[Sig – 13 years]

I'm going to do something Aunt Rachel told me not to do, but it's not like I listen to her all the time. She even suggested yesterday that I try therapy because of all the stuff I'm going through and have gone through recently. Supposedly, my reaction to the old man attacking me was inappropriate.

How? He physically assaulted me and I snapped at him. He kept it up, so I fought back. That's fully appropriate.

If anyone needs therapy, it's that old man. And that's even before whatever hell Adrian King has probably put him through.

But the thing I'm going to do at this moment which Aunt Rachel told me not to is on my stream. She told me not to talk about the incident on the stream, but while waiting for it to start, I've noticed chatters discussing it. Some are saying I was in the wrong, others are pointing out that I was attacked and had apparently gotten fractured ribs from the incident before I fought back.

"Hello, everybody," I greet my chat as my stream begins. "I noticed some of you chatting during the starting-soon thing, so I wanted to get something out of the way. This is the only time I'll address it here, then I won't talk about it again.

"If you think I shouldn't have fought back," I say. "Then if you ever get attacked, I hope you don't fight back and just let them attack you. If you're getting hurt and in pain? Just let them continue. Think you're gonna die? Well, you think I should've just let an old man try and kill me, so you should let whoever's trying to kill you succeed. Don't fight back. Otherwise, you're a fucking hypocrite. And you clearly think that it's okay to attack children who aren't attacking someone or getting violent or whatever, so you need a psych eval.

"The fact that it's public knowledge that a phoenix stepped in and outright stated that if I hadn't been as durable as I am and as strong as I am, I would be dead right now means that any justification you can come up with for me being in the wrong is just you being a jackass who is getting banned from my channel. Why? Because it means you think it's okay for old people to kill kids who are just going shopping.

"So all of you saying that?" I give the camera a sickly sweet smile. "Fuck off!"

The automod log immediately begins filling with ban notifications and message deleted notifications. Several messages still on-screen for chat vanish as well. Unlike the old platform I streamed on, XansonTV doesn't replace deleted messages with a statement that it was deleted (except if it was replied to). Those messages simply vanish.

They'll even be gone from the on-site VoDs, despite having been displayed in the on-stream chat. That's just another perk to this site – if a message gets deleted, it is gone from the stream.

"Seriously," I scoff. "Who in their right mind thinks I should just let someone attack me? I was looking at trees with my aunt! He could have said 'excuse me' or, more importantly gone around us. The store released the footage of the whole thing from their security cameras and it very clearly shows him walking up and ramming me three times before I shove his cart back into him. Then him attempting to do so again before the phoenix showed up and rammed his own cart into him.

"Legally speaking," I say. "I could have done more. Why? Because self-defense allows for reasonable force to stop an attack. Shoving him down counted, and would have been fine if he'd stopped then. But he chose to continue. And there are a hundred witnesses to the phoenix saying he'd fractured my ribs with the force. And as all of you know, I'm pretty strong and tough. It takes a lot of force to do that.

"So if anyone else shows up saying I should've just let him attack me?" I ask. "They're getting banned, too. And I know Xander's already got his set to ban anyone saying that. Kenzibri allows for self-defense.

"Let's also say thanks to the MVP of the incident," I say. "That phoenix. I don't know who she is, but she healed me up just right. We did end up going to the hospital yesterday to check me out and they confirmed that I have two healed fractured ribs, which I didn't have the last time I had x-rays done. Didn't even know they could tell stuff like that, but they apparently can."

Upon finding out about that, Xander offered to get a better healer in so they can heal it back to as if it had never been broken in the first place. I told him that wasn't necessary.

Something tells me it might happen without me knowing.

"Next topic!" I say. "The video! If you didn't see it yet, I posted the next athletics videos! In it, my friends and I were playing dodgeball, but with a little bit of a twist for the playing field! Niko was included, and Xander was scorekeeper! It's been up for a few hours now and I won't talk too much about it so as to not spoil anyone who hasn't seen it yet. We'll talk more about it on Wednesday. Would say tomorrow, but don't want to take away from time shooting monsters and invaders with Lexi.

