten on their nerves quickly. They had tried to find a way to stop the Vex from watching them. The Vex had not enjoyed that, but Cub and Scar were the Vex’s most direct links to the other players, and they couldn’t afford to lose them. The Vex acquiesced and backed off the pair. But the longer time went on, Cub and Scar noticed that whenever the Vex’s attention was focused on them, things happen.

Their enchants were better. They had better luck in the mines. Crops grew faster. Instead of having to search through every chest he owned several, Scar found exactly what he needed the very first time (even if he was very certain that we had never had a spare nether star sitting around before).

After long enough, Scar made up his mind told the Vex that he wanted them to watch him. And he felt there were a dozen spotlights pointed at him from every direction. He was the absolute center of attention. And it was amazing. He felt powerful and in control and he felt like he could do anything.

Then Cub messaged him.

cubfan135: scar

cubfan135: the vex are gone

cubfan135: scar what did you do

And like that, the Vex backed off. Scar fell to his knees, forcing himself to swallow back something that stung suspiciously like stomach acid.

It took him a minute for him to regain his breath and message Cub.

goodtimeswithscar: i tried something with them

goodtimeswithscar: and you need to try it too

The whole trip to Cub’s base, Scar could feel like Vex watching him, helping him.

—

When the Vex finally returned after that shadow update, Scar immediately knew that something was off. The Vex’s gaze was set upon him, but not nearly as focused as it should have been. But he shrugged off the worries and took off towards ConCorp.

In the Overworld, the Vex could only send the ConVex feelings or brief impressions of their will. And right now, Scar’s patron was leading him into the massive room where the two members of the ConVex split the profits of their businesses. The builder took a seat at the long table in the middle of the room. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes and cushioned his head with his arms. The easiest way for the Vex to communicate was to pull the ConVex into a place where they could speak directly to them. A moment later, Scar heard the telltale sounds of static and laughter in his ears and his consciousness was stolen away.

—

He woke up sitting in a comfortable chair in a dark oak mansion. Three vex mobs were sitting on the back of the chair. An identical chair, sans the vex mobs, sat on the other side of the room, mirroring the position of Scar’s chair. In the middle of the room sat a table with an untouched cake sitting on it. But the room was different from how it was every other time Scar and entered the Vex’s domain.

The room was mirrored along one more axis than normal. Instead of the usual two chairs, four chairs filled the room. It looked like someone had build one corner of the room, and then copy and pasted it 3 three more times. Four identical hallways led out of the room, making it less like the parlor Scar was familiar with and more like a crossroads.

Not knowing what else to do, the builder stood up and set off into the mansion. The vex lifted off the chair and followed after him.

The parlor had been the only constant room in the mansion. Every time the ConVex had answered their patron’s summon, the layout of the house changed. Scar could walk from one room into the next, turn around, and the room he had just left would have been replaced with a different one entirely. Scar had never seen two rooms that had looked alike, in the entirety of his time in the mansion.

He’d explained it to Doc once, but the redstoner soon cut him off. Doc muttered something about liminal space, and then went back to attempting to free the builder from where he was stuck in the TNT elytra elevator.

The builder wandered around the various rooms of the mansion for a while. Occasionally, a vex separate from the three trailing him would appear through a wall and watch him for a moment, before disappearing back into the mansion. The only part of the mansion Scar had ever found twice was a large window. He had found it the first time he had entered their place, and just now, he found it again. Beyond the glass was roofed forest as far as the eye could see. A monotone gray sky had sat motionless over the horizon.

Captivated, Scar stood had there and looked out the window. He wasn’t sure how long he had stood there, as his attention was finally pulled away when a vex mob flew in front of him and broke his view of the forest. At that time, a vex had pulled him away from the window and into another room.

Now, Scar looked out the window but didn’t lose himself. He looked upon the arboreal void for a few moments before moving onto the next room. The builder had to guess that if his view hadn’t have been broken the first time, he never would have left the mansion.

Eventually, Scar felt a pull in his chest and turned to the vex mob that had been following him. Two of the three had floated off somewhere, but none of the ConVex had ever been allowed to wander the mansion without at least one vex as a guide.

“Take me back to the parlor.” The vex considered it for a moment, before cackling and flying away. Scar sprinted after the vex. Every once in a while, the mob turned around to make sure that it hadn’t lost Scar.

The chase carried on for several minutes until the vex lead the builder back into the room with the chairs and cake. Scar expected to see Cub eating cake and sitting in his chair. Instead, Scar hit his head on the floor and was pinned to the ground by a massive shadowy arm. Avarice, Cub’s shadow loomed over him, blocking out the light from the chandelier.

