The world was half terrible, filled with horrible terrible things and people who would break you. Half of every person Mumbo came to love would leave him, and Grian had left quite quietly with no warning in a place Mumbo hadn't known.
Half terrible, but also half wonderful and Mumbo remembered distinctly how Grian had leapt around his private world. Filled with machines and ugly constructions and Grian had smiled at him kindly and said 'there's good bones here, you spoon! You could make something beautiful with this.'
Xisuma had thought long and hard about the situation plaguing the Hermitcraft server. Grudgingly, he had to admit, he had been quite selfish with his treatment of it.
The server was his responsibility, yes. He had stepped up to the mantle and claimed it proudly, operating as the server's single Admin. That didn't mean he was the only admin present- there were others dotted through the server with different level skills. Some were born with the console abilities in their very coding, others acquired it through modification and other means.
Xisuma was the groundskeeper, but he was not the one left to make all decisions. He may have more expertise than others since he preferred to tend to the server glitches and occasional bugs, but that didn't mean his word was final.
< This message includes: [BdoubleO100][Cubfan135] [Docm77] [EthosLab] [FalseSymmetry] [GeminiTay] [GoodTimesWithScar] [Hypnotizd] [iJevin] [ImpulseSV] [Iskall85] [JoeHills] [Keralis] [MumboJumbo] [PearlescentMoon] [Rendog] [Stressmonster101] [TangoTek] [TinFoilChef] [VintageBeef] [Welsknight] [xBCrafted] [Zedaph] [ZombieCleo] continue y/n>
Xisuma sighed, leaning back on his chair. He knew about Watchers, but only in old stories. He hadn't paid much attention to things that lurked in the void and further- that was beyond the limit of players and as such, not important to him.
Yet, Scout clearly was something else. Scout was in on the server, meaning everyone had to have a say in what went on. He may be an admin, but he did not make the final decisions.
He typed with both hands, clicking translucent characters with thick gauntlets.
Bdubs had always exceeded expectations. Xisuma knew, the moment he exited the swirling purple portal, that the decorative tables and overhead flower trellis had not been there previously.
"Oh relax!" Bdubs huffed, waving his hands and shedding flower petals with each step. "I want it to be nice! Is that so bad?"
"No," Xisuma agreed, contemplating the overwhelming albeit impressive display of building skill. "But, this wasn't at all asked for, my friend."
"Oh don't think anything of it!" Bdubs said, chattering on about his details in the woodworking and the half heartedly built floating barge. Apparently, it wasn't to his preferred level of skill, but even then it was crafted well beyond Xisuma's ability.
Noon came closer and slowly, the portal flickered and delivered. Hermits came through, those that were closer to the situation arrived before the designated time. Pearl lingered towards the furthest border of the pavilion. Beside her was GeminiTay, a recent addition this season but apparently a gentle friend that Pearl looked ever so thankful to have. The Boatem crew settled with one less member at a table, toying with slices of cake pushed to each. Doc and Ren lingered on the outskirts, talking something with hushed breaths and multiple holographic diagrams.
Tango and Keralis were causing chaos, occasionally dropping dye on the well maintained barge floor. Bdubs of course spotted this and shrieked his outrage. A warm welcome as both Iskall and Etho flinched at the noise but joined in watching the spectacle with open delight.
"Hello, Xisuma," said Welsknight, approaching from just to the side. There had been a beautiful view in that direction, something he and TinFoilChef had been admiring. The salty spray from the water was one Xisuma had never appreciated, until moments like these.
"Hello, my friend."
"It's a beautiful place," Wels said, admiring the collection of chaos and gentle friends with a fond smile. Wels' different accent hit softer, gentler somehow or perhaps it was the endearing atmosphere itself. Xisuma felt so dearly loved, and so sad for an unknown reason.
"Bdubs has outdone himself."
"When doesn't he?" Wels asked rhetorically, quirking one eyebrow as he sipped on a fruity drink Keralis had all but pushed into his hand. "Tell me, what is it that has you so afraid?"
Xisuma instinctively opened his mouth to deny the accusation, but withdrew it. Wels wasn't wrong, and the armoured man knew it.
"I'm afraid of what we may have to do," Xisuma said after a quiet moment. There were many outcomes ahead of them, some decisions not as easy as others.
Not all of the hermits were able to come. Hypno, Beef, and Cleo were the unfortunate three too deep in their projects to arrive. They promised to read the summary of the meeting, and gave their choices and judgment to Xisuma clearly.
"Hello everyone," Xisuma greeted. Friends and family turned to look at him, some curious but all were fond. "It's wonderful to see you all. I wish it were in better circumstances."
Xisuma began to pace, wandering to and fro between the long tables. He waved towards Hermits that preferred to stand, greeting them too in their pavilion.
"As I'm sure you know, we've come to the conclusion that Scout is not a mob, but instead a species not unlike an Admin, called a Watcher."
The few hermits who had not been as attentive to the situation, such as Zedaph and Wels, glanced around in open curiosity. TFC huffed from his place near the sea, gazing dramatically at the occasional leaping dolphin.
"A Watcher, from our rough understanding, is a species capable of performing a skill we Admins call spectating." Xisuma explained, keenly watching Pearl nod jerkily at his words. "Spectating had originally included an ability to observe a server and all players within it, however you were unable to interact with the world itself. Some data provided to us suggests Watchers were able to not only observe, but to actively influence and modify servers."