"Recording it was super fun, though!" I tell them. "But leave suggestions for future ones in the comments on that video! I'm more likely to miss them if you post them in this chat. There are sixteen thousand viewers, you know. Chat can move pretty fast at times."

The followings of all of us on the XSL SMP keep growing. Some of us bigger than others, but we're all growing. I'm officially big enough to qualify for the eighth tier of content creator on the platform, and did by the end of last month.

No one qualifies for the highest tier yet, and I doubt I will, either. With bots basically nonexistent on XansonTV, reaching one hundred million followers will be insanely difficult for anyone. I'm sure some of the people who were huge way above it on the other video-sharing platform will reach it, but it will probably take them time.

"I'm not sure how often I'll do those videos," I say. "Since I enjoy doing them with my friends, it has to work around all of our schedules and if it's somewhere like the gym, that has to be available for rent, too. And I need time to edit them and stuff, too.

"By the way!" I say. "Props to that facility for its camera system! It's been upgraded and that's how I was able to get all of those shots – the contract for using it let me get stuff from the footage of the gym during the rented period!"

Rather than logging onto the server, I talk with chat until after the half-hour mark. They apparently went with a ship wrecking from a storm again for the new members' arrival, for some reason. Rather than letting me get stuck in the cove during the intense storm, talking with chat is a lot better.

Only after the arrival time do I log onto the SMP and board my ship. Axel and Olivia are talking on the dock in the cove when I appear.

"Yo!" I greet them. "Ready to go restock on smoothies and pick up our failed pirate to see if she's ready to try again?"

"Yeah!" Olivia whips out her sword.

"Let's go!"

We leave the cove and as we sail away from it, I look back at the cliffside. It's been textured and decorated well enough that without knowing there's an entrance hidden there, one would never know. Niko actually admitted to me this past weekend that he had to look up where our cove was from his own streams just to find it again.

Not that he succeeded in entering, but he did try again.

It's a shame we can't just do something like a tamed beast that'll attack any ship not one of ours when they enter our claimed territory, but that's because it's a video game. I'm sure if the game's world were real, we'd have some way to do it.

"By the way," Olivia says as we ride towards spawn, the two of us on my ship while Axel's on his own. "I heard about what happened Saturday. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I answer. "The phoenix healed me up. I don't know why he was doing that, but fuck, if I'd been a normal person, then I definitely wouldn't be playing today."

"I heard," she says. "Puffy was saying that it's about time someone took that guy down a few notches. He's apparently hurt several kids who were out shopping before, but was managing to get away with it."

"Really?" I ask. "Wait. Puffy? You know someone named Puffy? And how would they know about stuff like that?"

"The wolf!" She laughs. "He's not a transcended one, but he's close to it so he's pretty easy to communicate with, when he's not wanting belly rubs, ear scritches and snowball fights."

Didn't Xander say that Lexi and I are the only pure humans on the server? He hasn't told me what anyone is, so I only know about the four partial-dragons. Puffy seems to be friends with a snow dragon, though. Could Olivia be one?

"Wait," I say. "You live in the UK. Puffy's here in Kenzibri. It's quite a trip between the two places."

"He knows a teleporter," she tells me. "Though I'm not really sure how it works? Just that he's able to get a there-and-back trip out of them once every week or two. Was over here yesterday talking about it."

"How long have you know him?" I ask.

"Since I was little," she answers. "Oh! Should probably mention, but I'm from a transcended species. Pure-blooded. We were wolves, too. Not the same branch as Puffy, and I was born in human form so this is my real form, even if not my real nature."

"You're a wolf?"

"A human!" She laughs. "Just one who's really a wolf. The elders said it's okay to mention, since half of the members have already been confirmed to not be pure human. And that there's quite a few nonhuman people making public appearances. Mostly royalty of the greater breeds, such as dragons, phoenixes, unicorns, and the noble shrubfolk, but that it's fine for us to as well."

"Makes sense," I say. "I mean, Earth is changing quite a lot. There are apparently transcended cattle, too… including ones who make ice cream. That was… an interesting thing to learn."

That was something Tate told me about. His family recently learned about them and he's not sure how to feel about cattle making their own ice cream for sale. Xander was just like "if they have the extra milk, why wouldn't they?"

