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“Brian, knock it off…” Keralis warned, trimming his indoor rosebush with a frown.
He could taste the faint twang of magic behind him, the tell-tale scent of a Watcher’s ceaseless gaze boring into him. Probably just Grian, fooling around. Surely.
But there was something about the smell that…made Keralis pause. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air, his slit yawning wide to catch more scent.
Mint.
He smelled and tasted mint.
Grian didn’t taste like mint. Grian tasted like grapes.
Keralis spun around so fast he flung his hedge clippers into his wall. They embedded themselves in the wood point-first, leaving a colossal dent that would take him hours to sand out.
Tendrils began to emerge from his slit as he scanned the air behind him.
Nothing. He scanned over his living room, up and down, examining everything in minute detail.
Nothing on his couch, nothing by his fireplace, nothing by his kitchenette.
He could smell the Watcher. He could taste the Watcher. But he couldn’t see them.
Fine. That was fine. Eyes-
No, eyes were the most wonderful thing in the world. But he- he didn’t- NEED them, really.
Keralis rolled his shoulders, straightening his posture. He couldn’t smell anyone else in his house.
“The Voidfather welcomes you to his domain.” He said, slowly and carefully.
Instantly, the minty taste vanished. Between one sniff and the next, the scent was gone.
Keralis narrowed his eyes.
“Shishwam, we have an issue,” he muttered, turning towards the door.
Grian stared deeply into the Rift.
It pulsed and hummed, glowing from inside with a foul purple energy. It wasn’t that he was scared of it, per se. Fear wasn’t really…the correct response to something like that.
Shimmers of light spiked out of the wall of light, like sideways raindrops against a waterfall. Energetic foam, spraying against the rocks at the bottom.
He sat down on the cold stone floor, staring deeply into it.
Thinking.
Pondering.
It had been a few days since his little chat with TFC, and there were still a lot of things he couldn’t understand about…everything, really.
The war, for a start.
Notch and the war were spinning around in his head like binary stars, and it was hard to sort out what he was supposed to think about it.
On the bright side, down here by the Rift, the Entity’s chatter had ceased to be so…omnipresent. He could just sit quietly, and all he had to deal with was the loud droning hum, pulsing and glowing.
Ripples flicked off it, like raindrops on a pond, and that was a little bit of a worry, actually. By rights, Scar’s ignition should have…faded by now? It should have gone back to a smooth glass sheet, devoid of energy. Waiting for another deal to kick-start it again.
And yet it still burned.
Something, somewhere, was feeding it energy, and Grian masticated on that thought uncomfortably. What could possibly be keeping the Rift lit? It had been weeks, now, and he couldn’t imagine…
He stared at a corner of the Rift, where a single plant was growing out of the dirt. It had its leaves turned to face the purple light- probably some seed he’d tracked down there. The plant just had two leaves and a stem- a new shoot, then.
Grian shook his head, stepped forward, and yanked it out, throwing it away. He took a step back.
He wasn’t going to get any answers just sitting there and staring into the Rift. TFC had said that Xisuma would know the answers to his questions- even if he wasn’t willing to answer them, it was still better to ask than to just…leave it be.
He turned his back on the void, walking away from it. A glance straight up at the sunlight filtering in from above was enough for him to make up his mind.
Grian spread his wings and took to the air.
Behind him, the pile of dirt shifted a little. Not too much- a few grains of soil rolling away from the peak, revealing the mottled white-green stem of a new plant. A tiny little shoot, its two leaves still buried in the earth, waiting for its moment to burst out.
Joe Hills landed on the top tooth of Xisuma’s skull, stepping forwards into the bone pile. He’d been here countless times before, to help X clear the huge cavern in the ribcage- Hermits Helping Hermits was one of his passions, and he’d happily do it again.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t here on the enjoyable business of aid, but rather for a more…pressing concern.
Joe glanced at his communicator, tabbing down through his private messages. A few pings from Cleo, and then, nothing- certainly nothing from Scar.
Joe swallowed uncomfortably, and looked up, scanning the skull for Xisuma.
The man himself was ambling around the lower jaw of his build, right near the entrance. Joe watched him mutely, observing as Xisuma picked at a few errant bone blocks in his attempt to straighten out his build.
Joe coughed into his fist, and Xisuma looked up with tired eyes behind the purple glass of his helmet.
“Ah, Joe. What can I do for you, my friend?” Xisuma asked.
Joe took a deep breath.
“Well, X, we- uh, that is, you and me- should probably have a little talk.” Joe said, shifting from foot to foot nervously.
