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What he assumes is sunlight is filtering through his windows, hitting his face and making his eyes squeeze shut in a desperate attempt to avoid the daytime’s responsibilities. A slight breeze makes hair tickle his cheeks, and he drags a hand across his face as he burrows deeper into the bed.
The bed?
Hadn’t he just been out fishing? When did he-
Grian shoots up and off the bed, accidentally slamming into the ceiling. Ow. Rubbing his forehead, he groans. Of course! How could he forget the new Life Series! He wasn’t a Permit Manager, or a fisherman right now, he was just Grian. A Grian who had teamed up with… Mumbo and Skizzleman if he remembers correctly.
A Grian who was surrounded by sculk. A quick look outside confirmed that the sun hadn’t risen yet, instead the sculk had been glowing brighter and brighter, mimicking the sun’s warm rays.
Which, yeah, was weird. But it wasn’t something that he needed to worry about, sculk does weird things all the time, it's part of what makes sculk… well- sculk! It’s probably just reacting to how far away it was from the Ancient City or something-
“Hi, Gree-on! What’s an ‘Ancient City?” A layered voice echoes through Grian’s mind. It was high-pitched, like a child’s voice that stumbles and squeaks through their words as they learn the language of Players.
A voice that wasn’t his, and definitely shouldn’t be there.
Of course, Grian thinks it through before he replies. He’s not stupid, contrary to what his sister thinks. But it sounds like a kid! A cute kid's voice in his head. Kid’s have the best ideas for pranks and mayhem, which is perfect for the Life Series!
And maybe Grian also wants to find out why they’re butchering his name so badly, if this is how Ex-eye-suma-void feels then he almost feels sorry for him. Not enough to stop butchering his name mind you, but almost.
He giggles at that, and then with a soft voice replies, “Hellooo, my name is Grian! What’s yours?” Almost as an afterthought, the avian adds, “And why are you in my head?”
The surrounding sculk’s light seemed to stutter in its pattern as a small blob formed on his lap. Dark eyes glittered in the pulsing lights, transfixed on the scene, as the blob shifted into an almost toddler form. No discernable features on the ‘face,’ but the entire creature was made completely of sculk from its ‘head’ to its ‘toes.’
The little creature waved, its glowing spots turning from squares to triangles as it giggled, “Silly Gree-on. Scout is the sculk that made sure Gree-on could be with the Sculk! Scout thinks the way Gree-on protects themselves from danger is stupid sometimes, but that they are perfect otherwise, as long as they don’t go in the Creaking Realm anymore.”
“So your name is Scout, you were trying to make sure I was a safe person for the sculk to be with, and you don’t like the Creaking?”
“Yup!”
Grian narrowed his eyes at the sculk-being, and crossed his arms. “Why did you need me?”
Scout’s light dimmed, the triangles shifting into circles as they slumped. “Sculk is cut off from the City and Guardian, with barely any callers. Ever since the last Fluttery One came-”
“Fluttery One?”
“Yes. Gree-on is fluttery too, but they are redkindhappylaughterprotection.” Scout’s… mouth? practically split the sculk-creature’s face in half as it described them. Grian’s head pounded when the words hit his ears, echoing over and over again, slowly forming images behind his eyes. It was him, laughing with the Sub-Ones, teaming up with Martyn, running from the Pale Garden and… cradling Scout in his wings. “The Fluttery One was purplemeancruelviolentmagic.”
A bright flash of purple, masked figures with long black robes and purple lining. The destruction of an enchanter, noises that Sculk doesn’t understand but that it knew meant death, the Fluttery One killing one, two, three Guardians and locking the City away from the rest of the Sculk.
Watchers. It had to be.
“Sculk has been alone, unable to spread, unable to grow, unable to exist without worry of dying out until Gree-on came! Now Gree-on can help the Sculk spread and find its City and Guardians again.” Scout’s arms flung up in the air as it fell backwards onto Grian’s legs in excitement.
Carefully picking them up and cradling it in his hands, Grian stands up and starts pacing. “Scout, these fluttery ones, why did they lock you away?”
“Scout… is not allowed to know yet. The Sculk or the Callers would know, but it will be difficult for Gree-on to talk with them until they are a Carrier or a Guardian.”
“Not allowed to know yet?” He asks, an eyebrow quirking up.