Murmurs broke out, friends glancing at one another with open surprise.
"X, you don't mean that…is that even possible?" iJevin said, spluttering and stuttering through his words.
"Doc, can that even happen?"
"How have we never known of a different species?"
"You mean that feather thing? Capable of that?"
Doc sighed, stepping forward. With a flair of dramatics, the creeper hybrid slammed one scale plated boot on a wooden table. The echoing clang! Made Bdubs squeak and Ren smirk a wolfish expression.
"It should not be possible," Doc summarized. "Xisuma has examined the player code and it does not look like any code known."
"You looked at it's code?" JoeHills asked, bolting upright from his seat. With both eyebrows open in aghast horror, the man shook his head. "X! That's…that's not-."
"Scout is nonverbal and does not respond to spoken language," Xisuma explained in a straightforward careful voice. "On examination of its code, I determined that a bug had been planted in its script. There was a patch placed to remove it's functional use of any language, written or spoken, as well as its comprehension."
Joe sat don't heavily, looking thoroughly sick. Etho flinched away, recoiling with a carefully dull expression. Stress shouted something, an explicative that had Bdubs wincing.
"That's- that's inhumane!" Tango yowled, a bright burning fire echoing through his eyes and warped snarling expression. Ren stepped forward from the pillar, hunkering into something of a pounce before Cub swirled back to slam one arm across the man's chest- holding him back.
"The code was removed," Xisuma stated in an elevated voice over the chaos and commotion. "There is still a question as to what a Watcher is, and why Scout was here initially."
"Well what are we doing then, X?" Cub asked. He stared directly at the man with bold confidence, tension tight across his body beneath his white lab coat. "What are you not telling us yet?"
"We're helping Scout, right?" GeminiTay asked, head flickering between Pearl beside her and the group itself. She wilted, shoulders drooping and ears flipping back as she noticed something odd. "Right? Pearl?"
"I have met with Watcher's before," Pearl said, silencing the room near instantaneously.
"You what?"
"How? I've never heard of them!"
"Are they dangerous? When was this?"
Pearl huffed through her nostrils very quickly, slowly unlocking her jaw. She said, stiffly and carefully: "My previous server encountered Watchers. The majority if it was before I arrived, so I admittedly never had much interaction with them."
"Well what server was it?" False asked, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "Can't we contact the admin?"
"The server isn't operating anymore, it collapsed."
"We can still reach out to the Admin through the server hub network," Joe said. He pulled out a book with a quill, prepared to write down notes for Cleo and the others. "What is their ID? Any information may be helpful."
Pearl twitched. It did not go unnoticed.
"I've talked with Pearl about the unfortunate events of her previous server. Unfortunately, the server was unstable and the Admin went missing."
Uproar occurred. Xisuma waited, calm in the storm of nervous feelings. He waited and lifted one hand, requesting others to settle themselves. Etho was speaking quietly with Bdubs, who looked close to vomiting.
"The admin of that server went missing, however," Xisuma said, briefly exchanging eye contact with PearlescentMoon, "there were survivors of the server crash."
With a heavy sigh, TFC turned away from the sea. He walked towards the group, a walking cane smacking the ground with every other step. He grumbled quietly, asking above the sound of so many other hermits, "Xisuma, if you're trying to communicate off-server, you'll have to open this server."
Xisuma knew this would happen. Of course it would be TFC, one of the oldest members to identify the problems.
Joe stared at Xisuma, stunned. He said: "X…if you're trying to open the server- that would…that would take down the firewalls. It would leave us vulnerable!"
"Only for the smallest of moments we would be vulnerable to any hackers. Hermitcraft has one of the best firewalls ever known, and this is not a decision we are to make lightly."
Stress cleared her throat, a heavy frown downturning her mouth. "So we gotta' open up our walls to let in some fellows?"
"Old friends," Pearl said simply.
"So we can open our walls, get some information and help for Scout…but doing so leaves us vulnerable to threats."
"Well, I don't see it as a problem," Tango said. "Let them try and mess with us! I'm itching for a good fight!"
"Erm, maybe not a server based fight," Zedaph said with a meek wave.
Xisuma knew this would be a problem. Some hermits had tragic histories, some bloodied or unkind. Offering safety came with certain security measures that were dangerous to lose.
"What if we set precautions, more firewalls? Secondary authentication measures, would that work?"
"Potentially," Xisuma said.
"This is a scary decision either way," Scar muttered, bumping shoulders with Mumbo nervously.
Etho sighed, tapping his fingers along his arm in an unknown pattern. He said after a moment of pause, "I say why not. I can help clean up any glitches that pop up after."
"Worst case possible," Xisuma said to the hermits. "We'll need to evacuate this world. It would mean a rapid evacuation to a brand new map- is that something you'd be willing to do?"
Impulse snorted, nudging Tango impishly with his side. With one tired yet hopeful look, Impulse stated: "X, we're hermits. Building from scratch is what we're made to do. And if it helps someone alone the way? I think a better question is ``why are we still waiting?"
"Is that a big bloody egg?"
"Oh well, I don't know Jimmy. How 'bout you think about what animal makes an egg that big."
Xisuma wasn't sure how to feel about the two new visitors to Hermitcraft.
