The Chained Watcher

A Familiar Place

The little mini-series, named Third Life, proceeded without anything particularly weird happening to disrupt it. What was throwing Jimmy and Martyn off so much was how the Watcher, Grian, hadn't actually broken any of the rules set. Not once had he been flying when in combat, nor had he used any magic to cheat in a theoretically undetectable way.

Those of them who lost all three lives were made invisible and given the temporary ability to float, termed as spectator mode. The final fight between Scar and Grian ended with Grian winning, and with that the series was over. Everyone left back to their own servers, returning to their usual activities.

When asked, all of them had been up for a second go at this, though not right away. Grian had said he was going to add a little twist next time, which was a little worrying to think about but shouldn't be too bad. They would just have to keep their guard up until he revealed what would be changing.

For now, the two of them went back to checking the puzzle rooms for any suspicious items. Their goal was to make sure none of these things were going to explode or have some kind of negative effect on the normal players. So far nothing sinister had been uncovered, but they were sure there would be one sooner or later.

While heading for another one, they spotted several players from the same server as Grian attempting to solve one of the puzzles. This was a good opportunity to get some kind of insight into the reason behind these things. Spotting Ren sitting outside, they approached the dog hybrid.

"Hey, Ren. What're you doing?"

Ren looked up from his notepad, smiling at them before closing it. "Oh, hey Jimmy, Martyn. I'm not doing much right now, since it's not my turn yet, but next puzzle we find I get to have a go at. By the way, what are the two of you doing around here? I would have thought you'd be back on your own server, Empires, you called it?"

"We were just wandering around Hypixel on a bit of a whim, but then we found one of these weird puzzle rooms. Do you know what they are? They just started popping up around the server randomly for no reason."

"Oh, it's a scavenger hunt type thingie Grian set up for our server. Apparently if we manage to solve all the clues, he'll tell us a secret."

This could be a good opportunity to figure out the reason behind this. "Do you think we could help?"

"I'm gonna have to pass, man. It's kinda a server thing, and I don't think Grian would have anything set up for if someone else solved it. Besides, it wouldn't be a very fair way to play if we went and got outside help, now would it?"

"Then what do you do if you get stuck?"

"We go ask him for hints. As long as we're genuinely stumped, he'll usually give us some direction to search in, though we do try not to ask too much too often. If we just ask for the answers whenever we get a little stuck, what's even the point of gathering the clues in the first place?"

"I... suppose you have a point. Just be careful, okay?"

"Of course. G's a relentless prankster, so if we don't keep on our toes we'll end up with a Curse of Binding pumpkin stuck on our heads."

Jimmy and Martyn left, having gained very little concrete information to go off of. All they had found was that the reward would be a secret, and it's something for Hermitcraft only. That was barely anything in the grand scheme of things. Did they really have to tail Grian? At this point, that seemed like their only option.

~~~

Tailing the disguised Watcher was simpler than they had thought it would be. Grian seemed to be used to having people sneakily tailing him, which after seeing some of the hermits not-so-stealthily following him made a lot more sense.