Scout shrinks in on itself, light tinging purple. “Scout is a young Sculk, it takes a lot of energy for Sculk to create a Sculk that can move, so it’s the only one right now… but Scout is still a good Sculk! That can do a lot for Gree-on and help them in their tasks!”
“Of course you can Scout. But I am in a bit of a pickle here, mate.”
“A pickle?”
Grian nods, snorting to himself. “Yup, a bit of a tricky situation. You see, I’m in a death game. Which means I could end up dying a lot. Even ending up perma-dying here, and going to my home server, Hermitcraft. I don’t know why the Watcher- err, fluttery ones, locked you away, but I know that they tried to do something similar to me, so I want to help you. But, I don’t know if you’ll be able to deal with all of that if you aren’t allowed to know that story.”
“Scout is fine to help Gree-on!” The inky creature stomped its foot as the light changed from circles to rectangles and trapezoids, and glowed even brighter. “They are in charge of protecting them from being stupid and going into the Creaking Realm or running around all silly without armor.”
“Ok… if you’re sure.”
------
The day has begun, the sky is bright, and the cave… is getting rather cramped.
“Hey, Mumbo… Skizz, have we outgrown the base?”
“Yeah, we can probably find a new place though.”
“But see, I’ve been eyeing up this place, this spot right here with the weird spiky dripstone and everything.” Grian’s hands gesture to the indent in the mountain before them and Scout sends him an impression of yescavehappysculkperfect that makes him stutter over his words in surprise. “We could get a bridge spanning across it and add a top layer of dripstone! It would be like a monster mouth.”
Mumbo’s mustache bunches up as the man smiles. “It does sound rather cool, but is this not the most dangerous place you could possibly build a base at?”
“Well… yeah but defensively it could be a gold mine! The dripstone is there to protect us, and overall we’d still be pretty close to our original base as well, so we wouldn’t have to move much of our storage.” Or leave the Sculk behind. “You're probably right though. It’s not the probably not a great idea.”
“Is this where we want to live then?” Grian’s dark blue raven wings puff up, and he lurches away from the Sub-Ones as Skizz pops up between the two. “Cause we need to figure out if we want to stay over here.”
Scout… doesn’t like the idea of moving too far away, which is fair, but Grian isn’t too sure about the nearby teams, like BET and Scar, Lizzie, and Jimmy. It would be all too easy for them to secretly trap their home- err… the sculk filled storage space, and destroy everything, including one of the teammates.
If they moved, where would they go though? How would Grian be able to explain moving the sculk with them?
Why does he feel the need to protect the sculk so badly right now?
Sharp, loud, and startling laughter bursts out of his teammates, and the avian jerks out of his line of thought, wings puffing up once more as Mumbo startles him. “Oi, Grian, we all randomly lagged at the same time.”
“Heh, right… lag.” Grian plasters on a smile as the Skizz and Mumbo banter back and forth. “I’ll have to see if I can’t speed up the server’s capacity I guess.”
Skizz punches him on the shoulder and smiles. “Eh, it’s probably nothing dude.”
Grian’s smile becomes more and more forced as a cat-like hiss echoes through the avian’s mind and Skizz wraps an arm around his shoulder. Scout slithers from its earlier perch on his wrist up to just below where Skizz’s hand rests.
The avian shrugs the arm off of his shoulders and chuckles. “Right… nothing.”
The hissing quiets, and an apologetic squeeze to Grian’s shoulder from Scout and the weird look he gets from Skizz gives him a pang of guilt.
“Sorry mate, I just slept weird, neck’s bugging me.”
“You’re all good, Grian! I know sometimes touch is rough, no need to explain it to me.”
…
Grian decided to bring BET and Martyn over right before the new wildcard. Why? To add some chaos of course!
A wide smirk spreads across his face as the others run around in a panic, causing the hunger to set in faster. He hasn’t even done anything to get ahead and he’s already doing better than some of them will be. “I do accept diamonds for information.”
…
Please don’t. Scout whispers, tucked behind his ear. Grian, who made the wildcard and definitely knows what he’s doing, elects to ignore them.
“Gimme that cobblestone.” Grian mutters.
Almost immediately his vision becomes wobbly and his stomach does a couple flips. Nausea. Of course.
I TOLD YOU SO!
“Yeah, yeah. You told me so.”
