"So, Grian, what do you think about the pancakes?"

The dining room was especially filled with chatter and laughter. There were almost a total of 20 people in the room, with only a few empty and vacant chairs, most of the hermits were present and talking casually with each other as they all ate breakfast.

"It's delicious, really!" Grian stopped eating to answer Mumbo's question. "They're really good! You guys really know how to cook."

"Well, some of us do," Stress chuckled from beside him, before giving a small glance to the person beside her. "The other half... no offence, but not so much."

Iskall dramatically gasped as she turned to him, acting offended. "How dare you! My cooking is very high classed, thank you very much!"

Stress giggled, rolling her eyes. "Whatever you say, whatever you say."

"How about you, Grian?" Iskall asked. "How would you rate your cooking? 1 to 10."

"Solid 0. Unless you give me a full on manual on how to use the kitchen and a full recipe book on how to cook, I will burn the house down and that is no joke." Grian replied jokingly serious, a tone of sarcasm present in his voice.

"Yep, can confirm." Mumbo chuckled.

"Well, dang, we'll need to pair you up with some professionals for your cooking group then, or else we'll need Cleo to get the water hose again!"

"Hey, that sounds like a good idea!" Cleo, who was just around the corner, joined the convo as she heard her name being mentioned. "Grian, don't worry about it, you can cook all you want, I'll be the firefighter if you do eventually commit accidental arson."

"Cleo, no!" Stress said, laughter evident in her voice.

"What? I was just joking!" Cleo giggled. "Also, Iskall, can you pass me the nutella jar right there?"

"Sure!" Iskall shortly grabbed the nutella jar, closed the jar, stood up, and went into a throwing stance, aiming at Cleo as he held the jar in one hand ready to throw it across the table. "Here comes the chocolate! YEET!"

Cleo quickly rose up from her chair, almost knocking Joe's plate off the table, and nonchalantly caught the jar of nutella without any problems. "Thanks!"

"No problem. Make sure to give it back after you're done with it, though!" Iskall replied, before continuing to eat his pancakes, not being bothered by the fact that the entire room had gone silent and turned to him after that.

Grian simply chuckled at the shenanigans, before also returning to his half eaten breakfast meal.

After a bit, the room calmed down a little, and some were even done eating. The gremlin turned to Mumbo. "So are we going to immediately continue the tour after this?"

The taller took a moment before answering. "I mean, we could. Would you like to see the higher floors or the basements first? The entire tour could take a long time to complete."

"Maybe the basement floors first. Sounds interesting."

"Yeah, the basements are an interesting place. Just don't touch anything." Mumbo quickly warned.

"Why? Are there some sort of antique rare things that break easily down there?" Grian asked.

"No, that's not what I meant." He said. "You'll see what I mean when we go down there."

Grian was a little confused, but just nodded as forked up his last piece of pancake. "Alright, whatever you say, potato boy."

Shortly after, Grian finished his meal, and waited for Mumbo to finish his. They were some of the last people to leave the dining hall, and before leaving, they waved goodbye to the remaining people still sitting.

"Alright, so the stairs to the basement right next to the stairs to the second floor, which I assume you know where that is?" Mumbo started with a question as they exited the room.

"Yeah, it's just around the corner, right?"

Mumbo just nodded as they walked down the corridor, before finally arriving at the stairways. They went down the stairs that were going lower, and walked for a bit, before finally reaching the first basement of the house.

Grian briefly examined the area. The walls were cobblestone, and the floor was tiled. The area itself was significantly smaller than the mansion floors, and yet, it still felt rather spacious.

"Okay, so, to be completely honest, there isn't a lot going on the first floor of the basement." Mumbo started. "To your right, there's a gigantic storage room which basically is the warehouse of the house, and to your left, there's a big empty room we rarely use. Oh, and just down the hallway, there's the basement game room."

"I see..." Grian hummed, looking around the area. "So what did you mean by 'don't touch anything' back then?"

"Well, if you want to know, head down here." Mumbo said, gesturing to the other flight of stairs going even further down. "The other floor of the basement. I'm not even sure if 'floor' is the right word, actually... perhaps 'workshop' works better?"

Grian hummed a reply, following the taller as they went down another set of stairs, heading deeper into the underground of the mansion.

