Chapter Text
He looked up upon the large building, still filled with awe even after looking at it for a while.
The mansion’s walls were colored in a pretty hue of cream and white, with blackstone being the foundation. It looked to be at least 3 floors high.
The gates he went through were made of polished gold and fine steel, with the surrounding fence being made of dark oak. The scenery around the mansion itself was also a sight to behold, with neatly trimmed bushes and trees, in a variety of sizes and shapes, and what appears to be a giant treehouse in the backyard. Flowers littered the area, sprinkling some more atmosphere and color into the green background.
He continued walking on the path to the door, albeit slowly, as he wanted to get a good look of the place.
His name was Grian, and he was standing in front of what was called the ‘Hermits’ Estate’.
A little while ago, he was a part of a corporation which labeled itself as ‘EVO’, but now he isn’t. He wasn’t fired so to speak - in fact that’d be odd since he was the owner - but he left the company, after deciding that he was ill suited to run in the business of bugs and glitches. He was always more interested in becoming a builder, or an architect! Well, he was already a builder, though he considered it more of a part time job. Now, though, he considered that he’d maybe enjoy becoming an architect better.
After he told his old-friend-in-another-town, Mumbo, about all of this, Mumbo told him that he knew of a good place that was looking to hire new people, but it was considerably far away from where he lived now, and that he’d have to move if he were to work there. Mumbo then told him that his group lived in the city, and that they had multiple spare rooms, and that he’d be welcome to stay there.
Though Grian was a little hesitant to accept the invitation at first, he decided it was worth a shot.
And here he was now, in front of the door of the building.
After accepting, he gave up his ownership of his company to his friend, and the rest told him that they could handle it (although he sort of doubts this and is a little worried for them). He then ventured to the city, to here, and now he obviously couldn’t turn back.
After a bit of hesitation, he rang the doorbell, and waited.
He could hear some footsteps from inside, and the door’s lock clicking open the next second.
The door swung open the moment later, and a figure wearing a purple visor and green helmet appeared.
“Good afternoon,” They greeted politely. “I assume you must be Grian?”
“Yeah, and I assume you’re X I su- XisumaVoid?” The blond replied.
“Yep, that’s me,” Xisuma said. “You’re Mumbo’s friend that’s going to be moving in, right? Well, do come in, it’s getting late outside.”
“Thank you.”
They walked into the building, and right from the first room, Grian got a sense that this wasn’t like any ordinary house. The furniture choice was particularly odd, and very eccentric. One of the chairs in the corner were made of what appears to be acacia and looked like a regular stool, meanwhile another one seemed to be made out of spruce and had a very intricate design, and then the others were also different. There was a love seat next to those, which stands out as looking very fluffy and soft while being colored pink and white, and it all circled a coffee table that looked like it belonged in the 1980s period of time. The rug was a different color than the entire room, the wallpaper consisted of very bright stripes of red and green (Which you qould guess to be Christmas themed from the reindeer silhouettes on the wallpaper), the flooring was blackstone, and (what seems to baffle Grian the most) there were spams of torches everywhere, along with a random lantern that’s just randomly sitting near the hallway.
“Woah,” Grian subconsciously muttered, which in turn made X chuckle.
“Yeah, that’s an appropriate reaction for newcomers.” The admin hummed. “Don’t worry- not all of the rooms in this house are like this, though this room in particular does hold a very special place in all our hearts. You can thank the others for all the weirdness going on here-”
“Oh please, X, you have no right to say that. Just yesterday you suggested that we should use one of our unused rooms to make a turtle farm.”
A brunette woman wearing a bright pink cardigan had just walked into the room from the hallway.
“Good afternoon, Stress,” X greeted her friendly, before gesturing slightly to Grian. “This is Grian. Grian, this is Stress.”
“Er, hi,” The short blond smiled, albeit a bit awkwardly. Here comes the part he was most nervous about, Introductions.
“Hi, nice to finally meet you, Luv,” Stress replied, faintly returning the smile. “Mumbo told us a lot about you.”
He did, didn’t he. Grian thought to himself, though before he could reply, X spoke up again.
“Stress, can you show Grian where he’ll be staying? I need to go talk to Joe.”
“Sure thing.”
“Grian,” He turned back to the gremlin. “You follow Stress, alright? I’ll be going now, good night.”
Grian nodded briefly, and then X started walking away. “Remember to sleep tonight!” Stress shouted as the admin disappeared down a corner.
“We should get going now,” She said to him after that. “Do you need help with those?”
“No, no, I’m good.” Grian quickly assured, picking up his briefcases again. “So where do we need to go?”
