The Chained Watcher

Double or Nothing!

~~~

Deliberately not reciprocating the on-edge vibes rolling off of the pair of Listeners watching him suspiciously, Grian runs another test of the server's unique gimmick, making sure no bugs show up now that it's almost showtime.

Casually, he remarks, "You know, I wasn't sure you two were going to show." He feels the slight twinge of phantom pain on his cheek, courtesy of whoever his health bar was randomly linked with among the players entertaining themselves with a playful melee. They were pretty understanding when he asked for an extra fifteen minutes to make sure nothing would break with the extra players on the server.

If that also gives him some time to allow a brief conversation with Jimmy and Martyn, who's to say?

Jimmy snorts derisively. "As if we'd leave you alone with an entire server of players."

Ah, so they came because they thought he might try something if they didn't show up. "Would you like a purely logical reason why I won't do anything to them?" They probably won't accept any emotion-based reason like considering everyone to be friends, but logic might help soothe their fears. "It's well known that everyone currently here was invited by me to a server I'm the admin of. You know that I'm trying to give the impression that I'm a normal player. If something happened to the players who participated in my series, on my server, who do you think would be top of the list for likely suspects?"

"You, obviously."

"Exactly. Therefore, even if analyzed using nothing but logic, I don't have any motivation to do anything to them."

"What if you use them as subject for-"

"I'm an enchanter, Martyn," he interrupts exasperatedly. "You can't enchant a living being." Well, technically there are ways to accomplish that, but they're inferior to both biological manipulation and enchanting artifacts. Flesh just doesn't hold enchantments well. "The only use living beings have ever had in my experiments is in using or wielding whatever it is I create. At that point, what's stopping me from testing it myself?"

"What about as materials?" Martyn presses.

Grian gives him a deadpan look. "Oh please. Do you really think I'd want to use materials from baseline sapients? Just about any monster I can hunt on one of the planes would yield superior materials, even on a magicless plane. Even if whatever I want to make calls for it, I can just raid a morgue or a graveyard next time Minecraft connects to one of the planes. That, or pretend to be a cripple mistakenly wandering into a shady alley, and take out whoever tries to mug me."

"But we're not connected to any planes."

"And? I've got a stash of stuff I can use. Even if I decided to use it all with nothing held back, it would take me more time to use everything than it would for Minecraft to reconnect to a plane. Besides, my base still has a lot of work I need to do for it. Can't be using up my stash if I'm working on my base."

When they fail to come up with a retort, he turns his attention back to the server's gimmick test. Everything seems to be working right. He ends it, typing a message in chat.

<Grian>: Okay, everything seems to be working. If everyone's ready, we can start.

Quietly, Martyn threatens, "If we find out you've done anything to them, you're dead."

He's really, really getting tired of their suspicion. Patience. Let them see that his actions aren't changing. They'll get used to his unique brand of weirdness eventually. "Then I suppose it's a good thing I'm not planning to do anything. As demonstrated in the explanation when everyone joined, the injuries your soulmate sustains does the same amount of hearts to you as it does to them, albeit with 10% the pain and no physical injuries. Hunger bars aren't tied, nor is oxygen. Running out of lives sets you into spectator mode."