Sixteenth Day Event Prompt:
DreamXD uses powerful magic against Sam
ay thanks this got me out of burnout 🙏
mirror pools
If you were to ever anger a server guardian, well- first off, I'm sorry for you, but second, you'd expect them to immediately smite you, kill you, ban you... essentially make your life a living hell, right?
Okay, so why is Sam staring at a copy of himself right now?
4'706 words
link to ao3 (contains extra rambles)
Sam startles, one hand falling to the glowstone behind him, the other to his overloud heart. "What the-" he breathes, then, "Hello?"
"Hello, Awesamdude," the server guardian floating before him says, voice too deep to quite match that of his oracle. "What are you working on?"
"Uhm- I don't- don't you already know?" Sam gestures at the obsidian walls, far from the height they should be but already a good area marker. "It's pretty hard to miss, isn't it?"
XD hums disinterested.
Sam himself isn't all that familiar with the guardian; he knows the basics of a guardian's duties, that they manifest with new servers sometimes and that they're pretty rare. He also knows how this one immediately chose to attach to the admin, Dream.
It doesn't mean this visit is welcome of course. It's never a good sign.
"I suppose," he finally responds.
There's an inherent haze to XD; he almost fades at the edges, blends into his background. Supposedly it isn't all that inaccurate to how he actually functions. Sam straightens a little. "Why do you ask, then? What are you, uh- What brings you 'round here?"
"Just... looking."
The voice is far too familiar to him, almost the same as Dream's passive awe at the prison. It's just a little off. Echoey and distorted. Lower with dissonant overtones.
"Well, don't touch anything, right? Just- don't mess with it, yeah?"
The next time Sam blinks, there's nothing in front of him. Only the silhouette on the back of his eyelids.
//
"Pretty good, pretty good."
Sam stands back as Dream flicks the lever once again. His mask is on fully, covering his expression, but Sam's been close enough to this man to not need that. Dream's impressed.
"Right? Took me, like, hours." Sam watches the door open itself, leaving no cracks between the iron blocks. "But it works, now."
Dream nods along. "This is all pretty impressive, Sam."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, really!" Dream steps through, walking along where Sam's already planning for more security. "Like, look at this place, it's cool as hell!"
"Yeah?" Sam allows himself to preen a little. "Your little, uh, your god showed up the other day. Know anything about that?"
Dream's hand flexes. "XD? No, I- I don't know about that." He turns to Sam, having crossed the floor. Sam is stood in the middle. "Did he say anything?"
"Just asked me what I was working on."
"And what did you say?"
"Told him not to touch anything."
Dream snorts. Subtly, he moves to feel his pulse. "Well I don't think there will be any problems with him. He's sort of a bitch."
Sam feels the temperature drop. "I don't think that's smart to say."
His hand falls off his pulse point. "Either way, he's not an obstacle."
"I sure hope so." Sam finally crosses the distance. "He creeps me out."
Dream laughs again. "Then he's doing his job."
//
The entrance to the prison is almost so dramatic it makes Sam laugh.
The tall pillars, the black and white theming, the sounds - it's all so ominous it almost looks orchestrated.
But it's what Dream wanted, so Sam does as requested and mines more obsidian.
Sometimes he wonders why Dream needs all of this anyways. It must be for an enemy of his, right? Tommy springs to mind, but surely Dream wouldn't subject someone to something like this.
Surely.
"What are you doing?"
Sam's sword is out faster than he can process, pointed at the faultless neck of XD. "Oh my god, why do you have to sneak up on me every time?" He puts his sword away; it's useless here.
"Should I introduce my arrival, instead?"
Sam sighs. "What do you want?"
"I was... curious, you could say." XD glances to the field of cauldrons behind Sam. "Farming lava I see?"
"Well we can't go to the End for obsidian, now can we?" Sam drops another bucket of lava into the water, barely stopping to watch it crystallise before taking out the next. "...unless?"
XD bristles and a faint breeze blows through Sam's fur. "No."
"What if I gave you something in exchange?" He stands up, dusting his empty hands off. "A favour, perhaps?"
