Chapter Text
Grian studied the oddly built vault.
Hm.
The signs in front of it were… tempting. There was no way Mumbo would make a dud vault, right? The idea must’ve shaken the redstoner to his very core. A vault with no purpose? Never in a million years.
Grian laughed. There was clearly a solution to this puzzle, an obvious one at that. Mumbo himself probably thought he was being clever.
Ha, the answer was simple.
No clipping.
In between updates, general lag from the world eater, general lag from the whole server; the whole thing was a perfect plan.
Grian walked down the path between their bases, smiling wide and cocky. He gave a small bow to Mumbo and then flew into the air. Graceful as he was with his elytra, grian did a few swirls in the air, seeing Mumbo’s face light up with a few laughs as he once again neared the ground. With a few finger guns, Grian was back on top of the world.
He took a deep breath, expecting the idea to hurt quite a bit, but he was ready. Mumbo was not going to out smart him.
With a graceful twirl, Grian dived straight for the door of the vault, closing his eyes and reading for impact.
“GRIAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Mumbo’s voice broke through the wind just as Grian collided with the wall.
Grian woke up with a headache. He groaned, lifting himself off of the ground. He looked around at the plain yellow walls and bright fluorescent lights. There was a buzz in the air and a moldy smell. The headache’s origin became clear when remembering how he’d collided head first with Mumbo’s vault.
So this was it? An empty office space?
Mumbo had made this under his base for Grian to break into? That was… weird. Why this of all things? Grian expected a few cocky little signs telling Grian that he wasted his time. But there was nothing. Nothing but the buzz of the lights.
“Hello?” Grian yelled to the empty space, getting to his feet and starting to walk. He pulled out his communicator, seeing that his chat was empty. He typed into it, asking what was going on, but there was nothing in response.
He didn’t have any of his tools or armor either. He only had himself and the com.
He had no idea how this would’ve happened to Grian’s communicator without weird tampering, something that wouldn’t have time to have happened. It was working fine just this morning?
Unless this was an elaborate prank…
Once Grian was knocked out, Mumbo reset his com and chucked him in some creepy maze to find his way out of or maybe a prize!
Grian scoffed because really that was a stupid thought.
He knew the hermits. They wouldn’t take advantage of him being knocked unconscious. They’d lay him in bed and give him food and health potions for when he woke up. They would make sure he was okay.
So that’s why Grian’s stomach started to twist.
This wasn’t Hermitcraft, was it?
He wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
But where had the tornado taken him?
~~~
[SERVER] Grian left the server
Grian experienced kinetic energy
Mumbo started to panic. Grian items were scattered on the ground, but the man was nowhere in sight. A death message had signaled after he so called ‘left’, but Mumbo, clear as day, saw his friend’s body go straight through the thick vault door.
He started to pace, body shaking.
What if Grian was really hurt, what if he was stuck somewhere, what if--
[Docm77] Hah, Doc 1, server 0
[XisumaVoid] Doc, you could’ve really hurt someone!
[Docm77] I didn’t, did I? Grian should be back on soon
But he wasn’t.
It was nearly a day later and Mumbo couldn’t get to sleep. He spent the time trying to work on his base, but it was hard.
Something about what happened to Grian was freaking him out, it didn't feel right! And those feelings weren’t even getting started on the fact that Grian still hadn’t logged back on.
Maybe it was a prank?
Grian was the kind of guy to disappear without further notice just to give Mumbo a fright, but…
He saw Grian go through the vault door.
[XisumaVoid] Has anyone heard from Grian?
[Iskall85] Is he still not back?
[XisumaVoid] Nope, not yet.
[MumboJumbo] I think something happened
[MumboJumbo] Can you come to my base?
[XisumaVoid] Of course. Doc, you’re coming too.
[Docm77] yeah
It wasn’t long before the two showed up on the bridge between Grian and Mumbo’s base, looking up at the fake vault with Mumbo.
