Chapter Text
Grian was running out of time.
He tore through hundreds of worlds of code, looking for one, just one, that would be private enough, recluded enough, safe enough to take refuge in for just a few days.
The players wouldn’t even know he was there, and the Watchers wouldn’t be able to find him, and for the first time in void knows how many years, Grian would be free.
A hundred more worlds were thrown to the side. Too obvious, too unprotected, too many players. Grian could feel the Watchers were nearing, their thick purple anger swirling around the whole castle choking him and they were getting closer please one world there has to be one-
“Xelqua!” A deep, rumbling voice boomed from another room in the castle, voice echoing off the marble walls and rattling Grian’s bones because he was Grian, not Xelqua, never Xelqua never again.
Grian’s third eye opened wider, desperation leaking off Grian in similar purple waves as two hundred more worlds, three hundred more worlds got tossed to the side.
The sounds of running and yelling got closer. Grian plunged deeper into the world server codes, scanning and scanning, but nothing, no worlds he could hide in were popping up.
A frustrated sob tore itself from Grian’s body. Not the first cry he’d had as a Watcher, but if the High Council got ahold of him- which was seeming much more likely as second by excruciating second passed by with no safe world- it would definitely be the last.
And-
And Grian didn’t want to die.
The door to Grian’s boarded up castle room was being banged on. He had put every dresser and chair along with wards on it to keep it sealed, but that wouldn’t keep the High Council out for long.
Grian’s breathing picked up. The banging was loud. The door would break down in seconds at this point, and Grian had not found a world and he was going to diediediediedie-
There. A perfect world where the Watchers wouldn’t find him for a while.
Grian plunged his whole body into the code without a second thought, him and the magical remnants popping out of existence right as the door slammed in.
If Grian had had time to look deeper into the code, he might’ve recognized something vaguely familiar about the server name.
Hermitcraft.
—*—*—*—*—*—*—
Mumbo hummed a nonsensical tune as he fiddled with his comparator. It was apart of the redstone powering the lighting system in Mumbo’s base, but had randomly stopped working some time ago.
It had been an awful time for Mumbo, who’d been in the middle of cooking a hearty breakfast of toast and eggs when all the lights in his base had inexplicably gone out at once.
His eggs were still broken on the floor from the scare.
Mumbo blindly reached towards the end of his workbench, grappling for a pair of tweezers.
One of the wires must’ve burned out or disconnected, which really was an easy fix as long as he could determine the specific point of power loss and find an identical part to replace it with, and-
“Mumbo! I’ve got what you asked for!”
Letting out a yelp and dropping both the half-open comparator and the tweezers, Mumbo spun around on his chair, hand clenched into his shirt.
“Scar!” Mumbo chastised, though there was no heat behind it. There often never was, with Scar. “You can’t sneak up on a man engrossed in his work like that!”
The man in question, Scar, rubbed his neck, giving a smile that indicated he wasn't very sorry at all. That was Scar though, always taking the opportunity when it presented itself.
Mumbo sighed, running a hand through his hair, fingerless gloves catching on a few tangles. “In any case, I appreciate it, Scar. I haven’t had time to go out and get a new set of tools.”
Scar snorted, weighing Mumbo’s new enchanted diamond axe in his hand. “Maybe if you upgraded to netherite like the rest of us..” He trailed off, raising an eyebrow.
Mumbo groaned, slumping in his seat. “I hate the Nether, you know that Scar. I always die before I can actually get anything done.”
“You could always pay someone to gather the netherite for you?” Scar offered, “Maybe Tango?”
Mumbo made a face. “I can already hear him making fun of me every day after.” Spinning clockwise in his chair, Mumbo began cleaning up his work station, putting tools in their proper drawers and redstone pieces back in the boxes.
Humming in agreement, Scar plopped Mumbo’s axe carelessly on the workbench, moving a few tools and stray wires to the side and plopping himself on the bench, too. He eyed Mumbo, who’d done nothing but fondly roll his eyes as Scar perched himself.
“There’s other options, too. I know this super handsome guy, you know. Brown eyes, adorable cat, real charmer as well. I could get you in contact?” To accentuate the point that Scar was talking about himself, he wiggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, Ren? Don’t worry Scar, I already know him.”
