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"What would you do if we let you go, right now?" Pixlriffs finally broke the silence, as he opened the notebook he had been carrying, ready to write her answer.
Sausage stopped drumming the table with his fingers when he heard him speak.
False stared at them from the other side of the table, trying to figure out where exactly this was going.
It had been a month since the Rift had been closed and destroyed, taking the Hermits and Grumbot away with it, hopefully to their home dimension.
She had been sloppy. Blame it on the excitement of not having someone trying to watch her every move, ready to scramble her brain as soon as she slipped.
So, as soon as the other False left, and took their secret with her, she had practically jumped on the first player that had crossed her way.
False hadn't seen Sausage hiding behind a tree until it was too late.
"I think you know," she answered, not interested in lying.
Sausage let out a strangled noise.
"Indulge me," Pix told her in stern voice.
She doesn't know where this is going, but False figures that she doesn't really needs to, just like she doesn't need to give her response any extra thought.
"I would run to that chest over there," she pointed as much as she could with her tied hands. "And grab my trident and a shield. I would then kill you, and depending on what Sausage would do after that, I would kill him too, or grab my elytra and fly to Cogsmeade"
The man from Sanctuary started with the drumming again, this time a more hurried tempo.
Pixlriffs hummed as he wrote her answer down. "And after that?"
False frowned in confusion, but didn't let it get in the way. "I would pack a few shulkers and find somewhere to lay down. Prepare for war. Maybe try to make a Portal of my own"
That, too, the man wrote down. "What war?"
"Well, I did kill one or two rulers on my way there," she reminded her. Hopefully she wouldn't be so forgetful when she reached his old age, especially considering that was next year. "I suppose that's enough to have at least a few empires after my head"
"No war, no bounty" Pix told her. "Nobody's coming after you. As I said, we let you free in this scenario"
"And what, you'd let an evil murderer with no regrets run loose?"
"We are considering our options-"
"Just answer the question-"
Pix and Sausage spoke at the same time. They looked at each other, clearly not having thought beforehand what they would tell her. False had to contain the impulse to smirk.
Sausage scratched the recent scar in his neck, an unfortunately fatal wound when False had only been trying to maim. "You're not making a good case for yourself, by the way" he choose to tell her.
False shrugged.
"Going back to the point," Pix started. "No war, nobody's coming after you. What do you do?"
"If I had every ruler's word, signed and magical sealed?" she questioned the man. It's not like she would just take their word. The archeologist nodded. "I would probably still prepare for war, try the Portal thing, but while staying at Cogsmeade"
She had never been one to easily trust, and any witch worth their salt knew how to undo a magically sealed contract.
"And after that?"
For the first time, she stopped to think about her answer.
"I don't know," she told them, mainly because she didn't see the point in their question. "Finish the tavern. Plan a few more buildings in my area. Probably set up a farm or two"
"And after?"
This time it was Sausage who asked, and his tone gave her a clue about what they were really after.
"Build those plans. Make a few trees. Expand my head collection"
Sausage looked away. Pix let out an almost inaudible sigh.
"How so?" he pressed on.
False looked up, pretending to think about it. "Well, I already have yours, and Katherine's. Scott's the closest, so I would probably pay him a visit"
"And?"
Pixlriffs looked at False. She refused to break eye contact. They stared at each other as she spoke, with the Grand Architect doing her best to show him how much she meant her words.
"Depends on how I'm feeling. When I get the urges, they are usually very specific, but there are a lot of ways to kill a person without damaging their head. Do you remember that time you came over?" she asked him, looking for a reaction. "You asked me for help with killing Cub, and we spent a good while going over the different methods we could use. It was the most fun I had in a while"
She wasn't lying.
For a moment she had let herself get lost in the excitement of not only the prospect of another kill, but to have someone at her side equally as excited. It reminded her of her early days in Cogsmeade, when her smile grew with every build completed, and she had a little fur ball at her side to share it with.
It had reminded her of the other False, before everything.
"I think we had our heads in different places"
False bit her tongue to refrain herself from making a horrible pun.
"I don't know, Pix. I remember you suggesting a few options of your own. If you were having such an awful time, you sure fooled me"
"Anyway," Sausage interrupted, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. "I think we have all we need here"
Right. The questioning. False laid back against the chair.
The archeologist cleared his throat, rearranging the notes he had been taking. "And I guess there's no convincing you to stop?"
She looked at him, amused. "Why would I do that for?"
"-And what, we just keep her locked for the rest of eternity?"
"You didn't seem to have a problem with that when I was the one in the cage!"
"I wasn't planning on keeping you in there forever," the goblin answered. "Just enough to get you into crippling debt. Call it an investment"
"I think we are getting carried away in here," Sausage tried to intervene.
"Besides, that was when I believed in Jimmy's fascist government form" he quickly finished.
"Oi! I am not-"
Whatever the Sheriff was about to deny, he was shut along with the rest of the room by the sound of a giant axe splitting the table in two.
