Chapter Text
Grian’s first reaction when thrust into the maze is to stay put. Someone will find him here, someone will come get him. And it works. Stress finds him, after not long, stumbling around a corner like she’s in a fugue state. They walk together, slowly and methodically making their way through the maze, talking about whatever they can to talk their minds off what is happening.
Eventually Grian asks Stress why it’s just her, Cleo, False, Ren, and Joe out here looking for them. Why that group. Stress looks a little reluctant but answers him anyways. “Mumbo was really angry when Cleo and False left without you guys,” she says. “He thought they left you to die and didn’t think they should be hermits anymore.”
Grian sputters. That doesn’t really sound like Mumbo. “Why would he say that?” He asks indignantly. “There was no way they could have done anything to save us!”
“I don’t know,” Stress admits, “but he said he didn’t trust them with his life anymore. We voted, and, well, majority rules. Joe, Ren and I left with them because we didn’t want to leave them behind, and then Cleo had the hairbrained idea to come find you guys as a way back in.” That is a good descriptor to apply to the idea. There’s no way Cleo could have known that they were alive, that there was even a possibility that they could save them.
“And now you’re here,” Grian says, tracing the carvings lining the walls. “You know, Pearl didn’t want us to come back here either. She said it was too dangerous and that we should just let you guys think we’ve died.”
Stress pauses, looks back at Grian. He can’t tell if it’s a pitying look, or happy, or sad, despite usually being able to tell what she’s feeling. “But you’re here,” She says. “We’re all here now.”
They walk in silence for a while, Grian trying to ignore the sinking feeling that they are going in circles. Finally, when the spiral pathway gets tighter and tighter and eventually spits them out in a massive room, Grian feels like he can breathe.
And then the void monster appears, and reveals all of their greatest fears, and saves Grian for last. He’s just happy he hasn’t been taken by the thing again. You, the void says, finally turning to Grian. You, little puppet, could have been such a good Watcher. We could have done so much good together.
Grian has to hold himself back from snarling like an animal. “I would never join you,” he says. “You have caused nothing but pain.” The thing laughs, and Grian almost feels his vocal cords join in involuntarily. He slaps a hand over his mouth, over his throat. “Stop it.”
You have a choice, little puppet, the void monster says, voice echoing throughout the cavern. Join us, become who you truly are meant to be, or you all will die. Grian crosses his arms.
"How about nyeh," Grian says, sneering at the mass of void. Cleo glances at the rest of their friends, slowly understanding what he means, at the defiance that occurs.
What do you mean nyeh? The mass of void sloshes, almost, looking about as alarmed as a sludge can. As it gets distracted by the nonsensical word, the walls of vines begin to unravel, to melt back into the void monster.
"Yeah," Cleo joins in, nodding at False, who slips away. "Nyehhh. That's what we think of your dumb fear-mongering plot."
Pearl nods as well, catching on to what she's talking about. “We’re not going to play along with this anymore,” she says, obviously trying to keep her eyes off of what False is doing.
"There's so many other things we could be doing, like writing poetry," Joe chimes in. "Nyyeehhh." He looks very proud of himself, waving a quill around.
The gelatinous void monster shrinks slightly, coming down to only about three meters tall instead of four. No, I will have control! you are but ants to me, puppets to play with and manipulate. Little fly— Before it can finish its plea to continue to have control, False drops down on top of it from a ledge carved into the ceiling, sword and torch clutched tight in her hands. She plunges the sword deep into the monster, following it with the torch. It is engulfed in flames faster than dry tinder, letting out an earsplitting screech as it goes.
None of them move, even blink, busy watching the blaze, except False, who hops down from the mound. "Nyeh," she says at the bonfire, completely deadpan. As the void monster dies, evaporating into smoke, the cavern they are in dissipates to reveal the spawn town and piles of dry vines around. It’s so dry, and the fire is still roaring, that it catches almost before anyone can say anything, racing up and down the hillside, catching the patch of trees no longer wreathed in fog in an instant, lapping at the fields of flowers beneath the rolling hills. They’re nearly completely surrounded by water, all stunned until Cleo finally snaps out of it.
“Water-we need to get to water, right now. We need to get down, to the river or ocean or something…” They all book it down the hill, leaping over the flames slowly spreading towards the distant river. Cleo is a little more afraid of fire than the average player, mostly because it still hurts them. It’s a bit stereotypical, the zombie having a weakness of fire, but any time Cleo has accidentally lit themselves on fire it’s caught quickly and hurt like a bitch.
They make it to the river right before the flames do, licking at the birch trees on the other side. It’s only then that Cleo allows herself to think about what just happened. She can’t really believe that any of it did, but the singed ends of her hair say otherwise.
“Nyeh,” Ren laughs, breathless. “I can’t believe you told an eldritch being nyeh. Grian, my guy, you’re crazy.”
Grian laughs, but it sounds forced. “I don’t know what I was thinking either, it feels like we’re still in whatever dream world that was.” It was certainly a strange place, that’s for sure. Cleo glances back at the hillside, now entirely coated in flames, some burning so hot it looks blue. She didn’t spend much time in the spawn town, mostly extracting hermits from it, but it was still pretty, a work of art. She still hates to see it burn.