At first glance, they looked like a curious mix. Aloof and curious in a way somewhat similar to Impulse, or perhaps more like Tango. They were of similar height, dressed in odd clothes that came with them from their home server.
Pearl relaxed at the sight of the two, barely remaining at Xisuma's side as the two men joked and teased one another.
"Oh, wow. Look at those mushrooms. Gorgeous work-."
"Maybe if you keep working at it, you can make mushrooms, Jimmy."
Pearl snorted softly through her nose, fondly admiring the two. They bickered playfully, pointing at the colourful builds along the swamp on the outskirts of Spawn.
One of them finally spotted the two, nudging the other with one elbow. They were sent tumbling at the nudge, nearly cartwheeling off into the sand.
"Martyn!" they shouted, scrambling to their feet. With one hand ready to bop the other man into the sand, he shouted something of a war cry.
"Now, that's not very polite," said Pearl. Her hands on her hips and hair loosely tied over one shoulder. The two men craned their head around.
"Pearlo!" the one man yowled, throwing himself forward. Xisuma allowed the smallest flicker of Admin abilities to overtake his visor, if only to identify who the louder man was: SolidarityGaming.
"Look at you, Pearlie," the other man said, a huge grin splitting his face. Heavy relief dripped off both men, crashing into her petite frame with open arms, "oh it's great to see you again!"
"Let me down, you two meatheads," she teased. Laughing, they threw her around until her hair lifted and spun with each movement. They laughed, cackling as the one slipped on the loose dirt and all three fell to the ground.
"A pleasure to meet you two," Xisuma said, waiting until all three looked as chaotic and messy as possible. The two men scrambled, legs twisting together as they attempted to get up as fast as possible. This failed, sending the two back into the dirt as Pearl laughed openly at their antics.
"Let me up!" the one man shouted, "Jimmy! Move your rear off my back!"
"Get your leg out of my face!" the other man, Jimmy, argued despite the other's leg being nowhere close. Pearl smiled, fond of their antics.
Eventually, the two men managed some semblance of order. They stood awkwardly, brushing dirt off their clothes before awkwardly offering a hand to shake. Xisuma knew he was an intimidating fellow, mostly his dark armor and thick tinted visor.
"Hello," Martyn introduced, the more serious of the two. "I'm Martyn Littlewood, this idiot here is Jimmy, don't mind him."
"Oi, I mind you plenty," Jimmy scowled, knocking into Martyn pointedly.
"It's nice to meet you," Martyn said, ignoring Jimmy openly. "As soon as we got a message from old Pearl here, well, we'd never say no."
Xisuma nodded slowly, scanning the two men as carefully as he could. There were no obvious bugs on them, no glitches lingering on their coding. What small glitches were there rapidly burned under the aggressive firewalls of Hermitcraft, already closing around the hole in their defenses. It chewed away, pine needles smoldering and melting under the aggressive ravenous maw of Hermitcraft server firewall. If Xisuma was younger, he would have smiled at the sight. Now, he glanced at it with the dismissive uncaring eye it deserved.
"Much appreciated," Xisuma said.
"Oh wow," said Jimmy, staring at Xisuma with open awe for his visor and entire body suit. Xisuma turned his eyes to the other man, aware of his mechanical clicking and small whirring exhales. He knew how people saw him, it was partially how the server remained untouched and shrouded in mystery. Xisuma was a towering armoured man, intimidating at least, horrifying at best.
Jimmy's eyes boggled, tracing the dark mechanical ventilating materials to stabilize air into something closer to the void. With a squeak, "You're bloody terrifying."
Pear laughed, pressing one hand to her eyes. Xisuma could see why Pearl enjoyed the two men, already he felt a smile flicker on his face.
"How about we find somewhere to settle, yeah?" Xisuma asked politely. "I brought some elytra and rockets if you're used to flying. Otherwise, I'm certain we can find some horses."
"Oh, no no we're good with flying," Martyn said hastily, awkward in the presence of a new Admin. "I mean uh, we know how…"
"We can land in an open area," Pearl said gently with a knowing grin. "Or near some open water."
"Perhaps it'll be easier to take you to the area in question. It takes some time to travel there, Pearl can provide you a basic tour until we arrive there."
Pearl nodded happily, flicking through her inventory to sling her enchanted elytra across her back. Martyn and Jimmy eyed her curiously, lingering gazes on her builders bag and other supplies. Xisuma had a vague impression that the two were not used to a place of peace and construction.
"I'll notify our communicators," Xisuma explained. He pulled up a console, accessing through that instead of the individual smaller devices. Martyn's eyes lingered slightly on the panel, able to view it where others were not. 'Curious…he isn't an Admin. Maybe a moderator?'
"Yeah, that'll work," Martyn agreed with a small smile, cautious now instead of earlier. "C'mon, Jimmy. Be useful for once."
Jimmy complained, but followed with the whistle of fireworks. Xisuma watched them leave, examining the code of Spawn once more.
There were lingering broken segments in the code. Firewall fibers that had yet to mend from where they were torn so quickly. It was safer to include new members at the start of a season, not partially through it. Virus' would always try to chew through, pulling at the threads.
For a smallest moment, Xisuma felt a strange pressure pulling on him. A tense nudge against his head, behind his eyes. A surreal itch of nerves and anxiety lifting before it vanished, never there at all.
"Huh…" Xisuma said, pausing. His finger hesitated, no lines of code different then before. He could have sworn something was different- intuition telling him something was different.