"I wonder where that came from," said Katherine, wondering nothing at all. Her voice was the first to break the silence, driving all eyes to look at her. "fWhip has a point. We can't keep her locked up forever, especially given how none of our hands are that clean either"
She had a point. Even Sausage, self-claimed pacifist and vegetarian had killed a few of the people in the room, and no one had a problem with it.
"It would be kind of a double standard" she finished.
"It's not the same," Shelby spoke. "She... you know that"
Katherine took her hand to her neck, where she could still feel the blade of her sword, even if she couldn't remember it.
False had splashed her with her amnesia potion, apparently, but Sausage had been there.
Death, for the emperors, was supposed to be a quick hassle. A painless annoyance at best, a broken bone at worst.
But what she did was different, and they still didn't know how she had managed to do so. No, when False wounded you, you could feel everything, as if it was a permadeath. Sausage could still hear Katherine's screams if he tried.
He could still feel the arrow on his neck, just like the princess could feel the diamond. The difference was that he could still remember it.
The emperor shrugged. It wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat.
"I know," the princess said, softly. "And I'm not saying it's okay, but just... Seal her away? We need to think of a better option"
"She's not going to stop," Pix reminded her.
"Maybe she doesn't have to," Joel intervened for the first time.
Now it was the god the one who turned the heads.
"You have an idea," Lizzie said, somehow recognizing the way his eyes seemed to glow almost red. "Spill it out"
"A death game"
The room was suddenly filled by complains.
"I am not taking part-"
"Just because you live all above-"
"And what, you take our bounty while we getting slaughtered-"
"She doesn't just kill you-!"
Somehow, through all of this, Joel's smile never faltered. He rose from his seat, raising his arms as much as the ceiling allowed him too.
"I know, I know, but," and he made a pause for the dramatic effect. "What if there was a prize?"
The emperors were skeptic.
"No offense Joel, but I don't think anyone except fWhip wants your gold that much, and even I have my doubts about it"
"Yeah, no, the Gobland's treasury is doing just fine, thank you"
"Besides," Katherine carried on, "I think everyone is doing just fine in the economics side"
The god looked offended at their words.
"Ye of poor faith. Don't you think I can do better than that? No, I already know what the prize is going to be, and believe me when I tell you, it's something everyone here will be interested on"
He looked at the faces around the room, making a point to stop at Pixlriffs'. "Believe it or not, a death game between emperors is something that has already been done"
The archeologist paled. "You don't mean..." The words struggled to come up.
Joel's grin grew wider. "Oh, yes, I do mean. And it looks like I already have a player"
"Yes!" said Pix, not giving the question a second thought. "If you have what I think-"
"Enough with the riddles!" Pirate Joe hit the table with his fist. "What is this treasure you're talking about? I'm in!"
"Me too!"
Joel smile never faltered as he walked to an ender chest a few blocks away, and pulled out a book.
He had guessed, from the moment the meeting was called, that the tome would come useful once again.
It was old, and dusty, and it make a loud noise when the god threw it on the table, making the archeologist flinch at the rough treatment.
"We will obviously have to change a few rules to fit the situation, but I think this will come useful"
Gem was the first to open it, reading the title aloud.
"The Empires Game"
"...Kind of like Tag, but the complete opposite. Just think of the crown as a big, obnoxious target. Whenever you get your... murderous urges, you go after them" Joel explained, all over the moon over his new project.
False looked at him, then at Pixlriffs, making sure he hadn't actually gone mad in the two days she had been locked in the Tumble Town jail.
Was this the best thing they had come up with in all this time?
"When do I get the Crown?" She asked, after a minute of silence.
Joel scoffed. "You don't get the Crown"
"Why not?" she frowned. "I have an empire too. I want to make a rule too"
"Listen, you are either get a turn with the Crown or kill the ones wearing it, you choose"
That's fair, probably.
"All right, I kill the Emperor. Whatever" She muttered that last part.
False should count herself lucky. Really, things could have ended up a lot worse. She could have ended up in jail (for longer than she did), or have her brain scrambled up until she lost all sense of self (again).
No, instead the whole server had come together to make a system so that she could ethically murder them in cold blood.
For her.
She didn't like it.
It felt like a trap. Like they were just stealing time until they came up with a way to lock her up, or fix her, or quick her out of the server. False could feel the walls close around her as they explained the rules of their game.
Whatever they were playing at, she wasn’t going to sit and wait for them to do it. They needed time to figure out a plan? Well, so did she. And she had always been good at thinking on her feet.
"So, who's the first one?"
False probably shouldn't seem so eager to murder one of the people who were begrudgingly letting her free after she killed two of their friends, but she had never been good at self-control.
At least they didn't shove her back into the cell.
Jimmy did stop handing False her belongings for a moment, giving the rest of the emperors a Look. If she had to guess, he probably didn't vote in favor of the game.
She grabbed her trident from his hand.