“A talk. Oh boy, here we go. Yes, I’ve fixed the code walls, it should be possible to get in and out without using Grian’s rift. Yes, Mumbo is coming back, he just needed another break. No, I’m not taking this skull off my helmet.” Xisuma said, ticking things off on his fingers, “There, are we all good?”
“Uh, no, actually.” Joe said, “Though I’m glad all that’s…fixed. I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about…Keralis.”
Xisuma locked up- just for a second, before letting the tension out of his muscles. He turned around, leaning on his pick, and sighed.
“Whatever it was he did, I’m not getting involved.” Xisuma said flatly.
Joe swallowed.
“Well, it- it involved Iskall and a dare-“
“Is Iskall dead?”
“-uh, no?”
“Good. Is Iskall alright? Not maimed? Brain not leaking out their ears?”
“No-“
“Great. Not carving patterns into their own skin? Not speaking in tongues?”
“-uh, well, no, they’re fine, honestly-“
“Brilliant! Then I’m not getting involved.” Xisuma said, turning his back to Joe.
He wasn’t that surprised- when it came to the more…interpersonal aspects of being an Admin, Xisuma was famously hands-off. He relished the code and the maintenance, but he’d rather sprint naked through the shopping district than start telling people what to do.
“Well, to be honest, this was more of a courtesy call than anything,” Joe said with an irate sigh, “I just kinda- I figured I’d let you know.”
“Thanks for that, Joe. I’ll...make a note of it, or something. There’s something else though, isn’t there?”
“Yeah. And this one… This one I do want to talk to you about. It’s about xB.” Joe said.
Xisuma put his pick away in his inventory and stared Joe down. He was about six foot one, with at least thirty pounds of genetically-engineered muscle on Joe. All told, getting stared down by the Hermitcraft admin was a rather…disquieting experience. And one Joe was very, very used to. He ignored it and continued.
“xB is…worshipping…a Primordial.” Joe said slowly, thinking through every word to ensure he had his meaning as clear as possible, “At least, as far as I know. It’s a very basic ritual, and according to xB he just thinks it’s- a meditation thing? He has an idol to it in his cupboard, and every night he lights candles and says a prayer to it. Once a month he performs a blood sacrifice to the idol. Scar and I have been- we discussed it, and Scar’s- well, that’s not important. But I thought, I’d tell you, because-“
“Because why?” Xisuma sighed, “What exactly did you want me to do with this information, Joe?”
Joe shrugged.
“Nothing, honestly. I just wanted to…I guess I just wanted to let you know.”
“Fair enough, I guess.” Xisuma said with a sigh, “Do you think it’s serious? Serious enough that we need to get involved?”
“…Honestly? I’m not sure.” Joe said, “From the look of it, he’s been at this since he joined, and it’s not like he’s summoned anything. It could be that the Primordial he’s worshipping is dead.”
“Primordials can’t die.” Xisuma blurted- his eyes going wide a second later.
“Ah, uh, forget I- forget I said that. I-“
“I know, I know,” Joe said, putting his hands up, “I got put in the panini press too, remember?”
“I thought it was a colander?” Xisuma quipped weakly.
“Point taken. You were honestly shoved through the pasta maker- whatever. We’re getting off topic. Point is, it’s fine. I get it.” Joe said, holding his hands up.
Xisuma nodded slowly, turning away.
“I don’t think- I don’t want any of you doing anything about that.” He said, “I know you’re not going to listen, but I don’t think we should bother xB about his- ritual? Better to just let sleeping dogs lie. If nothing’s happened yet, then it’s not likely to happen.”
Joe shifted uncomfortably.
“Ah. Well. Uh.”
He swallowed.
“I- uh- I may have- discussed this with Scar-“
Xisuma’s eyes went wide, and his helmet flexed- his jaw had fallen open.
“You didn’t. Joe, tell me you didn’t-“
“And Scar may be- currently in the End- with xB-“
“JOE PLEASE HIT ME WITH THE DARE STICK I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS-“
“-And Scar- may have made mention of-“
Xisuma tapped a few buttons on his comm, which instantly unfolded into a wall of glowing screens, surrounding him in a semicircle. He turned slowly, tapping at the air, frantically sifting and sorting through options- from Joe’s reversed perspective, he could see Xisuma pulling up a map of the End, swiping his fingers to move the image around. He panned and scrolled, zooming out until he saw a marker with xB’s face on it-
And, weirdly, no Scar.
