Just saying this whole book is set at the beginning of the season since that was when I wrote it.

Season Eight started today.

Today.

They would have to say goodbye to the luxuries of good armour, elytra and easy-to-get resources, and take on the hard hours of early game with gritted teeth.

The air was filled with nerves when everyone stepped out into the clean, fresh air of their new world. After asserting his dominance as mischievous idiot of the season by angering an iron golem and being first to die, Grian scanned the area.

It was normal; no suspicious obsidian and bedrock towers, no mysterious waves of magic, no ethereal presences lingering, no shadows falling short of natural, nothing. He hadn't expected anything, especially after two entire seasons of safety, but it was safe to check. He always checked.

When Grian concluded his brief search, he realised everyone was looking down into a cave entrance. He followed suit and saw two new people.

"PearlescentMoon and GeminiTay." Someone said. One of them seemed to catch his eye but looked away a second later.

And with that, the season had begun.

One diamond flex gone wrong and Boatem Pole later, they'd all started to settle down. Grian had opted to go to the north and a few people had followed. They had a small settlement slowly coming together.

* * *

To the Watchers, he was like a dog. They taught him a few tricks and showed him off to the other Watchers, they took relative care of him but saw him as no where near an equal. He had the freedom to walk around but nothing more. Whether they loved him like a human loves their pet was questionable. Sometimes they showed a hint of care or empathy, but the rest of the time he was just a thing that they happened to have picked up somewhere, like a little trinket or something similar.

He was their most prized possession. He was something they could brag about. He was a trophy. Nothing more.

Keep up, Oリᒷ called. Xelqua did his best to pick up the pace, but they were already travelling fast and his wings weren't as big as the Watchers'. A small island came into view, weightlessly suspended in the air. On it was what he recognised to be an inactive portal.

We're going to the Overworld to show you something, T∴𝙹 said. One of them lit the portal and he followed his owners into the purple mist. At first, the light blinded him. The air felt foreign and the sounds abnormal. There were dozens of colours he'd only ever seen in small quantities before, and things were moving around under the concealment of the plants. Animals?

He only had a second to take it all in before they were back in the air. There were bits of white that seemed solid but weren't, and instead when he touched one it made his hands and purple fingertips damp.

Clouds, Oリᒷ told him, very annoying to fly through. Xelqua glanced at one again; they seemed weird but not annoying.

There, T∴𝙹 said, speaking to the other Watcher. They flew down to the ground where several structures stood that looked nothing like the rest of the world; with many more details, interesting colours and straight edges.

But... there was also something else. A magical presence was nearby, one other than Oリᒷ and T∴𝙹. It was definitely another Watcher - the energy had the same kind of feel to it - but it wasn't just any Watcher. It felt... familiar, but in an off kind of way. He shrugged it off when Oリᒷ and T∴𝙹 didn't comment on it; it was probably just someone passing through the world.

Something came out of one of the structures, shorter than the Watchers and similar to Xelqua, except for the lack of wings and magical energy. It shouted something that, strangely, he understood.

"Guys?" It said, looking at the three dark figures and then to seven other similar things that came running.

"What on Earth?" One of the new ones said, pulling out a cyan, pointy stick. Xelqua glanced at the Watchers unsurely.

These are humans, Oリᒷ said.

Pests, really. T∴𝙹 added.

"Why are you showing me them?" Xelqua asked. Instead of answering, though, T∴𝙹 lit their hand with magic and the world around them swirled slightly in a relatively simple time travel spell. They travelled for roughly a month and when time went back to it's usual walking pace the land was very different. "What happened?"

The structures had fallen down and the green stuff that lay across the ground like a carpet had turned brown in many places. There were yellow and orange flames spreading and they were nothing like the friendly purple flames of magic. Instead, they destroyed everything. Shouting could be heard in the distance and the air was thick and smokey.

Humans are ignorant and immature, they are extremely clever as animals but extremely stupid as a dominant species. Oリᒷ said matter-of-fact-ly. You are a Watcher, and humans hate Watchers. Through hate, comes anger. When they get angry, it is all they know, they struggle to see past their emotions, and with that comes destruction. They are irresponsible and childish. They are not dangerous to us, but they are dangerous to themselves, and annoying to us.

Xelqua nodded, but he didn't feel like he was getting the whole story.

We sensed your doubt about us, but just know that we are the better option. The only other one is this. T∴𝙹 said. Xelqua knew they could hear his emotions like a ringing bell, they could feel him through their magic. Magic connected all the Watchers and made them one. Magic was life for a Watcher. It was life for him.