He'd look into it further, once he was certain it wasn't his paranoia for the time being.
He pulled up his keyboard, sending an update to the rest of his hermits who he knew were waiting for any word.
"How do you three know each other?" Mambo asked, sitting quite awkwardly at Pearl's table as the woman in question bounced around her home. The two men were eagerly injecting themselves in her space, making a general nuisance of themselves. It was all odd, and somewhat uncomfortable as Mumbo felt very much like he was intruding.
If Xisuma was feeling the same, he was doing a remarkable job hiding it.
"Oh! We go way back," Pearl explained, clicking her tongue and swatting one of the men with a towel. Jimmy, Mumbo recently learned, yelped and leapt around like a very large bird.
"We were all on a server together, a bit of a project one," Martyn explained helpfully. He held up both hands, counting off silently before he stated proudly, "there were eleven of us, Pearlie came in a bit late but was a wonderful friend there."
"Oh, stop it you big jerks," Pearl said, smiling fondly. She smacked Jimmy's shoulder, knocking him aside gently.
Mumbo drummed his fingers, asking Xisuma very awkwardly, "so uh, do- do you uh…do you know this?"
"No," Xisuma stated, smiling slightly. He looked absolutely unbothered by it.
"Alright, I'll stop being the tease here," Pearl said, taking pity on her two hermit friends. "We were all on Evo, or Evolution. It was a server that periodically jumped through different updates."
"Pearl came in fairly late, but far enough in. Evo started all the way from beta-."
"Oh, that's… brilliant," Xisuma breathed, looking absolutely stunned by the idea.
"It was wonderful, the same world but different updates and patches released through a series of portals."
Xisuma shook his head slowly, absolutely stunned by the information presented. Mumbo presumed it was something legendary then, to truly impress xisuma of all people.
"That…your Admin must be quite capable," Xisuma said with a small stutter, "I…I reckon I couldn't'- blimey, I don't think anyone could…"
Martyn's expression twitched, flashing through something of undeniable loathing. His tone was brutal as he spat, "yeah, well. That's where- well…we had portals."
Xisuma opened his mouth, then closed it. He obviously had more questions, but could tell there was something much worse at work.
"Well, how did you three meet?" Mumbo asked, blurting his question if only to change the tension.
Thankfully, it worked. Pearl smiled fondly and nostalgic, chuckling gently. "Oh, well, I came right out of nowhere! Fell straight from the sky. Then, oh good heavens. I got recruited into the Mafia-."
"Hah! Load of idiots, them!" Martyn burst out, grinning broadly. He explained for Mumbo and Xisuma's benefit. "Jimmy and I were part of the Property Police, the Mafia was a group always fighting against us, you know how server fights are."
"Right," Mumbo said, still feeling dizzy. "You had…a Mafia?"
"Oh, don't tell them about the empires," Pearl teased, nudging Jimmy who looked quite thrilled at the opportunity to recall what clearly was a mess.
Docm77 came some time later, where there was no further clarification and only more confusion. It was difficult to understand- riddles and stories and apparently a painful amount of TNT. Xisuma had explained hastily that TNT from then was not as stable as current forms, more labile and easy to explode at random. The use of it was dangerous and often led to death. Pearl apparently hadn't minded, using it on occasion to tower high.
For as gentle and warm Jimmy and Martyn were, they had some level of hostility. Doc had not been welcoming or keen to the idea of visitors. Doc was not particularly… rude, but his ideas of public decency and conversation was a tad more brash than others.
Doc also had a similar difficulty with his personal appearance, since stigma against mob hybrids did exist, and Doc was an enormous man with cybernetic enhancements and a loud personality. It was no fault of the man, except for when he walked into a building with the intention to intimidate.
"Ah," the man said, forcing his accent thicker until the creeper hiss saturated every vowel. The man slammed his feet as he walked, rattling the table. His cybernetic glowed an unholy light he had full ability to disable when he wanted- his arm whirring and grinding with all the sound of a deadly machine. "So here are the two guests."
Mumbo thought, feeling his anxiety level rise drastically, 'ah, this is why we don't have visitors.'
"So, tell it to us plainly," Doc stated. He shuffled where he stood, the creeper hybrid traits clearly unnerving their two guests. Doc hissed a shrill whistling noise frequently occurring moments before detonation. Doc of course wouldn't explode, but it did wonders to trigger an adrenaline rush.
"Doc, stop that," Pearl scolded, looking ready to interfere. She frowned, unhappy with the treatment of her two friends.
"We uh, we may be coming across a bit strong," Mumbo admitted, worriedly exchanging glances with Pearl.
Xisuma waited patiently. Doc would simmer out once he knew the two men weren't a threat to the hermits. It may take a while, but he would eventually relax.
"How about you stop posing," Martyn grumbled, scowling at the creeper hybrid. Jimmy looked thoroughly spooked, nervous around the man.
"We're all friends here," Xisuma greeted the small group, settled around the table of Pearl's home. "I don't mean to upset you, my friends. We're simply at quite a loss and would appreciate your help."
"Yeah I mean, Pearlie mentioned needing our help with something," Jimmy meekly agreed, waving one hand in Pearl's direction. "What uh…what can we do?"
"We're lacking information."
