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Tubbo comes at night, long after the sun had set and the stars scattered white freckles across the face of the dark sky. He knocks on Ranboo’s window slowly at first, but faster and faster until it changes into a rhythm that only stops when Ranboo shoves his window open.
“I have a door, you know.” Ranboo squints at Tubbo, bleary eyed and shivery in the wind.
Tubbo bounces in his place with a bright smile. “Yeah, but this is more fun. Now come on!”
“Come where?” Ranboo asks, already slinging a leg over the sill.
Tubbo pauses in his bouncing, digs around his pockets for a torch, and then sets it on the ground so it illuminates the bottom half of his face, he raises his hands up above his head, arms and fingers curled like claws, attempting to look serious and scary. “The VOID.”
“The void?” Ranboo deadpans. “The thing buried beneath a solid layer of bedrock? That void?”
“Yep, now come on!”
Tubbo beckons and with a sigh Ranboo follows.
There is a trick to navigating a forest at night and it’s to not be navigating the forest at night. For one, it invites the mobs to attack you. If you for some reason-probably hubris or stupidity-must go through at night you should use a torch to illuminate the path. Or, if you somehow lack any torches but have a brewing stand and ingredients on hand, drink a potion of night vision.
Tubbo has a torch! Ranboo knows for a fact that Tubbo has a torch. He’d just pulled it out to be dramatic. So why wasn’t Tubbo using it now?
“Torches are for chumps!” Tubbo proudly proclaims, and proceeds to trip over yet another root.
“I’m a chump now,” Ranboo says and makes grabbing motions with his hands. “Give me the torch.”
“And also because we don’t want to draw attention!” Tubbo amends with equal enthusiasm.
A zombie shambles out from behind a tree, and Ranboo fumbles for his sword, managing to stab it right before it lunges for Tubbo’s back. Its death groan echoes through the forest.
“We aren’t exactly being subtle anyways,” Ranboo mutters.
“Still not pulling out the torch,” Tubbo trills.
“If a creeper sneaks up on us it’s going to be one hundred percent your fault,” Ranboo says.
A creeper does not sneak up on them but with the amount of branches that wack them in the face and the ankle-twisting kind of uneven ground it's about the same thing. Just with less environmental damage.
They stumble to a stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere, far east from spawn under a tree with a beehive. Ranboo has to duck his head and carefully edge around it while Tubbo easily passes under it. He bends down only to pull up a wooden slat covered in grass. Underneath it is one dark, deep hole that plummets straight down.
Ranboo peers over the edge. He can’t see the bottom and he has a not-so-sneaking suspicion that it might reach all the way to bedrock.
“How far down does it go?” Ranboo asks.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Tubbo says flapping a hand.
It would be comforting except Tubbo says everything is safe. Especially when it's not.
Ranboo looks back down the hole. Back up at Tubbo. Back at the hole.
He shrugs. “Okay.”
Then he jumps.
There is water at the bottom, Ranboo discovers. But the hole is very, very, very deep. To the point where the small pool of water is tucked into a rough dip in the bedrock.
Ha! He was right about the depth!
Ranboo scrambles out just in time to avoid getting slammed back underwater by Tubbo. He does not, however, make it far enough to escape the splash from Tubbo’s cannonball.
Tubbo climbs out of the pool giggling at the water dripping off Ranboo’s suit. He doesn’t stop until Ranboo takes out a bucket of water and dumps it over Tubbo’s head. The situation devolves from there.
By the time the mini war is over they’re both sopping wet and breathless from laughing.
“Okay, okay,” Ranboo says, trying to get his laughter under control.
Tubbo wheezes out a few more giggles. “You’re right, you’re right, we should- we should get going. We’ve gotten a little sidetracked.”
“Just a little,” Ranboo confirms.
“A tiny bit.”
Once they’ve caught their breath from another round of laughter, Tubbo pulls out a button and sticks it to the left of the water pool. He attempts to school his face into something serious. The haughty raising of his eyebrows and jutting forward of his chin is just too ridiculous though.
“Behold,” Tubbo says loftily, and presses the button.
There’s the slight click of repeaters and the scrape of pistons as the stone on the other side of the room slides away. Beyond it, is a cavern.
Not a cave, to be clear, caves didn’t come this big, they didn’t even come this deep. No, this place looked like a giant had risen us from the void and torn a chunk out of the world as it retreated. The bedrock of the cavern was . . . gone. Three paces in and it fell away with only a wooden fence between Ranboo and the abyss.
A layer of wood rings the outside of the pit, and the fences only break right in front of them where the path extends out over the void. There’s a boat sitting at the end of the path, more of a ship, really, it was bigger than any boat Ranboo had seen. It was as big as a house!
To have it balanced on the end of so little wood- but no. No, it isn’t balanced. Ranboo had thought the wood was being obscured by the boat, but there isn’t any wood now that he looks again. It’s floating.
The silence of the void engulfs the cavern. Even the lanterns hanging from stalactites bigger than Ranboo don’t creak or sway. There’s no wind to push them. Because that’s the void right there. That’s actually the void.
“Tubbo,” Ranboo stutters, awe coating his voice. “Tubbo how did you find this place?”
Tubbo snorts. “Find it? No, no, no. I built it.”
“No way. How’d you rip up the bedrock?”
“The non-incriminating answer? A magician taught me how.”
“And the incriminating one?” Ranboo raises his eyebrows.
“A little bit of cheating may have been involved,” Tubbo grins.
Ranboo casts his gaze back around the cavern, marvelling again at the sheer size. If Dream knew about this he would have sealed it up instantly like he did the End. The world edit to excavate the cavern would have been obvious to the admin, but Tubbo had managed to hide it.
“Is that how you’re keeping the boat above the void?” He asks, gesturing to it. “You did something fancy with world edit?”
“Eh, kind of,” Tubbo wobbles his hand back and forth. “All the wood is enchanted to repel the void, but you can only get the enchantment from a table that’s been lowered into the void.”
“But no blocks can be put in the void . . .” Ranboo trails off.
“Hence the bit of cheatiness, yes.”
“And I’ll bet that boat does more than float there and look pretty,” Ranboo says.
“Of course it does, what do you take me for?” Tubbo puts his hand to his chest in mock-offense. “The Lantern can sail the void.”
“That’s so cool! How’d you rig up the pistons to propel it?” Ranboo peers at the back of the boat. It’s definitely large enough to fit an array of pistons inside. Redstone work was delicate though, would the void mess with . . .
“Nope! No pistons, proper sailing, just with less waves and more hull coverings. I take it for a picnic sometimes, but mostly when I’m bored.” Tubbo’s eyes sparkle.
“Most people just find a nice tree when they want a picnic,” Ranboo says dryly.
“That’s just boring.” Tubbo flaps his hand dismissively.
“If you have this, I can see why you think so,” Ranboo says with amusement. “It really is amazing though. Tommy must love it.”
Tubbo shrugs. “Tommy likes it well enough, but he finds the void kind of boring.”
“Boring?”
“Yeah,” Tubbo looks almost sheepish. “He says that after a while of looking at nothing but blackness the shock factor wears off. I mean, I get why he would get bored, I use it more as an escape than for entertainment so there’s not really a novelty to wear off. For you though, I’m hoping, it could maybe be a reminder of home.”
Home. Ranboo hadn’t thought about it for a while, what with the End locked up. But now, here, with the void exposed to the overworld, where he could just tip over a fence and fall forever, it feels . . . familiar.
Tears prick at Ranboo’s eyes.
“Take a ride through the void with me?” Tubbo offers his hand.
Ranboo hesitates, then takes it with a smile. “I would love to.”