The Chained Watcher

Riddles

~~~

In the deepest parts of the Secret Seekers' Hypixel base.

"Alright, is everyone here?"

Most of the members were seated around the table, having put aside any nonessential tasks when they got the message for a priority meeting. Normally their weekly meetups were enough, but Tango had said he found something important, and they needed to know as soon as possible.

Iskall, Pearl, and Doc had their own little table where they played cards, not having anything to share anymore, yet still wanting to know just what was going on.

As the one who had called for the meeting, Tango got to speak first, which he did after straightening his slightly skewed hat. "So you're probably wondering why I've called you all here today. Well, as it turns out, we're not the only group with a base in this forsaken ice biome." He poked at his communicator a bit, before sending a video in their private chat and playing it.

"I snuck into the base, and found this room. By my guess, the floor, walls, and ceiling are all made of the weird things Grian likes to put as the rewards for his puzzle rooms, but that's not the main focus." The video continued, the camera eventually reaching a place where it could see the pool with the feather. "This is why I called a meeting." Everyone watched the recording as the feather slowly spun atop its glowing pool.

They were distracted enough that none of them noticed the three card players also watching.

"I didn't get to stay for much longer, since some other people got there, but I felt this was important enough to tell everyone. It's too big to just be a purple chicken feather, much too big, but at the same time, Grian's feathers aren't that color. I... didn't want to jump to any conclusions by myself, so I called a meeting."

Impulse leaned back thoughtfully, watching the feather in the video rotate serenely. "I think... Before we try to figure out what this means, let's take a look at the riddles we've got. Cleo, you're the one who got the one from the compass door, can you read it out for us again?"

"I can do that. It said, 'One of many, yet not like the rest. The fledgling has fled its parents' nest. Seeking to walk a different path, one of peace instead of wrath.' I made sure to write it down, too."

(These aren't much of a riddle for you the readers, but to the Hermits without context, this makes little sense.)

"Hmm, and what was the cube's riddle again?"

Although the arrival of the moon had kept them from actually getting the cube open, Grian had given them the rewards anyway since they had already figured out how to open it. They had received several of the usual anomalous items and discolored blocks, a purple chicken spawner, and a rhyming riddle.

"Oh, the cube one was 'Flying high, yet not so far, with wings aglow amongst the stars. Shining bright with tainted light, nothing hides from its sight.'"

"'Tainted'? It said 'Tinted'."

"What? No it didn't."

"Yes, it did."

Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, Impulse interrupted the budding argument before it could escalate again. "Can we just agree that Grian has bad handwriting and be done with it? You two spent half of the last meeting fighting about that one word, and it really doesn't make much of a difference where we are now."

There was some grumbling, but his intervention successfully circumvented the problem before it grew out of control. He took a breath to speak again, but Pearl cut in before he could say anything. "We've got a riddle too."

That got their attention. With all the eyes in the room now focused on the three former Secret Seekers, Pearl continued. "Managed to get a riddle out of Grian in exchange for our continued silence, figured you'd want to know." Her tone turned teasing. "Unless you're not interested, of course. I wouldn't want to disrupt the meeting, after all." Quite a few protesting noises rang out from the table. "Alright, if you insist."

Everyone remained silent, attentively waiting for their newest clue. Pearl took a deep breath, and began speaking. "One was chained, bound and drained, left to fade in a forgotten place. But they were found, the chains unwound, the future changed by mercy's grace."

Her piece said, Pearl pulled a card from the pile, smirked, and announced, "Uno!" conversation clearly over.

Slowly, their attention returned to the puzzle pieces in front of them, the video of the feather still spinning in front of them. Now all they had to do was figure out what linked where.

Cub was the first to speak, making the first link. "Well, seeing as the feather looks to be glowing slightly, I'm guessing the line 'wings aglow' has something to do with that."

"That does sound like a reasonable assumption to make, plus the glow appears to be slightly purple, which fits both tinted, and tainted light."

"What about the 'one of many' riddle?"

That one brought a couple seconds of quiet thinking. "Well, fledgelings are young birds, and Grian's an avian, so maybe that refers to him? But what would set him apart from the other avians? I mean, I know his wings are lilac-"

"Lavender."

"Lilac, and he can do weird magic stuff, but there are still some people who got different body parts colored purple because of the Watchers' experiments, even if they're few and far between."

"Lavender, and what about that path of peace vs path of wrath? I don't know about you, but while he's definitely not wrathful, Grian isn't exactly peaceful." 

A snort of laughter could be heard from the three at the card table. "Now isn't that an understatement."

Impulse returned his thoughts to the current riddle, leaving that particular statement for later. "Well, 'One of Many', so there's more of... his species, maybe? 'Not like the Rest', I mean, it could just be because his wings are a light purple, but the whole 'Walk a Different Path' thing implies they're generally rather disagreeable."

That got him another laugh from the card table, though no comment this time.

Cub brought their attention to the final riddle. "Well, what about the riddle oh so graciously granted by our three ex-Seekers over there? Something about chains and drains? What's that all about?"

Indeed, this particular riddle didn't appear at first glance to have anything directly connected to any of the others. If they assumed the 'One' was referring to Grian again, this one sounded rather dark. "Well... considering none of the Watchers back at the arena bothered to put chains on us, maybe Grian was part of a more successful experiment? But then why the whole 'left to fade' thing?"

"So he was chained up somewhere? But what about the whole 'Bound and Drained' line? I mean, bound makes sense, but drained? Was it to make it easier to keep him chained up? I mean, I know Grian has a knack for breaking things, but the stuff the Watchers made is nearly unbreakable, barring blatant abuse of server physics. Kinda like... Kinda like Grian's puzzle rooms..."

The card trio's ears twitched slightly, as they kept their eyes on their game.

"Do you think he learned how to reinforce materials like them? They weren't exactly very secretive in their actions when they thought we wouldn't be able to understand something they were doing."

"Possibly, we'll have to think on this more after the meeting's over. The whole 'Mercy's Grace' thing probably means someone found him and released him, hence the 'Chains Unwound' bit. Anyone got anything else for the other lines?"

"Well, the remaining ones we haven't figured something out for are mainly the 'nothing hides from its sight' one, the 'one of many' is probably worth thinking on, plus the whole 'left to fade' part. As for actions going forward, try to examine the feather if possible, search for more puzzle rooms on Hermitcraft, and for the love of god someone ask him if it's tinted or tainted. Is there anything else?"

Everyone shook their heads, fidgeting at the various extraneous bits of their costumes. "Good. With that, I'll see you all here next week, hopefully with some kind of answers to all the questions today's discoveries have raised."

~~~