The Chained Watcher

The Revenge

"Wow, you were right, this place is weird."

Scar was now gawking at the landscape of crafting tables while they waited for the cult to show up. He hadn't quite believed it when told that they were going to meet up with a cult that worshiped crafting tables, but now just stared at the various structures dotting the surrounding area.

The nether portal burbled and whooshed as a couple of the cult members stepped out warily. Grian waved them over while holding a slip of paper.

One of them he recognized as the compass guy spoke up in confusion. "What'd you need us for? Did the compass not work?" Grian chuckled.

"Oh, the compass worked, all right. And can you guess where it led?" Several players' eyes lit up. "Right to a nice large base! Had a secret basement as well, with a fancy over-enchanted sword, and some bedrock too." Some of them are now cackling in a rather villain-like way. "It would be a shame if someone were to just... I don't know, give away the coordinates?" He blinked innocently while holding out the paper.

The paper in his hand was quickly taken, along with a couple of pictures Mumbo had gotten before the base somehow lost a quarter of the entire build. Messages were sent on communicators that looked to be more attachments than device, and violent grins slowly grew on their faces. Oh now these were people who knew exactly what they were going to do, and reveled in it.

One of them turned back to him (Mumbo was off admiring the scenery with Scar) and bowed slightly, saying solemnly, "We of the Crafting Table thank you for your contribution. Should you need our assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to ask." They straightened back up, the same violent grin worn by the others growing on their face. "That being said, we're planning to raid the base at dawn, do you want to come?" Oh they didn't.

"Of course I want to come." Grian's own face started to wear a grin. "I wouldn't want to miss a single second of it."

A thought crossed his mind. "I do need to get my friends back home first, before our admin rips his hair out trying to find us."

"Ah, I see. Well, you are welcome to come, and you already know the coordinates. Take care, friend."

They waved goodbye and made their way back towards spawn, Scar marveling at the strange shapes of the massive lava casts in the distance. Then they found another weird place. This one didn't have any people in it, but there were over fifty weird religious statues made out of different blocks. They didn't stop, just on the off chance they accidentally got involved with another cult.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, and then they reached spawn. The massive obsidian ceiling was still quite disconcerting to look at, but Grian led the way to the portal. On the other side, the bustle of the hub was still going as usual. People shouting advertisements for both servers and services, the large signs above the most popular portals. And Hermitcraft. They had made it back, and all in one piece too.

Grian pushed Scar and Mumbo over to their portal, but then pulled back, saying "I'm gonna go back and watch them raid the base, tell X I'll be back in a couple hours!" before running off while laughing. Mumbo and Scar were left standing in front of the Hermitcraft portal in silence, before Mumbo said what they were both thinking. 

"Well that just happened."

Scar laughed at that. "It sure did."

They went through the portal, and were quickly surrounded by anxious hermits. Many questions were asked, and many questions were answered, before someone asked about Grian.

Mumbo answered this one, saying sheepishly, "Well, let's just say that Grian wasn't too happy with the group that took Scar, and he might have made a couple of new friends who are planning to raid the base Scar was kept at. He got invited to join the raid, and I figured stopping him wasn't really possible at that point. He'd just sneak out anyway, and then we wouldn't know where he was."

Scar piped up, "Oh! He said to say that he should be back in a couple of hours, then he ran off before we could say anything."

A couple of laughs came from the hermits. That was definitely Grian, all right.

~~~

Meanwhile, back with the feathered fiend himself

Grian didn't bother to fly to the castle this time around. He only had about half an hour left until the raid started, which meant that he needed to be there now in case they started early. His magic wrapped around him, connecting here to there before he found himself standing in a forest relatively close to his destination. Noone was here yet, good.

Actually, speaking of the raid, he noticed some people on the edge of his perception slowly approaching the castle. Let's go say hi before they mistake him for someone else.

They were surprised to see him sitting on a tree branch watching them, but as it turns out, one of them was compass guy! He really needed to ask what his name was sometime. Anyway, compass guy recognized him and waved, so he hopped down and walked over.

"What happened to the base? Looks like someone just deleted an entire chunk out of it." Ah, forgot about that. It seems like everyone on this server is some flavor of hacker anyways, so maybe he could play it off as a new exploit?

"You aren't the only one with weird glitches, compass guy." 

Compass guy's companion started laughing uncontrollably, while compass guy himself looked completely baffled. "Did- did you just call me 'compass guy'??" Oh, so that's what's got his friend struggling to breathe.

"You never gave me your name. You gave me a compass. Therefore, you have been dubbed 'compass guy'!" His friend lets out a strangled wheeze, the words 'compass guy' barely distinguishable.

Their communicators light up. Holding it so Grian can see it, compass guy checks the message. The screen color itself occasionally glitches, much like most things on this server.

<Alpha1>: Alpha1 to Bravo3, do you have eyes on the base?

Compass guy types in his response on a steampunk keyboard that popped out of his communicator.

<Bravo3>: Bravo3 to Alpha1, base is large demonic-styled castle, one quarter missing through unknown means, presumed action taken by informant.

Grian giggled at the overly serious jargon being used, getting a look from compass guy. The messages go back and forth a couple more times before he puts his communicator away to speak to Grian.

"We're ready to start in twenty minutes, the goal being first, loot it dry, second, kill the players, and third, blow the entire thing to kingdom come."

"Sounds like my type of plan, anything you need help with?"

"You said the good loot was in the basement?"

"Yeah, it's got a big vault door and everything. Aesthetic changes to a lab setting too."

"Cool, I know where I'm going then"

~~~

The time ticked down. Ten minutes. Five. One. Zero.

The quiet forest exploded into action, and more than twenty players surged towards the castle at varying speeds. Grian took off, flying straight towards the castle before spinning into a dive. Noone here would be able to tell the difference between their twisted magic's methods and his methods, so he dove straight through the castle, leaving a roughly Grian-sized hole straight down to the basement.

He had an idea and giggled, realizing that nothing he left on this server could truly be traced back to him, before recoloring a single piece of quartz to purple. Why? Because he wanted to, and it would be interesting to see where it ended up after a couple of months. Most of the stuff on this server can't even be brought out without exploding anyway, so what's one more unstable mystery object?

Turning towards the vault door, Grian flapped his wings and flew straight through it, laughing the entire time. Breaking things with no consequences was quite nice sometimes, though creating beautiful builds will almost always be more satisfying to him than destruction. That may be one of the biggest differences dividing him from the other Watchers. The others reveled in the feeling of power brought about by destruction, while he found pleasure in the act of creating.

Returning to the sky above the castle, Grian got a great view of the entire thing exploding from within. Wow was this server good at breaking things. Time to go home, preferably before someone tried to get him to actually join the cult.