The builder kicked his legs trying to free himself, but to no avail. Avarice laughed at Scar’s useless attempts to free himself. Another arm pinned down Scar’s legs. Avarice lifted him off the floor, allowing Scar to see what his own shadow was doing.

Keloid was fighting Cub. No, Keloid was playing with Cub, the same way a predator plays with its food. The room was trashed and Keloid was hanging from the chandelier laughing at Cub. Scar’s friend was stuck on the decorative light piece, likely put up there by Keloid. All of his attention was split between not falling off and not impaling himself on the light fixture.

Keloid made eye contact with Scar for a second, grinned, and shook the chandelier.

Scar yelled at his shadow while Cub nearly fell. Keloid sneered at its summoner and dropped to the floor. Cub made panicked noise but managed to not fall as the chandelier swung wildly.

Keloid approached Scar with a skip in its step. The shadow reached out a hand and roughly cupped Scar’s cheek. The builder tried to lean away, but the shadow wouldn’t let him. It leaned in close to its summoner and its grin grew even wider. With another hand, it moved to remove Scar hat.

In an instant, Scar’s hat was stolen away as a vex mob grabbed the brim off it and flew towards the ceiling. Keloid broke eye contact with Scar to watch the mob. The shadow let go of Scar’s face and backed away, watching the flying entity closely. All of the shadow’s wings and limbs shifted ever so slightly, and for a split second, the builder could see similarities between Keloid and Jellie when she was preparing to pounce on a toy. But Keloid wasn’t playing. Keloid was hunting.

The sound of wind chimes and laughter filled Scar’s ears as just as his shadow left the ground. Keloid was inches away from the vex when Scar’s vision went white.

And he woke back up in his chair in the same parlor room as always. The room was undamaged and Cub was sitting in his normal chair to Scar’s left. But diagonal across the room, in one of the new chairs, sat Keloid.

Scar barely had enough time to look to his right to confirm that Avarice was in the other chair before Keloid launched itself at Scar from across the room. As Keloid flew over the cake on the table, the builder barely had enough time to register that he had heard windchimes before Keloid tackled him out of his chair and Scar’s vision went white again.

He woke up in his chair again. Keloid didn’t immediately fly at his summoner but Scar’s ears were quickly filled with chimes as Avarice tried it and attacked Cub. And the four of them were in the chairs again. Keloid and Avarice shared a look before they stood up from their chair and stalked toward the player closest to them. As soon as they passed the table in the middle of the room, wind chimes echoed down the halls and Scar’s vision went white.

Scar heard cackling from the ceiling as the vex, still holding his hat, laughed at the shadows’ attempts to attack the ConVex. Avarice growled at the mob and summoned a disembodied hand to grab the entity. But the vex fluttered onto Cub and Scar’s side of the room, the chimes sounded again, and everyone was back in their respective chairs.

The vex laughed again, seemingly unaffected by whatever was forcing everyone back into their chairs. It landed on the back of Cub’s chair before flying to Scar’s chair and dropping the hat into his lap. It then moved to hover directly above the cake.

Keloid stood up from its chair and swiped at the vex mob one final time. Scar’s vision went white one final time and the four of them were in the chairs once more. The vex cackled again and flitted through the wall behind the ConVex. Scar put his hat back as the vex returned with several more following it. They landed on the various shelves that decorated the room and on top of the thresholds of the door. It was always a special occasion when the Vex summoned Cub and Scar. And Scar could tell that the Vex had finally arrived. The feeling of being watched, that Scar had come to know as comforting, flipped inside out and suddenly he was the one watching the Vex.

Scar had never physically seen the Vex. He had Cub had talked about it and they decided that they couldn’t even be sure that the Vex had a physical form.

Still, a chorus of voices that didn’t recognize echoed around the room whenever the Vex spoke. And Scar could tell that the Vex was speaking to him and Cub.

“What are they?”

Cub spoke up. “Our shadows. They’re a part of the most recent update. They can be summoned from a Shadow Temple that you can randomly find. Every time they’re killed they come back stronger and smarter.“

"How many shadows are there?”

“Every player has their own.” If looks could kill, Scar would have dropped dead from Keloid and Avarice’s combined glare at the words “their own”.

“What do they do?”

“When someone summons their shadow, it comes with a perfect replica of their inventory and will drop it when killed.”

