The Chained Watcher

Safety Briefing

~~~

Exiting the room the strategists had claimed, Grian gives his sweater a tug to straighten it, grinning happily. Behind him, completely at odds with his current cheerful mood, the strategists are staring at the couple important things he oh so helpfully bothered to write out for them to make sure they wouldn't get overlooked.

"We need to keep everyone away from food?" he hears from one. His grin grows wider. "How are we supposed to keep everyone away from food?"

They'll figure it out eventually. Now, he needs to go figure out his first tourist destination with his friends!

Dropping into the area Xisuma claimed for his Hermits (and insisted those planning to just crash in one of the barracks use instead), Grian calls out, "Alright, safety report's up!"

Scar perks up right away. He'd been working on a common room for the simple dorms, since surface building has been ruled off limits until they get a better idea of whether or not erecting the usual castle over the portal will draw a military raid to claim the place for whatever country/nation is boldest.

The rest of the Hermits interested in exploring the main plane take another ten minutes to filter in, some rubbing sleep out of their eyes, others looking like they've spent too much time cooped up and now have too much energy and nowhere to spend it.

Xisuma sits down after shepherding the last Hermit on this side of the portal into the room, giving Grian a weary but satisfied smile. "Alright, that should be everyone who chose to cross through the portal this time. What's the verdict?"

"Most important bit first, minimal chance of Watcher encounters. From what I found just searching the term itself, they've got no idea what Watchers are, and while there are a few traces of one having been here in the past, we're talking about the very, very distant past. I'm talking tens of thousands of years, minimum. And sure, Watchers don't actually age so that's not an impossible amount of time for one to be gone and still choose to return, but traces that old tell me that whatever Watcher was here doesn't plan on returning."

Gem frowns, goes to ask something, then changes her mind and remains silent. Probably wanted to ask how he knew all these things. Good on her for realizing she wouldn't get a satisfactory answer though. He may be slowly loosening the wary hold he has on his Watcher-sourced knowledge, but he's not about to straight up admit to being a Watcher when he still has over half of the Hermits left to tell.

It'd be nice to actually choose to tell them though...

No, he can't bring himself to do that. Not yet, maybe not ever, though he'll make an attempt to keep the thought in his head and consider how he feels about it from time to time.

"Minimal Watchers? Boy am I glad to hear that." His attention snaps back to the present alongside the voice. Impulse leans back, reminiscing sourly, "That pantheon place with all the Watchers sucked. Not only did we constantly have to worry about a Watcher stumbling into our base, everywhere was so oversaturated with Watcher symbolism it felt like I saw more pictures of Watchers in that one town than I've seen actual Watchers!"

"Watcher pantheons do tend to involve a lot of ego-stroking," Grian acknowledges. "But anyways, back to the planet at hand. Tech's pretty much modern, though they've opted for more durable electronics over the sleek style that tends to get popular as tech advances. Probably due to the way magic likes to manifest in the locals."

He continues, "Magic's a little odd, but not too much in the scheme of things. For one, birth talent isn't really a thing. Magic slowly collects in things, being a bit more of a physical resource than usual, and when it reaches a threshold that's different for everything and everyone, it breaks through and manifests some kind of power or mutation. The most common age for humans is upper teenage years, so pick a number for when your stuff 'manifested'. Oh, and this includes hybrid traits, so you shouldn't have to worry about raising any eyebrows."