Metallic Leaves

Metallic Leaves; the Official Sequel to Rip Hollow

by: bwm117

January 28th, 2018

Skip to the 3rd paragraph to get into the story
It was getting close to the end of 2016, a pretty bad year. There was the presidential election, celebrity deaths, terrorist attacks, and nothing appealing happened to me. I don't know what 2017 was going to be like but hopefully something would spark to make it better, and it did. A few weeks before New Year's Eve, my laptop had finally bitten the dust. And by that, I mean it didn't work like it used to anymore. I don't think I took much care of it. It only lasted around 3 years. I played Minecraft on it. But there were occasions where I played games on websites too. I guess it got viruses or something. I didn't really know anyone that would be able to fix it. Definitely not my family. My older brother had a gaming PC, but that doesn't mean he could fix computers. Maybe I shouldn't of had a computer anyways. I just did what I could to pass the time: wander outside, draw, I don't even know what else I did now that I'm trying to remember. Onward into 2017, after the celebration of the New Year, I began to question why people celebrate it. It's just a new year. We've seen bad things happen in past years. Do we just expect the new year to not have anymore disastrous things happen? I begin to tell my parents what I think. We debate for a minute or two and my mother suddenly tells me that I have a late Christmas present. I guess she brought that up so we would stop debating. I asked why it was late. My parents  explain that they didn't have enough money to buy it so they delayed the buying of the present. They showed it to me, I opened it, and it was a PC! Not a laptop, but a regular PC. I was surprised and excited like a 14 year old on Christmas. Oh wait. I thanked my parents multiple times before I started setting the computer up in my bedroom. It took like a half hour to get everything started. I connected to the internet, got my email, adjusted the settings. Just things you would usually do on a new computer. I logged into my Mojang account and downloaded Minecraft, which happened relatively fast. But I didn't allow myself to play until next morning; I was too tired.

The next day I looked up some Minecraft servers on YouTube. I search past all of the mini-game servers and faction servers. I wanted to find a regular survival server. And after searching through like 5 pages, I find a video that shows a survival server that uses command blocks to alter the world to make the challenge of survival and fighting mobs more interesting. I watched more of the video and there were custom mobs, adding floating islands above certain existing chunks, zombies and skeletons with enchanted items and armor, and unused mobs and nether mobs spawned uncommonly. This was very exciting for me and I didn't think it was a hoax because it was clearly shown in the video. I opened Minecraft, and got on multiplayer. I typed in the server address and I joined. The server was called 'Forfit4Fight'. What a name.

Finally! Into the story!
I excitedly joined the server. The spawn was a bright symmetrical village-looking place. I hold tab and I think I remember seeing 20 people in the server. I didn't see any nearby players, but some of the players greeted me through chat. I said hi that was all I said so far. There were 3 walls with signs on them. Some signs talked about the server. Others were about rules. The final one was about the admin and moderators. I didn't bother reading the signs which may have been a mistake. I reach the border of spawn, about to fall, but I stopped myself. I needed to remember what I was getting myself into. I looked beyond the area and saw that nearby places were in ruins. By that I mean that the biomes were degraded. I saw partially destroyed trees, holes in the ground, pillars, and craters from creeper explosions. The land was desolate, but that's what I liked about it. I cautiously dropped out of the spawn area. The place was higher than normal grounds were so I couldn't get back up, not to mention I couldn't place or break blocks at spawn. So I venture my way out into a forest. As I pass by, I visit a couple of houses that seemed to be abandoned. They didn't have any torches and some walls and the floor were broken. They still had your average crafting tables, furnaces, and chests left behind. You'd be considered lucky if you found anything valuable in the chests. The first house I went into had only one floor and was almost completely destroyed. I thought about raiding the chest and furnaces, but then I thought about the rules. I tried typing /rules in chat and thankfully it worked.

The rules were pretty basic but actually got pretty strict. I don't remember all of them but I will list the ones I remember:

"No cheating, ABSOLUTELY no hacking, no griefing, you cannot raid houses no matter the condition they're in, no loitering at people's builds unless they're okay with it, no AFK for too long or you'll get kicked.".