"What could you possibly offer me that I'd want?"
"Well I'm no Technoblade but... you know. The world works on favours, dear Dream-echs-dee, I'm sure you know that."
XD watches him. He's almost touching the ceiling of the mined-out area Sam has made his farm in. "I know," he says. "My answer doesn't change."
Sam sighs. Through the smoke he mumbles, "Then don't be surprised I need this much."
He manages to mine out multiple blocks of obsidian before XD speaks up again. "Why are you even building something so big?"
"It's a prison."
"For who?"
Another block disappears into Sam's inventory. "I don't know."
"Who does?"
"It's for Dream." Another block. "He commissioned it."
A hum. "And you blindly follow orders?"
Sam stops. He isn't blindly following orders, he's- well, it's partially for money, but he doesn't know what Dream would do if Sam wasn't there to veer him onto the kinder path of evil.
Sam is keeping Dream in check. Right?
"You don't want to be on Dream's bad side."
"Oh, you're scared of Dream?" XD laughs, awfully familiar yet nothing like it. He's been floating in one spot the whole time, but now moves to stand above Sam's mining pool. "What's there to be scared of?"
Sam doesn't know how to answer such a question.
//
Sometimes Sam comes home, feeds Fran, eats whatever remains in his cabinets, and falls asleep without even removing his armour. Today is one of those days.
Building something as monotonous and samey as Pandora's Vault - what a stupid name; what big evil exists on this server other than the one person who won't be in it? - is boring as hell, despite all the cool circuits and interiors. The redstone starts to swim in Sam's vision until he can see lines in the back of his head when he's too lost in thought, and the pattern of unsanded obsidian is almost his fingerprint.
It's a grating job, one day into the next. He's nowhere near done and it's already been longer than he can take.
He feels less and less like a person every day. Does he just follow orders? Is that what he does? He's convinced himself that he's in the right for being the one to take on a task that, inevitably, someone would have to do, but...
"Fran, what do you think?"
Fran, with all the wisdom in her big black eyes, says nothing. She's a dog after all, not an oracle.
"Yeah, thought so." He scratches at the top of her snout. "Come on, it's nap time. Tomorrow will be a better day, right girl?"
She doesn't answer before Sam's fallen into dreamland.
Sam's dreams have been weird, lately. Snippets of buildings he's never seen, the Pandora hallways in layouts he doesn't know, strange visions of red and iron and DreamXD is always there.
Why is the server guardian in Sam's dreams? It seems like the kind of thing that should concern him more but all he can do is think in circles.
When he wakes up the sun is barely inching over the horizon. Everything's a tedium. Wake up, maybe eat, and work.
Sam doesn't expect anything to change for a long, long time.
//
One day - once again mining obsidian, no surprise there - XD appears and...
"You know I'd appreciate," Sam hollers across the hall, "if you stopped staring at me!"
But XD does nothing. He stares as Sam works, fur standing and skin prickling. It's discomforting, actively hindering his progress.
Sam fills another chest, closes the lid, and comes face to face with the guardian.
"Do you think you're fit for the role?" XD asks.
Sam sighs. "I am."
//
It almost works. It's so close, and yet the signal doesn't reach, no matter how many times he checks the line or adds a repeater.
"Maybe you should just rebuild the line," Dream proposes, quietly chewing a golden apple. He's been there for a while, providing commentary. Sam isn't sure it's appreciated.
He adds another pile of dust, presses the button and watches. The signal still fizzles out.
"You might just be cursed, Sam."
"It's redstone, not magic."
Dream shrugs. He's on edge: pacing, checking his weapons, doing what Sam thinks is inventory reach practice. The prison's not very close to done but it works for the most part - Dream was very impressed - and if he needs it, Sam is ready to act as warden. Everything should be going to plan.
To himself, Sam mumbles, "Who the hell needs this level of security?" and knows Dream heard it when he scoffs.
"It's none of your business, Sam."
Sam disagrees. But it isn't his job to say that.
//
"So," Sam says, "What do you think?"
XD hums. "It's big."