His wry comment gets a short, confused glance from Skizz, but who subsequently eats some dirt and begins to fly. “DON’T EAT DIRT!” the vest wearing man shrieks, flying up into the sky.
…
Sculk is good for you. Eat Sculk.
That’s a fun coincidence. Sculk vein is good to eat for them, and they have a giant room of sculk that continues to grow and is happy to sustain their-
Sculk vein is fine for Grian to eat. And Grian and the Sub-One’s base is full of sculk. And it can sustain Grian and is happy to do so. He is fine to eat the sculk.
But Grian has Cobbled Deepslate that they could eat too, they don’t have to survive solely off of the sculk.
But you could.
But he doesn’t have to, variety is good for you!
And you don’t have to worry about food either way, Scout can-
“Mumbo, do you want to go on a silly adventure? Let’s eat dirt and head up the mountain.”
…
Scar has a reputation board.
Which is… great for him! Good to have a fun callback to an old season and enjoy that again, hopefully Lizzie and Jimmy don’t have to prevent him from taking his clothes off and scamming other people out of theirs.
It’s fine!
Why do you care about A Scar? Don’t they steal enchanters?
Scout’s great. They’re great. Great points. Scar doesn’t really care about past life series, he just does callbacks to them for fun. Like how he always steals the enchanters.
It’s totally not concerning that he’s doing callbacks to the first season, 6 seasons later.
Grian totally doesn’t want to check up on him.
Not at all.
And to prove that, he’s going to steal Lizzie’s dirt and go fly with the other Sub-One’s!
“Hey, that’s my dirt!”
------
Floaters! Laughter bursts out of Grian’s chest, bubbling up and out and filling the air again.
Mumbo’s names are great, but man do they need some better touch ups.
Floaters!
…
“Oh, that’s not good. Food’s changing.”
Infested. Flying even higher. Blindness. Mumbo almost died and it’s all Grian’s fault because he had gold and that would’ve worked.
Yeah, but you gave him the pink dye idea! And he found leaves.
True. Thank you Scout for the good points.
…
Enderman are the worst.
Luckily, Mumbo’s exist and are able to boat them before they destroy Grian!
Good man, Mumbo. Great friend him.
------
“What is… mining?”
“Mining is where we take ores and use them for tools, protection, and in this case to eat!”
“So… ore is food for you as well? Scout thought that players had player food to eat.”
“Well, um, yeah. But the wild card right now is that we have Zombie Food, so nothing that we would normally eat works for us.
“Scout… Scout thinks that this is dumb. Player food should stay player food.”
“Yeah, but then where would the fun in playing the Life Series be? It would be so boring without the wild cards! And I wouldn’t have stuck with the Sub-Ones and met you if I hadn’t been tiny because of the last one now would I have?” Grian smirks, eyes glittering with mirth as he raises an eyebrow.
Scout pokes him in the side.
Grian jolts, pinwheeling his arms to avoid falling down onto a dripstone and clutching the stone behind him. “Rude, I could’ve died!”
The sculk being forms again on his shoulder, crossing his arms as Grian continues to walk. “Gree-on is Dumb.”
“You’re petty.” Grian fires back.
“So is Gree-on!”
“... Touche.”
…
Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic. He thought he would have enough time to get back out of the cave before the food changed, not be stuck here! Grian was going to starve and it would be his own fault and-
His health bar went up.
Slowly turning, Grian stared at Scout. “What did you just do?”
“Gree-on was really scared,” Scout begins, scuffing his foot on the cave floor and leaving a puddle of sculk. “So Scout thought that maybe they could eat for Gree-on and him the good parts. Except the whole thing was good, so Scout touched Gree-on’s sculk bits and gave him all of it.”
Huh. Go figure. Of course Scout would be able to find a way around the game mechanics. It’s not like Grian and some of his off server friends worked tirelessly to both hide it from Watchers (Secret Life was a mistake and the Watchers had almost gotten his Friends in their clutches -) and make it fun but strict. No biggie!
“Wait. You said it was all good?”
“Yup no issues with this ore, just yummy right now.”
“That’s good, that’s good. And Scout? Please don’t eat things for me from now on, I’m the maker of the game, so I already have an unfair advantage as is. I don’t want the others complaining even more about me actually cheating at my own game.”
Scout looks as if they are going to agree, and then shrinks back in on itself. “Even if Gree-on is about to die?”