"Well you're out of luck there, Jimmy doesn't have much in that area," Martyn started with a mocking smirk. If it wasn't for the playful glimmer and gentle nudge, Xisuma would have misinterpreted it as cruel hostility.
"Oi! I know enough!"
"Maybe you think so, but to the rest of us-."
"We're in a predicament with something called a Watcher."
The two men immediately went mute. Martyn flinched back, his teeth bared defensively. Jimmy cowered, hunkering lower as he slid slightly below the table, hiding himself from view. Pearl twitched, even now. Perhaps being in such fond company brought back poor memories.
"...what business do you have with them?" Martyn asked carefully. He lost his implish decorum. What gentle teasing he had was absent, barren in face and body language.
"Just searching for information, my friends," Xisuma said, hoping to soothe what damage he could.
"There's a Watcher here," Pearl said.
Martyn flinched, hissing a single noise of open distress. Jimmy jumped, knees slamming into the table as he openly cowered and swayed in his seat. With a shrill breathy noise, Jimmy bemoaned an open horrified, "no… no. They're here? Pearl- Pearl why… why-."
"It's captured!" Mumbo interjected, looking flummoxed and afraid of the hideous reaction. "It's err…in a big box! All contained, yep yep! No worries there!"
"Stupid," Martyn spat, his body shaking with miniscule tremors. "You can't just trap a Watcher!"
"We have," Xisuma said reassuringly, remaining strong and calm. "A Watcher is currently contained, and we would greatly appreciate your help in this matter."
"You can't contain it!" Jimmy blurted, trembling in his boots. "It's- it's a Watcher! You can't bloody just- just shove it in a box!"
"That' actually uh, exactly what we did," Mumbo said awkwardly. "Shoved it uh, in a big ruddy box."
"It was severely hindered, strips of code limiting it's cognition and communication ability," Xisuma explained the best he could without delving too deep into the strange bastardized code present. "We removed the limitations, but all signs are indicating that this Watcher was purposefully trapped here. We simply relocated it to a different environment."
Martyn's lip curled. He remained skeptical of the idea. Shaking his head, Martyn crossed his arms and argued; "yeah? And how much trouble has it given you? Any broken buildings? Random bloody quests? A twice-damned meteor?"
"A meteor," Doc repeated, sounding thoroughly baffled.
"Yep, meteor. Sent right through our building once, made right out of bedrock," Jimmy explained. He shivered at the memory. "They weren't happy with us."
Xisuma felt dumbfounded. The amount of effort to conjure a single block of bedrock was difficult, to conjure enough to cause damage but then to defy server physics to do so?
"Jimmy and Martyn were part of the Property Police," Pearl explained in a quiet voice, tinged with nostalgia. "The Watchers…were…they orchestrated things behind the scenes. They guided the server through updates, since our Admin wasn't able to do so."
"We went through portals," Martyn said through his teeth. "They ran us around like rats. Made us jump through their stupid hurdles, complete their stupid riddles to get to the next update. And for bloody what, eh? To fight a dragon? To get knocked down again and-."
Jimmy sniffled, his eyes misty. He did not cry, but he stated thickly, "they…they took him."
The three fell silent. Pearl twitched, looking at her hands with a difficult emotion. Martyn grit his teeth, aggressive and furious with something beyond their reach.
Xisuma could feel their pain, a sense of defeat. He hated it- so many people hurt in the world. He helped Hermitcraft prosper to save those who needed it.
"How did they take him?" Doc asked, cocking his head. His cybernetic eye gleamed, glowing red in the shade of Pearl's home. "Your admin. These Watchers took him, yes?"
"Yeah, snatched him right out from under our bloody noses," Martyn grumbled.
"We went through the portal to fight the dragon," Jimmy said quietly, jaw trembling. "And…and we didn't even notice things were wrong until after. And…and those bastards just- they spoke to us and they- they took him…"
Pearl closed her eyes, turning her head aside. She said nothing, unable to do so.
"I- I'm sorry I don't follow…they spoke to you?" Mumbo asked, feeling a bit confused. "Yet…you couldn't just…take him back?"
"He wasn't a bloody dog," Martyn snapped, hands curled into fists. "They spoke a stupid bloody way in your head, or code. Like your communicator but you can't ignore it."
"They wrote in galactic," Jimmy muttered with a shiver. "I…I can read a bit of it. I'm rusty, it's been a while…"
"What did they say?" Xisuma asked gently.
Martyn laughed a single cold puff. "Which time? When I said I'd be mayor and they decided that I was wearing a false crown on his head? And summoned a bloody meteor!"
Martyn stood, slamming both fists on the table. Pearl reached out, taking his hand in hers. She shook her head quietly, trying to soothe the distressed man.
"They- they were really cryptic," Jimmy said with a shiver. "I ah, I memorized what they said. There were two of them- or three now. No- two, two."
"Because they turned your Admin into a Watcher?" Mumbo asked.
"They did not do that!" Martyn snarled, bristling.
Mumbo jumped with a quiet eep! Doc stood once more, ready to intervene. Jimmy shook his head, stuttering before he shouted above the quickly developing chaos: "Grian is still out there somewhere! He- he wouldn't give up! He bothered them more than any of us!"
Doc flinched away, ready to lunge at Martyn. Pearl held him back. Xisuma felt a headache begin behind his eyes. Mumbo repeated, with a unique level of absolute horror: "I- did you just say Grian?"