"That- Well, it is, but like- anything else? You know, all the redstone, the hours put into it, the security..?"
A breeze runs by them. Sam is used to it by now. "I think it's a plight on this world." XD turns to him. Larger than Sam, he'd been intimidating at first, but now he's just a part of Sam's day. "I do not like it."
Sam hums. "Well, tell Dream that."
XD says nothing in response.
//
The ceiling of his bedroom is unfamiliar to him.
He isn't home all that often. Work has consumed Sam's life. Fran sleeps steady on his chest and he holds in the urge to cry.
What's become of him?
//
Leading Dream into the prison is a painful ordeal.
Not because Dream fights. On the contrary, he's eerily calm; he just lost two lives and Sam can feel the air cling to them both. He walks, one foot in front of the other, following all orders, until they're in the cell.
Dream looks around. His mask is on and Sam doesn't think that will be for long.
"How long do you think forever is, Sam?" he asks, hands twitching and face tilted to the lectern.
Sam turns to leave. "It's a while."
//
"What now?"
Sam doesn't even look. "What do you mean?"
"You finished." XD sounds upset. Sam knows he's at fault. "What's next?"
The food in front of him doesn't appeal. For once, XD is a welcome guest. "Guard," he sighs. "Just guard."
"That doesn't sound like you."
"Nothing sounds like me."
XD scoffs. His voice still sounds off-kilter, but sometimes, when Sam loses himself enough, it almost starts to sound like Dream. Like a Dream that still wants to talk to him. Like a Dream that hadn't tried to kill two children for no reason-
Sam pushes the stew away. XD sits at the other end of the table, occupying the only other chair. In a better world, sitting there would be one of his friends. Sam doesn't know if anyone wants to talk to him anymore.
"Why are you still here?" Sam asks, voice down. "What do you want?"
XD takes long enough to think for Sam to dismiss whatever he would say.
//
The next time Sam sees the prison he's dizzy, nauseous and his vision is all blurry.
He hasn't eaten - eaten something other than himself, that is - in multiple days. A different kind of obsidian has splintered itself into his skin. He keeps spitting red. The prison is the closest safe location.
How does he get in? He slept at home but he doesn't feel much better today. There must be a secret entrance or something, it seems like the kind of thing he-
"Looking for something?"
Bleary, Sam turns. He's standing in knee-height water. XD floats above the lake. "Oh. Hello, XD."
"Hello, Sam." XD comes closer. The water is really cold and Sam doesn't want to stand in it for any longer than he has to. "What are you looking for?"
"Uhm, do you... do you know how to get into the prison?"
XD looks him up and down. "I can let you in," he says. "Do you want me to do that?"
Sam nods. His eyes close for just a second too long. "Mhm."
The next overlong blink, XD is gone. Sam wades back to the entrance - at least the portal is warm.
XD's voice booms in his ears uncomfortably loud. "Step through the portal."
Sam does as asked. The nether is warm but he still feels cold. He's again instructed to step through, so he does.
The prison lobby is a familiar room. The sight of obsidian unsettles him somewhat but there's nothing he can do about it. "I'm here." XD is nowhere to be seen.
"Welcome to the prison."
Sam blinks. That was his voice but he didn't say that. "XD?" he asks again.
And again, his own voice says back to him, "You didn't schedule a visit."
Still dizzy, Sam rubs at his eyes, failing to clear his spotty, blurry vision. "Who is that?" There's a blur of gold behind the front desk. "Who are you?"
Hands weigh on his shoulders, uncomfortable on his feverish skin. "I may have made a few..." XD hums. "changes, while you were gone."
"Wh- why? What did you do?"
The ground under Sam shifts. Suddenly, he stands in front of the desk, staring at... a mirror?
But it isn't quite him: he knows he looks far less composed at the moment, and he doesn't stand as tall as this reflection does. Its hair is shorter, its armour shinier, and it doesn't really look like Sam. It's like... an idea of him, maybe. A perfect version.
"Since you were busy with the egg," XD tells him, two hands still on Sam's pauldron-less shoulders, "I thought the prison might need a new warden. Don't you think?"
