One Block to the Left
KORYSUNE — Korysune, a tranquil town cradled between the imposing Great Sectarian Mountains and the endless blue ocean, was once the kind of place where people lived their lives in blissful simplicity. They supped warm tea, snuggled under thick blankets, and told stories by the fireplace, blissfully unaware of the horrors capitalism —or communism, depending on the branding— could unleash.
Sneaky, the town's self-proclaimed "bipartisan entrepreneur" (or as the locals called him, "that lunatic"), rolled into town. Armed with an insatiable hunger for wealth and an ambiguous political agenda, he promptly built himself a mansion so grotesquely extravagant that birds migrated south just to avoid the sight of it. Not content with mere opulence, Comrade Sneky also constructed a private skiing resort, an achievement he bragged about despite Korysune having exactly two inches of annual snowfall.
As if that wasn't enough, beneath this self-congratulatory spectacle, he engineered a monstrosity: a massive, multilayered cactus farm, designed to leak toxic XP residue into the town's water supply. "Think of it as flavour!" Sneaky had once joked to a journalist, seconds before downing an entire flask of his homemade "Sectarian Reserve" whiskey and declaring himself a genius.
But then, something miraculous happened. One day, the smeltery's chimneys stopped belching their ominous plumes of smoke, and the pigeons—notorious for the melting—regrew their feathers overnight. The cactus farm had inexplicably stopped working.
In an attempt to uncover the truth, your intrepid reporter tracking down Evan, one of the town's more coherent residents, for an explanation.
"Yes, I was with Sneky the day the whole operations went down," Evan began, clutching a mug of what appeared to be vodka disguised as tea. "He was ranting about the 'maximum redstone limit' being reached for now reason. He thought everything was perfect, but then he realised the problem... well, after downing a dozen bottles of ale."
Evan leaned closer, lowering his voice as if the wind itself might eavesdrop: "Turns out, in his drunken stupor, he miswrote a key design detail. The whole farm was supposed to be one block to the left — not the right. That's it. One block, And now he's up there, in his mansion, ripping apart five layers of his XP farm while screaming bloody murder at the gods of Minecraft or capitalism or whatever he worships this week."
As Evan spoke, the snowstorm swirling around Sneky's mansion seemed to grow fiercer, almost as if nature itself disapproved of his existence.
"The last thing I remember that night was Sneky collapsing in a heap, swearing vengeance on gravity, geometry, and anyone who dared to question his genius. Sometimes, when it's quiet, you can still hear the clink of his nephrite pickaxe breaking stone. The man's been moving the whole farm one block to the left, piece by piece, He won't stop. He can't stop." With a shiver that had less to do with the cold and more with existential dread, I left Evan to his misery. But the mystery wasn't over.
As of writing this, Sneky descended from his gaudy lair like a deranged pro[het, proclaiming to the good citizens of Korysune that the farm was finally complete. He announced it would not produce 15% less toxic XP residue—proof of his so-called commitment to "eco-conscious exploitation." But this progress came at a price: the farm would require 56% more child labourers, imported from the Empire of Ishanor, who Sneky described as "tiny hands working toward a brighter future."
Sneky's closing remarks? "When you use my XP< you'll feel every second of experience those kids earn. It's immersive! You're welcome."
The townsfolk, horrified by too apathetic to protest, clapped politely, as on does when confronted with the fever dreams of a madman.
And so, Korysue remains a quiet place—except for the occasional screaming and pickaxe clinking echoing from Sneky's mansion. ◾︎