This fic is 19 chapters in now, I should probably get caught up on cross posting. lol
A distant bell signaled the call to breakfast, and Oliver lifted heavy eyes to the window. Huh. It was morning.
He closed his history textbook, stretching, as Silvia crawled out of her cobweb nest and plopped down onto her bed. The spider girl yawned, glanced at him, then frowned.
"How long have you been up?"
"Uh…" Oliver shoved his textbook into his backpack, slinging his legs over the side of the bed to put on his shoes. "...'couple hours."
"Oh… okay." Silvia tilted her head, but didn't press the matter further, lurching up and stumbling out of the room to go to breakfast. Oliver rubbed his eyes and got up to follow.
Unfortunately, the phantom boy had been right. Oliver hadn't gotten more than about four hours of sleep at night since he got here. It was definitely taking a toll on his mood, and his reaction time, which was bad when surrounded by somewhat-hostile mobs, but… he just couldn't seem to calm down. When he did sleep, he usually had nightmares.
Worse, he couldn't come up with any kind of solution. If he could just leave then he would, but Herobrine didn't seem keen on letting him run off. He had no contact with anyone outside the school, so… he was stuck here until the end of the semester. Constantly exhausted, apparently.
He made his way out to the dining hall, beginning his typical routine of grabbing some edible food and taking it to the far end of the table. On his way over, however, a shout caught his attention.
"Oliver!" He lifted his head at the voice, turning to see Soot waving him towards her. "Come sit with us!" There was an empty seat between her and Kaden. Oliver hesitated, glancing at Jace and finding the slime already staring him down. Jace wouldn't bother him if he was sitting with them, right? Well, he hadn't at meals before, but… sure, why not.
Oliver hurried over to sit down in the free seat, glancing at Kaden, then Soot, who was beaming at him.
"Hello!" The skeleton leaned around Soot's other side to smile at him. "I'm Marrow."
"Hi." Oliver offered a small smile in return. Were the skeletons all just really friendly? Kaden still looked grumpy, but Oliver had never seen another expression on his face.
Oliver took a bite out of his apple, swallowed, then asked, "You guys don't need to eat, right?" A couple of nods from Soot and Marrow, Kaden gave him a disinterested glance. "Why do you come to meals, then?"
"Just to be here with the other students," Soot said with a shrug. "It's nice to have the sense of community." Oliver couldn't relate to that sentiment, but he nodded anyway.
"Did you… three all know each other before this?"
"No," Kaden spoke for the first time. "We didn't. We simply gravitated towards each other, since we share common traits."
"Oh."
"You do, too!" Marrow piped up. "Players have a skeleton too, right? Inside of you!" Oliver blinked, looking down at his hands.
"Uh, yeah, I guess we do." A hesitant smile appeared on his face. "Though, don't most people here have a skeleton?"
"I guess, but yours is most similar to ours in construction." Marrow said. "That's what the elders say, anyway." Oliver wondered momentarily if the skeletons were reanimated human skeletons, or if they were somehow something else entirely.
"Can I ask you a question?" Soot asked, leaning on the table so she didn't dwarf him so drastically. Oliver took a bite of bread, nodding. "What do players do with their skeletons? When they die, I mean?"
"Um." He swallowed. "Put them in graves, usually." Soot tilted her head.
"What are those?"
"Well, they're holes that you dig to put a dead body in. It's…" He shrugged. "It's considered the respectful thing to do with a dead person."
"What do they do then?"
"The bodies? Decompose after a while. Actually…" Oliver paused. "How about we not talk about dead bodies while I'm eating?"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Soot backtracked quickly. "Please, go ahead and eat." Oliver gave her a thankful smile and dug into his bread, and the skeletons didn't speak for a couple minutes before Kaden poked him in the arm.
"Hey," he said as Oliver jumped and looked over. His fingers were cold. "I've heard players know a lot about redstone. Do you know about redstone?"
"Well, not a lot…" Oliver had done some simple engineering projects in the past, but nothing major. "…a little bit. What do you wanna know?"
"Well, redstone dust is the main component, right?" Kaden leaned his chin into his hand. "It transmits energy. But what exactly is the energy? Is it light reflected? Or is it an energy specific to redstone?"
"Specific to redstone." Oliver answered easily. "There are situations where light becomes a factor, but usually not. Actually…"
The three skeletons continued to question him throughout the meal, about redstone, player society, what it felt like to have flesh, and so on. As long as they weren't talking about decomposing bodies, Oliver didn't mind it one bit. The lack of hostility was very refreshing.