"I've not heard about that," she chuckles. "But I've heard about some others, or mixes. I didn't know about the triplets, but I did know that many noble dragons end up mating with humans at some point in their lives."

"Which is just… insane," I say. "How many humans do you think are married to someone who isn't human and don't know about it?"

"Probably not many," she answers. "When I first started dating, I was told I'm not allowed to reveal what I am to someone out of our species unless I really trust them. But as I got older, I learned more about it. That's just early on. Before marriage can be considered, I have to trust them enough to tell them, do so, and they have to know for at least three years. Telling them's essentially a form of law for those who aren't at least three-quarters human."

A law (even if not officially one) like that makes sense, now that I'm hearing about it. Marrying someone and then finding out something major about them that they hid from you can change things immensely. Not telling them what you really are is lying to your partner, and it means the relationship is founded on a lie.

After all, if you know you're a human but you let them believe you aren't, then a pretty important thing isn't known. The majority of humans are probably only attracted to humans, so you let them believe they were dating one, more than likely so that they wouldn't dump you.

Which is a shitty thing to do to a partner. It would be like never telling your partner you have kids.

"But also," she adds. "Noble dragons are basically the only nonhuman people who date outside of their species or an adjacent species. Not many others will get with humans, even among the pan ones. Dragons are a bit more broad pan, in most cases. Those of us in others who do, usually end up back with our own."

But in younger years, like she is, they might initially think they're attracted to regular humans as well and so date them. Whether or not they are probably takes them time to figure out.

"Ah."

We talk a bit more until we reach spawn, then we head in to the smoothie shop. Leif seems to be doing some sort of introductory course for the newbies, all nine of whom are in the group.

"The pirates here!" Lexi calls out as she jumps off of a building. "Everyone! Avoid the pirates! They might obey the Laws of Spawn, but they have bounties on them bigger than what the bank holds!"

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"Wha-hey!" I protest. "The only bounties placed on us are by the Agents and the Manager!"

"They'll loot and they'll pillage, they'll steal your left boot and tear apart your village!" Lexi says.

It takes a moment for my brain to properly translate that and realize that she rhymed it.

"How long did you practice that for?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"Anyone want to join us?" I ask. "We live without any rules except our own!"

"But you have to properly loot a village first!" Olivia brandishes her sword.

"Or you'll walk the plank," the sound of knuckles cracking comes from Axel's mic.

"Oh," I add. "But even if you do join us, you can't just do whatever. You have the Laws of the Overlords, the Laws of Spawn, the Laws of the Fairies, and the Laws of Pirates to obey. In that order."

"That's a lot of laws for free-living pirates," one of the new girls says.

"Well, yeah," I say. "But they're worth it! The Laws of the Overlords are the rules which all must abide by. Fail to do so, and you'll get more than a bounty on your head. You may end up asleep for a long while – or even forever! The Laws of Spawn are only needed to be followed in Spawn, like no stealing from the shops of the fairies here in Central Plaza. The Laws of Pirates is just a small code of just a few rules! Like no sharing the location of our base, no stealing from your crew, no unnecessary killing, and so on."

"What about the Laws of the Fairies?" One of the new boys asks. "We met a couple of them. Xander and Niels, I believe? But no rules were given to us from them."

Xander came and greeted them? He did that with Axel's group, too. That explains why all of the newbies are wearing backpacks – they must have come from Xander.

For someone averse to lore, he sure likes meeting people who are neck-deep in their first bit of lore.

"They wouldn't be," I tell him. "The fairies are… special. They are the lifeblood of this land. Nearly all food you can buy in Central Plaza comes from them and while you can make your own? Fairies grow it best. And their king, Xander, is the most powerful of all. He knows all. Sees all."

Since Xander doesn't participate in lore and roleplaying, he's allowed to metagame. We're pretty sure he does at times, especially since he apparently knew where Abby's currently serving out her sentence.

Which I'm not supposed to know, but Abby warned me about it in advance so that I'd know she has more stuff than logical and can come up with a proper in-character response. So I know about it in actuality, but not in-character.