Well, that sucks. What's the point of not raiding someone if their house is abandoned? I notice that some people in chat start talking to me again. I will mention their usernames either because they will be in this story later on, or just for the heck of it. I'll mostly include the players that contribute to the story.

Catechism> hey bwm do you need a home?

AGHfox90> welcome to the server. Don't worry we won't attack you. :P

bwm177> uh no thanks I'll take care of myself

SummerMica> hey watch out for the mobs and stuff. This server is on hard. Also the command block makes mobs tougher.

bwm177> oh great I'm gonna die a lot. D:

SummerMica>     :/

AGHfox90> lol

Catechism> hey don't worry you'll come across many cool things here :)

Well it is still true. The server still had those command blocks running. I was pretty excited to see the things the server had to offer. This server is definitely underrated. I continue looking through the houses, trying not to raid them. The last house I explored was the coolest. I think someone still lived here. It was a large house that looked like it belonged in a rich neighborhood. It was made of spruce wood and it was not your average box house that people usually build. The inside had these fancy-looking stairs. I kept looking around and admiring the house when all the sudden, I got attacked by a zombie wearing armor. It wasn't that hard to kill, but it got me by surprise. After that, I saw something outside. A tree just grew, a dark oak tree. I just saw it appear. I come outside to investigate. I stopped at the tree when I heard someone running. I look around, expecting to see a player, but they must've gotten out of sight. I didn't know what that player was up to, other than planting trees. Nevertheless, I got concerned. If there was a player near me, I might as well try communicating.

bwm177> hello?

Catechism> hey

SummerMica> who are you talking to?

bwm177> I think someone is near me.

Somebody5537> what if it's a ghost? :D

bwm177> lol I don't think so.

No luck finding whoever that was. I decided to travel out of the area; I felt unsafe or uneasy. I find a desert biome. Once again, the land was littered with holes, random structures, etc.. I saw a group of armored mobs nearby but I did not want to fight them because some of them were skeletons which were hard to deal with. I decided to mine some structures for free materials. Nothing special though, just cobblestone and wood. I noticed that my hunger bar was getting really low. I got very annoyed by this. I was thinking about ways of getting food and decided to go to a nearby plains biome to find animals for food. I arrive at the plains and notice a few dark oak trees clustered together. I was confused, but then I thought about the dark oak tree I saw earlier. I didn't what what to think. Is someone messing with me? Are the command blocks doing this? I asked anyone in chat.

bwm177> so guys how do the command blocks change the terrain of the world?

AGHfox90> you'll come across small floating islands sometimes. You might find trees of different types growing in random places.

SummerMica> there's bigger caves too. And I think more lava pools spawn on the surface.

I was relived to see their replies. I was actually starting to think that the player back there was stalking me. But the dark oak trees were just things added from one of the command blocks. I found some animals and killed them for food. During this process, I noticed a village. But it wasn't a NPC village. I could tell that the village was made by players. I was excited to see this new place. I approached it and I saw a player. They were in the village and they were looking at me. I didn't see a username above their head, which was odd. Their skin was a dark brown color and a black line in the middle of their torso. I was still kind of far from the village so I couldn't see him clearly. I ran closer, expecting someone to greet me. I was about 25 blocks away now. The player drew out a sword. I thought that he saw me as a threat, so I typed in chat:

bwm177> hey don't hurt me, I come in peace.

The player still had the sword and wasn't doing anything else except for staring at me. But then he drew out something else, it was something green. He turned and hit the ground, causing a dark oak tree to instantly appear. It confused me at first. How did he grow the tree that fast? I didn't even see him place down the saplings. That made me realize something. The dark oak trees I saw back there, I don't think that was a command block. That might've been that player. I just stayed still. I thought about running, but he would just follow me. I drew out my stone sword and I thought I was about to fight, but then the player just... walked away. I ran to the village and tried looking for him. I tried going to where he was standing and I only saw the dark oak tree. He wasn't there. That's when a few other players came up to me. One talked to me. These players were normal residents of the server and probably were not stalkers. Thank God.

Axio> hey bwm welcome to our village.

Did you plant this tree here?

bwm177> hey sorry for trespassing. And no I didn't plant this. There was another place here.

Axio> it's fine.

Why did you plant the tree here?

You're not in trouble but we can't have people randomly placing stuff in our village.

