When Past Meets the Present

XXVI (Quetta)

WC:1315

I herded the players up a hill and away from the battle. The Onoro and Ikra were still going strong with only a few minor injuries. Honestly, when we came we were expecting the watchers to put up a better fight like Xelqua had, but they didn't. All their movements seemed robotic, almost like they were being pulled by strings. Xelqua did mention something about the masks controlling them but I'd thought they could at least fight better than this.

As we trekked the hill, I remembered Xelqua telling me about the dangers of putting on a Watcher's mask. He'd been half delirious because of the massive cut in his side but the pain hadn't fully kicked in yet. I was trying to prolong the feeling of numbness over him by taking his mind off it. I asked him questions about the Watchers rather than his player life. He had just seen, fought, hurt and got stabbed by his friends. Plus, his personal life deserved some privacy. He might say something he'd regret later when he came back to his senses.

Apparently, every Watcher can make a mask, that mask could be used to control someone with a lower power level than the creator if they're wearing it. The more masks they make, the harder it is to keep control over them. The maker can control someone with a higher power level, but for that to happen the victim either needs to be willing or... How do I write this? If their victim is 'broken', they could be controlled easily.

That was how they were planning to control Xelqua. If he didn't do it willing then they'd kill every other entity on the server right in front of him. And if that didn't break him enough they could always just rely on good old fashioned torture to finish him off.

"Quetta?" Said a frightened voice call from in beside me. I looked down at the player who had spoken.

"Yes?"

"Could you answer a few things for us, please? Like, who are you? How do you know Grian? Who are the people that he's fighting? Why does he have wings? Are we going to die? What is the meaning of life!?" The scared player seemed to be having an existential crisis and a mental breakdown at once. It was honestly scarier than the Watchers.

"Ahhh." How do you help someone when they're like this? "Well, I'm Quetta, an illusioner trainee. He's a fae, wings are just part of what he is. You will not die on me and Xelqua's not fighting anything on my watch. I don't know a Grian though." That, if possible, made them even more confused.

"But you were just talking with him." Grian must've been Xelqua's real name.

"Ohhh. Are you talking about Xelqua?" I pointed down to him, he was trying to get close enough to help his friend with the mask. They nodded. "Sorry, we used code names back at the mansion. I didn't know his name. He came to us seeking help, so we brought him on board. We were comrades at arms."

"Wait wait wait wait wait." The admin, whose name I think is Xisuma from what Xelqua told me, came forwards with his hands raised. "Wait. If you guys were comrades then why was he in a cage when we came to get him?"

"Well, X-eye-suuma, (Quetta pronounces it like that because Grian was the only one who ever said it around them,) when someone stabbed him, his magic tried to heal him by itself when he was unconscious. But, it isn't sentient enough to direct itself, it was doing more harm than good. The only way we could help him was to put him in a magic cancelling room. The only room like that in the entire place was the jail. I assure you, we had his permission to do anything and everything that would help him get better."

"Why should we trust you? And don't call me that!"

"Well I'm sorry, I thought that was your name. Frankly, I don't care whether you trust me or not, as long as none of you perma-dies then it's a job well done on my part." Out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted a few Watchers break ranks and barrel up the hill we were on. "Now, I would suggest moving before we have company."

Who knew players could move so fast when they were running from Watchers. We left them in the dust and ran up the hill. At the top, there was a sheer cliff face, the ocean was, at the very least, about ten blocks out from the bottom. The drop would've killed the players. As an illager, I could've survived the fall with minimal fall damage. The player would have to use their elytras to glide to the sea and swim as far out as they could.

"Go!" I shouted at them. "Whatever you do, don't get separated or killed. Fly to that tower! Stay out of the sky as much as possible after! If I can't get there in time, run for the room he calls the 'library'. It's heavily protected against all types of magic, especially Watcher magic." They weren't moving, they were just staring at me like I was insane. Why weren't they going? "What are you waiting for? Jump!"

"We'll die from this height. You said don't die!"

"Use your elytras, idiots!"

"We don't have them! They were taken when we were captured!"

"What?!" Granted, I probably should've checked to make sure they all had elytras beforehand. Of course, the Watchers took their stuff. "Well then, admin man, can you get them down there? I can barely hold my ground against Xelqua for five minutes before he wipes me out. And that's when he's doing it for fun. I can't take three one at once!"

"I will not be called admin man." He grumbled while the others cracked a slight smile. "The best I can do is teleport us back to spawn island. We can swim from there."

"Well then hurry up and get yourselves outta here. I'll meet you at the library." He nodded and started swiping through holographic screens and inputting commands. When they finally disappeared I jumped down the cliff and made my way through the cold sea. (He's slower than them because he swims the old way.)

I'm tired. I'm gonna go to bed after I proofread and publish this.

What's that? I left it on another bad ending? I honestly don't really care right now.

Warning! Rant ahead!

I didn't sleep last night because it was my Nan's birthday so I had to go out into the city and be sociable with my family. Then, my stepdad, made us miss the bus back because he was playing ping pong. So he decided we were all going to go to the after-party bowling game. Which made us later for the bus again. He delayed us by 4 hours because he wanted to play some ping pong.

Not to mention I had homework that needed to be done. I was planning to do it after we got back but that went out the window. By the time I was finally ready for me to go to sleep, it was about 4 am. I couldn't sleep so I scrolled Tik Tok until 10 am. Then, today, I had my uncles birthday at his place with my Mum's side of the family. I had to write the majority of this in 2 hours.

I just wanna sleep.

Wow. Ranting about this to strangers online feels great. Now I really hope no one actually reads this.

Rant over.

(And we got 3.5k reads but I learned to just stop questioning how I mysteriously get hundreds of reads over night.)

Cheers,

Isabelle