This Sam looks mean. The real Sam says as much.
XD laughs. Sam stands outside the prison entrance with no trace of XD.
//
Sam brushes it off as a hallucination, maybe even a fever dream. His dreams, after all, have been more and more vivid every night, until he wakes up and takes a walk around his base, just to make sure it wasn't real. He makes sure to take proper care of himself - has tried to move on to his next project, the untameable force of creation he is - and has rested enough that he can stand upright again, no weird nausea.
On the fifth day since he escaped, eight days since he last did his patrol in Pandora (which he still thinks is a strange name, but far more apt now). He dons his newly made armour, takes his shiny new tools, and makes it all the way to the prison.
The weird memory haunts him, but he finds the secret entrance, swims through, and slowly finds his way around. It feels strange in here: the way the air droops before a thunderstorm, the way it binds when XD's nearby.
It's odd; Sam hasn't seen him in multiple days. He should be happy about it, probably, but all it makes him feel is dread.
He makes it to the guard room. A set of armour is missing.
Nothing appears to be wrong. At least not until he reaches the lobby.
Déjà vu. Something stands behind the desk. This time Sam is certain: it's him.
The clone turns to him. In a tone far colder than Sam's own he asks- demands, "Where'd you come from?"
"I- who are you?"
Sam steps closer. The clone stands straighter. "How did you get in here?"
"I used the secret- no, no, you're not questioning me on how I got into my own prison!" Sam approaches, noting just how kitted out this guy looks. The only person whose armour ever looked this proper - this intimidating, too, with all its sharp edges and dark patterns - sits in the cell Sam hasn't seen in more than a week. "I don't have a twin!"
Then, he realises. Louder than he's ever yelled, Sam orders, "XD!"
"You called?"
XD fades even more now - the blackish-purple obsidian bleeds green and white, Sam can almost feel his hands yet sees all four in front of him, the air tastes of ozone and something sharp, acrid. "I want to know what the hell is going on in my prison!"
XD tuts. "You dare to take that tone?" he asks, and the curiosity, naivete, is gone from his voice. It's cold and predatory. "Did you forget who I am, somehow?"
"I've said plenty of things to you, chill out." The clone still hasn't moved beyond staring at Sam, eyes harsh. "Explain. Now."
"I told you, someone needed to do your job while you were away." XD moves - Sam still can't tell quite where he actually is but he definitely moved. "He's exactly as much of a prick as you are."
Sam stares at the clone, him and his mean mien, and runs.
If XD and this- thing have been keeping guard, who knows what state Dream is in? Have they fed him? Have they finished the courtyard - the one part Sam was planning to continue working on? Does everything even work?
He's tackled into the wall. "You cannot visit the prisoner," the clone says, voice still uncanny, and holds the grip of his trident at Sam's neck.
"You're not-" Sam struggles against the hold, for once cursing how difficult he is to move by force. "-the warden-!"
"And you are?" The fake manages to push him to the floor, holding him there by the trident pointed at his chest. Under the filter, Sam can't see his expression, but is pretty sure it's a sneer. "You are hereby banned from the property of the prison. Understand?"
"But-"
The end of the trident clanks against his chestplate. "Understand?"
Sam glares. "Fine."
//
Well this means he has more time to work on his new project. Sam supposes.
Every time he looks over he sees the large obsidian construct, one he spent so long building which has now been overtaken. He's not happy about it. Not at all.
He can't ask anyone to visit to make sure. What if the clone is there only when Sam is there? What if one day there's nobody there? Sam sure doesn't want to check, not when he's confident he couldn't take a clone of himself with god on its side in a fight.
"Aaay, Sam!"
Sam looks down from his scaffolding. At the bottom stands Tommy, waving his arms. "Hey, Tommy!" Sam calls back, tossing his pickaxe into his inventory. "What's up?"
"Oh, nothing much, nothing much." When Sam reaches the ground again, Tommy grins at him. "This looks sick, what is it?"