“We worked so hard on that village,” Stress says, joining her. “I mean, it was a bit of a distraction from what was happening, but we still spent a good chunk of time on that.” They’re hermits, of course they spent a lot of time on something.
“It looked like it would have been beautiful in one piece,” Cleo says, turning away. Just like the rest of this world. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to stay here longer.”
“Oh, it’s alright, love,” Stress says. “ ‘s just a reminder that nothing we make will last forever.” It’s fine. It's always fine.
“Joe,” Cleo says, suddenly getting an idea. “Can you get everyone else back to the hub? I want to try and talk to X.” Joe nods, but False stands in protest.
“If you’re going to talk to him, I’m coming too. This is a problem we got into together, I’m gonna help you out of it.” Cleo opens their mouth to argue, to say that she’s done enough, but decides against it. If False wants to help, she can.
“Fine. Joe, get everyone else to the hub. False and I are going to talk to X.” Joe nods, and as they pile through the cloudy purple portal to the hub Cleo messages X. Before they go, though, Cleo watches Grian take a long, long look back at the fire-torn landscape, and bow, long and low, as if he is spreading wings that are no longer there.
Can we talk? They send to X then, bracing for something bad to happen. On a different server, on neutral ground.
It takes him a few, awful, tense minutes to respond, False pacing circles around Cleo. He eventually does, sending a short, cursory message. Ok. Just you?
False too. Cleo huffs. It takes a little more time for him to respond this time, and the waiting is painful.
Ok. X responds. I made a private server, here’s the seed, hop on. He sends a seed after that message.
“Alright.” Cleo says finally. “He gave us a seed, let’s go.” False glances up from where she’s pacing,
“What did you want to talk to him about?” She looks actually concerned. Cleo doesn’t actually know, they realize. They just want to try and make peace, tell him what happened, and they tell False that. “Ok. Yeah, good. Me too.”
They leave the world of Hermitcraft season 8 with little ceremony, without looking back. Unlike Grian, Cleo doesn’t want to look back, and it seems that False doesn’t either.
Xisuma is waiting for them on the private world, pacing just as much as False was earlier. “Cleo! False!” He exclaims and walks over to them. “How’s it going, my guys?”
“Well,” Cleo says, glancing over at False. Neither of them are the picture of cleanliness, faces and clothes smudged with dirt and soot, singed slightly, but they’re fine, physically. “We’ve been better.” False laughs, a quiet chuckle, and X follows suit, although it seems to be more nervous than anything.
“I can see that,” he says. “What happened?” They exchange a look, Cleo grimacing and False following suit.
“We went back to the HC8 world,” False says. “To—”
Xisuma cuts her off. “Why would you do that?” He asks, incredulously.
“Let me finish,” False snaps. “Because we wanted to get Grian and Pearl back, to prove ourselves.” That’s one way to say it.
“Yeah, sort of,” Cleo adds. “We wanted to come back to the hermits, and you know they’re not going to let us back in if we didn’t show we could actually protect them.” And it would crush Mumbo if Grian was truly unsavable.
“That’s not…” X starts but trails off. “No, it is. And? Were you successful?” They exchange another look, this one a little less panicked.
“Yes!” Cleo says. “Yes, we were. They went to the hub with Joe, Stress, and Ren.” Xisuma bounces a little on the balls of his feet, visibly excited.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re all alright!” He exclaims. “Good, good, the rest of the hermits will be so pleased to hear that… you know, most everyone really regretted it when you all left. There was something missing in our group without you.”
Cleo glances at False, whose face does not betray the hopefulness they know they both feel. “So we’ll be able to rejoin the hermits?” She’s expecting a no, or a maybe at best, since everything has to go through a vote, but he just nods.
“We already voted on it. It was fairly unanimous, although…” It took a little convincing for some of the hermits, specifically Mumbo. Probably. Cleo is well aware that every single one of the hermits can be incredibly bullheaded and stubborn when faced with something that is not going their way. “Yeah. I’ll… I suppose we should head to the hub and meet up with them, then?”
When they find the other five, Cleo immediately runs at Joe, wrapping him in an enormous hug. He takes a breath of surprise, probably because he and Cleo rarely hug, despite both being fairly touch-friendly people.
“What was that for?” Joe asks when they let go.
“Thank you for being such a good friend,” she says. “But also-we can go back. We can go home.” This excites the rest as well, and they don’t stop chattering until they separate for the night.
The next day, X sets up a portal to the next Hermitcraft season. It’s blue and a little pink, with small pink petals wafting out of it. The rest of the hermits are waiting eagerly on the other side, and the second Cleo steps through she is nearly knocked down by Keralis, running over for a hug.
The rest of the hermits crowd them all not much later with apologies or questions or congratulations. Cleo only really wants an apology from one person, but he’s sort of hung back the whole time, staring at Grian as if he will disappear.
“I’m sorry,” Mumbo says finally hours later, once all the excitement has died down. “I wasn’t thinking very straight when I accused you—it was a selfish move of me.” He looks so genuinely sad, and scared, and sorry, that Cleo doesn’t have the heart to be snappy or sarcastic.
“I’ve forgiven you,” they say. “What matters is that we’re all okay now.” They are, and they’re all together again, and those monsters can’t hurt them anymore.