It seemed way smaller than what he had anticipated. At the bottom of the stairs, it wasn't even a corridor, it was just a small room with two doors; one on the left side and one on the right side, there even wasn't much in the room itself. And different from the first floor of the basement, both the flooring and the walls were metal, having generally a stronger foundation. There must've been a reason for the completely different build style.
Mumbo walked to the left door, and it opened. He didn't even push or slide the door, it just slid upwards, revealing the room behind it. Grian nervously followed behind him, and as he peeked into the room, his eyes just widened.

Contraptions, machines, and creations. Those were the only things he saw inside the room, other than the few work benches and tables with blueprints. The room was also very open and spacious, the walls seeming very far from each other.

He realized that he had his jaw wide open thanks to Mumbo's giggling, and quickly regained his composure. "W-what is this??"

"Er- to be completely honest, this room doesn't have a proper name." He chuckled, "Some of us call it the 'Tech Laboratory', others may call it the 'Stuff testing room', 'the workroom', 'redstone room', etc."

"Well I know that I'm calling it the nonsense room, because I have no idea what's going on here."

"Oh, right, you're not the brightest when it comes to anything with redstone-"

"You really just had to rub that in, didn't you?" Grian groaned, it was more of an annoyed statement than a question.

"Sorry, sorry." Mumbo chuckled. "Oh- look, there's Doc!"

A little around the corner, not too far from where they were standing, was someone who appeared to be wearing some sort of lab coat. They seemed to not notice the two coming into the room and approaching them, as they seemed deeply absorbed in whatever they were doing.

"Good morning, Doc," Mumbo greeted the other, friendly.

"Oh- morning, Mumbo," Doc turned around, taking his eyes off of the blueprints he was holding to reply. "What's up?"

"Nothing much, I'm just taking Grian on a tour around the house, and then we saw you and wanted to say hi."

"I see..." He said, before briefly glancing to Grian. "So you must be Grian, the new guy, huh? Pleasure to meet you, I'm Docm77, pro redstoner."

There were a few things Grian noted as he shook hands with the taller. First, half of his face seemed to be literally robotic, with the eye on that side being replaced by this red light. Another thing was that he had a prosthetic hand. There were certainly some interesting people living here, this was the second person he met that seemed to be some sort of cyborg.
"Nice to meet you too." Grian replied, retracting his hand from the handshake and looking at whatever Doc was creating before the two entered. "Say, what's this?"

"Oh, that's j-" The Creeper cyborg started, but then froze as Grian pressed the visible button.

Mumbo facepalmed. "Grian! I told you not to touch anything!"

"Oh wait-" The Gremlin stopped in realization. "...Is it broken now?"

"Well- probably, yeah." Doc said, although he laughed halfway, making it clear he wasn't that upset or anything. "I was about to say that it's an unfinished contraption, but you just went ahead and proved that."

"Oh." The blond shifted nervously. "...Whoops?"

Mumbo just shook his head, meanwhile Doc chuckled. "It's fine, it's fine, really. I can probably fix it quickly in a few minutes."

"Well- that's a relief."

"Grian, mate, I don't mean to offend you," Mumbo started. "But I think you should be banned from this area."

"I- you know what, that's probably for the better." Griam admitted. "I'm getting out of this place before more machines become collateral damage."

The two taller hermits just laughed as Grian turned around. "Well, we'll see you later, Doc. We're going to resume the tour upstairs now."

"Later, Mumbo, Grian." Doc chuckled, waving as the two went out of the room, before turning back around to fix whatever Grian broke.

"This is the second floor."

"What's all this empty floor for?" He asked. And there was a pretty big opening that was visible from the stairs. In the middle of the place, there was just an empty space, with nothing in it. No tables, no hallways, just a big space surrounded by walls and doors that lead to other rooms. There was a pretty big golden edged carpet though.

"Oh- this is the place where we usually do events and competitions that require a lot of space." Mumbo explained. "We just have this big space on this floor, and we don't really do much with it, but like I said, it can be useful sometimes." He then turned to the door on the side, "Anyways, that's the storage room, we keep random junk in there, not organized at all."

Grian hummed in response as they started walking away from the stairway, and to the right, where there was a small hallway leading down to a dead end. They went down, and there were two openings to two different rooms.