He looks up. It's not much right now but he's got high hopes. "I'm building a bank." He looks back. "Did you need anything? Headed somewhere?"
Tommy shakes his head. "Saw something new, thought I'd come by, you know. Didn't expect to see you out of the prison, Dream drove you insane yet?"
Sam freezes. "I- uh, yeah, it's-" he coughs. "A little claustrophobic, a little- a little dark, not really my thing." Sam exhales, feeling the burn of anxious smoke in his throat. He's thankful for the filter; Tommy can't see his nerves. "Came to work on something else."
"Huh. It seems to be going well." Tommy looks up and hums. "The prison's fucking creepy, man. So hot as well, it's insane." He shivers. "I'm glad he's the one in there, bitch deserves it."
...hot? How does Tommy know that the prison is hot? Did he guess? But- no, obsidian is usually cold.
Did- has Tommy visited?
"...yeah," Sam says, finally. Tommy looks at him weird but doesn't comment for once.
"Well I'll leave you to it. I'm on a quest, I need to go collect fucking logs for this guy, I'm a professional lumb-arr-smith so I've got it handled, I've got it so handled they all love me for my lumber."
Sam nods. "That's great, Tommy."
"Right?" Tommy pulls his axe out, a chipped iron one. "I'll go get more wood Sam." He pulls his little chatphone out. "Chat, that's a cock joke. Laugh."
Sam doesn't pay him mind as he climbs back to the top of his scaffolding. Only when Tommy's out of his sight does he falter, sitting down on the wall.
He smooths his hair out, pulls his mask off, and breathes pure, black smoke. "Fuck," he breathes. "It's so over for me."
//
People continue to be shocked when Sam meets them.
Apparently the copy inside the prison still hasn't vanished. Nobody else seems to realise that the Sam in the prison isn't the Sam currently scaling quartz walls. He'd be more offended if it didn't mean he couldn't stomach dinner.
Do people think he's like that? That he'd attack someone just for daring to be concerned?
XD has lost his mind.
He talked to Quackity some time ago. He said the prison was impressive. Sam thinks that might be the problem: the prison. Sam is cursed.
When before it had been XD, now it's Tommy, coming to share a few words every day. He's always busy with something: gathering wood, stone, concrete, once he said he was farming wheat. Sam may be curious but he doesn't like to get involved in other people's business, not with the number of mercenaries and-or assassins-for-hire on this server.
"Awesam my man!" Speak of the devil. "What's up!"
"Hello, Tommy!" Sam keeps placing tiles, only turning briefly to wave.
Tommy, who's playing music on his chatphone louder than really needed, comes closer. He looks troubled. "Working hard or hardly working, ay?"
"Working hard, hopefully."
"Sam, do you ever- Sam, do you ever take breaks? How about a holiday?" Tommy taps his foot. "I swear, every time I see you you're at work. Sam, stop working."
Sam rises, back aching as he does. His legs are tired. "I don't rest," he jokes. "I only work."
"I know. Whatever Sam, do you know where to get kelp?"
"Who's making you get kelp?" He should light this place. He's not a big fan of other creepers, right now. "You go to an ocean, it's that simple?"
"Well I need kelp like I need women. That means I really need kelp." Tommy looks to the sky. "Kelp. Who called it that? It's such a stupid word."
Sam ignores him. "Why are you doing all these quests, anyway?" His eyes widen. "Please tell me you're not into mercenary work."
"What?" Tommy squints at him. "Sam you're not that old, come on."
"What? No, Tommy, seriously, you haven't told me."
"...Sam. The hotel."
"The- yeah, I know about the hotel. What about the hotel?"
"Sam, you- Sam Nook! You- I thought you built him, what the fuck?"
Sam... Nook? "I- no, yeah, I remember now!" Sam laughs, catches a breeze and knows XD is listening. "Sam Nook! Of course, sorry, I... haven't been sleeping well."
Oh when Sam catches that guardian. He doesn't care how well the server functions without him or how dear it is to Dream, XD is dead the moment he dares to give himself a corporeal form.
"It's because you're working so much," Tommy huffs. "Go take a break, man. You're going to melt."