“-Scar’s not in the End.” Xisuma said, sighing in relief. He started flicking through the wall of reports the server sent him, every second of every day, mostly split-second glitches that resolved themselves in seconds. Xisuma tapped on one in specific that was pulsing red, staring at it in confusion.
“That’s…odd. A burst of magic in the Outer End?” He said, glancing back over at the map- and at where xB was still standing.
“I think that might have been Scar.” Joe suggested, somewhat desperately.
“I…Yeah. Hm.” Xisuma sighed, and closed all his screens, letting them fade away, the light retracting into his communicator.
Joe knew well that Xisuma had a staunch dislike of abusing his admin powers, and that panicked check was getting quite close to an overstep. He shrugged, and Xisuma shook his head.
“I’ll…have to look into that burst of power later. God, between Doc and Grian’s rift, trying to keep this place from falling apart at the seams- and now, a random burst of- look. Just- can you tell Scar to not- do whatever it is he just did? Please? I don’t have it in me for another all-night coding binge to fix the walls of the universe.”
“Yes, you do.” Joe said flatly.
“Yes, I do.” Xisuma admitted, “Alright, fine. But Bdubs is going to hit me with a chair if I pull another all-nighter. So in the interests of my furniture, could you please tell Scar to… not do whatever it is he just did?”
Joe opened his mouth to reply when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.
“-Xisuma.” He said, pointing, “Do you see that?”
X turned his head, and his eyes went wide.
“That’s not Grian.” He said flatly.
They were both staring at a disembodied eye, floating in the air. Translucent, glowing with power, and green as the fresh summer grass. Green, green, green, green like a mountain meadow in July, green like a pine bough, a rippling, shimmering green-
And it wasn’t purple.
A rocket fired outside the skeleton’s mouth, and Keralis landed in an ungainly heap on the floor, tripping and landing on his face. Joe yelped and nearly jumped down the skeleton’s throat, only catching himself at the last second. Keralis leapt to his feet a second later, brushing the bone dust off his clothes, and gestured at Xisuma.
“Shishwammy. We have a big, big problem. We have a- a Watcher, who is not our Watcher, and he’s Watching us- uh-“
Keralis turned slowly to look at where Joe was staring, his gaze falling on the green eye.
“Ah.” And his eyes darted over to Joe, then back to the eye. Keralis bit his lip.
The green eye narrowed.
Keralis held up a hand, and waved at it.
“You didn’t answer me earlier,” he said to it, very deliberately speaking in English.
Joe took a step forward, and both Keralis and X stared at him.
“Uh…thisisgonnahurt…Tale-speaker…Tale…talker…Word…human…Beg-talk. Beg-talk…Plant-eye-look…Beg-talk plant-eye-look talk…speak…Talk-speak, uh, with? What’s with, uh- talk-speak to uh. Uh. Abyss…walker.”
Joe shuddered as soon as the last words of his stammering, shuddering diatribe left his mouth. He licked his lips- they hadn’t been blistered before, but they looked very red and dry after he’d finished his spiel.
The eye just stared at them.
A flutter of wings outside heralded the arrival of Grian, who alighted with expert ease upon the bottom teeth of Xisuma’s skeleton.
“X! X, I gotta talk to you. What’s- hey, what’s everyone doing…in…here…” Grian said, his voice petering off as he stepped in- and caught sight of the green eye.
“…You.” Grian said, jabbing a finger at the eye.
“You know this guy, Grian?” Xisuma said.
“Sariel.” Grian said flatly, staring the eye down and taking a step forward, “Sariel. What the hell are you doing?! Why are you- why are you flaunting yourself in all our faces?! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Sariel- the eye- it blinked. A fraction of a second, vanishing and reappearing, and Grian scowled.
“You don’t get to do that,” he hissed, “You don’t get to just- thumb your nose at me like that. What the hell is going on? What’s happening?! What do you want?”
The eye blinked one more time, and Grian ground his teeth.
“I’m going to ask you one more time. What. do. you-“
The eye vanished.
“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Grian roared, and he-
He leaped out of his own back, shucking his body and letting it collapse onto the floor. It hit the bones with a thud, wings splaying out as his purple soul floated into in the air. He spread his translucent purple wings in their thousands, hundreds of eyes bursting out of him in all directions like a firework, thousands of them chasing down the timeline in hot pursuit.
He didn’t hesitate.
The last thing Grian heard as he dove into the past was Joe’s voice.
Raspy and broken.
Screaming.
“GRIAN, DON’T-“