AGHfox90> hi guys

bwm177> but I didn't do it.

Axio>are you sure? There was no one else around here.

SummerMica> he said another player did it.

Axio> okay but I don't think anyone else was here. The other people that live here are out right now.

bwm177> okay. Who else lives here.

Axio> SummerMica, me, AGHfox, and a few others. Do you want to live here? We haven't had another player join us in a while.

bwm117> Wait really? Yes plz.

Axio> okay I need to know where you are going to build your house at.

As you can tell, me and the other players became online friends pretty quickly. I felt honored. We weren't that close, but we trusted each other. Despite becoming friends so quickly, I distanced myself from them. Just a bit. I'm kind of an anti-social person. Or maybe I'm just an introvert. I gathered resources and built my house floating above a lake. I wanted my house to look unique compared to the others. I didn't have to worry about food anymore because we had a big public farm and we would share food if anyone was starving, most of the time at least. I adjusted pretty well. I eventually got better supplies from help of other players, mining, and exploring. I got armor (iron, to be exact). This allowed me to fight the custom mobs with a smaller risk of dying.

One day, I log on and find that there were a lot of people in the village. All of the players that lived in the village were online. There were players I haven't met yet. Most of them were in a group around something. There was some kind of commotion going on. I just got online again so I didn't know what was happening. I looked through chat; I scrolled up pretty far and I think I found the start of the conversation. It wasn't easy to tell since there were other players online that didn't live in our village.

I can't remember what they exactly typed but I will summarize it. First off, someone was complaining because they were finding trenches around the village. Then the admin (I found out it was Catechism) came just because he was curious but then considered if it was considered griefing or not. Soon, other players joined and started blaming certain people for doing it but then some of them start digging down in the trenches. People were surprised to see that there was a cave down in 2 of the trenches. The caves were completely made of coal ore. The walls, ground, everything. I could tell they were surprised because I saw emoticons consisting of: 0_o, o-o, and 0.0. They were confused too. And then they started to assume it was the command blocks on the server. Some other people said it was hacks or mods. Someone said it was a glitch, yea right.

I stopped looking at the chat and went to the small crowd. The players notice me. Some were confused and asked who I was. Some asked if I made the trenches. I said no, but some were still suspicious. Of course, I am getting blamed for it. However, the players that I talked to first on this server, Catechism and SummerMica, both defended me. They said that I was a new player and they shouldn't randomly bash on a newcomer. After about 3 minutes, everyone calmed down. After all, no real harm was done. No one was really griefed. Maybe it was a harmless troll. After the commotion, I went back to my house to decide what to do. I decided to go mining. I crafted some pick axes and I was on my way.

I went into the roofed forest that was neighboring the plains that the village was in. I walked around trying to find a cave when I suddenly found a trench in the ground. I was surprised to see it and was about to tell the others. Before I typed, I had second thoughts. What if they thought I made the trench? What if they accuse me? Some of them accused me already before. I decided not to tell. I eventually find a cave, leading to me forgetting about the trench. I went deeper into the cave and obtained iron and coal. It wasn't anything that special. Then I came across something strange. Going deeper into the cave, there was mycelium. It made up the floor of part of the cave. I asked if this was normal (maybe it was a command block?).

bwm177> hey guys, I just found mycelium growing in a cave. Is this supposed to happen?

Catechism> um no

SummerMica> nope

bwm177> well I just found some in a cave :S

Somebody5537> well that's... strange. Should we check it out?

SummerMica> yea that doesn't seem right, unless someone placed it there. I don't see a reason for it though. I don't think anyone here has ever found a mushroom island on this server so they couldn't get mycelium.

Catechism> bwm, you're not making stuff up right? I don't think the command blocks place mycelium at all.

bwm177> no. I didn't place it. I don't have silk touch.

Catechism> I'll check it out.

Catechism teleported to me and looks around the place where the mycelium is. I think he was confused, obviously. I was too. Soon enough, we just concluded that someone placed them here for some reason. But we couldn't think of a reason why. Then, things started to get... hostile.