Just as he was finishing off his food, the bell rang for the first class. Oliver stood, and the skeletons followed him over to drop off his tray and headed with him to the classroom.
"Welcome to art class." Herobrine called out to them as Oliver and the other students streamed into the classroom. Oliver immediately noticed a display of art supplies at the front of the room- pencils, paints, crayons, markers, and paper. His heart rose slightly. This would probably be an easy class, drawing was something that came pretty naturally to him..
"You all know the drill by now, I hope." Herobrine said as Oliver sat down at his desk. "This week's lesson will be an introductory assessment. For this class, all I want you to do is select your supplies of choice and draw a self-portrait." Oliver immediately zeroed in on a pack of colored pencils. "Now, you don't have to draw yourself," Herobrine went on. "For the purpose of today's class, a self-portrait is anything you feel represents you. Interpret those instructions as broadly as you please." He stepped to the side of the classroom, gesturing at the supplies. "Have at it."
Oliver waited until most of his classmates had already gotten theirs- specifically Jace, so he wouldn't shove him again - to head up and select some colored pencils and paper. Returning to his desk, Oliver set down his supplies, and mused over what he wanted to draw. Something that represented him? As a person? As his race? It probably didn't really matter, since Herobrine said that they could interpret his instructions however they wanted.
Oliver glanced around at his classmates to see what they were doing. To his left, Morpheus was covering a piece of paper with black marker. Because phantoms liked the dark, he supposed. On his right, Greyson was drawing a jellyfish-like blob, and Oliver could see Cray violently striking his paper with crayons. He didn't know why he expected anything else.
Eventually, Oliver just started drawing himself. It took him about half an hour to complete his drawing, colored in with the colored pencils, then he signed it with his name and flipped it upside down to wait for everyone else to finish. Leaning his chin in his hands, Oliver watched the others draw. Kai was painting, using a thin brush to detail her painting of a single eye. The zombie girl, on the other hand, was finger painting a simple little artwork of a field at nighttime. It had her, the drowned, and the husk standing in the middle of it. That made Oliver smile despite himself.
Oliver hadn't really interacted with the zombies at all. They hadn't been openly hostile towards him, and seemed to stick together in their own little group. Zombies were one of the mobs that he would've been most wary of a couple of weeks ago, but… these ones acted just like people. Weren't they supposed to eat players? These ones didn't seem to. From what he recalled from mealtimes, they ate just about anything organic.
His classmates seemed to be just about finished. As he watched, Cray held up his drawing to admire it, and Oliver was shocked by how… actually good it was. His seemingly aimless crayon strokes had come together to create an abstract-ish drawing that clearly depicted himself, exploding. Huh.
Herobrine began to make his way around the room, collecting finished drawings and setting them in a pile on his desk. Once he'd finished, he teleported a pencil and a new sheet of paper to everyone's desk, and instructed them all to pick an object in the room and to draw it to the best of their ability. Oliver settled on a window, and spent the better part of half an hour trying to get all the straight lines right.
Just as he was putting the final touches on it, Herobrine stopped by his desk to collect his drawing. Oliver hastily scrawled his name on the paper, then handed it over, and Herobrine gave him an approving nod before moving on. Oliver sighed, sinking back in the hard chair. This class wasn't so bad.
Once he'd collected all of the drawings, Herobrine teleported back to the front, just as the bell sounded. "That's all for now," he said. "Be back here at 1 for brewing class."
"What is brewing class, anyway?" Oliver asked around a mouthful of pork.
"I dunno," Kaden said, picking at his navy sleeve. "Brewing potions, I guess."
"Oh." That made a lot more sense, Oliver realized, than what he had been thinking. "Yeah, I guess so."
"We can't drink potions." Soot rested her cheek in her hand. "So it doesn't really matter for us."
"Splash potions," Kaden argued. "And I need to dip my arrows."
"Dip?" Marrow leaned around Soot to give him a curious look. "Why?"
"To make them into arrows of slowness, of course."
"…what for?"
"To slow my enemies, so I can slaughter them!"
"Alright, calm down." Soot placed a hand on the stray's head, making him sputter and shove her off. Oliver smirked around his fork.
"He's right, though. Splash potions will work on you, right?"
"I guess." Soot gave Kaden a final pat before she relented.
"Do players know a lot about brewing?" Marrow asked. Oliver shrugged.
