The Chained Watcher

Beginning the Search

Ten minutes later, almost all the hermits had managed to gather, excluding those out on resource-gathering expeditions. It would have to do.

Xisuma started speaking, "Now you're probably wondering why I called an emergency meeting." Confused nods come from most of the hermits. "Scar is missing." Several exclamations rose from those not yet in the know, before X continued speaking. "He's been missing for several days, and..." He took a deep breath. "I think he got kidnapped."

Noise erupted as all the hermits started mildly panicking, but Xisuma cut them off before it could get out-of-hand. "Quiet! The reason I think he got kidnapped is the server's magic has been tampered with. Respawn is fine! I checked that the moment I noticed the tampering. But someone bypassed the whitelist and took Scar." 

Silence. Then, someone asked an important question. "So how do we get him back?"

"We go report him missing first, that way if anyone sees him we'll be told." Several protests rang out. They wanted to go find Scar themselves, not be stuck waiting for someone else to find him. Xisuma spoke again. "That doesn't mean that we can't search for him ourselves, it just means other people will also help in the search." He started walking towards the portal. "There's no time to lose. Stay in groups of two minimum, three or four if you can. Never go alone."

All the hermits started grouping up, and Grian went straight to Mumbo. They went through the portal, getting a couple of confused looks at the simmering anger rolling off the normally peaceful group. Xisuma went to the nearest guard outpost, put in place since the hackers started appearing, while the rest of the hermits scattered to different servers to start their search.

Mumbo looked at Grian, seeming a bit concerned. He whispered, "You're starting to glow..." He was? Oh, he was. Grian forcefully calmed his mind, and the glow faded away. Mumbo spoke again, "Where should we start searching?" 

That was a good question. Where should they start searching? The large public servers were the obvious places to check, but their admins had started searching for places where the server magic got used unexpectedly. Maybe the smaller worlds? "Let's check the smaller worlds. The ones that aren't popular, but still oddly close to the hub's center." Mumbo nodded.

The two of them started looking at the portals, finding the names listed above them to be quite helpful in figuring out which is which. Hypixel, Empires, Dream SMP, and more greeted them as they distanced themselves from spawn, until they came to one that had a rather odd name. Mumbo tilted his head slightly, reading the name out loud "2b2t? What kind of name is that? It's not even words, just... letters, and numbers!"

The two of them stared at the strange portal, heads tilted to the side as they examined it. The frame of the portal couldn't seem to decide just what it was, and every time you stopped focusing on part of it, it would change. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and for a moment it even looked like creeper heads, strange as that may seem. If they were looking for something abnormal, they had sure found it.

Grian tentatively touched the portal's frame, checking for active whitelisting. Nothing. He turned to Mumbo, who was still staring at the ever-changing frame, and asked "Should we go in? There's no whitelist, so it's technically public." Mumbo blinked as he looked away from the now-glazed-terracotta portal frame, nodding his head. They stepped into the portal.

~~~

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Please don't be sick."

Grian felt nauseous just looking at the server's magic. It was twisted and layered and tied up in such terrible knots, and even now he could feel several players nearby pulling on different strands of magic to do... whatever it is they're doing. Somehow respawn was still working, buried so far beneath the tangled mess of magic it was probably more stable here than anywhere else, even if the side effects were worse.

Then there was the spawn "Decoration". Grass was nonexistent, and massive cobblestone structures loomed high into the sky. A trench had been bombed down to bedrock, and part of it had a build-height lava wall pouring down from an obsidian structure. More obsidian covered the sky, blotting out the light from above. 

A Wither then rose from part of the trench, throwing skulls around at anything living. Which included them. Time to go!

Grian grabbed Mumbo before shooting off into the air, but had to switch to horizontal movement once they reached the ceiling. Mumbo, not having wings himself, was currently clinging onto Grian for dear life, doing his best to not look at the ground. The winged hermit was slowly getting used to seeing the Gordian Knot the magic was tangled in, and soon recovered enough to teleport on top of the ceiling.

Both hermits ended up sprawled on top of the obsidian, listening to the sounds of the angry Wither underneath. They look at eachother, before Mumbo states in a matter-of-fact tone, "This place is weird." Grian gave him a disbelieving look. "I know that's the understatement of the century, but it doesn't mean it's not true!"

The two sat there for a while before they started walking North. What made them choose North? Grian had a gut feeling. You don't doubt gut feelings, you just don't.

Perhaps one of the few benefits of this strange server would be that, since the magic was already almost unrecognizable, Grian's Watcher magic wouldn't stand out nearly as much. Now to start searching for Scar.

The easy way, where he just searches for the unique magic signature via server magic sonar (it's not an exact science) was out. Even if he did find Scar, the only thing he would learn would be that, yes, this is the right place. Actually, maybe he should do that. Before he and Mumbo spend time searching the wrong server.

Grian reaches out to the magic of the server, lightly touching one of the nearby trailing strands. He grimaced. Wow, that feels nasty. The magic feels like how rotten eggs smell, which is not a good thing. Not like he has much of a choice, though, so he pushes through the disgust and sends a ripple through the magic network.

Nothing... Nothing... a response. Something? Try again. Grian perks up a little, feeling the response the magic returned to him. Scar is here, somewhere. Now, he just had one big problem. Where is "Somewhere"? It can't be close, what with how long it took to get a ping.

Well, guess the gut feeling gets to take the lead again. Grian closed his eyes and lifted his hand to point, before spinning in a circle. He stopped. Opening his eyes again, he saw that he was still pointing mostly North, but also vaguely East. "Let's go this way!"

Mumbo looks at him with a little confusion, then asks something Grian had forgotten. "Are we just going to walk there? Because if not I'd rather use an elytra." Ah. Mumbo doesn't have wings. No matter, all he has to do is make him a set of elytra.

Grian pulled out some of his own magic, shaping it into an elytra before solidifying it. This should work. The new elytra was rather purple, but that shouldn't matter too much in the short-term, and short-term was all it needed to be. A couple stacks of rockets would also be a good idea.

Mumbo equips the new elytra, double checking to make sure it was working properly before picking up the rockets Grian made for him. Time to fly. The two of them shot off into the sky, heading in the arbitrary direction Grian had decided on.