We were attacked. From the deeper depths of the cave, a coarse dirt block was thrown at me. It didn't appear as a dropped item, it was a regularly-sized block. It hit me and I noticed that the block had an enchanted glow to it. When it landed on the ground, it then shook for a second and then formed into a mound of coarse dirt which engulfed me. This caused me to suffocate. All of this happened so quickly that Catechism barely had anytime to react. First, he helped me dig my way out of the mound of dirt. It was pretty small, so I got out pretty quickly. Then, we looked at the the place where the dirt was thrown from. There was a player standing there. It... it was that player I saw earlier. The one that made the dark oak tree. He was in the dark, we could barely see him. I saw 2 blue lines on its face. His skin was a dark brown color with lighter brown lines. We all stood still for a good few seconds. Catechism tried talking to the player.

Catechism> what

the

hell

was that.

Who are you?

There was no response, the player got closer. We could see more of his skin. He had the texture of what seemed to be wood. I'm not sure. But he had different shades of brown. And I saw some gray on the skin too. He drew out a sword that looked iron, but was a different shape. I backed off. I was about to run away. However, Catechism was in diamond armor. He wasn't scared. At least I don't think he was.

Catechism> are you a hacker? How did you do that?

He got attacked by the player. He repeatedly slashed at him and I ran up and tried hitting him with my iron sword. He took no damage. But Catechism hit him with his diamond sword a few times and it managed to hurt him once. The hurt sound from this player... this thing sounded like wood snapping in half instantly. The other players in chat asked what was going on and were confused while this was happening. I think the players in our village was starting to look for us. I didn't see the full chat though because I was looking at what was happening in front of me more. The player backed off and Catechism kept attacking. It then took what looked like a spawn egg, and spawned something.

2 of them spawned. They were humanoid creatures. They had the oak wood texture on their skins and dark blue filled their entire eyes. They had iron swords. They attacked us while the mysterious player fled deeper into the cave. Me and Catechism fought the creatures, monsters, whatever they are. We managed to kill them and they didn't drop anything upon death. I used cobblestone to block the entrance to the next part of the cave so nothing could get us. I was at low health but I ate food to regenerate. Me, other players, and Catechism typed in chat again.

Catechism> bwm, I have no idea what the f### is going on but stay close.

bwm177> okay I'll try.

AGHfox90> what's going on!?

Axio> guys where are you? I want to see what's going on!

Catechism> I think me and bwm just encountered a hacker. I didn't see his username so I don't know who to ban.

SummerMica> are you serious? What did he look like?

Catechism> he was like dark brown with weird blue eyes. He had gray on him. Uh... there was some crevice-looking thing going down his body.

SummerMica> okay... where are you guys?

bwm177> we are in a cave in the roofed forest. The one next to the village. I think we need help.

Hey Catechism how was he hiding his username like that?

Catechism> he is probably hiding his username with some hack. I don't even know anymore.

I'll teleport some of you guys here.

SummerMica> yes please

AGHfox90> teleport me please!

Somebody5537> me too!

Catechism teleported SummerMica, AGH, and a few other players that I either barely knew or didn't recognize. Axio, along with a lot of people from our village actually made it down here. It was crowded now. SummerMica had iron and diamond armor and had a diamond sword. Maybe she stands a chance too. All of the other players either had iron, leather armor, or nothing. That's not what worried me though. Only one of them had a diamond sword. Most of them had iron or stone swords. They wouldn't stand a chance. Neither would I. I saw a lot of messages in chat. It was hard to read them all without being left behind in scrolls of text. Catechism mined down the cobblestone I used to block us. And he told all of us to follow him in.

It was hard to see with all the players in the way, but I could tell that we were getting into a battle with a lot of mobs. It was so sudden. A few regular monsters, custom mobs from the command blocks, and those same monsters from earlier. Because of the 1.9 update, combat was more difficult. There were arrows and swords everywhere. I saw a player die from one of those.. wooden monsters. I ran and hid in a corner. I quickly looked in chat to see what the death message said.

______ was slain by woodland monster

So that's what it's called? I guess the name is fitting. I tried to join in the fight and actually did pretty well. I only fought a couple mobs though. After a lot of catastrophic fighting, all of the mobs in the area died. People picked up the loot. I didn't take a lot of damage since the other players were fighting the mobs instead. Unfortunately, we lost a few players in the battle. I guess it wasn't surprising though since we were bombarded by mobs.