Eyes turned to him. Mumbo swayed, the blood vanishing from his skin. His pale complexion turned to a sickly shade, his mustache shaking as his lip trembled. He shook his head, looking dearly close to falling out of his seat.
"No," Mumbo repeated, jerking his head back and forth, "no you- you must be mistaken. Surely not…not…of course it would be Grian that was roped into- into supernatural entity chaos."
"You know Grian?" Martyn interjected suspiciously.
Mumbo giggled a high stressed noise. "Only if your Grian liked explosions and knew how to push buttons. Both literal and figuratively."
"Oh, oh," Jimmy said. "You did know Grian."
"He was like my brother," Mumbo said weakly, staring somewhere into the distance, "I haven't heard from him since…oh good lord, since season three I reckon."
"There's no bloody way we're talking about the same Grian."
"Oh well, if you know Grian, strange things always did happen with him. Pick anyone to get struck by lightning and he'd be flaunting around on a skeleton horse," Mumbo said, resting heavily on the back of his chair. "Good heavens. Grian, after all this time…I thought he had- well. I had assumed the worst."
Xisuma cleared his throat, drumming his fingers politely on the table. They waited a moment for Mumbo to relax, to gain what little composure he had left. They had things to do, no matter how difficult it was to accomplish it.
"Mumbo, you were with Scout the other day," Xisuma addressed. The man was shaking his head, looking as distressed as both Jimmy and Martyn looked. "What form of communication did you have?"
"It- he-.." Mumbo slumped, bracing himself on the table. The man was sweating, looking dangerously sick. "He just- he was scared. I didn't think…he can't be the same as- as those Watchers. No he- Scout's innocent!"
"No Watcher is innocent!" Martyn hissed furiously.
Pearl slammed an open hand on the table, the sound forcing all of them to flinch back. She elevated her voice, shouting at the small group of people: " Will you all just listen to me?"
Everyone stared at her, either stunned or surprised. Doc lifted both eyebrows, intrigued by her sudden aggression. He chuckled quietly, the baritone a low bass rumble which only served to make Jimmy more anxious by the second.
Pearl huffed, stating firmly: " Scout is a Watcher, but it's not like the Watchers on Evo. The Watchers on Evo were horrible things, but the one we have trapped here either isn't a complete Watcher or not like how we knew them. Scout was stuck here first when we arrived. Scout has modified code- we don't know why."
Martyn quieted, his eyebrows furrowed. Jimmy twitched, wincing. After a moment, Jimmy sighed and slumped forward. He thumped his forehead on the table, miserably moaning into the table. Martyn closed his eyes, breathing through what looked to be a self-coping mechanism, or a relaxation technique. Doc of course looked thoroughly to be enjoying himself, albeit silently.
"Okay, fine," Jimmy mumbled into the wood, straightening miserably. "Show us this stupid bloody Scout."
Mumbo hadn't thought of Grian for years.
Season three, as they fondly called it, had been a painful amount of time ago. If the hermits all thought back, they likely remembered the name or the antics somewhere. Mumbo had blabbered his mouth off to quite a few people- maybe a bit too much for some. He remembered painfully how his fellow hermits had teased him quite openly, jokingly assuming that Grian didn't exist at all. There were bets and rumors regarding when Grian would finally visit, when Mumbo could finally persuade their Admin at the time to let a favoured friend inside the famous borders.
Then, Mumbo lost touch with Grian. He lost all contact, went so far as to visit the world hub and speak to the code registers to try and find the location of his friend, all leading to the same outcome. Grian was presumed dead, Mumbo spent months on his private redstone world testing builds formed through grief as he came to terms with everything.
And Grian was never mentioned again. Either in cruelty or kindness, Mumbo had not thought of the name in years.
Mumbo had thought, 'Life is short' and that was it. Life is short, and Mumbo had shortened his in a hundred different poorly thought out ways. The world is at least half terrible, half miserable and Mumbo would go so far to say that was a rather conservative estimation on his side, thank you very much.
The world was half terrible, filled with horrible terrible things and people who would break you. Half of every person Mumbo came to love would leave him, and Grian had left quite quietly with no warning in a place Mumbo hadn't known. Half terrible, but also half wonderful and Mumbo remembered distinctly how Grian had leapt around his private world. Filled with machines and ugly constructions and Grian had smiled at him kindly and said 'there's good bones here, you spoon! You could make something beautiful with this.'
And the thing is-
Grian had forgotten so much. Time moves differently in the void, in the abyss between places where time had a grasp and where life was a series of numbers that meant so little. Grian remembered faint things, flashes of colours he had thought long since beyond him. He remembered sunrises, the touch of grass on a hand he could not see. He remembered emotions, vague and cloudy.
And the thing is- it was difficult to love life when you had no stomach for it. It is difficult to cradle the burning smoldering crumbs of what you once had as the smoke filled your lungs. It crumbled, ashes and dust with memories scant and dangerous to hold so closely.
Grian had once thought, 'I can't possibly live like this,' and he couldn't.
And now, he woke with the stuttering breaths and the image of faces in his mind he clutched between shaking hands. He could remember the flicker of a charming smile, accented voices, and he thought: 'I can do this. I can learn to love again.'
And then-
The door to his purgatory, affixed in stone and burning light, slammed itself open with the synchronous hymn of echoes. Grian flinched, disoriented by that which came from change. He struggled, thoughts sluggish despite his hurried frantic mind still operating below a capacity he knew himself capable of- think, faster, faster.