Two humans that had previously been running stopped by them and stared.

"They're back," one of them muttered.

"We should tell-" their voice cut off and they fell to the ground, and just after the other did the same. A purple light flickered out in the corner of Xelqua's eye.

"Did you just kill them?" He asked, his voice verging on the anger that suddenly filled him like electricity going back and forth across his chest and never going the right direction to the ground like it was supposed to. He didn't know why he felt the emotion, but then again he'd always been different from the other Watchers.

Yes, it's fun. You should try it at some point. T∴𝙹 said, before opening their wings and letting themselves move swiftly into the sky. Xelqua and Oリᒷ followed, making their way back to the portal.

Grian sighed as he opened his eyes and found himself staring at the roof. He hadn't had a dream for two months before this. He was starting to give up hope on ever being free of them. As soon as he thought they were gone, they came back, just as real and overwhelming as ever.

He squinted at the green leaves that blocked most of the morning light; he didn't remember building a roof. He sat up and looked around at where the hole should've been, chuckling. Had Mumbo really filled in the empty walls with trees? Of course he'd do that.

Letting the bad dream go, he reached for his diamond axe and used some dirt scaffolding to get up to the wooden walls and dismantle them.

* * *

It was late spring, the time of year when everything had come to life and everyone began preparing themselves for the heat of summer. The time when all the animals were out and about and there were monstrous amounts of bees in the flower forests. The time when people would soon be complaining about the temperature again after just stopping. The time just perfectly balanced between the hot and cold parts of the year, letting the air take on a pleasant warmth. And yet, Grian felt slightly chilled now that he wasn't protected by the insulation of his bed.

Maybe this biome's just colder than I thought, he reasoned with himself as he cut down the last tree and pulled the sleeves of his jumper down a few centimetres.

As the day aged, the feeling lingered. Like he'd left the air conditioning - not that they had any, but hypothetically - on for half an hour too long. The back of his neck felt too cool, sending a slight shiver down his spine. Not so cold he'd consider throwing himself into lava, just cold enough that he wasn't quite comfortable.

The more he thought about it, the more he began to think that maybe it was his instinct telling him something was wrong. It didn't feel like the kind of chill that everyone gets from time to time; it felt more like something was wrong, but only his subconscious knew what. It felt like the feeling one might get when they are being watched, except it was on a much deeper level. Like the calm moments before a storm, the split second before a wave in an ocean crashes down, the moment before an elastic band snaps after being stretched to it's limit.

He only came to realise exactly what the elastic band was a few days later.

"Dude, I gotta say, the goats are really annoying." Scar said as they cleaned up the area of their mischief. He couldn't wait to see Doc and Rens' reactions to the Goatem Pole lowering.

"They are," Grian chuckled, glancing at a few floating lazily in the ocean. "There's no hiding it, is there really."

"No," Scar agreed, placing the last blocks of grass.

"They are straight up annoying," He said, laughing. They were just less useful and more annoying versions of sheep really.

In what was otherwise a completely normal moment, the elastic band snapped.

Something in the universe clicked into - or more to the point, out of - place. It was like a thread falling out of place in a knitted scarf, a small movement that would cause the rest of the fabric to slowly but surely unravel. Something changed, he could feel something reposition itself like a cogwheel turning once.

It hit him like a bulldozer, crashing into him and forcing all his attention away from anything else. It was a tsunami, an earthquake, a million bricks falling from the sky. His breath caught slightly at the impact, because even though it wasn't physical, it might as well have been.

"Yeah, they don't even drop anything useful." Scar said, but now the conversation was pointless.

Having lost his magic, Grian could no longer control how the world arranged itself, but that wasn't to say he couldn't sense it when someone else used their own control. He still felt the occasional weak wave of magic when it passed by. He still felt when anything unearthly happened. He felt when something that didn't belong in the human world of Hermitcraft ripped it's way in through the dimensions. He felt when one moment there was no magical entities and when the next moment there was.

"Grian?" He was pulled from his trance, worry now setting in.

"Did you feel that?" Scar had been a wizard in season seven, maybe he'd have the same magical senses as him.

"Feel what?" It was a stupid idea, of course he wouldn't.

"Nothing." He could deal with it later, he could try and reassure himself that it was just an unrelated Watcher passing through their world, because in reality that was probably true. Grian was not Xelqua anymore, he had no magical presence therefore no Watchers would sense him. He was a human now. Doubt floated around him, but he was powerless against it.

They went back to their better Boatem Pole and Grian tried his best to ignore the change that was screaming at him.