"So then would he know how we got here?" Another new girl asks.

"Maybe," I answer. "But getting an answer from the King of the Fairies will take more than asking. He doesn't part with knowledge easily, and rumor has it that even the Manager and their Agents fear him."

I made that part up, but it would fit within the lore we've all been developing for Xander. It would help to explain why he's never approached by them. They won't approach him, either, since he's not a roleplayer and their roles are for those of us who are.

"Where's Abby, by the way?" Lexi asks. "The last any of us heard from her, she was whining about how being a pirate would probably be a better life. I see Olivia's with you, but no Abby."

"She failed the test so she walked the plank!" I say. "You'll never see her again! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!"

"And that is exactly why none of you will ever become a pirate," Leif tells the newbies. "They're all a bit crazy."

"None of the Laws of the Fairies were actually given," one of the new guys says.

"It boils down to 'don't mess with the fairies'," I tell him. "That's basically it. If you happen to come across their land? Treat yourself as a tourist who isn't allowed to so much as pick a flower without getting permission first. When around them, don't attack them for any reason. We can't touch the Fairy King, anyway."

"Anyone can be hurt if you try hard enough," one of the new girls says.

"He means that literally," Lexi says. "Xander cannot be struck by other players. The rest of us can be, but any attacks from us will go straight through the King of the Fairies."

This is a canon thing we all know, first "discovered" by Axel in an arranged encounter that Xander knew about ahead of time. He didn't know it was part of lore, just that Axel wanted to see if it really was impossible to PvP him even after that was turned on.

Axel then told Lexi and me about it so that the rest of the server can canonically learn it.

"Yeah," Axel says. "And he hits like a bolt of a lightning, too. My fist went through him, and I lost most of my HP from his return strike."

Xander can be struck, but only if he's the one who initiates the encounter. Despite not being a part of PvP, he's able to attack people. Ms. Katie told me it was mostly so he can give warning strikes if anyone actually attempts to attack him.

With all the farming he does, he might actually have earned the most Stat and Skill Points out of all of us players. A "warning strike" is definitely an apt term for his taps.

"And that wasn't even him seriously attacking," Axel adds. "He hit me bare-handed, no spells, and possibly no armor buffing his strength."

"Huh," one of the new girls asks. "Is he always as… odd as when he greeted us?"

"Odd how?" I ask.

"The way he spoke was a bit strange," she says. "And he didn't run at all, just walked. Staying behind him took some effort. We all kind of wanted to run."

She's one of the new Kenzibri members, so she was probably able to pick up on his speech patterns a little more easily than those who don't speak it. Though I still don't really notice it very often.

"Oh, that!" I laugh. "Well, he's the Fairy King. We don't know who he really is. He might have come from another dimension entirely, and the languages he knows might not be his native. As for walking around… well, yeah. He's the King of the Fairies. Those wings aren't for show – he was born soaring in the sky! At least, I heard that's how fairies are born. He probably doesn't even know how to run."

The devs do a weekly "Mob of the Week" and a monthly "Mob Variant of the Month" thing. This month's latter one was "Fairy Villagers", and it revealed lore about them. With the devs rarely revealing actual lore for the game, it surprised everyone.

Many suspect it's because Xander's found a fairy village in two consecutive worlds. Before that, only two fairy islands biomes were ever found, and neither had a fairy village. Unlike other villager variants, fairy villagers can only be born from other fairy villagers, so no one knew what they looked like until Xander, just that they existed.

In the lore post, the devs revealed that fairy villagers are born flying. Xander and Niels haven't seen any fairy villagers breed (at least, not on stream), so this wasn't known yet. The article even had a short clip of what happens when they're bred – the babies spawn in, quite literally, in the air.

With wings that are flapping.

They cut the video then, so people suspect that baby fairy villagers fall after a few seconds, but it's still known they're born flying.

Another detail they revealed is that fairy villagers can't run. There was another video accompanying this one showing a fairy villager in a regular village. Every mob under the sun was attacking the village, causing the villagers to run around in a panic.

Except the fairy villager, who just calmly walked around, as if the world wasn't ending. The clip didn't show the fairy villager under attack, so there's also suspicion that there's a special interaction when they're attacked.