Scar let out a fake dramatic gasp at Mumbo’s quick response, throwing his hand up to his forehead. “Oh Mumbo you wound me! I’ll never recover from this betrayal. Ever! That is not best friend etiquette.”
Picking up the axe and moving it into his inventory, Mumbo surveyed his lab. He almost cringed at the state of it. Every shelf held half-finished redstone contraptions, blueprints, or empty cups of coffee. He really should do a deep clean one of these days.
“You know,” Scar started after a moment of silence had passed, not meeting his mustached friend’s eyes, “If you’re not busy, there’s a nice clearing only a little ways away from my base. Might be nice to sit down, maybe have a picnic..?”
Mumbo lit up at the proposition. He was overdue some sunlight, his skin paler than it probably should be. Also, Scar made mouth-watering cookies and savory sandwiches his grandmother would be jealous of. “Sure mate, sounds like a blast! Maybe Pearl would like to tag along too, I know she’s been occupied with her build lately.” Mumbo turned away from Scar to begin walking towards the door to leave, missing the way Scar’s smile fell.
“Oh- I mean- maybe, but actually Mumbo, I thought it could just be-”
Suddenly, a deafening boom followed by a few shakes from the ground had Mumbo tripping and catching himself against the nearest wall, hands instinctively flying to cover his ears. He heard various tools and mechanics crash to the ground as the earth threatened to send him reeling, too.
Scar seemed to fare no better, shakily tumbling off the top of the bench and immediately routing himself to hide underneath it, hands mirroring Mumbo’s own as they covered his ears.
After what felt like hours, the world seemed to correct itself, and the duo stayed frozen in their spots for a few moments, only the sounds of heavy breathing filling the now otherwise quiet room.
“What in the world..” Mumbo muttered. As far as the redstoner knew, Xisuma had turned off any possibility of earthquakes- or any other natural disaster- on the Hermitcraft server with his admin abilities.
“Some worlds choose to have natural disasters,” Xisuma had explained, “but since Hermitcraft is largely known for mega bases and intricate, sometimes fragile buildings, I find it's safer to turn that possibility off.” Every hermit agreed with that, not wanting their hard work to be crushed by a tornado or something of the sort.
As if on cue, both Scar’s and Mumbo’s comms began chiming in sync. Both men glanced at each other before whipping out the device and scrolling the quickly incoming messages.
<ImpulseSV> Did anyone else feel that??
<GeminiTay> I thought natural disasters were turned off?
<DocM77> Some of my redstone shifted out of place
<TangoTek> Woahh, was that an earthquake?
<iJevin> Lag??
<Xisumavoid> Working on figuring it out right now. Yes, natural disasters are still turned off, and my code sheet isn’t telling me a lag spike occurred.
<Etho> If you need help X, I can swing by.
<Xisumavoid> That’d be great actually, stop by whenever you can. Whatever happened is either some sort of glitch or hidden deep in the code.
<Goodtimeswithscar> Should we be worried about anymore earthquakes?
<Xisumavoid> Unsure, so stay cautious. Tell me immediately if you notice anything else strange happening.
<iJevin> You got it, boss
Mumbo switched off his communicator. He looked up at his brown haired companion, who was worriedly biting his lower lip.
“Ah, I’m sure it’s alright mate, X and Etho will have it figured out in no time! In fact, I’m sure it was just a glitch or lag spike or something silly-”
“Do you wanna go investigate?” Scar interrupted his friend’s ramble, a smile slowly growing on his face as the idea cemented itself more and more into Scar’s mind, a complete contrast to the uncertain look he held just seconds prior.
Frankly, Mumbo couldn’t think of a worse idea. Investigate the loud explosion-noise that caused half of Mumbo’s tools and junk to scatter across the room and an uproar in the server chat? No way, too big a risk. What if some huge, mega-mutant warden had breached the surface? Mumbo didn’t have good enough armor for that! Or what if-
“Mumbo, hate to have to tell you this, mega mutant-wardens don’t exist. Not earth-shaking ones, anyway.”
Ah. Mumbo had said all of that out loud.
When silence greeted Scar, his friend let out a small sigh, reaching up to tug Mumbo’s hands out from his hair. He must have been doing that subconsciously, then. That was pants. Really, this whole situation was pants.
“Come on! It wouldn’t be so bad. It’d save X the trip out here. Y’know? Plus, if we notice something even slightly weird or out of our depth, we’ll dip. Sound good?”