“Even then. I already get enough jabs for making the series, no need for the seemingly unfair advantage to actually turn into an unfair advantage alright?”
“...Scout will hesitantly agree. Scout refuses to promise though.”
“And I will accept that and treat that as a win for mee.” Grian smiles as Scout slithers up his arm, resting on his shoulder.
Plink, Plonk, Plink. As he harvests some of the dripstone along the cave, Grian softly sings a short tune, and as he sings, Scout repeats after him, line for line.
“The princess Pearl.
The prin-cess Purl.
Lived in a tree.
Lived in a tree.
She sailed across
She sailed across
The seven seas
The seven sees
She sailed across
She sailed across
The channel 2
The channel 2
And brought with her
And brought with her
A Rig-a-Bam-boo
A Rig-a-Bam-boo”
Grian giggles, smiling and laughing as he holds his nose and pretends to squiggle under water as he says the final line of the first verse. Scout, clumsily copying them beside him, circled lights glowing bright enough to probably keep away any bothersome mobs that could pop up.
“What is the song Gree-on sang?”
“It’s a campfire song me and Pearl would sing!” Grian’s grin widens as he thinks back to when he and Pearl would go make s’mores or go mining and sing it. “It’s called Princess Pat, but I changed it to fit her.
“We would sing it when we were doing something and felt like making noise without meaning.”
Scout’s tilts their head to the side. “Princess Purl?”
“Yup! Pearl’s my sister, she’s the player with really white king pigeon wings, they’re really pretty.”
“But don’t you have raven wings?”
“Well, yeah, but it changes based on where we’re at for that area’s Lore.” Grian explains, beginning to mine some more as he looks for more diamonds. “Like, Timmy has Canary wings here, and those stay pretty much the same, but I have parrot wings back on Hermitcraft, and Pearl has some pretty cool whip-poor-will wings over there.”
“Cool!”
“Yup! Unfortunately, our avian genes make us pretty short as well, to accommodate the wings, but don’t tell anyone I admitted that I’m short. They’d never let me hear the end of it.”
Scout nods sagely. “Gree-on, Timmy, and Princess Purl are birds, but never actually small. Got it.”
“Sure… that’s- yeah, we’ll go with that.”
…
“Hey… Scout.”
“Yup?”
“Can you- can you not let anyone know you’re here?”
“Yeah! Scout can avoid the other players. Why?”
“I need to make sure they’ll understand that you’re nice and good, and I don’t particularly think they’ll do that right now.”
“Scout can do that, no problem.”
“Thanks Scout.”
------
Finally, finally out of the mines. It was nice talking to Scout, but mining can be such a pain. Scout pinches his ear. Sadhurtfulouch.
“Oi! I said mining was a pain, not you!” Grian shrieks, and Scout apologetically squeezes his shoulder. Sorry.
Moving on, Grian rolls his eyes and continues forward. It takes them a bit to get back to the base, but when they get back the sun is high in the sky and something is reaching across the spot they had claimed earlier.
Grian cheers. “Ayeeeeeee, we’ve got a base- or a bridge?”
“DUDE- YOU HAVE FULL DIAMOND?” Skizz shouts as Mumbo asks, “Where’ve you been???”
He finger guns them and replies, “Ruining my day that’s what! I’ve been bored out of my mind mining.”
The gleam of his sword and pickaxe send the two into another awed and jealous spiral. Mumbo eyes the tools, eyebrows raising as he looks them up and down. “Jeez dude, you’re looking a bit flashy there.”
“So, tell us the progress you’ve made.” Skizz jumps in.
Grian gestures as he speaks, tapping away at his inventory. “Well, I went for buckets-”
“And did you get the buckets?” Mumbo interjects, leaning over the shorter man’s shoulder.
“I got lots of things, including buckets.” Said items shoved in the two’s faces, Grian’s smirk giving away his annoyed act. “Fill them with water so if you’re burning, falling, or any other precarious predicament happens you’ve got it there.”
Deep, breathy, and nervous giggles fill the silence that Grian left. “I thought- I though Skizz was going to eat it.”
“Skizz, did you-”
The man in question holds up a not-eaten bucket. “No, Grian and Mumbo. I did not eat the bucket.”
…
Ugh. Why did he think the food thing was a good idea. Why?