"Probably. I mean, I'm sure we have that knowledge, as a race, but… I've always thought of it as an illager thing."
"Yeah, witches, right?" Marrow nodded. "I met a witch once. He wasn't very pleasant." Oliver nodded thoughtfully, focusing on his meal for a moment.
"What would happen if you did drink a potion?" He asked at last.
"It'd fall out of our ribs." Soot answered. Without missing a beat, she lifted up the hem of her shirt, revealing a scorched ribcage. Oliver's mouth formed an o shape.
The bell rang, and Oliver hurried to shove the last of his food in his mouth. Mealtimes seemed to go much quicker when he had people to share them with.
The classroom had been cleared out of art supplies when they arrived. Now there was a chest beside every seat, and a curious, three-pronged… thing atop every desk. Oliver could see a couple of his classmates peeking into the chests as soon as they sat down, but he opted to wait for their teacher's permission.
Speaking of Herobrine… he wasn't here. Oliver frowned, glancing back at the doorway. He'd never been late before.
"Sorry for the delay, class." Herobrine appeared at the front of the classroom, causing more than a few jumps and a shriek from Isabelle. "It took me a moment to find these." He raised a hand, and a small booklet appeared on every desk. The front cover read 'Potion Brewing - Recipe Guide'.
"In each of your chests is a collection of ingredients." Herobrine continued. "Your assignment is to use those, and your booklet, to identify what potion you are able to brew. Once you've figured it out, brew the potion." Marrow's hand shot up. "Marrow?"
"Um, how do we brew the potion?" She asked.
"The instructions are in your booklet," Herobrine tapped the booklet on his own desk. "But if you need any help, call on me. Any other questions?" The room was silent. "Begin."
Oliver leaned over to open his chest, scrutinizing the contents. Inside was a spider eye, sugar, a brown mushroom, and three bottles of water. Hmm. He let the chest fall shut, paging through the booklet to find a recipe that matched the ingredients.
Soon enough, he found what he was looking for. The recipe for a Potion of Weakness required water bottles and a fermented spider eye, which was crafted from the ingredients in the chest. Oliver side-eyed Silvia as he crafted the ingredients together, but fortunately she was paying more attention to her own task. Once he'd finished, Oliver flipped back to the front of the book, where there was a short guide on how to use what he now realized was a brewing stand.
The class was fairly quiet as they worked, most of them engrossed in their respective tasks. As Oliver waited for the potion to brew, he cast a glance at Cray, who was funneling gunpowder into his brewing stand. Herobrine was eying him, but said nothing. The zombie piglin was the only one who didn't seem to be working - had she already finished? Huh.
His brewing stand made a bubbling noise, and Oliver looked down to find that the bottles of water he had loaded into it had turned a deep grey. A grin split his face, and Oliver sank down in his seat again. That hadn't been too hard. Plenty of his classmates were still working, though, so he opened the booklet again to read about the other potions.
There were lots of them, from fire resistance, which would allow you to sit comfortably in fire or lava, to water breathing which was self-explanatory. When he got to the page for the potion of weakness, he sat back to read it more thoroughly, and the description made him pause.
'The Potion of Weakness causes intense exhaustion and drowsiness in the consumer. The primary use of this potion is to assist in the curing of the zombification virus, which consists of dosing a subject with Weakness before feeding them a golden apple.'
Oliver was aware of the zombification virus - and that it was only curable in villagers - but the part that drew his attention was the part about exhaustion. Would it help him get some sleep if he drank it? He cast a glance to the front of the classroom, where his teacher was watching Soliel work. Would his teacher notice if he took one…? Surely he would, right?
Carefully, Oliver detached one of the bottles from the brewing stand, tucking it gently into his backpack while watching warily to see if Herobrine was looking. He never looked up, and Oliver sighed quietly, detaching the other two bottles and setting them on his desk. Maybe he wouldn't.
Even so, a pit of anxiety developed in his stomach and remained for the rest of the class. Oliver's heart jumped every time his teacher looked at him, and he fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat for the next hour while Herobrine talked about recipe memorization. When the class finally ended, Oliver headed straight back to his room instead of the dining hall. He didn't have an appetite.
As soon as he was back, Oliver kicked off his shoes, sat down on the bed, and pulled out the potion. He uncorked it, hesitated, then downed the bottle before he could have second thoughts.
The effect was immediate. As soon as the bitter taste had left his mouth, the room began to spin, and darkness overwhelmed him as Oliver collapsed back on the bed and passed out.