Skeptically, Mumbo looked at his companion. Scar donned an easy smile, the kind that made Mumbo fold every time. A small tilt of his lips accompanied by soft, brown eyes filled with a type of fondness that struck Mumbo’s heart. Void, whenever Scar looked at Mumbo like that, Mumbo couldn’t find it in himself to say no.
That was sort of how the two had become friends, anyhow. Mumbo, who’d settled on Hermitcraft since Season 2, had been a little more reclusive. He had friends, of course, but none that he’d ask to ever sit and just.. hang out with. So he ended up sticking to his builds and redstone, working on creating the most efficient farms possible.
Xisuma had often checked up on Mumbo, aware of the Hermit’s, well, hermit tendencies, but Mumbo always assured him he was fine, really.
Even if he did feel lonely, sometimes.
When Season 4 came along, however, a shiny, bright eyed clumsy man named Scar came along with it. Where Mumbo was all introvert, redstoner, stuttering over sentences and generally insecure, Scar was all extrovert, landscaper, smooth talking and overconfidence. At a first glance, one would assume the two wouldn’t interact much, personalities completely different. The Venn Diagram was two circles ten feet apart, so to speak.
Scar seemed to have other plans, though. He’d burst into Mumbo’s life like a horse on fire, asking Mumbo to teach him redstone this, go to the shopping district that, bake cookies maybe tomorrow.
Mumbo found himself being dragged into a friendship with Scar sooner than he could deny the brunette’s mischief-filled eyes as Mumbo, I just let loose a hoard of creepers in Doc’s base, we’ve gotta go before he retaliates.
And Scar was just a good friend, when push came to shove.
Which is why, when Mumbo is met with his friend’s voiddamned relaxed, easygoing smile..
Well, he folded.
“Fine. But swear that we’ll leave at the first sign of trouble.”
The way Scar’s face absolutely lit up was probably too much of a reward for Mumbo.
Scar linked his and Mumbo’s pinkies together, startling the redstoner at the suddenness. The duo’s faces were much closer together now, Scar’s wide smile only maybe a foot away. Mumbo fought to keep a blush from rising to his face.
“Pinky promise, ‘Kay? Legally binding things, can’t break them because the universe would fall apart, blah blah you get it. I’d never let you down, Mumbo!” Scar cheered. Mumbo unhooked their pinkies and laughed.
“Well, let me at least get a bag together.”
—*—*—*—*
200 feet into the forest, and Mumbo was starting to freak out again. For his part, Scar tried to lighten the tense atmosphere with silly commentary and an over-dramatic retelling of his day.
Usually willing to listen and humor the landscaper, Mumbo found himself unable to focus. He’d tried to convince himself it was just a server glitch or an intense lag spike, but Mumbo’s gears were turning without his consent, supplying any number of other possibilities.
Clearly, there was something wrong. Xisuma was a strong, skilled admin. Things like this just never happened, not large scale, anyway. Plus, when Mumbo thought harder about it, nobody had brought up the boom that originally had Scar and Mumbo slapping their hands over both ears to preserve their eardrums.
If the rest of the server didn’t hear it, what exactly did that mean? Likely that whatever happened must’ve been close by, which was exactly what Mumbo did not want.
“Here!”
Scar’s voice, not out of breath whatsoever despite the fast pace he’d set, finally broke Mumbo out of his head.
Squinting his eyes around for a moment, Mumbo finally found what Scar was pointing at. A black scorch mark burned into the ground. It was maybe five feet wide and six feet long, and on closer inspection, had apparently crushed some poppies which now held a withered, black color.
Scar’s voice piped up again, this time filled with bread he’d gotten out to eat at some point. “Wonder what caused that. Maybe this has to do with the earthquake?”
“Chew with your mouth closed.” Mumbo muttered distractedly, kneeling on one knee to gently rest his hand on the black patch. The poppies crumbled under his touch immediately, and a film of the black ash transferred onto Mumbo’s glove.
Scar leaned over his friend’s shoulder, looking curiously at Mumbo’s now ash covered hand. “Is it dangerous, do you think?” He questioned, eyeing the large scorched spot.
Mumbo shook his head. “No. It’s just ash. Like when something is burned in a fire.”