The weight was familiar, and had been deeply missed in the time she spent locked. It almost hummed in her hand, and she ached to give it a target. False ignored the way some of the people around her flinched when she spined it.
"Pixlriffs called the first round," Joel told her with a smile. At least somebody was half as excited as her.
"But remember, the game doesn't start until the first full moon" The man in question was quick to add.
False rolled her eyes. She doesn't know when exactly that was, given that it had been a while since the last time she had seen the sky, but she doubted it was more than a week away.
"Think I can wait until then" she smiled at him, but then frowned in realization.
"What? Why are you frowning?" Lizzie asked.
It was dumb, but it did make the hunt less exciting. "Nothing," she told her, for some reason not wanting to show her disappointment. "I already have his head"
Before anyone could say something, Sausage jumped from where he was standing, grabbed a satchel from his belt, and took a purple dye from it. Then, and without asking, he smeared it all over Pixlriffs' face.
"Augh! Sausage!" the archeologist complained, stepping away from him and trying to clean himself with his hands.
"There. Now it's a limited edition"
False looks at the sunset from where she's sitting on top of the clock in her base, feeling the seconds ticking away below her. The sun got lower by the tick, and in no time the full moon would rise.
Cogsmeade had been in the same state she had left it, if perhaps a little cleaner. You could tell that somebody had come by and gave her place a sweep.
She doesn't know how to feel about that. It was nice to know that nothing had broken on her absence. But she hated it when she walked around her home and found proof of somebody else’s presence. It ruffled her feathers in the wrong way.
It was fine. She always made sure to put back whatever had been out of place, and besides, she already had something planned for today to relieve that stress.
They had taken her cat, too. Which, fair. They had been looking quite sad those last days, tied down to that fence.
If she was a better pet owner, she would have asked where it was, or at least who took it. And maybe she would hope that they were happy, wherever they were.
False wasn't, though, and that's probably why the animal was better off wherever they were. She hadn't even given it a name.
No, she hoped that they were alone, cold, and regretting ever running away from her in the first place.
Because things had been good for them! Yeah, she might not have given them a name, but it was only because, well, she had been a different person back then. A ball of anxiety and fear of committing to a choice. Did anyone really expect someone like that to give a creature a name?
She had given them a home, a warm bed to spend the night, and as many fish as they wanted. She had always petted them when they came to snuggle her legs.
The only problem here was that the little shit had the backbone of chocolate pudding. False should have gotten herself a dog, something capable of loyalty.
Something that didn't abandon her to the first person that visited Cogsmeade and looked a tiny bit like her.
What even was their deal? What had that other False that she lacked?
She had never hurt them before.
The sun finally finished setting. False adjusted her elytra, and grabbed her trident, before heading north.
Maybe they would ask Pix what happened to the cat before killing him.
She hoped his face was still purple.
To his credit, Pixlriffs put on a good fight.
He had locked himself in some sort of underground bunker, well protected with bobby traps, TNT cannons, and even a group of iron golems, which made False pause for a moment as she wondered where on Server he had managed to get so much iron. But in the end she had caught him, as he tried to escape through his emergency exit, and took pleasure in digging her trident on his torso. Pix had screamed as he found himself suddenly impaled against a wall, and hadn’t stopped as she used her sword to finally decapitate him.
His head still had some of the purple smeared, she noticed as an afterthought.
It hadn’t been easy, and False respected him for that, even if she knew from the beginning it was in vain. She had abilities that, even if she didn’t know how she had gotten them, made her (and she said this with humility) the perfect killing machine. The Great Architect had found the bunker almost while on autopilot, and her body had moved to evade golems and arrows like it was second nature to her.
False might not know where she got those abilities, but she knew how to use them, and that was enough for her.
She hadn’t asked the archeologist what happened to the cat. The realization came to her as she positioned her newly acquired head between the rest of her collection.
It didn’t matter.
She had to meet with Joel in the morning to give him the Crown anyways. She could ask him then.
The Crown in question was currently sitting tight in her Ender Chest, and she got it out to give it a closer look. It had a few droplets of blood that she quickly cleaned up, but other than that it was in perfect conditions.
It seemed to vibrate with magic, which was all a feat, given how old Pixlriffs had claimed it was. Around the base, there were a few letters engraved, that either belonged to an alphabet False had never encountered, or had been worn away to such an extreme the words were unrecognizable by now. Still, it was a beautiful thing, probably worth its weight in diamonds.
Walking towards a mirror, she tried it on, just because. Legend says that you could hear the whispers of Magic itself when wearing it.
False waited, still.
But it seemed that the legends were either completely wrong, or False was more fucked up on the head that she had originally thought.
Oh well.
She took it off and put it once again on her Ender Chest. It didn’t seem something worth dying over, in her opinion, though the Rule part was something she would definitely be interested in.
After giving her new prize one last look, she went to her bedroom and climbed under the bed. Tomorrow seemed very promising, and she couldn’t wait to hear any reviews Pix might have over the whole experience.