Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Home is where the friends are

           Grian stared at the blank, black rift embedded in the craggy cliffside. He reached out and tried to activate his Watcher magic on it but nothing happened. His small burst of red was simply absorbed into the dead rift like it was a black hole, and who knows? Maybe it was, in some random science way. How was Grian supposed to know? He wasn't a rocket scientist.

           He tried to teleport out of the world and return to his home world, but nothing happened. No matter how hard he tried, there was some greater force pushing him back. Grian didn't think much of it at first. He'd never been that good at transporting people between universes; when he'd attempted to sabotage the life series he'd only successfully managed to create an avatar to sort of play in that world. His real body had been hidden away since he couldn't figure out how to actually teleport.

           But after a few dozen tries he caught a glimpse of blue magic and realized what was going on. Qiron was closing off this world. He wasn't letting any of them escape. And then Grian realized what else that meant. He couldn't return home. He couldn't return home to his other friends.

           Grian probably should've been more worried about being trapped in a world by a powerful evil multiversal being than about the fact that he could never see the rest of his friends again, but he couldn't help it. Home is where the friends are, after all. And he missed the other hermits. Mumbo, Zedaph, xB, Stress, Beef, Wels... the list went on and on.

           Grian was roused out of reverie by the sound of False sneaking up on him. She was usually very good at sneaking up on people other than maybe Etho, but Grian was a Watcher as well as a very traumatized person so he immediately sensed her coming. "That's not going to work on me, you know," Grian said sing-songingly, and he laughed when False jumped back in comical alarm.

           "Hey, I was supposed to scare you, not the other way around!" She protested. Grian laughed and held out a hand to help her up and she took it. "Grian, I've been thinking," False began. "What?" Grian asked. "About leaving this world." False answered. All of a sudden her eyes glazed over like she was seeing something he couldn't, which was probably not very possible considering Grian was a Watcher.

             "I miss home, Grian. And the other hermits. I wonder if they're okay. And I was thinking now that you're openly a Watcher and that fact is not a secret you could use your multiversal powers to-" "Teleport the hermits back home?" Grian interrupted with a sigh. "I'm sorry, False but... I've tried. The Watchers have closed off this world. We're stuck here."

           False stared at him as she realized what that meant. She said nothing and looked down. "We should go tell the others." She mumbled distantly. With that she walked off to Hermitopia, their once temporary home while they stayed in this world and was now apparently their permanent home.

           He sighed and flew to Hermitopia, where False had just finished informing everyone else who was there about their current situation. No one seemed happy about it. "We can't be stuck here. Can we?" Bdubs asked, seemingly in disbelief. Cleo looked very unhappy and also like she wanted to set something on fire to release her stress.

           "Unfortunately we are." Grian said with a sigh. "I've tried using my Watcher powers and it's not working. The others have sealed this world off from multiversal travel. And I've never been good at teleporting between worlds anyway." No one said anything. . Then Pearl tentatively raised her hand like she was in class.

           "What about..." She hesitated one more time before ploughing ahead. "Gem?" Everyone made strange faces at the name of who they'd assumed to be their friend but now had no idea what to think about. Gem had apparently lied to them about her own life and had been a Watcher that Grian hated bad enough to spitefully not even acknowledge his own Watcher self.