"Oi you!" shouted a voice he could not remember, but nostalgia was stored in the broken lines and thickened scars deep in his bones. "Yeah you! You Watcher feathered prick!"
'Who are you?' Grian thought in sluggish thoughts, words constructed in alphabets garbled and characters twisted. 'I knew you once, didn't I?"
The human- man- ("well- well this is it, isn't it? We're here, aren't we? Well, what do we all do now-") was blonde and loud and Grian knew him.
He stormed forward, and Grian urged to step forward, to reach out with his hands- wings, so many wings why was he- how could he-.
"This is for Evo you bastard," the human- Martyn growled, and punched Grian just shy of his nose.
"Oh my-," Mumbo gasped, hurriedly pressing himself against the glass. Xisuma's visor whirred a low gurgle, translating something similar to a whine.
"Oh there he goes," Jimmy muttered, pulling his hair quite firmly as he watched everything in dismay. Doc snorted, an oddly mob'ish noise escaping him in his moment of utter surprise.
Pearlescentmoon shook her head, somehow strangely fond. From the observation room, the crowd of four watched with mixed feelings as Martyn solidly knocked the enormous feathered creature to the ground.
Whatever he hit was decently important, the enormous thing flopping onto its flank with the paralysis that occurs when a chicken lands on its back. It lay there, wings sprawled out clumsily as it struggled to process what had happened.
"Well," Xisuma said, recovering the quickest. "I ah, I hadn't considered uh, punching Scout."
"Ah, rookie mistake, that is," Jimmy explained dumbly. "Martyn is a big fan of smacking things. Or smacking me. Who knows."
Pearl's lip twitched, somehow very pleased with the change of events. A somewhat strangled noise caught itself in Xisuma's throat, garbling through the speakers. Mumbo's squawk accompanied something suspiciously close to hysterical giggle.
Inside the box, Martyn paced back and forth, shaking out his wrist. He sneered, moving a bit like a tiger in front of a rabbit. The man, armourless and weaponless, towered over the slumped creature. Proportionately, Martyn was perhaps a quarter of its size- at most as long as the main wing. Scout was supposedly a creature of unimaginable power, and a simple player had it sprawled on sea lanterns.
"Yeah, that's right," Martyn sneered. He twisted his wrist back and forth, redying himself for another swing. "Not so big and powerful now, are you?"
Scout shuffled, the splayed wings awkwardly folding back on themselves. Slowly, the rear set of wings folded inwards, a beautiful glide of organic mechanics. The slid into place, long broken feathers trailing through dust and dirt. If Martyn squinted hard enough, patches of mediocre clean vanes glimmered iridescent below a dark oil sheen.
That didn't apply to all the sets of wings- three as far as he could tell. A low set anchored to where the hipbones would protrude, hanging so low they were hardly functional but somewhat pleasing aesthetically. The second set were rounded and fluffed, every bit like poultry with their innate nonuse. Martyn suspected even those wings, slightly more anatomically avian, were not functional but instead acted more to shroud its true body from sight. The last set of wings, anchored high enough to actually be functional with their long bladed secondary feathers and spread flight feathers. Or, they would have been functional if the quills weren't broken and shredded from dragging across the ground.
Actually, Martyn thought the normalish largest set still looked odd. To the point he leaned forward to try and determine the exact reason for why the movements were so restricted and jerky. Small grafted wings fluttered with no rhythm, little cardinal appendages intercrossed with songbird feathers and a single asymmetric wing that looked eerily like a crow wing upside down.
It moved, struggling to right side itself from its lateral slump. The back sets were unimpacted, but the main wings were thoroughly restricted.
"What the bloody hell happened to you?" Martyn asked, nose wrinkling slightly at the sight. The room didn't exactly smell pleasant either, a deep permeating smell of citrus cleaner and oil saturating the floor.
The Watcher shuddered, a disorienting barrage of movement. Martyn winced, stepping closer to try and peer as to what exactly was wrong with the thing. Martyn felt the laughter burst out of him, a bright surprised sound. It echoed ugly, making even he wince away from the crude noise.
"You messed up there, aren't ya'?" Martyn asked, eyebrows lifting in surprise. Difficult to see at first, once he bent at the hips to peer below the awkward limb placement.
The Watcher rumbled a low baritone whine, wings fluttering and trembling at his close scrutinization. Martyn smiled, expression twisted and not polite. He reached out, almost tempted to touch the creature.
It winced away, the large joint lifting awkwardly to try and recoil from his fingers. Martyn felt his expression change- not quite delight but not entirely cruel.
"Oh blimey," Martyn muttered, thoroughly baffled by the strange union. "Is that your elbow?"
At that moment, Martyn came to several conclusions. First, the Watchers were bastards through and through- they would never openly allow themselves to be seen in such a pathetic state. Secondly, there was no benefit or use for such an appearance, it wasn't all powerful or as arrogant as Martyn knew the Watchers to be. Third, the creature was acting utterly terrified of his hands- Watcher's weren't afraid of anything.
"Right," Martyn said, unsettled by his new discoveries. "Are you going to really make me grab your dumb arm thing, or are you going to stick it out for me?"
The creature winced away, a low groaning noise rumbling from somewhere near its presumed head. It fluttered back slowly, not reacting as quick as Martyn would have expected.