Scar’s face took on a look of understanding. Straightening himself up, he glanced up at the surrounding trees. They were tall oak trees, and the forest was dense with a million flammable things. “Forest fire, maybe?”
This time, Mumbo hesitated before again shaking his head. “If that were true, it’d definitely still be going on. And one tree wouldn’t leave a scorch mark like this.” Standing up, Mumbo put a finger on his chin. “Or one at all, I believe.”
Scar elbowed his mustached friend, a small smile on his face. If Mumbo looked a little harder, he might’ve made out the slightly troubled look on the brunette’s face. “Ever the smart one, Mumbo. I probably wouldn't have chalked it up to a forest fire and been on my way.”
Mumbo huffed. “It would be ten times less worrying if it was a forest fire.” Scar hummed in a noncommittal agreement, flicking dirt and grass strands off his pants.
The forest was almost completely shaded away, an indicator of the sun setting. Mumbo watched the last few rays of light slowly close off, a cool breeze sending a pleasant chill through his body.
“Right, well the suns going down- so I reckon we’d better report back to X now, right Scar?”
A beat.
“Scar?” Mumbo craned his neck back towards where his friend was standing.
Or, where his friend should’ve been standing.
“Oh! Oh no no no Scar, where have you run off too?”
—*—*—*—*
Scar hadn’t meant to wander off, really. The sun was setting, it was getting colder, and poor Mumbo would have a heart attack, it’s just..
When he and Mumbo had first walked into the forest, he had thought he saw something. A quick flash of red in his peripheral darting behind a tree.
Initially, he’d ignored it. His mind playing tricks on him, leftover paranoia from the sudden earthquake.
And then he saw it again. Another flash of red, but this time it seemed to be climbing up a tree.
Most likely it was a bird. Maybe a strangely colored squirrel (Doc had once all the horses in Bdubs’ stable bright pink. Despite acting angry about it, Bdubs never attempted to correct the color).
But the red feather Scar had found nestled in a patch of daisies nearby made him think otherwise.
He’d found it while Mumbo was rattling on about burn marks or something smart like that. Scar was usually very inclined to listen to friends ramblings, he loved hearing him talk about redstone trinkets and contraptions Scar couldn’t dream of understanding but pretended to anyway. But he was distracted.
He’d slid his eyes over to Mumbo, who was laser-focused on the burn spot. Quickly, he had pocketed the red feather.
What was really troubling Scar was the species the feather was from. Scar was no expert on feathers but..
Well. It was too large to be from a regular bird, and curved in a way that indicated it wasn’t really from a bird at all. Rather, an avian.
And there were no avians on the Hermitcraft server with wings a cherry red.
So when Scar once again saw the flash of red, his feet began taking steps without his consent.
He quietly crept through the forest, keeping a close eye on any changes to the greenery. Every small gust of wind made him freeze and whip his head around, every rustle of bush was thoroughly checked.
Scar didn’t know how long he’d been wandering the forest when he’d found it.
Another feather.
It was the same shade of red, the same size as the first. Except, this one had a blackened top.
Score!
Scar squinted his eyes, looking through his surroundings. Disappointingly, but not unsurprisingly, there was nothing. That was one thing about avians, Scar supposed. If they didn’t want to be found, they wouldn’t.
Letting out a sigh and slumping his shoulders, Scar got ready to find Mumbo again. Before he could take a step though, he felt a light touch on the top of his head.
A feather-light touch, even.
Delicately plucking the appendage off his head, Scar studied it. As he suspected, it was the exact same as the two before.
Slowly, Scar craned his neck up. A tree branched off directly above him, leaves rustling slightly. His feet suddenly were frozen to the ground, eyes widening and vocal cords tightening even as his mouth fell open.
Right above him, staring right back at Scar, were two bright purple eyes that screamed danger run hide predator.
The right course of action would be to run away, hide, message Xisuma and maybe even take a vacation off-world for a while, but gravity stuck Scar down like the world would uproot itself if he took even one step.
Mumbo, on cue, came tumbling through the woods, tripping over twigs and his clothes catching on bark. He wildly waved his communicator around.
“Scar! Scar, we have to get out of here right now, Xisuma and Etho got back to us, we know what crashed! It’s a-”
Scar didn’t need Mumbo to finish his sentence. His throat loosened and allowed him to choke out one single, terrifying word.
“Watcher.”