The Chained Watcher

Portal Closing

~~~

Carrying an armload of assorted supplies from an arts-and-crafts store, Grian hummed a little tune. He probably won't spend too much time enchanting since he's got his base to work on, but you never know when he'll get another chance to stock up on these sorts of things.

When he focuses, he can feel the light tug from Minecraft, so they should be heading back in a couple days at most. He didn't really spend much time building this time, and with the civilization on the surface being tech-oriented, none of the others had really bothered to build anything big. Satellites could spot that kind of thing, and none of them really wanted to deal with the government snooping around their stuff.

Well, the local government should have its hands full with their counter invasion plan right now, so that's not too big of a worry. They'd driven the wizards and their wyverns back to the magic continent, and had started establishing a forward base to launch expeditions from. Compared to that, the weird maybe-aliens have been assigned a lower priority, due to the lack of aggression.

How does he know this? The hackers.

Minecraft's hackers took this place's internet firewalls as a challenge, and did their utmost to prove that they're better at code than whoever codes firewalls for the government. It's become somewhat of a challenge among them, and everyone else is just glad they're sticking to digging up government files instead of nuclear launch codes.

Other than that, nothing else of much interest happened. No more Watchers showed up, he didn't have to use magic near a Listener, and as far as he knows nothing happened to any of the other groups. He's almost tempted to say it's been boring, but that would be inviting trouble, and plenty has happened already.

Scar has gone back to visit the elementals a few more times, getting in some good practice with his shields and also learning a bit more about that particular flavor of magic. As tempted as he is to go and watch, though, he knows something as attuned to magic as an elemental wouldn't dare show itself in front of him unless he forced it to, and that wouldn't be very nice when they've been teaching Scar.

He has yet to actually show Tango what he looks like when not transformed, but he has plans to do that once they're all safely back on Hermitcraft. Releasing his transformation would let off a wave of magic, and even though that wave wouldn't go far, he doesn't want to draw unwanted attention to this area.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Scar's the one who's seen him in full Watcher form the most, despite Mumbo having been the first. There was when he dragged him to Hypixel, then when he got himself captured by a Watcher, and... Huh, that's it.

Has he really shown his Watcher form so few times? It's not like he doesn't release his transformation at all, but when he does he's almost always alone. He doesn't want to freak any of them out, and it's not like he can just wander around like that, but he should probably make sure they're at least somewhat accustomed to thinking of him as more than just 'an avian'.

Maybe he can edit his videos while not transformed, in a hidden room so none of the as-of-yet ignorant Hermits can just wander in. It would let him be more comfortable, while also letting it sink in that he's really not an avian, no matter how much he looks like one.

Still, he might not be an avian, but he's still a Hermit, no matter how different he may be. And that is something he has no desire to change.

~~~

Watching as the portal to the main plane dissipated, Grian sighed. From now on, his candy stash is limited to what he managed to squirrel away in stashes hidden across his base.