Martyn and Jimmy first lived on a server known as Evolution. It wasn't paradise, it wasn't a land of salvation. It was their home.
When they evacuated it, they sometimes found memories and mementos. Snippets of objects trapped in their inventory and not quite Ender Chest, glitched from a leap between server updates. Small things, lost and trapped until they were pried out with care under Admin hands years later, held apologetically for something that could have been but still failed.
Notes and memories held together in shreds of paper and carved initials in sticks and rock.
We're leaving in the morning, chiseled by Netty's hand before they leapt to a new place and came to know each other more than friends.
Goodbye, carved in the last weapon gifted to him to slay a dragon in a place they had never been.
I built this house with my hands, traced in the fragments of crumbling brick shaped and fired by the hands of an Admin long dead.
We had to leave but this was home.
Martyn exhaled through his nose. He stood, contemplating what precisely to do.
There's a creeping sort of fatigue that snuck up on you. If Martyn thought hard about what he heard, what he remembered- he couldn't ever stomach the thought of living in such a place. There was pain there, remembering people with loud voices, louder problems, the small corruption and cruel riddles. It was easier if Martyn could pretend it never happened.
'I can't do that,' Martyn thought with a heavy pained resignation. 'I can't do that anymore.'
"Alright, well," Martyn said. He wrung his hands, fingers aching from where they had punched- always violence. "Jimmy you twat! Get down here!"
"What did I do?" Jimmy complained, speaking through the tinny speakers from the observation room.
"Well, I don't want to get smacked and your face is quite smackable," Martyn elaborated, waving one arm towards Scout's retreating form. The attempt wasn't quite as effective as the creature wanted, since it was the size of two horses combined. Martyn couldn't see or hear him, but he could mentally picture Jimmy's exact facial expression of dismay and disbelief.
Scout retreated once more, Martyn pressed forward. The creature made a noise, rumbling a bit more shrill and distressed. Pressed flush to the back wall, the creature scrambled sluggishly to try and stay out of Martyn's reach. Always moving to try and hide, always attempting to be just beyond the touch of human hands.
There was something…odd about it. Different, and Martyn didn't like it. There was something sad, woven into each unshapely feather. It reminded Martyn of the way he drowned himself willingly after his rescue from the depths of Evo. There would be sound and light surrounding his presence, only background noises Martyn had allowed himself to dwell between. Whenever he was alone he had found himself pulling his communicator from his pocket to answer phantom vibrations, imagined missed messages. He had never told anyone, only listened to their problems. Martyn had always believed the important thing was not to ask, not to let your need be known.
Martyn looked at Scout, and thought: oh you're the same as me aren't you?
"Eh, you're a real mess, eh?" Martyn asked, whistling. Scout rumbled slumping low, trying a new strategy or giving up entirely. Martyn cocked his head, watching the miserable thing with a new theory burning in mind.
"Oi, feathers," Martyn barked. Scout trembled once more, reacting sluggishly with a delay in either its processing or hearing. If what Xisuma had stated was accurate, it was probably trying to reorient back to understanding language once more.
Martyn shifted his weight, thinking. He sighed, rubbing both hands across his face. His hand hurt, namely from how hard he punched the thing in its noggin. He wondered if Watchers were able to bruise.
The door to the chamber opened, Jimmy coming inside with a mild expression of annoyance.
"You have a lot of nerve, you know that?" the man asked, huffing dramatically. Xisuma walked in behind him, keeping a healthy distance from the feathered mess.
"Yeah yeah," Martyn said, shrugging him off. Cocking his head and straining his ears, the weird hitched rumbling sounded almost like crying.
"So, this is it, eh?" Jimmy asked nervously. "A real Watcher. I thought they looked…different."
"Not a mess, you mean," Martyn guessed. That was his guess too. In fact, he had listened to a lot of rumors of what Watchers looked like. He had seen it once, and it had been nothing resembling this pathetic heap.
"Kinda smelly," Jimmy admitted shyly, glancing at Xisuma who shrugged one shoulder awkwardly.
Martyn had plenty of thoughts, and now his suspicions were coming together into quite an idea. He had listened to many things, and one idea in particular was growing. Intuition was a powerful thing, one Martyn had relied on time and time again.
"Your theory," Martyn asked, turning his back to Scout. The motion was not unnoticed, the Hermitcraft Admin's attention hardening quite openly. "Your theory on how Watchers are different from other players and Admins."
"Yes, the information provided to us by Pearlescentmoon, and theorized by some of my personal sources," Xisuma clarified. Something in the uncanny attention made Martyn want to squirm. Something behind the visor spoke of things impossible to see, only black darkness and the wet invasive feel of the abyss beyond the void. Hello, I know you are listening.
Shuddering, Martyn looked away. Jimmy rapidly gazed between the two, horribly at a loss.
"You think the theory is right?" Xisuma asked, uncaring or ignoring the unsetting phenomena of staring into the void and those that walked within it.
"Which theory is this? So I know I'm not just left out again?" Jimmy asked, wringing his hands.
Martyn's mouth felt dry and his words felt broken as he stated: "how Watcher's are made."
"Oh, oh," Jimmy said, swallowing thickly. "So uh…you think this is uh…"
"It's a Watcher alright," Martyn agreed. "But I'm pretty sure it's still an Admin too."