So here’s my story:
I was a civilian in the desert district. I was a journalist a part of a group called High Noon News.
We were dedicated to being the local news of the desert. Especially since the ‘Ministry of Truth’ spew biases, we were the trustworthy source for information. We were also a VERY small group, probably one of the smallest in the district. There was our leader JauntyOne, our second QuackerZc, and then four more members with OrionRed, Klementayn, Theotherice, and me, GoldenStar. We also had 1ilia on our side, who was also the second in command of a large group called Pub Town. But what we made up for in our small size was power, and arguably, the small size kind of gave us the under the radar vision for the gov. And Ish. We didn’t get any interviews (any interviews that show up in the video from us are post event acting).
My goals in the event were to tell the stories of the people. So that when purge killed them, they would never be forgotten. (There are a lot of people who don’t get in the video after all) But I had a bit of a selfish motive for that goal. I believed that by doing this, it would translate to my story as well, and I would be someone worth remembering when I died. My worst fear was for nobody to care when I died, and they’d just forget about me.
So I was pretty DEDICATED to the High Noon News cause. And I wanted to do whatever article story I could even if it seemed excessive. Klem was the artist. Theo was the advertiser. Orion was the builder. I was THE dedicated writer.
I spent the days investigating the groups in the district. And the rise of the contraband confusion. There was a guy who was getting reprimanded by a gov for having an iron pickaxe. And it was confusing. So I wanted to figure this mystery out. I asked the guy who got reprimanded what happened, I discovered the bedrock layer under the district and the walls (the inside of the walls was lava and obsidian. Many live streamers died trying to pull off escape through that. I knew I would be even worse at attempting it, so I didn’t try.) And I scheduled an interview with the Red Highlands and their sheriff, StarmaKarma. (They’re cowboys) Basically, one guy with us pulled out an iron sword, and when I called it out he tried to frame another guy, and a commanders aid caught us and thought the innocent guy was breaking rules. I stepped in and snitched on the real culprit to save an innocent man from getting arrested. And so when they found out I was telling the truth, I was able to get close to the gov to get information on the contraband and security. I actually befriended the commanders aid and some peacekeepers. (I appear in some of ARCEUS’s streams of the event)
I got excluded from an important desert leaders meeting though :(
(Basically, it was regarding trying to keep the peace even during purge. But this failed. The host was incompetent, and the slimes weren’t invited and weren’t happy about that)
I also got the short end of the stick that day on what articles to write about. What was ‘required’ anyway. I wanted to do the weapon security article, and I wanted to do an ad for a small group called Silk Road Exchange. But no, instead I got put on duty to figure out the deal with the rivalry between the Red Highlanders and the Slimes. (The slimes are a greaser group and nobody liked them. They’re also led by ProGamerDude, who is definitely gonna be a major character in this.) Starma was willing to talk to me, since I got his respect. But the slimes were uh… difficult. But I did get information on their actual intentions that they had no intention to hurt anybody, they just found gang activity fun. Though Klem and Jaunty told me to ask about their suspicions of CallMeCass (she’s a slime) stealing and getting in trouble with gov. And they were not happy I asked that. I basically got harassed out of their server. Thanks team /s. I wrote the article, and it got a lot of negative reception. Especially from the groups involved claiming it was all fake news and I was ‘bribed’. I wasn’t.
It took a couple days, but, actually, the two groups ended up becoming pretty strong allies. So that article was a sleeper hit.
Oh, and out of irritation, I wrote both articles I wanted to do as well. I did three articles in between days. I was on fire.
But then the storm came.
It was late at night before the day of the election to see who would be voted as a governor to be a representative for the people. And Jaunty called us in late at night (minus Klem and Theo who were asleep). He got information that the largest group in the district, called the Beach, was corrupt.
Basically, Sidefall, the second in command of the Beach had an association with Elanuelo. They conspired to rig the election so that the leader of the Beach, Ymis, won. Essentially making Ymis a government plant.
This was alarming to us, because of how the Ministry of Truth presented the Beach as ‘the one great group amongst a group of savages’ which wasn’t true. So we believed the Beach, specifically Ymis, was working with the gov and her winning would be a disaster to the desert. (We got it wrong then. It was Sidefall doing the string pulling, not Ymis.) So we at High Noon, as the mediators for the election, wanted to make a plan to somehow make sure Ymis didn’t win. Whether it was endorsing other candidates, or even paying an assassin to kill her. We ultimately came to the conclusion that we couldn’t pay an assassin on her.
