The Chained Watcher

The Castle

Back in the air again, Grian and Mumbo headed off with more speed than before. They actually had a direction now! No more "go this way and hope it's the right direction" for him, no sir-ee. Now it's just a matter of how far they had to fly to find this base.

As it turns out, very far. Like, over-a-million-blocks type of far. Who even feels the need to go this far out?

A demonic-looking castle complex unfolded before them, with the surrounding terrain blasted down to bedrock. Layers of stained glass created a fog effect while the castle itself looked to be crumbling down to the abyss in parts. Tall spires graced the top of the main keep, with large wool flags attached to the tips.

It was, all things considered, quite nice looking. Grian, however, was not in the mood to appreciate the castle. He could sense Scar's presence somewhere inside, seemingly below the main castle itself. If they had hurt him... Mumbo coughed lightly, bringing his attention back to the task at hand. 

Grian started slowly circling the castle, thinking of a plan. Should he just erase the castle entirely? No, that might end up hurting Scar if he wasn't careful. Punch his way through to where Scar was, then blow up the castle? Maybe, but Scar might think something was a bit off when he punched his way through materials that needed special tools to mine. What if they had bedrock? Somehow players had built some structures out of it, so it wasn't an impossibility. There was no good answer to how he could break bedrock. Same for if he teleported, no good explanation.

Let's go with... invisibility. Sneak down to Scar, and decide their fate depending on how they'd treated him. Grian looked at Mumbo. "I'm gonna make us invisible, and we'll sneak down to where Scar is being held." Mumbo nodded. "If they hurt him, there's not going to be a castle when I'm done with it, got it?"

"I got it, just... don't go too overboard, please?" Mumbo sounded a bit hesitant. Ah,  he was glowing again. Would be a bit hard to properly stealth while glowing. Hide that quickly, apply invis, then it's go time.

The inside of the castle was also heavily stylized, with blacks and reds and an awful lot of obsidian scattered around. Several hackers were patrolling, the magic surrounding them twisting in an attempt to find anything invisible near them. They can do that? Guess they get given a wide berth then.

Deeper down into the depths of the castle, and they are greeted by a blast door like you would see in a bank vault. Two guards stand on either side, looking rather bored. Guess teleporting is gonna have to happen after all.

With the magic all twisted, it takes Grian longer than he'd like to admit to properly connect the here outside the door to the there of the other side, but eventually it works, and they're through. He makes a note to find an empty server to go practice in, lest he get rusty.

The other side of the door has a drastic change in aesthetic, going from medieval demon castle to futuristic lab. There are several isolated rooms, with various strange items in them. A skeleton horse, a zombie horse, a sword with an obscene amount of enchantments on it, a bizarre redstone device, Scar, bedrock- Wait, Scar!?

In one of the rooms lay Scar, currently out like a light with strange potion particles rising off of him. The potion seems to be to have put him to sleep, but other than that he's unharmed. Grian then grabs the doorknob and nearly rips the entire door off. Anger issues? What's that, some flavor of ice cream?

The unconscious form of Scar is swiftly picked up by Grian, and alarms start going off around the base. The alarms are large amounts of discordant noteblocks all fighting to be heard, and result in a noise level that would have anyone screaming "Turn it off!" when heard. Footsteps start echoing down the corridor, guards rushing over from their posts to find what set the alarm off.

Mumbo joined Grian in the room, and said worriedly, "Let's just teleport out. I don't want to have to fight through all the guards." Fiiiine. Grian started working on the teleport again, all three hermits disappearing from the room in a flash of purple light right before the lead guard made it in. They are now stood outside the base, minus Scar who Grian is still carrying, watching the hackers flying around like an angry hornet's nest.

They remain silent for a moment, staring out at the castle. 

"I still wanna blow it up."

"Grian, no. We are not blowing up the base."

"Then I'll give the cult people the coordinates, and they can blow it up. Either way it still gets blown up."

More silence.

"Maybe I can just blow it up a little? A couple towers wouldn't be missed, right?"

"Fine, but only a little. We need to get Scar back home, and sooner is better than later."

Grian grinned. This was going to be fun. A small visual distortion shield to hide the glow of magic later, he raised his hand, eyes locked on to the castle. The nearby magic trembled, and an entire quarter of the castle just... disappeared. Nothing that was stored in those rooms remained, and anyone that had been inside now found the rooms missing around them before discovering the concept of gravity.

"Grian?"

Grian froze, slowly looking at a groggy Scar. Well this just got rather awkward. Not only were his eyes currently glowing rather strongly, his wings had partially separated into two pairs due to the extensive use of magic. They were also the vibrant purple only Watchers had.

Scar rubbed his eyes and stretched, looking out at the castle and whistling softly. "Wow, you really did a number on this place... Where are we, by the way?"

"You're not... mad? No questions, no shock, nothing?"

"Why would I be?" 

Why would he be? Why wouldn't he be? The arena was run by Watchers, and as a Watcher himself, Grian was a rather strong reminder of darker times. Before his thoughts could continue to circle, Scar laughed. 

"Grian, if you were going to do something, you would have done it long before now. So why should I be mad?" Well, that was reasonable, but still... "Besides, you came all the way to... wherever this is, still don't know by the way, to save me. Certainly this isn't what I expected, but everyone's got their own little secrets. It's not my place to pry."

Grian let out a startled laugh. Of all the reactions he had expected, this was not one of them. Fear? Yes. Anger? Definitely. But this? He smiled. It seems that Scar would be Scar, no matter the situation.

He turned away from the castle, and offered Scar a piggy-back ride while saying, "I'm not gonna do more to the base myself, but we just so happened to meet a relatively friendly cult on the way here who I'm sure would just love to hear about this oh so secret base's coordinates." Mumbo laughs slightly.

"Oooh, a cult? Do you think I could join?"

"No, Scar, you're not joining a cult. And besides, Jellie has to be missing you by now."

"Oh no, Jellie! Has she been fed? Is she alright?"

They took off into the air.

"Don't worry, Jellie's fine." 

Grian messaged a certain cult member, asking if they could meet back at the crafting table valley thing. The response was an affirmative, though they wanted to know why. 'You'll see' was his reply.