"This is the home gym." Mumbo said as they peeked into one of the rooms. "Most of us do in fact have fitness routines, so we usually do those here in the morning. Feel free to use it whenever, just please don't break the equipment."

"Of course I won't," Grian said. "What do you take me for? A child?"

"Kind of, yeah."

"Hey!"

"Anyways!" Mumbo chuckled, turning around to the other room. "If you come inside here, you'll notice that this is a computer room! This is where the majority of us work, and there are some other people here, it seems!"

And as he said, there were other hermits there. Iskall, another person he recognized as Jevin, Cub, xB, and Impulse were inside, seeming to be doing work. They waved at the two as they passed by the room, but Mumbo seemed to not be interested in stopping there, and just briefly waved back, before heading to the arch connecting the room to another one across the room. Grian followed.
The gremlin did observe the room while they were passing by, though. There were a lot of computers and laptops on desks. It was almost like an office, and was similar to the office back in EVO. There was also a lot of other stuff, and other hermits' possessions seemed to be on their desks, even though most of them weren't there. He could see Ren's sunglasses on one of the desks, someone else's flower hairpin somewhere else, a pair of goggles elsewhere, and there was even a potted plant on one of the desks.

They moved to the next room, and Mumbo started talking again. "This is the other game room we have here, and this one typically gets used more than the basement one."

Grian once again observed the room. "Why do you guys have two game rooms?" He asked. The equipment in the room did somewhat mirror the one in the basement, although there were two big playing tables instead of one, and three dart boards on the wall, one seeming like it was modified in a way.

"I have no idea." The mustached brit admitted. "Although both do usually get used. We sometimes do little game tournaments, and there are way too many people here for just this room, and so some use the one in the basement."

"Do you guys game a lot?" The shorter asked again. "Like do you actually gamble and stuff?"

"I mean, not really, if you're talking about money." The taller answered as they went through the room. "We do do bets and stuff sometimes, but we also play for fun."

Grian hummed a reply, looking around the room a little more as they continued walking, seeming interested. They then went out the other opening door, and now, they were at the large open floor area. It looked pretty lonely, and the fact that nobody was there at the moment sort of made the size of the room seem amplified, and it was already the size of the dining room and the kitchen combined.

They turned to the room to their right, and there was a door, unlike the rooms before. A double door, even. Mumbo opened the door, and they entered into what seemed to be a large library. There were big bookcases, and most of them seemed to be filled to the brim with books of all sorts. He could even spot some of his books in the mix.

The bookcases might seem organized, but then you'll notice that the floor was also cluttered with books, and there were books stacked on top of the reading tables. There was also someone reading, or more accurately, writing, at one of the tables.

"Oh- Mumbo, Grian, morning." the brunet at the table greeted, looking up from the book and putting his quill aside a little.

"Good morning, Joe." Mumbo greeted back. "We're just passing by, don't mind us." He then led Grian to the finished back of the room. There was a pile of empty books, with a stack of quills and ink besides it. "If you want to write something, you can just grab an empty book here."

"I'm not much of a writer, but maybe I'll do that sometime in the future." Grian replied.

They walked out of the library, and then passed by another closed door by the corner.

"That's an unused room." Mumbo said. "There are some of us that like making films and that stuff though, me included, and this can sometimes be used as a filming studio."

There was another door, but that one was apparently a bathroom, so they had nothing else really to inspect on that floor, and so went up another flight of stairs to the 3rd floor.

"With everything wild there is in this mansion." Grian murmured, panting slightly from all the stair climbing. "I'd expect you guys to have some sort of elevator."

"Well, that might be a good idea, but none of us should probably be trusted with making anything like that." Mumbo said, seeming not as exhausted. "We could craft one, if we really tried, but no promises it won't crash on the third day- oh, good morning, Jess."

"Morning, Mumbo, and Grian," said the person who just appeared from the corner. Grian remembered seeing them from breakfast, but didn't really remember their name. Mumbo apparently noticed that.

"Grian, this is Jessassin." He said. "He actually just moved in here a week ago before you. He used to be a prominent member in this household, though."

"Yeah, though I'll only be staying here for a month, since I'll need to travel somewhere else after that." Jess explained, before smiling. "But anyways, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." Grian replied.