“Just follow me, Luv.”
She turned around and started walking, and he did the same. They went down the hallway, which had walls painted dull red, and the flooring had altered to wooden planks. They turned the corner and started going up the stairway to the next floor, mostly in silence.
“So, Grian, would you like to know more about the place?” Stress asked as they almost reached the second floor.
“Sure.” Grian replied. “I got a look of it from outside, and it looks pretty ginormous.”
“‘Ginormous’ is the correct word for it,” she confirmed. “It’s very spacious in here, even more than you might realize from a glance. The mansion itself is three stories high, and then there’s also the attic, and the 2 floored basement.”
“Wow.”
“Mhm, also- we need to go up another stairway, the bedrooms are on the third floor.” She told him as they reached the 2nd story.
“Alright, alright. Also, I caught a glimpse of the garden from outside, and it looks pretty massive as well.”
“Ah, yes, the garden. I heard it’s the pride of some of the gardeners in our group, a lot of people take care of it. You’ll find all sorts of plants there, but it’s not just variety, it’s also pretty gorgeous, if you ask me.”
“It is very gorgeous.” He agreed. “If I remember correctly, I remember seeing a treehouse in the back garden.”
“Oh yeah, there’s the treehouse. It originally used to be just a big tree, but then the NHO peeps decided to come along and transform it into a treehouse all by themselves.”
“NHO? Who’s that?”
“If I remember correctly, it's short for 'New Hermit Order'. It’s some sort of group formed by four of our members, they’re really good friends,” she explained as they reached the third floor, and started walking through the halls. “Though sadly only one of them is here at the moment.”
“Really, why?”
“The other tree, along with a few of our other members, are out of town right now, some because of business, while others just have other important things to do. They’ll probably be back one day, though it’s not really clear when they’ll be back.” They turned the corner, and now, at one of the sides of the hall along with the next turning point, Grian could see a multitude of doors.
“I see,” He responded. “Also- now many people are living here, currently? Mumbo told me once, but I forgot the exact number. Above 20, right?”
“Yeah, currently, there are 22 of us here, though some are planning on going out for a bit.”
Grian nodded, and now they turned the last corner. There were way more doors visible on both sides of the hall, and upon closer inspection, he saw that most of them had nameplates.
They walked and talked for a little more, before Stress stopped in front of one of the doors, which already had a nameplate on it labeled as ‘Grian’.
“Well, this is your room.” She said, opening the door for him to enter. “It’s a bit bland at the moment, but you can add stuff to it if you want. And also- our rooms are designed for two people, so just take the side you want.”
The blond glanced inside. There were two beds in the room, one on each of the farest corners along with their own bedside cabinets plus lamps and digital clocks, a window and a small shelf separating them. On the sides, there were also two closets, drawers, and neatly placed desks with chairs.
“Alright, thanks.” He replied.
“I’m going to go now. It’s getting a bit late, so you should perhaps start unpacking, or you could just go straight to bed.”
“I’ll probably unpack my things and sort them out before sleeping.” Grian told. “Well, good night Stress.”
“Good night, luv. Oh, and-” She suddenly stopped. “I almost forgot! In the morning, go to the living room at 8 AM, alright? We’re holding our monthly meeting, and you’re going to need to introduce yourself there.”
“Ah. Right.” He silently cursed at the mention of introductions. “Well, then see you in the morning.”
And after that, the door shut behind him, and he was alone in the room. He stayed still and silent for a moment, before starting to walk towards the room’s right closet, briefly glancing at the table clock. It was well past 9 PM.
And so, he placed his luggage down, and opened up the first one, intending to get the unpacking down very quickly before bed. It has been a long day.
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He woke up to the sounds of the table clock alarm, and lazily got out of the covers. When opening his eyes, he went into a little state of panic since he found that he was no longer in his apartment room, but then the moment after remembered where he was, and calmed down. Right, I moved.
He glanced at the clock, which currently said that it was past 7 AM, and with a long yawn, stood up from the bed. He needed to prepare for the monthly meeting.
He got to the closet and snatched a simple attire consisting of an apple red sweater and grey jeans, before pushing the door open and going out to the bathroom across the hall to take a shower.
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..
.
He walked down the surprisingly empty halls of the third floor, and slowly made his way to the stairways. Choosing the one that went down, he went in silence. But then, just as he was about to step down to the second floor, that silence was broken as a stranger came tripping down right in front of him, along with some boxes they were carrying.
“Ouch-!” Said person fell face first into the hard wooden tiles.
“A-are you alright?” Grian asked, torn between whether he should laugh or be genuinely concerned as he approached the fallen figure.