Pub Town did though.
So, yeah, we didn’t do it. But we still got results. Idk if we were responsible for this or not, cause again, 1ilia is second in command of Pub Town, which makes them our allies. But we didn’t tell her this info or anything. (Sorry Ymis)
The election was overall a disaster. Ymis was just one of the two assassinated candidates during it. The other one was considered a danger to the gov’s cause, so a gov disguised as a civilian took him out. But this time I jumped to writing the overview. They were hesitant I could pull it off, but I did a great job.
During Purge, we allied with Dead Man’s Chest, who is the group with the best PvP players in our district. And they were more than happy to protect us during purge and let us stay in their place. The leader was Zynn, who was… a bit of a judgmental one. She’s pretty morally grey as a character I’ll say that much. But you know, she was our ally, she united everyone to fix the starvation problem we had, and she was an election candidate. But during purge she also had guards armor, and she and her group killed some of the slimes in purge. Idk why they did this. I know the two groups had beef, but why…? ProGamerDude was not happy about this and Zynn was their enemy. And listen, as much as I sympathized with the slimes, we needed Zynn as our ally for our own sakes. Sometimes being neutral sucks.
Oh, and we at High Noon were also on the gov’s watchlist. So there was a looming threat that the gov was going to arrest or kill us because we were a powerful group that had incriminating information. So needless to say we were in danger.
Jaunty decided to make errands around the island for the day, bringing Quacker and Orion with him for protection. I felt pretty jealous and excluded from the important stuff. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. But I was also scared something would happen to Jaunty. So when he gave orders “Don’t tell anyone the information we have.” I disobeyed.
I was friends with our neighbor, WreignboPenji, who was a rebel disguising as a food critic. She was an empath for the people and was getting information to oppose the purges. I arranged a meeting with her at her place, and I told her everything we knew. Basically, we arranged an alliance, that if anything happens to High Noon, I would have a backup ally to help us. And she agreed to it. I totally trusted her, and was right to trust her.
Where did this alliance go in the story? Nowhere. Bummer.
Because at the end of Day 4, our commander Fortsy was publicly executed. Not only that, but the desert became abandoned. And the gov killed our ally, Zynn.
Needless to say, we at High Noon were the only group left with any trustworthy power. All the leaders were dead. Nobody liked the slimes. Hands of Imperia were working with the gov. And Sidefall was also a traitor. But we knew the truth: The government would come and kill us all first thing Day 5.
So, to save lives, we worked together to write an article telling everyone exactly what’s going on, bringing all our info front and center, and demanded everyone evacuate the district immediately.
And it worked. Everyone evacuated. We also left with Dead Man’s Chest.
Our plan when we got out was to regroup outside the walls, find new allies, and rebrand our news organization to be the information tellers for the rebellion.
But… I would never see this happen.
See, the gov collects the dead civilians heads, which they use for their special project to revive people, and then reprogram them to be ideal citizens for Imperia. That’s why they wanted to exterminate the desert, cause we didn’t match their ideals on how we should behave. So when we wrote the article to get everyone out, we robbed the gov of hundreds of heads they could’ve collected. That was treason. We had to pay.
And the only acceptable payment was our heads.
So during our evacuation, we boated to the next plot of land we could find, which was the snow area. But this was where I made a chain of crucial mistakes.
Some people in our group were falling behind, and I turned around to help them find us to get them to shore. But nobody noticed I did this, and they ran away. Accidentally abandoning me. I had gotten lost. And ended up in the snow alone. Stuck in a hill.
I cried for help, but nobody came in time.
Just when I thought someone did, that Quacker had come to save me, I was instead met with a blade to the head from an elite guard.
No chance to react. No chance to scream. No chance to bed for my life. Just one strike. The pain of the blade. And I was dead.
I felt like a failure when I died. I should’ve been smarter. I should’ve kept going with my group. I shouldn’t kept running. Why did I stay in one spot?!