Because of this post by the devs, what I said fits into the actual lore of the game's fairies. As their king, Xander would naturally fit into that.

"So!" I say. "Joining the King of the Fairies won't be likely for any of you, but becoming a pirate is easy! Any of you want to join us? We're just about to restock, then go loot a village or ten!"

"Nope!" Lexi interrupts. "You are not recruiting them, Seb! Piracy is-"

The Manager appears between my group and the rest of them.

"Any who partakes in criminal activities will be apprehended."

"As if," I scoff. "You only ever tell us to turn ourselves in, you never-"

The Manager summons a sword and shield as both Agents appear, each armed with bows. Their weapons (and the Manager's shield) are all glowing, and mystical trinkets begin floating around them.

"Uh… RUN!" I shout.

Axel, Olivia, and I take off back towards the boats, dodging arrows all the while. Only once we're on the boats and out of arrow range do they stop attempting to attack us.

"That was awesome!" Olivia laughs. "I've never seen them use weapons before!"

"Neither have I," I say. "We'll need to be more careful from now on. Don't worry, though – if you end up in jail, Axel and I'll break you out!"

"Same for you!" She responds. "Now, to Abby?"

"To Abby!"

When we arrive at Abby's island, we find a full-on mansion made out of wood. Just how much time did she log on the server to build this?

"Uh…" Olivia says. "Is it me, or is her island a lot larger than it was before? And where did she get wood from? The island was barren, wasn't it?"

"Odd," I say. "Let's find out who she's dealt with."

We stop the larger ships and get onto smaller ones for the rest of the trip over. When we exit, Abby's lounging on a chair by a fire, fish cooking. She's changed her skin to have torn clothes and what I think are dirt smudges.

"'Sup, guys?" She asks. "Want some fish? Should be finished in a sec."

"What's all this?" I ask. "Where'd it all come from?"

"Xander dropped off a backpack with some food, wood, tools, and even saplings!" She answers. "And seven stacks of dirt, for some reason. Not long after you left, actually."

"He did what?" Olivia asks. "And you didn't leave?"

"Well," Abby says. "It was either leave on a dinky little boat and possibly get eaten by some monster out in the water, or stay here, where it's safe."

"And all that work?" I ask. "No way you'd do all of that, Abby, you hate work. And building a mansion and that farm there? That's quite a lot of it."

"Well… yeah," she collects the fish after it pops off of the campfire. "But I got bored. It's not too bad. Anyway! Since you're back, does that mean it's time to try again? I won't attack anyone unnecessarily this time!"

"Hell yeah!" Olivia whips out her sword. "Let's try again, Captain!"

Why does she have to bring out the sword every time?

"Alright," I tell Abby. "But if you fail this time… know that the punishment will be much worse. And the Fairy King likely won't come to your aid."

He most definitely would because that's just how Xander is, but I have to stick to the roleplay. And besides, Abby's supposed to pass this one so unless she really messes up, she's becoming an official member of the crew.

"I'm ready!" Abby announces.

Thirty minutes later, Abby is officially a part of my crew and we have a rare blue horse she somehow found while looting the basic village.

Naturally, the horse is mine as the captain of the crew and this being her initiation test. He'll stay with the Cloud below deck.

[Xander – 13 years]

"Hi, Niels," I say. "Hi, Master of Trials."

The Master of Trials is standing near Niels when I approach my cousin. He must be planning on having Niels do something. That, or they just returned after. Niels is wearing the wings I gave him earlier, after I checked on his task list earlier.

Now, he can go places without issue, since the wings only need him to be wearing them to use. They don't even need to be enchanted, which is apparently because they're the rarest and most difficult form of flight in the game.

So the devs decided that if someone's able to acquire them, then they shouldn't have to need anything else to use them. They'll never break.

The admins for the server set it up so that no player can use them except me, but they added Niels into the allow list once I approved of it. That way, even if someone else does acquire them somehow, they can't use them.

Mostly to avoid people from being able to just go anywhere without restriction. It forces them into other transportation methods, slower and more inefficient ones. The reason for that has to do with the roleplay, so I didn't ask too much and just said it's fine.