After Cub spoke, the Vex was quiet for a moment, before shifting its attention off the ConVex and on to their shadows.

“How many times have you died?”

Whenever the Vex spoke to Cub and Scar it asked questions. Yes, it expected an answer, but it still asked questions. It didn’t ask the shadows a question. It commanded an answer from them, and the two entities were petrified in their chairs.

Every time Scar had ever seen their shadows, they were constantly moving in some way. Eyes blinking, wings flapping, hands clenching. Now, Scar could have mistaken them for statues. It was Keloid who spoke up first, its voice made of layered versions of Scar’s own voice. The voice was ladened with a layer of static, blending Scar’s own voice and dashes of his friends’ into something barely recognizable.

“S҉e͏ven.”

A moment later, Avarice seemed to break the spell as well.

“T҉͔̮w̶ọ.”

The Vex’s attention shifted back to Cub and Scar.

“Why are they connected to us?”

Scar couldn’t move, He couldn’t even think. For the second time ever, he felt the full power of the Vex. But it wasn’t helping him. It wasn’t spotlights highlighting his actions. It was someone pointing a light in his face to interrogate him. He was a deer and the Vex were a hunter in blaze orange with a flashlight that he should have seen sooner.

And the light was pointed away from the ConVex and Scar remembered how to breathe.

He doubled over in his seat and wanted to bet that if he’d eaten any of the cake earlier, it would have just come back up. Scar felt like all the heat had been pulled from his body. He turned to look at his friend and could see Cub heaving and visibly shivering.

Scar pulled his legs to his chest to try and conserve heat. His speaking was punctuated with difficult breaths.

“We aren’t sure. We think it’s because, of our connection, with you. And they got pulled, into it as well.”

The Vex seemed to ponder that for a moment as monotone humming filled the room. Scar sank further into his chair, trying to let the white noise of his patron drown out the fearful heartbeats in his ears.

He felt like he had just been dropped into a bucket of ice water, in more ways than one. He had grown used to the Vex. Grown used to them using their power to help him. He’d grown complacent and forgotten how dangerous they were.

He needed time to think. He needed time. He needed. He

He was crying. Scar touched the tear tracks on his face. His hands were shaking. The humming of Vex moved from his ears to inside his head. It wrapped around Scar’s racing thoughts, cocooning them in a familiar sensation.

Slowly, the full-body shivers that wracked Scar subsided and all he felt was bone-deep exhaustion. The Vex was trying to comfort Scar for its mistake. Scar shied away from his patron’s attempts. He tried to mentally push the Vex away from him. Here, in the Vex’s domain, Scar might as well as tried to force the sun to rise in the east instead of the west.

But the Vex could feel Scar’s protests and backed off. It left only the slightest piece of itself. It was radiating all the calm and safety that an entity whose main goal was riches and chaos could summon. Eventually, Scar opened his eyes, and even that felt like swimming through molasses.

The chandelier had dimmed itself and cake in the middle of the room and been replaced with a stone-lined fire pit. Scar pulled a blanket that rested over his lap closer. He couldn’t feel the Vex’s presence in the room. The shadows were sitting around the fireplace and poking at the flames. Keloid was holding a flaming log in one hand and an unlit on in the other. It seemed to be trying to get the fire to travel to the unlit one. Avarice seemed to be trying to bury a red hot log in ashes.

Scar’s motion drew Keloid’s attention. One of its arm’s reached out and tapped Avarice and pointed at Scar. Avarice glanced at the player for a moment before going back to its task at hand.

Scar turned to look at Cub. The other ConVex was shaking even with a blanket spread over him. His eyes were shut tightly and his knees were pulled up to his chest. The builder took a deep breath and turned to the shadows.

“What happened?”

The two shadows shared a glance, then swiftly turned back to the fire, not saying a word. Scar could see the lines of tension running through their forms.

“You’re scared of the Vex, aren’t you.”

He’d apparently hit some kind of nerve, as a low static note filled the room. Avarice was growling. The shadow didn’t stop burying the log, but it did grab a fist full of ash in one black, clawed hand.

“The͞͠y҉ a̶̕͜re͟͢ u̢̧̧s͞.”

“B̛ùt no̕ţ us.”

Keloid had set the pieces of wood it had held back into the fire and was now stripping the bark off a different piece with its claws. It methodically set the pieces of bark into a small tipi shape.

“T̶hèy ̨ar͞e͝ ̡p̢ar͘ţ of ̀uś.”

“W̛è are̵ part́ ̴of̀ th҉em.”

