mindcracklove | #FreeVechs Part 1

I was inspired by Wrongtree's prompt and Writeinthesharpie's very short story, and decided to modify the prompt ever so slightly for a story:

Modified Prompt: Aureylian, Kurt, and Nebris wake up to find that Vechs was a product of their imaginations, and nothing more. The other Mindcrackers have never heard of a Vechs - it's like he has never, will never, and does not exist. But they know he did, and he does. Doesn't he?

"Did you put that sign there, Paul?" Mhykol asks the next time he logged in.

PSJ reads the sign, "Howdy Neighbor!" He pauses, thinking hard, before answering, "No I did not," as equally confused as Mhykol as why that sign would be there.

"That isn't the only thing that's happened here. My entire nether tunnel got modified. Torches on the ground, a large room behind my portal, and a cobblestone floor, all that wasn't there the last time I saw it."

"Let me see." PSJ enters Mhykol's branch-off tunnel and comes upon what Mhykol was describing. Looking around, he notices a sign to the right of the room:

"Dear Vechs,

Your portal room somehow disappeared, so I rebuilt it for you.

Love, Aureylian. <3"

"Who the fuck is Vechs?" Mhykol asked, after PSJ finished reading the sign.

"That's my question. I don't think she's calling you that name, as that seems to be a very odd nickname for a person like you, Mhykol."

"It might just be a giant prank on me."

All of a sudden, PSJ was approached by Zisteau, who asks if he could talk to both of them.

"Yeah, Zisteau?"

"Someone came over to my plot at spawn and razed the surrounding land from the edge of Bdubs's building company to Avidya's beacon, as well as all the land from the road itself all the way to the back of Arkas's shop. I don't use this plot myself, but you don't grief on the server like that! Someone also built a building facade at the front and labelled it "Vechs's Bow Shop", as if it is someone else's."

"What's the name again?"

"Vechs's Bow Shop."

"That's interesting. I just and I found a sign that said Aureylian carved out a dungeon room in the back of my nether tunnel and wrote a sign addressing a Vechs."

"If Aureylian wanted to have this plot, she could have just asked me. Not grief the entire plot and take over it."

"Now wait a second. How do you know it's Aureylian?"

"Because I was in a similar position last season! You remember BdoubleO100's Ethos Arena and the E-Pranker? I pretended to be Etho and pretended to take over BdoubleO100's arena. Only this time, I'm on the receiving side of whatever cruel prank Aureylian is pulling on me. Aureylian is pretending to be this imaginary character and doing the same thing to me."

Mhykol suddenly breaks in. "I'm not sure it is Aureylian. Nebris seems really suspicious recently as well. Remember the incident on the Subreddit?"

"What incident?" Zisteau questions Mhykol, a little bewildered.

"The 'Can't Show it on Youtube' incident."

"Ohhhh! Yeah. I remember now, the really drunk comments, very controversial."

Mhykol continues, "Pajam and brighteyes actually had something behind their drunkenness, namely to signal the start of the delayed UHC Season 17, but Nebris's comment was just plain random, and in German as well." Mhykol pauses for a moment, before saying the comment, "Vetches und Aurey", trying to impersonate Doc and his German accent. "Nebris basically implies that Aureylian and this Vechs person - I'm assuming that's what the names mean - are two different people. The circlejerk really latched onto it, with this unknown Vechs being depicted as MissingNo. and being the next Lord, replacing Danky Kang. And of course, the corresponding Lady Aureylian. Just by the nature of the comment, I think it is Nebris himself."

PSJ comments, "It was interesting that while many of us, like Pakratt, Avidya, Coestar, Pause, Kurt, and MCGamer, commented on the statement, Aureylian, one of the more active members on the subreddit, was nowhere to be seen."

"You brought up a really good point, Mhykol," Zisteau states, "but I found an incongruity in one of Kurt's statements. He said, 'The day after I made my request to PSJ to change his trading post's way of signaling what people need, I received five health potions from someone.' Despite the fact that I had the trading post under surveillance, and nobody came to my shop until I did to fix the system up, and when I checked Kurt's chest, there was nothing in it."

"So, so far, we have Aureylian and Nebris as possible suspects of this griefing, and Paul thinks it might be Kurt, but I somehow doubt that, as Kurt is too far out in 1.7 lands building his Wilson Hall Fermi Lab to mess with spawn."

"Yeah, but I see Anders coming down, and by the look of it, he doesn't seem to be very happy."

"Let's see what he has to say..." Zisteau says.

Anders enters the narrow corridor, only for the four of them to retreat back to PSJ's place.

"I was working on my Steampunk Floating Village when I heard Aureylian yelling at me." Anders begins. "She was pretty pissed at me, and she mentioned something along the lines of me violating the Dalanian Accord."

"The Dalanian Accord? Wasn't that something between MCGamer and Pyro?" PSJ asks Anders.

Zisteau responds for Anders, "Yeah. Dalania, or Doolania 2 Poo, as Millbee used to call it, was the city MCGamer was building, originally with Millbee, and then with himself after that boob incident, and in order to get more space, MCGamer negotiated with Pyro and BTC on who gets the surrounding lands sometime back in February."

"I was thinking, 'What does that have anything to do with me? I'm on the opposite side of the map from MCGamer' and then Aureylian brought up about violating Vechs's territorial sovereignty..."

Mhykol interrupts Anders, "There you go, another reference to this Vechs person."

"Now, what the heck do we do?" Anders asks the three of them.

Paul suggests, "Tell Guude this, and reschedule the monthly meeting for preferably tonight or tomorrow. This is urgent business, the griefing, the erratic behavior from Aureylian."

"Yeah. I mean, something this terrible, you wouldn't expect from someone as nice and kind as Aureylian. There's something wrong with her, and we need to find out immediately."