“So run us by with what happened.” Xisuma asked.
Mumbo took a deep breath, “I set up this fake vault for Grian to try to break into to waste his time while I finished constructing some of my base, but he tried to slam into it rather than use a chores fruit like I assumed he would.” Mumbo walked over to the vault and knocked a whole in the wall, showing them the inside. “The idea is he falls in here, but…”
“He didn’t?” Xisuma asked.
“Yeah, he collided with the door, I think, and all of his items were right here,” Mumbo explained. “But I… I saw him go through the door.”
“Through?” Doc asked, placing a hand on the solid stone, “What?” His voice trembled lightly.
“Yeah!” Mumbo said. “I don’t know what happened but I saw him go through the door right after it said he left and then I saw his items spread out on the ground.”
“That’s a serious gitch,” Xisuma said, rubbing his chin, “Doc?”
“I wasn’t trying to do that…”
“What were you trying to do?” Xisuma breathed.
“It was a test, it wasn’t supposed to work… To no-clip…”
“no-clip?” Mumbo asked, “Are you insane? I think we’d rather you just use an X-Ray mod!”
“Nearly,” Xisuma said, “Why would you try to do this?”
“I--” Doc stuttered, voice becoming more timid as he talked, “A world between worlds. It was…” His voice softened and he stopped talking.
“Doc…” Xisuma said. “What did you do?”
“It was a favor!” He snapped, “For Grian! I was testing it out and it just so happened that he was in the right place at the right time.”
“Or the wrong place at the wrong time!” Mumbo yelped.
“What kind of favor are we talking about?” Xisuma asked, but Doc was silent, “Doc, where is Grian?”
~~~
Grian realized the further he walked through the same yet twisting halls. This was it wasn’t it? Guilt hit him as he realized the worst part of this.
He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.
The plan was never to leave Hermitcraft forever, far from it. But the plan was going to take awhile.
Possibly worse than that, he hadn’t had the chance to talk to Doc about it at all.
He was going in blind into the world between worlds and he had no information other than he needed to find the right exit.
According to what he remembered Doc saying was that, on a certain level, he could basically go wherever, whenever, in time and space.
Meaning he could save Taurtis and maybe even the others. And he could get home.
In theory.
Everything Doc says ends with ‘in theory’. And Grian missed that already. They’d gone from enemies to pretty close lately. After helping Doc get back NHO, Doc promised Grian the Evo was next, even though neither of them had a clue how to bring back the dead.
Grian had been walking for a long time with no sight of where the next level would be. It didn’t help that every source Doc and Grian looked at had a different explanation of how something of the sort would work.
Sometimes it was just a door, others it was a bright light, or simply stairs, or perhaps no-clipping once more. There was no definitive answer to what the next level would be anyways. All Doc knew was that, somewhere in there, was Evo.
Grian heard the footsteps loud as day. Metal clanking and shaking steps of something else with him. And Grian remembered what Doc told him.
About the world being dangerous.
About what lurked inside.
Grian started running as fast as he could, and the monster started running with him. He made as many turns as he could, trying to lose the beast in the endless yellow halls. He came to a large room with pillars of yellow wallpaper, spread out for miles, and by the time he realized the room was seemingly endless, he turned to see the monster, struggling its way through the close corners.
It looked like it was made of wires and muscle, a bio-mechanical thing that wanted Grian. Its face was melted, eyes covered by drips of its own material. The arms and hands were mostly metal wire but were covered in spots of flesh.
He had the advantage, so he ran. He was getting tired, but stopping wasn’t an option. He was far ahead of the monster but safety eluded him. But then he saw a spiral staircase.
Up was pitch black, nothingness forever. Below, was dark, but not a void. He quickly ran down the stairs, not giving up the chase even when the monster's footsteps faded.
The steps started to turn from gross carpet to smooth tile, and without the expectation, Grian slipped, hitting his head on the hard step and falling down into warm water.