We all move deeper into the cave. We reach what appeared to be a man-made staircase that leads down. It was lit with torches, but we had to go down to see what was at the bottom. I was a little scared, but most of the players were excited. They wanted to see the potential danger that was down there waiting for us. That player, that thing was down there. I was sure he was. Where else would he go? Catechism lead most of the players down the stairs. Me and some familiar friends stayed and talked before going down.

bwm177> guys I don't know about this. This is kinda fun but I'm getting scared.

AGHfox90> I know this is freaking me out o_O

SummerMica> I have to admit I'm scared too. But remember it's just a video game.

bwm177> yea you're right. I guess we should catch up with them now.

We then followed the others. What we all came to was... impressive. Amazing. Cool. We entered a really large mined out area. There was grass covering most of the floor. There was glowstone placed commonly on the ceiling. Sometimes there was glowstone on the ground. There were trees everywhere. Dark oak trees. It was an underground forest. There were different pathways made up of coarse dirt or mycelium. There were all kinds of plants that made the place look alive. The chat section was filled with people's shock and dumbfounded responses. This was almost... beautiful. Whether it took creative mode or survival gameplay, it was impressive.

We explored the area, although it wasn't that big. I didn't really find anything else worth noting except for a large group of mushrooms. We all came together when Catechism found it. It was him. He was at the end of a wide, tall, but short hallway. That wooden, blue-eyed player. He had no minions with him. He was outnumbered. He had his sword in his hand. And an enchanted sapling in the other hand.

Some players hesitated to fight, including myself. I was having second thoughts. And plus, my sword was weak against him. What was I supposed to do? Did he even want to fight anymore? I thought that he built this underground place for recognition; to impress people, not to cause harm. But it was hard to believe that now. Although, it's kind of our fault for coming down here.

A large majority of players charged at him like an angry mob. He instantly grown a dark oak tree which obstructed some of the players for a couple seconds. The other players attacked from his right and he slashed at the crowd with his sword. We tried to join the fight, but that's when player after player got slaughtered. Death message after death message appeared. And that's when I saw the player's name.

Somebody5537 was slain by Rip_Hollow

etc.

So, that's what his name was. I didn't really know what to make of it. It didn't make a lot of sense. The surviving players, including Catechism, backed away frantically. Me, SummerMica, and a few others ran back too. Most of the players were killed at this point. Some of them panicked and ran away, trying to find the exit. The rest of us kept our distance, keeping Rip Hollow in our sights. SummerMica and a few others had bows and shot arrows at Rip Hollow. But he blocked them on time by growing another tree. He jumped out to his left from behind the tree and started throwing the enchanted coarse dirt. I knew what would happen, so I definitely stayed away from those blocks. However, the other players didn't know. Most of them were engulfed in the mounds in a matter of seconds. They were probably surprised by this. I quickly dug into as many mounds of dirt as possible before getting attacked by him. He used his sword which knocked me back pretty far. I didn't look at my health bar so I didn't know how many hearts I lost. I saw the players escape the mounds of dirt they got trapped in. They ran away from Rip Hollow before he decided to chase them instead of me.

I ran too. I started to take a path but then I darted to the right. We were all trying to get out of the area. I didn't follow a path because that would've made it easier for him to find me. But then not taking the path made it harder to find the exit! I didn't find any fellow players. It was only a few seconds and now I feel like everyone either escaped or died by now and I was the only one down here. I then realized that he could be able to see my username, so I held down shift so it was almost impossible to see. I slowly walked around, trying to get anywhere that would help me get out. I turn around and there he was. He was standing there with his sword. He started running at me and I started to run. I almost freaked out but I found the path and hoping that it would lead me to the staircase. I heard fast footsteps behind me. He managed to get another hit on me. It took away 3 hearts (I was wearing iron armor, imagine the damage without armor!). I got knocked forward and to my slight relief, I saw the stairs. I ran up as soon as I got to them. I felt like I had the swiftness potion effect on me. I turned around and randomly placed blocks to block Rip Hollow from coming up to get me.

