Only One [hermitcraft au]

Chapter 5

Nobody knew what would happen is one of the hermits died. Nobody had really thought about it since it hadn't happened before, but now was different. Everyone had seen the death message in the chat after Stress had fallen from Grian's roof, and immediately everyone began to panic. As far as they knew, once a hermit died, they wouldn't return.

One hermit in particular, though, was particularly devastated.

As Iskall flew mindlessly over the shopping district, he tried to come up with as many possible causes of Stress's death as he could. The most obvious answer would be that her elytra broke, or she fell to her death whilst building, but Iskall didn't believe that happened. He knew that the hermits were careful in such situations, as they were all oblivious to what would happen if one of them met their demise. 

Iskall thought it could be possible that another hermit caused his friend's death, though he pushed that idea aside as well. Whether it was accidental or not, someone was bound to find out if someone killed another hermit, right?

Although however much he wanted to get to the bottom of it, Stress's death wasn't something Iskall wanted to spend the whole day thinking about. He had some things to discuss with Mumbo regarding Grumbot.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Grian stared up at the ceiling of his grand mansion, trying to make sense of yesterday's event. He was in a state of hopelessness and guilt, fully aware that he was responsible for the death of another hermit. He had murdered his friend.

Nothing made sense to him. Who was controlling him? Why were those morbid thoughts filtering in and out of his mind? Why, for that short moment, did he feel completely detached from his own mind, like he was sat in the passenger seat, watching someone else take the wheel? 

The young hermit wanted to hide in his mansion forever, never showing his face elsewhere on the server again. He knew he wouldn't be able to face the blame and the guilt, and he would rather sit in the dark alone than face his angry and disappointed friends.

As he felt the tears forming in his eyes, Grian buried his head in his hands and wished he could just fade away into nothingness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, I heard you dropped out of the election," Iskall said to his moustached friend.

"Yeah," replied Mumbo, bringing his hand to the back of his head. "I didn't really see the point in competing with the others when they clearly have more support than me. It's Grian that won't give up."

Iskall nodded. He hadn't failed to notice Grian's subtle promotions every now and again. Though, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen him in a few days.

"I tried to convince him to stop," Mumbo continued. "but he seems obsessed with the idea of me becoming mayor. I don't really know what's gotten into him, to be honest."

Iskall looked at the taller hermit. "He's not a quitter, you know. He probably just wants to see his friend achieving something."

Mumbo laughed. "What are you saying?"

"You know what I mean."

The pair laughed for a couple of seconds more before Iskall spoke once again.

"So about Grumbot...what are you doing about him?"

"I don't know dude, I feel sort of bad about shutting him down, but we also don't really need him anymore, you know?"

Iskall nodded again. He knew Mumbo's heart would prevent him from performing the shutdown.

"I'm also a bit worried about how Grian would take it," Mumbo said. "I mean, he's pretty attached to the big guy, isn't he?"

"Maybe a bit too attached," Iskall laughed. "'Bout a week ago I saw him talking to him at 2 in the morning!"

"Really? What the heck were you doing there at 2 am?"

Iskall laughed once again. "Ok, I admit, I may have been there to hack Grumbot a little..."

"Dude!"

They broke into laughter together again.

Mumbo was the last to stop laughing. "So how's your campaign going anywa-" He broke off after seeing Iskall's expression quickly change, and remembered what happened. "Oh, dude...I completely forgot. I'm sorry..."

Iskall rubbed his eyes a little. "Oh, no it's fine. We weren't really getting far anyway..."

An awkward silence was passed between them, a sudden switch from the friendly laughter they shared a minute ago. It wasn't long before Mumbo said his goodbyes and took off to the sky, towards Grian's base.

Once he got there, however, Mumbo began to feel a little nervous. He hadn't heard from Grian in a good few days, and he didn't know how he would react to him being there after their last meeting. And he knew that  Grian would react badly to the idea of shutting Grumbot down. Though Mumbo knew that he couldn't wait around outside his mansion all day. he had to speak to his friend at some point.

Walking down the hallway, he realised that nothing had really changed on the inside. Usually, Grian would at least work on his base a little every day, but neither the outside nor inside looked any different than the last time he went. It worried him, but he just assumed the younger hermit was working on something else in the meantime.

It took Mumbo a while to find Grian, but once he did, he became even more worried. He found his friend sat in the corner of the main room, with his head in his hands, and his sweater sleeves pulled right over. It was rare that Grian was upset, so Mumbo sensed something really bad had happened and ran over to comfort him.

As Mumbo put a hand on his shoulder, Grian jumped and pulled away, his back against the wall.

"Dude, it's me," Mumbo said. "Are you ok?"

After asking, he realised what a stupid question it was. Did he look ok? It seemed like Grian had been crying for quite some time, and Mumbo grew even more concerned when he saw him quickly pick up a piece of paper that was lying next to him and shove it into his pocket. What was he trying to hide?

Mumbo sighed. "Look, I know yesterday was...tough, but you can't get worked up over it. There's nobody to blame."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Grian was panicking. He tried to hide from the others, but here was his friend, looking concerned as ever, trying to convince him that there was 'nobody to blame'. He couldn't bring himself to talk back. What if the truth slipped out? 

He just looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact, whilst Mumbo tried to comfort him, and tell him that everything was okay, when, in fact, nothing was okay. His friend was stood there trying to tell him to calm down, unaware that he was responsible for a murder.

Grian looked up at Mumbo with tears in his eyes, and suddenly, Mumbo stopped talking.

"You don't understand," Grian sobbed. "None of this is okay. One of our friends is dead, and...and it's all because of-"

Grian stopped himself. He almost told Mumbo the truth about what happened, and that would have changed everything.

Mumbo gave up hope. There was absolutely no way of getting through to his friend, and he thought that maybe it wasn't the best time to talk to him.

As he turned his back to head off, Mumbo took one last look at Grian, who once again had his head in his hands. 

Oh well, he thought. He'll be okay by tomorrow, right?