The Chained Watcher

Confrontation

The sound of a twig snapping rang out through the forest. 

Whipping his head around, Grian scanned the forest for something out of place, and though nothing greeted his eyes, he could sense the presence of two annoyingly familiar people hiding just out of sight. With the sheer vastness of this land, how does he keep running into the same two people over and over again?

Scar looked up in confusion, and Grian started weighing his options. Does he just run away again? But what if this happens again? Those two certainly seem to have a knack for finding him at inopportune times, that much was for sure. Violence was really not the ideal solution to every problem, even if there were technically a great deal of things it could solve. 

Maybe just... confront them about it? There's not too much connecting his appearance here with Hermitcraft, so if he could get them to remain silent about it that would be the best ending. How did they even find him anyway? It's not like he was close to their base, so...

"Come out." He spoke firmly, and lightly wrapped a wing around Scar. No need to think too hard about this. In the woods, the two hiding figures looked at each other before one shook its head no. Sigh. "I know that you're there, both of you."

Still no response. Did he really have to pull them out himself? All they're doing is staring at each other, so it looks like they're not coming out on their own in any reasonable timeframe. Reaching out, he sent two thin threads of magic racing through the woods towards them. Once in range, the magic was used to lift them out of their hiding spots and bring them closer. One of them, Techno, tries to grab whatever is nearby while Philza seems to be sensing the magic carrying them.

In less than a minute, the two friends had been brought into the valley's clearing, and Grian leveled an unamused expression at them. Philza's gaze flicked down to Scar for a second before returning to his face. He loses quite a bit of his intimidation factor with Scar practically asleep on one of his wings, doesn't he.

Philza pulled something out from his inventory, saying "I think you lost this." It was a feather, the exact shade of purple as Grian's wings. How did he even lose a feather? The only time when feathers easily came out was... right after growing new wings. Checking the feather, its magic wasn't balanced, which led to it having an ever so slight inclination to point in his direction. Wonderful.

He released the magic lifting them with a sigh, letting them fall to the grass. Philza ended up slipping on the snow, but Techno didn't lose his balance. "Was this really the entire reason you came here? You followed a Watcher, one that had already shown no inclination to interact with you, just because of a feather?"

Techno spoke at this point, "I told you this was a bad idea." Seems like the art of persuasion had been used to get him to agree to this.

"Yes, you did."

Lovely as this conversation is, He really would like to know whether or not he would need to leave Hypixel for the foreseeable future. "Is there anything else? Because I've really done very little in the way of interfering with the running of the server. You've already seen the worst of it, what with the magic blocks in that spot underground." Let's just leave out the hurricane, no one needs to know that was him.

"Why did the feather point to you?"

Philza seemed to regret speaking the moment he did, but appeared to really want an answer to this 'enigma'. Should he answer? At this point, there was no point in keeping silent, so why not? "Because I had just grown that pair of wings. They had yet to stabilize, so the lost feather seeks out its source."

At this point, Scar began to stir, though he wasn't quite awake at the moment. Philza posed another question, having apparently decided to get his questions answered while he could. "What happened back in the arena, that caused the brainwashed experiment people to all stumble at once?"

A couple more questions wouldn't hurt. "Well, the simple answer is that someone did a shoddy job connecting their control system to the power network, resulting in a power flicker messing up the control for a moment."

"Why was there a power flicker?"

"Because they lost their power source."

Philza thinks for a couple seconds. "What separated the portal hub from the fortress? It was quite conveniently timed, now that I think about it."

Grian laughed at that one. "I did. Wouldn't want them finding an easy way to track down their 'precious power source' now would we? And the opportunity to pull the rug from under their feet was too good an opportunity to pass up."

His attention is brought back to Scar as the sleepy hermit stretched, blinking up at him. "Hey Grian, I think I'm ready to head back. Don't want Xisuma to worry about us being late." Uh oh. Stiffening, Grian looked at Philza, hoping he wouldn't remember his name. No luck, the man is looking rather shocked, as is the mostly silent Techno. Then he remembered another thing. 

He hadn't fixed the emotional leakage he had let out for Scar to feel yet. His emotions were being broadcast to all three people next to him. Reeling that back in, Scar speaks up in confusion. "Grian, what's... Oh." He spots the two people standing there. "Uh, whoops?"

"You're Grian? The same Grian?" Techno addressed him in disbelief.

Grian stiffened at the question, before sagging once he realized there was no escaping. He starts weaving the transformation spell, on the off chance someone else comes around while they're talking. Turning to face them, he nervously says, "Uh, hi again. It's been a while, ish?"

Awkward silence stretches out, before Scar steps forward in between the two sides. "Hello there! I'm GoodTimesWithScar, but just call me Scar. Who might the two of you be?"

Philza introduces himself and Techno before getting interrupted by Scar. "Well, I'm Philza, and he's Techno, but wh-"

"Pleasure to meet you! Now, my friend and I here weren't really expecting company, so if you would be so kind, could you perhaps not mention his presence to the admins? His species isn't exactly well received around here as you may know." Grian may sometimes try to stunlock people with words, but his skill pales in comparison to Scar's natural talent.

"I, uh, sure?" Scar wins again, leaving yet another person unsure what to do as he walks over to Grian.

"Let's head back, don't want to be late!"

Grian waved to Philza and Techno as he started weaving together a teleport, connecting here to there before the two had the opportunity to recover. They appeared on a nearby mountain, placing down their beds to exit the smp.

Checking the time, he notices it's been long enough that Xisuma should be wondering where they were. The two hermits rush back to Hermitcraft and apologize for taking so long to get back, their admin raising an eyebrow but accepting their excuse of a lengthy chase.

~~~