Not having the wings (or any wings) will make it more difficult for others to come to my islands. I know everyone here is approved and shouldn't cause problems, but I'm still worried someone might destroy my hard work. The fewer who come here, the better.

"Hey, Xander!" Niels greets me, while the Master of Trials only attacks the air in the way some players greet others.

"Are you busy?" I ask. "Or did you just finish up?"

"He just showed up right before you did," Niels tells me. "Did you want help with something?"

"I was trying to pick out what colors to use for the carpet in my house," I tell him. "I realized I didn't know what to do for it. And I tried a few different things, but I didn't like any of them."

"Mind if I help him with this real quick?" Niels asks the Master of Trials.

"No," the Master of Trials answers.

"Alright!" Niels looks at me. "Let's move to the path. What's your design idea?"

"I was thinking circles," I answer. "Since the house is circular for the indoor area. At least, a circular carpet for the first floor. I was going to do blue and green, but it didn't really look right to me."

I show Niels the pattern with some carpets on the path, and he thinks about it for a few seconds. The first floor has a big open space in the middle of it that I want to fill in, but I couldn't think of anything other than a carpet which wouldn't feel out of place to me.

"Since the house is a tree," Niels says. "You might want to do green and brown rather than green and blue. It might seem strange to think about to you, but give it a try. And if the checkerboard pattern doesn't work… try doing a spiral."

"Hm… okay," I say. "Thanks, Niels. Bye."

"Bye!" He says, then turns back to the Master of Trials as I leave. "So what is it I'm supposed to do?"

I return to my house on the server and make a rug with green and brown carpets. That does look a little bit better, but not quite right. A spiral definitely looks a lot better.

"Where's Niels's trial thingy?" I ask as I look it up. "I wanna see what he's being asked to do. Hm… okay."

It's pretty far away, so I use commands to teleport over there. That's okay to do because I'm the server owner and I'm not a part of the roleplay, and it'd be impossible for me to get there during the trial without teleporting. They set the zone for trials up really far away, so that players don't come across it by accident.

But I don't use commands to teleport around for normal play, only for stuff like this.

Niels's trial has him in a combat arena which looks slightly overgrown. Various plants grow down the walls and from the roof, while others grow up from the ground. I put a seat down in the stands section and watch as Niels fights against various monsters.

He fights against four back-to-back from when I start watching to when the arena changes to an obstacle course. After completing it once, he has to run it again while avoiding attacks by skeletons the Master of Trials spawned in.

I'm glad the Master of Trials won't make me do any of this stuff. It's all lore so I'm exempt. Even if I did participate in lore, I wouldn't want to do an obstacle course or fight monsters or anything. I'm not that good at the game so I'd fail it horribly.

Niels seems to be enjoying it, though. Once he finishes, he looks over and waves at me.

"Hey, Xander!" He calls. "How long've you been there?"

"About ten minutes," I answer. "But it's almost time for me to end stream, so I ain't gonna stay very long. I ain't sure how much more you've got left."

"The Trial has been concluded," the Master of Trials says, then places down a chest. "Within this chest contains three choices, Fairy Elder Niels. Pull one from it, then throw it on the ground. The reward shall be granted."

Niels looks in the chest, then throws a piece of paper onto the ground. The chest vanishes, then a backpack appears.

"Your reward has been granted," the Master of Trials says. "Until next time, Fairy Elder Niels. May your life be flourishing."

Niels vanishes, and I stare at the Master of Trials for a few moments before they vanish. Then, I pull out my warpstone and use it to return to the main fairy village.

"Hi, Niels," I greet him upon returning to his island. "They didn't bother you, did they?"

"No," he chuckles. "Why would you think that?"

"They're only supposed to do those at a set frequency per person at the most," I answer. "So I wanted to make sure they weren't doing it too much for you."

"Oh!" He laughs. "No, they didn't. That's only my second time doing one!"

"Okay," I say. "That's good. Anyway, I'm gonna head back to my base now, then log off. It's about time for me to end, and I need a nap."

"Alright!" He says. "See you!"

"Bye."

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