Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Meeting with friends

           Grian felt strange as the purple ectoplasm enveloped him, like the portal was turning him inside-out. Nether portals felt somewhat similar going through them, but never to this dizzying extent. Suddenly, Grian realized he wasn't holding on to anything anymore. Or anyone. The long human chain of hermits had been separated. He didn't have enough time to start worrying about them when the portal spat him out into a grassy hillside. 

           Grian tumbled to the ground, feeling like his cells had been rearranged and were now trying to put themselves back together. And maybe that was actually happening. Maybe that was how portals worked, taking the molecules of whatever had gone through it apart and then putting them back together on the other side.

           And maybe that was why the note he'd gotten had been indecipherable, because it got put back together incorrectly and the message was consequently scrambled. But that just got him worrying that maybe he'd been put back together incorrectly too, or that one of the other hermits had been. 

           Where am I, exactly? Grian wondered, looking around. He saw nothing but grass and trees from where he was standing to the horizon. He was completely and utterly alone. Even worse, he had literally nothing on him except his clothes, which meant that if he got attacked by mobs he was in a serious predicament.

            So he punched a tree and fashioned a sword out of the wood so he could have at least some degree of protection. It wasn't much, but it was something. Just then, Grian found someone else doing the exact same thing; punching trees to get tools. 

           "Grian? Grian, it's you!" "Scar!" The two hermits ran to each other and hugged. "Are you okay? When we got separated after going through the portal I was so worried!" "I'm okay, are you okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine; the question that we should be asking, though, is 'where are we?'" The two of them looked around.

           "I have no idea," Grian admitted. Holding hands, the two of them wandered around together, looking for feasible shelter. They passed by a cave that looked promising for a second, at least until Scar threw a rock into it and disturbed a family of spiders that instantly rushed out to start attacking them. Okay, so not there, then.

           It was reaching noon by the time Grian saw something in the distance. He squinted, looking at the sky. "Scar, do you see that?" He probably couldn't. "See what, Grian?" "That shadow there, in the sky." Scar squinted. "No, I don't see anything." Grian looked at it again.

           There was this strange shape in the sky, just floating up there. It looked too big to be a bird or something like that. The hermits moved closer towards it. "Okay, Grian, I see it now." Grian could see it loads better as well. He gasped when he realized what it was. It was a floating island. 

           "Grian, why is there an island floating in the sky?" "I don't know, Scar! Why is an island floating in the sky?!" "Why wouldn't it be?" Grian and Scar spun around to see a familiar figure walking towards them. Except he looked different since they last saw him. He wore a white toga trimmed with green, cinched at the waist by a green cord.

           His hair and beard were dark brown, with a singular green lock streaking down his forehead. He had leather wristbands and gladiator-style sandals. And he was also eleven feet tall. He was still recognizable, though. 

           "Joel?!" Grian laughed. "Why are you so tall?!" "Because I am naturally tall!" Joel roared. Scar looked up at him. "I know I haven't seen you since Double Life, but you grew a lot." Grian and Joel started laughing. "What? He did grow," Scar pointed out. "In this world, I'm a literal god of the sky," Joel said. "Wait, for real?" Grian asked. "Yes!"