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 an ear grating buzzing that drilled into his head with the power of a tnt-duper and a neathrite drill-bit. His nose was overwhelmed by the smell of damp carpet, a stale odor that served to make his headache worse with each inhale, something that was arguably supposed to make him feel better, and matched the rough texture between his fingers and tickling his neck.
He pushed himself into a sitting position where the smell was more manageable and he couldn’t feel the carpet through his gray jeans. He processed tasting something sour in the back of his throat and opened his eyes a second later, much to his displeasure, when he saw musty-yellow walls and equally stale carpet.
What? This was what was behind Mumbo’s vault? Empty and dirty office spaces? Grian expected a few cocky signs that told him he wasted his time, and that the real prize was the headaches we gave ourselves along the way, but… this wasn’t that.
There was nothing but the buzz of fluorescent lights.
“Hello?” Grian yelled into space. He walked forward and around a corner to see that there were more expanding hallways.
He narrowed his eyes. Was this an elaborate prank? If it was, a lot went into it. Grian must’ve been knocked out and then stripped of everything.
Grian scoffed at the thought.
If Grian had really knocked himself out cold, the hermits would’ve taken care of him, not played a prank on him. They would have put him in bed and given him food and potions and water for when he woke up. They wouldn’t have taken his stuff.
He couldn’t even access his inventory in the first place.
That’s why Grian’s stomach started to twist.
He wasn’t in Kansas any more…
But where had the tornado taken him?
He just continued to walk and think. The more he walked, he realized that it was impossible for all of this to be under Mumbo’s base. What he thought was a single room and a few halls quickly became much more. The insistent buzzing and yellow walls only ended to turn a corner, or to dip into complete darkness. Hallways would disappear into blackness and go on for who knows how long.
The pit in Grian’s stomach deepened more and more as his thoughts reached for possibilities.
This was it, wasn’t it?
Grian stopped in the middle of a room and stared at the moldy carpet. He bit the inside of his mouth and creased his brow.
He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.
Possibly worse than that, he hadn’t had the chance to talk to Doc about it at all. He meant to talk to Doc about their plan, to tell him that they should stop, but… he hadn’t really done that, had he?
He was going in blind into a world between worlds and he had no information other than he needed to find the right exit. Whatever that meant.
According to what he remembered Doc saying was that, on a certain level in “The Backrooms,” a so-called world between worlds, 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. The plan was never to leave Hermitcraft forever, far from it. But the plan was going to take awhile.
In theory.
Everything Doc says ends with ‘in theory’. And Grian missed that already. After helping Doc get back NHO and Keralis, Doc promised Grian the Evo was next, even though neither of them had a clue how to bring back the dead from an entirely different server, let alone one that was gone.
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.
The chances of him getting to Evo were slim, as they were with getting back to Hermitcraft.
As Grian pushed back looming dread to assess and plan, he heard something outside of the buzzing lights: a metallic sound of grinding metal and rubbery wheezes. Grian turned his head over his shoulder to see a tall, wiry figure lumber out of a dark corner. It screamed a mechanical shriek and ran towards Grian with a limp.
Grian took off into the maze and ran with all the power he could muster.
He tried to lose it in the winding halls, but without tight corners to out maneuver it, it stayed close. The two ran out into a large room filled with round pillars, all dressed in the same disgusting yellow wallpaper. The fluorescent lights flickered here. Grian used the strange architecture and headache inducing flashes to hide from the monster and get around it.
He caught glances of the creature: It was mostly metal bars and wires, but it had pieces of flesh-like rubber hanging off of it and holding its joints together. Grian was sure the image would be burned into his mind forever.
He dashed across the room into a hall when the creature spotted him again. It didn’t take long for it to catch up as grian stamina ran low. The maze that once had thousands of entrances and exits, was now a singular hallway, one that quickly delved into darkness. Every alarm in Grian’s head rang out as he dashed into the darkness.
He pushed and pushed until he smacked into a wall-- no--a door--
Grian swung the door open and slammed it shut behind him.
He yelled out as the monster slammed and scraped against the door. His yelling turned to sobbing as he held the door closed with his life.
He didn’t realize immediately when the creature got bored and left, but when he did, Grian stepped back and collapsed on the ground. He leaned back on his hands and swallowed deep breath after deep breath.
Grian looked up at the ceiling to find a warm tan. He felt the carpet under his hands; it was soft and comforting. The warm light was quiet, and the walls, though blank, weren’t dirty like the wallpaper out there.
Grian stood up and turned to face the rest of the room. To his left was a doorway with darkness. To his right was a small kitchen. In between the two rooms was a staircase. First, Grian entered the kitchen, where there might’ve been sunlight. He was a fool for thinking that, though. The window wasn’t real, only a farce light. He leaned over the sink and tried the faucet; even sink water would be better than none. Alas, nothing came from the faucet. Grian exited the kitchen and turned to the staircase. There was no way he was entering the other room without a flashlight.
Grian placed his hand on the rail and placed a foot on the first step. He took a deep breath and took a second step. One step at a time, he calmed down and allowed himself to relax, even for this little moment. He walked up into cloudy darkness.
His hand felt light on the handrail, and his feet seemed to miss the steps and the ceiling became the floor and the stairs the ceiling. He fell for a few moments before falling down ceramic stairs and landing on a tiled floor with a new reason to have a headache.
The smell of chlorine didn’t help.
Grian pushed himself up and onto his feet only to slip and fall into warm water and hit his head on the side of an indoor pool.