He chomps down on another dripstone as he chats with Mumbo and Skizz.
“What food are you eating, there?” His mustached friend interrupts his quick snack.
Grian looks at him, and then looks down at the dripstone stack he tossed him. “Dripstone. I just tossed you some. What’ve you been eating?”
After sheepishly grabbing the stack of dripstone, Mumo replies. “Cherry- err, Cherry whatsitsname is pretty good. Cherry blossoms, here you go!”
…
Gree-on. Gree-on what is that terrible thing.
“Grian, do you see that over there?” Mumbo gestures to the horizon.
“Do you mean the sun, Mumbo? The sunset?”
No. It’s sideways more.
“Ew- Is that the batmobile? A car?”
“Yeah! It’s terrible, innit?”
…
Scar is on the mountain. He should probably go chat with Scar.
The Scar is looking at Gree-on. He should stop that.
He’ll go chat with Scar.
No. The Scar tried to steal the enchanter.
It’ll be good to check up on him!
Gree-on is the worst.
Some snacked on birch planks later, and he is on his way up the mountain to a singing Bdubs and Scar.
“Hey guys, do you wanna see Skizz die again, here he goes.” He jokes as he falls from the tree he’d landed on.
“Oh he’s got a death wish.” Bdubs agrees.
Scar nods. “He’s gonna die.”
“Do you think he just hate’s the series that much? He’s just gonna get out almost immediately?” Grian lightheartedly jabs, if a bit dark. It gets a surprised snort from Bdubs, but no reaction from Scar other than a short question about the amount of lives Skizz has already lost.
After Skizz safely lands in the water, Grian leaves to go fix up one of the bridges.
No need to keep chatting, good idea.
Scar is fine, if a bit less receptive to his jokes. The watchers aren’t here, can’t be, and Scar is clearly having a fun series so far, which is good.
Grian looks up from his block placing after running out of materials, and goes to grab some when a blur is seen from his peripheral vision.
Skizz Fell From a High Place.
Skizz had died. From Tango’s placed dirt blocks. His teammate had died not once, but twice, and this time it wasn’t Skizz’s fault, but it was Tango’s. Tango needed to die. He needed retribution for his teammate’s death. Skizz had gotten hurt and it was Grian’s job to protect his team!
And Tango was denying it!
He had to pay.
------
Tango was going to ride Scar’s roller coaster.
Ruin the Scar’s ride and kill FireBurning for killing Skizz? Maybe a little violence.
No, just a trap! Some dripstone real quick! No ruining his best friend’s- his good friend’s- his friend’s ride. Just a little bit of maiming Tango. No biggie.
And the trap failed. Great. No maimed Tango’s here.
As Grian stumbled away from the failure, he heard Scar accuse them.
“Were you trying to wreck my roller coaster?!”
“No, Tango killed Skizz, we were trying to get him back!”
“Oh. As long as you weren’t wrecking anything.”
Right. Of course. Because anything that Grian could do to Scar would end up wrecking everything.
His mind flashes to caved skulls and bloodstained hands. Cactus rings, panda farms, cake castles, bent secret rules. The watchers coming.
This is why he stays away.
…
Tango was Blown Up by Creeper.
“Ayeeeee! We did it!” Cheers go up from the Spanners as they fix-up their bridges.
Scar leans over from the top of the mountain. “What happened, guys?”
Grian hesitates for a moment, before happily shouting back. “We’ve killed Tango with the power of our minds!”
------
As Grian lays down in his bed in the base, hunger bar finally not zombified, his wings twitch.
“Scout? You said I was a fluttery one, like the Watchers, what did you mean by that?”
Scout sits on his chest, curling up into a ball and then rolling over next to him. “Gree-on and the Fluttery Ones both have wings. And they feel the same.”
“Right. Feel the same. Great.”
…
While he rests, the Sculk rests in its spreading in the surrounding ore, and instead pulses to the avian's heartbeat. Above his sweater, above his chest, a purple sigil glows once, twice, before sputtering out.
In the void, a small dot labeled Xelqua disappears.
The avian sighs softly in his sleep, a nightmare interrupted by a soft warmth, and a silky comfort that fills his head.
And in the void, a cloaked figure screeches, bright purple wings flaring in outrage.
Don’t worry, the Fluttery Ones cannot find ProtectorCarrier here.