I reach the top and turn around once more. He broke the blocks and was still coming up! I sprinted through the cave with all of the might of my finger on the keyboard. I saw some players and they saw me. I did not even bother warning them. When they saw what I was running from, they knew they had to comply and run too. Eventually we all made it out of the cave. We had to mine through a few blocks because some players blocked the entrance. A lot of players were guarding the entrance too. Catechism, SummerMica, AGHfox, and a few others had made it out, which was good. A lot of players that I didn't know had died, but at least they respawned. We blocked the entrance once again to stop you know who. I was expecting him to break the blocks, but nothing happened.

Catechism> I'm so sorry for leaving you guys behind. He got me good.

SummerMica> that has to be some of the craziest sh## I've ever seen in Minecraft.

bwm177> he chased me I thought I was going to die. Holy crap.

AGHfox90> I just nearly died. Who was that.

bwm177> he is called Rip Hollow. The death messages showed the username.

Catechism> I saw it too.

SummerMica> weird  o.o

Axio> hey has anyone else ever seen this player before?

bwm177> yeah! I saw him at the village before I joined you guys.

A few other players responded, saying they saw Rip Hollow in the distance somewhere. The chat was still crazy. Some people actually debated about going back in the cave. Some of us hanged around the cave's entrance a little longer. Then Catechism tried banning the player.

Catechism> I tried typing /ban Rip Hollow but it said the player wasn't found.

AGHfox90> what if... he's not a player? O_o

bwm177> yea what if he's not... human

SumerMica> what would he be then?

Catechism> it could be the command blocks, but we've had it here for so long. I don't think it ever did anything like that. I highly doubt if it's anything supernatural.

bwm177> what if we see him again?

Catechism> we all team up and try to kill him.

We discussed about it a little more. Tons of text from other people in the chat made our conversation difficult to view. At least some of us made it out. But that player, Rip Hollow, what was he? Some kind of rare monster? A hacker?

I still played on the server after that event. It was fun to play on. Sometimes, players would enter the cave again a couple days later. But they didn't find Rip Hollow. Days later, some people on the server said they saw him in a far distance or in a cave. When one approached him, he would create a smokescreen of black smoke particles and they wouldn't be able to find him. Some people said they saw him with a blue sword (lapis?). Some think they have found other structures that were supposedly left behind by him. I don't know how much of this is true... but sometimes... I think I recall seeing him. I don't think the sightings and other things are that far fetched.

Catechism would soon decide to deactivate the command blocks and remove them. That didn't work. The sightings kept happening. Since that didn't work, he put the command blocks back and put the commands back in to make the world more.. fun to play. I still did what you usually do in survival in multiplayer. Play with friends and upgrade your gear, get diamonds, etc.. I didn't dare to go back in that cave though. Going into any cave made me paranoid now.

About 2 weeks have passed since we've encountered him in that cave. I decide to go on the Minecraft forums and made a post about Rip Hollow. I described his appearance, his abilities, actions, anything that had to do with him. People that have responded told me that I was lying or making stuff up. But then there was someone that did say they saw him. His username was Mathew (his name?). He said he saw a player that had a wood texture. Had long blue eyes and a crevice on the torso. And he had an iron sword that looked different from other swords. He didn't see him instantly grow trees upon hitting the ground or throwing enchanted coarse dirt. He didn't see the woodland monsters either. But he did say that he saw him generate black smoke before. Mathew then told me that Rip Hollow typed in chat and that's how he found out his name. Mathew then said that nether mobs were acting strange and attacked the mysterious player, which I found to be interesting. We talked more and more. The thing that surprised me the most was that Mathew was on single player. He had no idea how Rip Hollow got on his world, but he said that he hasn't seen or encountered him in a while. We came up with theories to try to explain what Rip Hollow was and try to explain the things he did.

We came to believe that Rip Hollow was an A.I. (artificial intelligence) that had the ability to transfer himself to other Minecraft worlds. We didn't come up with a solid explanation though. Maybe he was able to move his coding through the internet somehow and then enter a user's computer through their account or something? Or maybe there's multiple Rip Hollow entities? These are obviously just theories and we are not completely sure. We don't actually know if A.I. and computers can work like that. They're just theories. We aren't experts.

This was a scary experience that actually kind of turned out to be fun (only a little bit). But I still don't feel safe, especially when I'm in a roofed forest or underground.

/END