Avarice unburied the piece of wood it had been messing with and split it in half, picking out the red hot pieces with one hand and setting them into another.

“The̷y can cont̕rol̕ ͡us.”

Avarice dropped the pieces of wood into one of Keloid’s open hands.

“T҉he͏y c͢an affect ҉us.”

Keloid placed the pieces underneath the bark tent and was careful to not knock it over.

“But̶̢̕ w̵͘e̢͟ can ͟͞d̴̡o ͟not̛́̕hį̶͠ng̷͡ ҉ţ͟o them.”

The two shadows had spoken in sync.

“Can’t you try to work with them? They’ve helped me.”

Keloid laughed. It was the most self-deprecating noise that Scar had ever heard the shadow make. It was still laughing when it spoke.

“You work͝ wit̢h t̴h͘em͠.”

Avarice finished the thought

“W͞e w͏ork ̷f͢or t̷hem.”

Keloid had turned its attention back to starting its own little fire.

“Yóú ́ch̵ose͠ t̶o ̵work ̛w̷ith them.”

“Y͠ou ͠h͞ave rul̕es̨ t҉o ̷fơl̶l͢ow…”

“… an̢d ąs l͠on͠g ̢a̡s͢ ̀y̡ou ͢folloẃ t͏hem…”

The sentence was finished by both of the corrupted shadows.

“… you̸͟͠ r͏eḿ̷͟a̴̛̕in̡͏̵ i͢͏̸ņ́ ҉c̀ont̷̡͘r̕ò̴l͜͜.”

Avarice shoved its hands into the piles of ashes it had collected and sent the powder flying.

“T̢he ͞V̨ex cann͠ot ̀bre̡ak͝ ̸the̡ set r̸ul̴es.”

“You could̕ b̀r̛e̸ak ̧the͝m…”

“…b̶ų̨͠t̡ ͜͡you͢ ̧͏kn̶̸ow̷̛͢ b̸et̴t̶̛̛e̵̸͞r.”

The two had spoken in sync again.

Keloid had its head very close to the tent of bark and almost cupped the structure with a set of hands. It blew softly onto the coals and spoke between the unnecessary breaths.

“W̸e d̀on’t ͝hav͢e ͜rules.”

“And t̵hey͜ ͠can̨ do w̸ith u̕ş as̷ ͢t́hey ple̴as̴e.”

A small flame started between Keloid’s hands.

Cub woke with a small start, but it was enough to draw the attention of the shadows. A moment later, the presence of the Vex filled the room again. Wind blew in from all four entrances and extinguished the fire.

“This meeting is over.”

With those words, Scar’s vision went white again.

And he woke up in the ConVex meeting room.

Cub was sitting in the chair next to him. A loud noise to Scar’s left made him turn.

Keloid drew its clawed hand across the wooden floor, leaving five symmetrical gashes. The shadow pulled itself to its feet and screamed. Scar’s hands flew to his ears as Keloid launches itself at its summoner.

Keloid’s claws were around Scar’s throat when wind chimes sounded and the next thing he knew, Keloid was on the floor. Several of its clawed hands were sunk into the floor at Scar’s feet. Another was holding its neck as words forced their way out of the shadow’s throat.

“Y҉̠̜̟o̞̣̦͘u ͝w̸i̢͖l̲l̸͎ ̣͈ṇ̛̥ͅot͡ t̼̜͠ou̜̭ch̴ ̧t̵h̕e̥̠m.”

Scar could feel ice crawling up his spine. He had never heard the Vex in the overworld before and he never wanted to here them there again. It sounded like how the Vex normally spoke, layers of voices that Scar didn’t recognize. But this time it was mixed with the characteristic static of the corrupted shadow’s voices.

Keloid gagged after the words were done and scrambled away from Scar. Once it was far enough away, the shadow glanced at its summoner one final time before running out of the building, its fellow shadow following close behind.