They talked for a little, and then the tour continued. There wasn't much on the 3rd floor, as it's mostly for the bedrooms. So then, they went up to the last floor, or the attic.

"We don't really go up here often, and just primarily use it as a storage space." Mumbo said right as they walked up the stairs.

They reached the attic, and the first room there seems like some sort of mini lounge, with a few simple chairs and a couch surrounding a standard coffee table. The floor was significantly smaller than the ones before, but there were two openings to a different room in the back.

They went through the room, and walked to the next room from the left side. As they entered, Grian looked around. In contrast to the simple and neat lounge, this room seemed like a messy storage space. There were boxes upon boxes stacked and placed in one corner, and there were just full bars of metal and other materials on the other. The floor was littered with all sorts of materials and junk, redstone dust scattered across it.

"This place is a mess." He mumbled.

"It honestly is," Mumbo replied as they went through. "Though if you were expecting proper organization, you came to the wrong house. This is basically where everyone just throws extra slash(or) needed materials that don't really fit in the redstone lab nor the basement warehouse."

"I see that."

After that, they walked to the next room connected to the storage room, which was equally as messy, but in a different way. Instead, it seemed like one of those antic clothes storages that you would expect to see in old attics. It would seem like a normal walk-in closet, but the many different eccentric attires cast aside or just randomly hanged around said otherwise.

"Why is there a chicken costume just- here?" Grian raised an eyebrow, examining the many costumes in the room.

"Well- uh," The noiret tried coming up with an explanation, but gave up. "I- I don't know honestly."

"And- what's with these- uh- gas protection armor?" He said again, this time pointing to a box. "What the heck do you guys need all of - these - for?"

"To be completely honest with you, I have no clue." The other admitted. "Why do we have all of these?"

They unconsciously spent some time looking around in the messy closet area, just looking around and observing all of the eccentric and weird outfits that were in it. Even Mumbo seemed to not know where most of them were used or when they even got there. At some point during that brief fashion review session, Zedaph rushed in and said that he - for a reason he refused to elaborate on - needed a grim reaper costume, before snatching the black hood on the hanger and running with it.

"Did Halloween come 3 months early?" Grian briefly commented as the blond rushed out.

"Average hermitcraft things." Mumbo shrugged, before deciding to continue where they left off. "Anyways- before we get completely sidetracked again, let me just end the tour real quick."

"This is another unused room." He said, pointing to the door in the corner of the attic's closet room. "Though some of us are a little reluctant to use it since a rumor about there being a ghost in there suddenly started spreading around, not sure how. Sometimes you can catch Tango and various other hermits here at night practicing occult stuff."

"So that's basically it?"

"Yeah, that's basically the entire mansion." Mumbo confirmed. "So what do you want to do now?"

Grian thought for a moment. "I guess I'll just start organizing my things. And then I'll probably just go around, doing stuff."

"Alright, that sounds like an ambiguous but solid plan. Let's go back downstairs now, since we have nothing more to do h-"

All the sudden, though, they heard a scream from below, presumably the floor below.

"Wasn't that Ren just now?" Grian said, concerned.

Mumbo, though, seemed more exasperated than worried. "Oh not again- Quick, we need to head down now-"

"CLEO- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD- THIS IS THE FIFTH TIME THIS WEEK!"

Absolute chaos awaited them on the first floor. A lot of the hermits who decided they did not want to deal with this have evacuated upstairs, but some were still on the first floor, some hiding under the furniture.

Seems like this week's cooking gang went through some more issues with cooking lunch.

Joe was running around trying to make some sense in the situation, meanwhile Cleo was for some reason carrying a nerf gun, tossing it over and passing it to False, who wasn't even a part of the week's group, the next second. Zedaph was on fire again, while Impulse was chasing down Tango who stole the kitchen stove, the entire stove.

Scar was also there, standing on the table while trying to eat normally without getting involved in the chaos, while Ren and xB were hiding beneath the table.

"Where's X when you need him!?" Ren murmured quietly to the other under the table, while watching Joe trying to control the situation and yelling at Cleo and False.

Grian and Mumbo observed the chaos from the stairway. Mumbo didn't seem that surprised, as this stuff seemed normal around these parts, and Grian could only think of one thing.

Oh boy this is going to be good.