That description feels accurate. "You know, I might." Sam taps all of his paws along the ground, sore and probably in need of a brush. "The bank won't go anywhere, right?"
"Ay, hardly working for once!"
Tommy pats him on the back - as high as he can reach, at least - and Sam smiles down at him. Maybe a self-care day is what he needs.
//
It's three days later that he returns, feeling much better.
He'd taken those three days to sleep, think through his plans, brush the stress-knots out of his fur, and ignore everything happening outside his home.
His secret home came in handy. Nobody could bother him there. It was just him and Fran. It was perfect, just the two of them.
But now Sam's back. He went to go look at the hotel and, indeed, there was another clone of him in front of that. This one looked cheerful, greeting him when he came close, but also like he was more of a machine than a person; robotic in his movements, talking through comms.
If Tommy thinks Sam built this one, it wouldn't be too strange for messages between them to show up. Overall Sam Nook is far better of a Sam than the current warden of Pandora's Vault is.
With his rounds done, he returns to the bank. He should go talk to Quackity at some point, maybe he needs him.
Maybe someone needs him.
It's hard not to be demotivated. The world moved on without Sam- the world is pretending to be Sam. How does he fight it except leave the server for good, losing all his work, friends (what remain of those) and attachments? XD can't follow him across hubs, yes, but...
No matter. Soon enough Tommy will pass by on another fetch quest and Sam will feel a little more needed.
Sam finishes one pillar for good.
He finishes another.
He finally lights the whole build.
The sun starts to set and Sam becomes suspicious. He can't ask anyone; what if the other Sams are involved? What if everyone acts like Tommy did: doubt, suspicion? What if XD hears? Then Sam will be in such deep shit he can barely imagine it, let alone wish it upon himself.
It must be no matter; Tommy is unrealiable on a good day and Sam has had nothing but bad days this far. It's incredible the kid has kept his habit this long.
So Sam goes home and he isn't that worried, all thins considered. Surely he'll see Tommy tomorrow.
The day after that.
Two days later.
What can Sam do but wait? Maybe this is his limbo. Maybe his limbo is haunting the narrative. Maybe Sam will be forgotten about at some point; nobody talks to him besides Tommy because everyone thinks he's at the prison.
And when Tommy does appear again...
Well, he isn't happy to see Sam.
//
"XD?"
Sam stands in the middle of a dense forest - one he grew himself with lots of saplings and bonemeal and manpower. "I know you're watching!" he shouts, not even echoing. "Show yourself!"
There's the usual breeze - an ever-present chill Sam has learned to live with - but no other mark of the guardian.
If Sam had more of a death wish he'd go straight to the prison. Unfortunately Sam values his lives.
"Where are you now, huh?" He spins in a circle, trampling the fresh grass. "You do all that and don't even show?"
What the fuck does Sam take Tommy's death as but a taunt? Is it not enough to punish only Sam but everyone around him, too?
"What did I do? XD, you're such a terrible server guardian, you-!"
In a blink, XD's presence wraps around Sam and his grove. "You ask what you did?" his voice booms, rings in Sam's ears. "Was my warning not enough? Do you not know how to listen, Awesamdude?"
Sam laughs. "Warning or not, why are you hurting other people?"
XD hums. The air vibrates with it. "Do you think you would've done any better?"
"Yes! I wouldn't have let Tommy die, I wouldn't banish people from visiting, I wouldn't be so obsessed with a building that nobody wants to talk to me anymore!" Sam spits at the ground. "You're an idiot, XD!"
A laugh makes Sam shiver. "Funny you say that," he says, and Sam's instincts stop pinging. He's gone.
Sam slams his axe into the nearest tree and leaves it there. He can make a new one.
//
When Sam reaches the top of the stairs leading up the Prime Path, he spots Ponk. He almost manages to wave before Ponk glares at him and turns away. His silhouette looks strange.
Months later, Sam will leave the server. There's nothing left for him here. Dream will build him a grave once he's out. Tommy will repair the ruins of the bank. XD won't miss him.