On top of that, I was not the only one who died. The Elite Squad also killed Klem and Theo. WreignboPenji was killed. Starma was killed. Everyone I had become friends with in this event got killed on Day 5. So I didn’t believe my efforts succeeded at all. I was left behind. Forgotten about. I died a nobody. My worst fears had come true.
But this isn’t the end. As I was taken to the Afterlife.
I was pretty scared and confused, as I didn’t know what the place was or why I had wings, but I knew that I had to find a way out. My friends needed me.
Only to be broken the news that I was dead. A fact I refused to accept. I was desperate to find a way out, and getting frustrated with all the people partying around me. I did find out that our heads were used for the gov to revive us, and since I was killed by an elite guard and I wasn’t dozed in lava at any point, I knew the capital had my head. But I wasn’t counting on revival that way.
But it was futile. I really was dead. I felt like I died a nobody, and I was a failure, and forgotten about. That my friends just moved on. So I just had several panic attacks, crash outs, and just broke down crying (on Saps tower actually. You don’t see it in his stream cause he flew away before it.)
But then something unexpected came up. A guy, BranchMango, who I only had one conversation with when we were alive, where he was ranting about the incompetency of his group and I caught him, and when I revealed myself as a journalist he freaked out. It was one of my funny clips. He came to me and said he was inspired by me. And he’s been taking journalism to record the stories of the people who died, so they’re not forgotten.
I was pretty surprised when I heard this. That I actually inspired that. I didn’t die a failure, or a nobody. There was people here who really appreciated what I did. Who remembered me. The DMC was mourning me. The remaining High Noon members wanted revenge on the people who killed me. I actually did make a difference, even if it wasn’t in the way I intended at all.
Still, I wasn’t giving up on getting revived, and there was a project where the Afterlife made their own revival machine to bring themselves back to life. I was so in, and even helped motivate other people to give it a shot.
The machine failed.
Everyone is pretty pissed that this failed. Cause for the people who died sooner than I did, they worked their asses off for this. Only to be told no.
I was also devastated. Still wanting to go back. I was praying that it worked, desperate.
And my prayers got answered. Just not in the way I intended it to.
The government revived me.
(I feel bad for the people who didn’t get revived on the last day though. Idk why I was revived over other people. Some major characters from other videos didn’t get that.)
If we’re going off real logic, my body would be skeletal from lack of nutrients, and my skin would be almost grey. I was weak. I got blindness and nausea randomly. On top of that, I was taken prisoner in the capital, along with other revived people. We were forced to work for stuff to get their revival machine to work. And when we ‘didn’t reach quota’ they punished us with forcing us to run laps.
And I also learned that you can eventually get the wither effect, which kills you. Our time was limited.
The rebels were fighting outside, storming into the capital. That included my friends. As the death messages flooded the chat I was begging to not see Jaunty Quacker or Orions names appear. Thankfully no. I stole wood that was being used as fuel for furnaces, and I was plotting my escape. But before I could, some guards in the prison defected, and they showed me the door out. They let me go. (Along with other prisoners of course.) We got outside to the battlefield and found armor from dead guards we could equip.
While some prisoners wanted to escape the capital, I chose to stay and join the fight. I had to. It was over for me either way. If I was going to die, I was going to die creating a better world for these living people so their stories can live on. Even if mine will end soon.
I got to reunite with my peacekeeper friends who were still alive, and on our side. As well as the rest of High Noon. It was wholesome.
And we successfully killed Elanuelo and Solev. Imperia had fallen.
Schpood also came to us, (apparently he defected, he’s a good guy), and wanted to get the revival machine to save everyone… only for it to have been destroyed.
That was the signal to me that it was all over. So when I got stuck in a broken elevator, I worked towards leaving the capital. There was no saving me.
So when some random person struck me in the back once, and the person next to me fought off so I could run, it was too much for me. I got out, but only for a brief second, as the wither claimed me.
And I was gone. For good this time. Only this time, I accepted my fate.
QuackerZc and 1ilia also died in the battle. Leaving the only survivors to be Jaunty and Orion. Jaunty especially wanted revenge on the elite squad, but he wasn’t able to do it. So eventually they had no choice but to give up. And on the beach side of desert land, they along with their new news allies made a building and radio tower to keep on with the news and the stories of the people. The fallen High Noon members graves, including mine, lay there.
This is such an incredible character story! I love how deeply interconnected all of the narratives of the world were-