“I’m fine!” they replied, though it came out very muffled. They tried getting up, and the blond helped them a bit, or at least he tried helping.
They finally were able to stand back up, and Grian took a moment to examine them. They had cocoa brown hair, and wore a dark brown leather coat. They also had bright green eyes that seemed like they could light an entire room up.
“Sorry about that- thanks for the assist,” They smiled awkwardly.
“It’s fine, what happened? Are you actually alright?”
“I’m fine, really! I just happened to trip - like you just saw - as I was trying to get these boxes up to this floor’s storage room,” They sighed, before looking back at the blond. “Also, I don't recall ever seen your face around here before, so you must be the new guy, right?”
“Yep,” I said. “I’m Grian.”
“Scar,” He introduced. “I apologize for the- ‘amazing’ first impression. Expect more of this from where it came from, since some invisible entity just doesn’t favor me for some reason and messes with me a lot.”
The gremlin chuckled a little, before turning to the boxes that just fell down. “Do you need help with these? What were you carrying in them anyways?”
“Oh- you mean to ask what’s in the boxes?” Scar’s eyes suddenly lit up. “These are high quality inventions, my friend!”
“Inventions? Are you talking about redstone?”
“Oh, no no, I don’t understand pretty much any of the redstone machinery stuff honestly, we don’t use redstone when making our products.”
“Wait- so you’re an inventor?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” He was visibly pretty excited to talk about it. “Me and my friend Cub run this company- it’s called ConCorp! Have you heard of us? We’re a pretty big name as far as I’m aware!”
“I may have heard of it before,” The shorter replied. “Also- don’t you think the things broke when you fell?”
“I doubt it - you see, ConCorp’s products are very high quality, and so it shouldn't break that easily.”
“I… I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, but okay.”
“Well, see you at the monthly meeting, I guess,” Scar sighed after a moment. “I need to sort these boxes out real quick.”
“I can help you with them, if you don’t mind.” Grian offered. “You seem like you need help.”
“Wow- really? Thanks a lot!”
Grian hummed in reply, and started helping him pick up the boxes he dropped and ‘sorted’ them out in the storage room, a task that took about 20 minutes in total, and gave them a lot of time to chat while doing it.
“So, Grian, why did you decide to move into the city?” The brunet asks as they gathered the boxes up.
Grian picked up two boxes from the floor while thinking of a reply. “Well, Mumbo told me that there was an architecture job open nearby this area, so I decided that I would try it.”
“Oooh, you’re an architect?” He asked again, interested.
“Yeah, it’s actually my dream job.” The Blond shrugged. “I’m also a builder, and before I moved here, I was the owner of this company, we weren’t that big so I don’t think you’d know us, but we mainly dealt with bugs and glitches, diagnosing and fixing.”
“That’s cool! Why did you leave?”
“I just got pretty bored of the job, I guess. I wanted to try out something new, so then I retired before moving here. What about you? Do you do anything else for a living? Other than ConCorp?”
“Well, you could say that I’m also a Terraformer.”
“Really?” Grian perked up as he carried the boxes. “What’s it like?”
“It’s very fun, I assure you!” Scar said enthusiastically. “Though I understand people sometimes don’t like it. But hey, that’s a good thing I guess, since I get a lot of orders! I mainly deal with plants and all that shrubbery.”
“Huh, sounds fun. So I assume you’re one of the people that takes care of the garden?”
“Yep! Me, along with Doc, X, Stress, and Joe, although everyone’s free to help out. Etho used to be one of the main caretakers as well, before he left.”
Grian had the urge to ask who Etho is, but decided against it, and just silently helped as they placed the boxes down on the shelves of the storage room. As they walked out, finished with the business, he turned to look at the nearby clock, which displayed the time as 7:55 AM.
“It’s almost 8 AM!” Grian called attention to it. “The meeting’s going to start soon.”
“Oh gosh- you’re right!” Scar said. “Well- we better hurry up, or we might be late!”
They both then quickly made it to the stairway, and headed down.
“Scar- I’ve been looking for you!”
As they finally reached down to the ground floor, there was another person at the bottom of the stairs. They had neat black hair, and wore a white attire.
“Oh- sorry, Cub. I’ve honestly been everywhere this morning.” Scar said, before turning to Grian. “Grian- this is my best friend, Cub! Cub, this is Grian, the new guy!”
“Nice to meet you.” Grian said politely.
“Ah, pleasure to meet you too. Anyways,” The noiret replied, before shifting the topic back. “You two should hurry up, the meeting’s about to start.”
“Well, then let’s go already,” Scar said.