Scar glanced at Cub before looking back and the marks Keloid had left in the floor. Five long scratches and several smaller holes were the only physical evidence that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

#be careful when making fae deals!#you never know who else you may pull in #listen i just love writing keloid #my writing #shadow people au #scar #cub #convex #gtwscar #goodtimeswithscar #cubfan135

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raraeaves · 7 years

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Journal 3, Entry 5

Well, I got out of there alive, and I’m much more calm and collected than I was in my last entry. And now that I’m at a table, and in relative safety, I have time for a longer entry. Starting where I left off, the fish was okay, if bloodied. I’m glad he’s okay. When I saw him, I ran up and hugged him, which was, admittedly, a bit embarrassing, but he didn’t seem to mind, because he hugged me back, which was... nice. I haven’t been afforded much comfort lately. He seems like a nice person. I felt bad enough that I left him in that basement when I got myself knocked out. I’m glad he’s alright. When we got him back, I made sure to get that tail. I’d hoped to get some of the TNT that Rossini had used, but I didn’t find any. I didn’t look long, though. We headed back the way we came, and I’d hoped we would have gotten out of there sooner, but the elf insisted on praying at the statue we came across earlier, which would have been fine if we weren’t trying to escape an actual den of thieves. But his divine magic helped me to stay alive earlier, so I wasn’t going to intervene. We made it out, and the tiefling led us back to Avenir without much trouble, which was surprising. He got us there faster than I would have been able to get there on my own. Apparently, he does have applicable knowledge and skills. He doesn’t make it known. But it does mean that allying with this group might prove advantageous after all. When we got back, he took a detour to The Cat’s Tongue to collect some ash, I presume as a prize for his brazen arson. And I tried and failed to open the notebook while walking back to the inn. And then there was this beautiful scene. There was a band playing music in the street. Thee fish stopped to listen, but didn’t get involved until they asked him to play with them. And play he did. Like a diligent dilettante reticulating grace and sonance into an aurant quilt wrapping me in tearful comfort I haven’t felt in years. It was the most beautiful and enrapturing performance I’d ever seen. The band mentioned something about fey magic. And that’s probably why it made me feel the way it did. But I think this bard is more powerful than even he knows. To be able to craft music with the same essence of fairy melodies, without even knowing it, is something incredible. And even if it was the magic, it reminded me. I can’t believe I forgot how much music meant to me. And my music box... I want to have it back... a lot. I forgot about music. I can’t believe I lost that part of me... But this bard gave me a wondrous idea. The mechanical creature I had an idea for. I still don’t know how I could make it. I’m not sure. I’m still working on that. But now I know what to make. I’m going to make a living music box. I may not have the one Bere gave me, but I can put music back into my life. I’m hoping that Laxman’s notebook will help me to learn new techniques that I can use to help me with this, and other the ideas I have. I did manage to open it when I got back to the inn, but most of it seems to be in some kind of keyword cipher. Some parts are in elvish, which I won’t have any luck figuring out without a translator. I tried a cursory attempt at letter frequency analysis to guess the keyword, but with no success. Of course, I could work longer at that method, but I don’t even know if it’s monoalphabetic, and that would take a lot more thorough analysis and time. I could try to brute force it, but that would take even longer, and I might be able to figure out the keyword more easily than that. There might be clues somewhere, or the guild might know it. But there was some material toward the beginning that I was able to use. ‘Til now, my music has been largely limited in capability. It took me long enough as it is to figure out the switching one. But now I’ve gotten a handle on three more powerful spells, with these notes. Two standard spells I’ve never been able to cast before now, and I finally was able to figure out how to complete that lava illusion. And through these notes, I was able to figure out a way that I could finish my thunder burst device. Laman’s notes are incredibly insightful. He was a smart man. I managed to finalize the rune engravings on it, and I attached it to Discretion. I believe it will work. I think I’ll name it... Freedom. I’m still not sure what the rest of these notes are, but if they provide as much insight as his notes toward the beginning, I’ll be able to improve my craft and my arsenal with it. I’m not sure if or when the guild will want these notes back, so I’ve begun copying it into my own book. It will take some time, but I’m hoping that they’ll allow me to hold onto it until I make a copy. I wouldn’t want to deprive them of research this valuable, but I’m not sure I would give it up before I can make a copy. I guess I’ll see what happens. As for the hired help, I’m still not sure they’re the best allies, but I doubt I can afford to risk searching for any others, and if I’m to pursue a path to getting stronger, I’ll need people on my side who are at last not afraid to get their hands dirty. I very clearly can’t hold my own yet. I need to be better prepared, and I will need allies to get there. I’m still irritated by the tiefling. I doubt there’s a method to his irresponsibility, but he’s at least not as useless as he makes it seem. At least knowing that he does have useful talents makes it a bit less of an issue, and maybe choosing to ally with this group could work. He probably shouldn’t be the one making decisions for this group, though, if they end in arson and getting everyone knocked unconscious and locked in rooms full of trash. Not that I want to lead anything. I’m sure they don’t trust me though, but we can talk that over, now that we’re not in peril.

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