The Watchers' Call

Chapter 1

Nothing could be better than this, Grian thought as he soared high above the sea, enjoying the warm sun and the sea breeze. 

It was easy to forget the traumatic experience of the last two months as Grian happily swooped around the sky on this perfect day.

It couldn't last long, though, because Grian had work to do. There were a lot of things he needed to get done. The barge needed restocking, the building of the back of the mansion needed procrastinating, the wars needed starting...

Grian reluctantly headed off to the shopping district. As he arrived, a familiar voice called,

"Grian! How are you?" 

"Mumbo!" Grian landed next to his friend.

"Hey buddy! You feeling ok?" Mumbo asked.

"Yes, Mumbo, I'm fine, how many times do I need to tell you?" Grian rolled his eyes.

"Every day for as long as you live," Mumbo teased.

"As long as I live?" Grian playfully questioned.

"You need to take care of yourself! There would have been a lot less worry if you'd just told me sooner that you weren't feeling well," Mumbo answered, not-so-playfully.

"Alright, fair enough. Hey, I was wondering if you would be interested in helping me with a little something?" Grian asked mischievously.

"Alright, out with it! I know you've got something planned!" Mumbo demanded.

"So I was thinking, Iskall has a really big tree, and what lives in trees?" Grian grinned.

"Squirrels?" Mumbo answered.

"No, Mumbo, pesky birds live in trees! What if we built a giant pesky bird, and then inside the giant pesky bird... is an army of pesky birds with hermit challenges on them?" 

"That's.. actually a great idea," Mumbo said. "Sure, I'll help you with that!"

-----

Four hours and a lot of parrots later, Mumbo was almost regretting saying yes to helping Grian.

"Come on, you pesky birds! You're driving me crazy!" Mumbo said in annoyance.

Grian smirked. "Pessssky birds, yes they are!"

Mumbo smiled, instantly happy again. Trying to get parrots to follow him was definitely worth spending an afternoon with Grian. I really should do things like this more often, he told himself.

Finally, all the birds were inside the giant parrot. 

"Now we wait for Iskall to find them!" Grian said.

"Yep! Grian, this has been a lot of fun, but I have some work to get to-" Mumbo reluctantly told his friend.

"No worries, Mumbo. I have things to do too," Grian replied. "See you!" And with that, he took off.

Content to have spent time with his friend, Mumbo took off as well and headed off.

-----

Grian landed in the middle of his barge.

"Restocking time!" he called to no one in particular.

He scurried around, replenishing stock and taking diamonds out of chests.

Once everything was restocked, he picked up his shulker boxes and flew out of the barge. He hopped into the Shopping District nether portal and began to head towards his own portal, but before he got very far, he felt a strange urge to head in a completely different direction. 

He didn't see what harm it could do, so he turned and headed away from everything. He flew a few thousand blocks, farther than he'd ever gone in the Nether and landed in front of an unusual nether portal.

"That's strange," he said aloud. The portal wasn't just any normal nether portal. It was made of crying obsidian and a ring of normal obsidian surrounded it. Four pillars of netherrack had been raised up in the "corners" of the circle and were alight with blue flame.

Wait- crying obsidian can't form portals. And soul fire doesn't burn on netherrack-

As strange as the portal seemed, Grian couldn't help himself.

He stepped through it.