Grian's POV

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Grian joined the world
ZombieCleo joined the world
Docm77 joined the world

Oh. Oh. Oh. One moment Grian was standing on the ground, his hand on the cloaked man's shoulder, and the next he was up in the sky, plummeting toward the ground at an astounding rate. Before long, sploosh! The brit crashed through the surface of a body of water. Liquid flooded his system, and Grian had to fight the urge to inhale. Even worse, the water did little to break his fall, and he hit the ground underneath with a thud. Oof.

The lake wasn't shallow, and if he wanted to survive, he should probably get swimming. But where was everyone else? Grian narrowed his eyes (which were now painfully filled with water) as he looked around for the other three people who should have arrived with him. And he found them soon enough, all diligently swimming to the top. Wow, way to abandon him.

The builder relented and began to swim up, but was soon stopped, a sudden force yanking him back down a smidge. Huh? He looked down to see his foot all tangled up in kelp. Really? This was not the time! Grian could feel his air running out and hurriedly tugged at the kelp to let him free. C'mon, c'mon... he internally muttered to himself until, at long last, the kelp snapped in half, sending Grian flying backward.

Straight into the stream of a magma pull.

Oh no. Oh no no no. Grian clawed upward, desperately flailing towards the quickly disappearing sunlight, but to no avail. His chest tightened, and his lungs screamed. Of all the ways to go...

He hit the ocean floor and lay there like a spider stuck on its back. Well, it's been nice, being alive for an entire three minutes. Where was everyone else when he needed them? Grian hated drowning. His vision through his still-open eyes was practically vibrating, and he was barely aware of a silhouette moving towards him at unearthly speeds. Oh, hello there. And this is where his vision dimmed and finally went out.

Until literally thirty seconds later, when he was so rudely awakened by someone kicking his stomach. Well, it wasn't exactly rude, seeing as the person was saving his life. Perhaps a thank-you should be in order. After he was finished lying on the ground in self-defeat, Grian sat up and looked at his mysterious savior. To his surprise, it wasn't Cleo, Doc, or even Cultie. It was someone else altogether.

"Hello! The name's Scar, and thank you very much for washing up on my shore!" Grian blinked as this person stared down at him, grinning. After an awkward moment of silence, he coughed. "This is generally the part where you introduce yourself... maybe a name, maybe why you suddenly fell from the sky into my lake..."

Oh, right, that happened.

Grian stood up to the dismaying realization that this Scar person towered over him. Ugh. What he would give to find someone shorter than him. But that was beside the point. Scar, who was becoming increasingly annoyed, wore white jeans and a shirt with a galaxy pattern with a tacky black cape held together by a white shard of glass. His friendly face was made slightly less friendly by the presence of three giant scars going across it—that explained the name. Grian felt terribly boring in comparison.

"Oh, uh," he said. "My name is Grian! My friends and I actually came from another server—world—thing." He grinned stupidly, expecting Scar to be confused, but he just nodded knowingly.

"Cool! Well, welcome to our world. Two of your friends are off... somewhere with my worldmates." He chuckled, squinting off into the distance. "I think they went somewhere off in that direction—maybe to show them the game central..." Scar trailed off, probably talking to himself.

Grian began to say something, but what came out was a cough instead. No, a choke. Seconds later, a shred of kelp lay on the floor. Ew.

Scar evidently found this hilarious, as he laughed far too loudly. "Oh, right, yeah, so I was just going to let you drown, but your friend over here was, how should I put this, adamant that you and the other two don't respawn, something about not being sure if the communicators are compatible?" he explained, flushing slightly. Wait, friend? Who...- Grian glanced around to see the white-cloaked 'world-hopper' (as he called himself) sitting on an abandoned tree stump. Upon noticing Grian's gaze, he waved. Huh. Scar lowered his voice, leaning closer to Grian. "He's a bit of a nut job, I've gotta say."

This made Grian chuckle, because of how true it was. Grian would never—never!—say it himself, but Cultie was... rather interesting. And Grian knew a half-lizard-half-robot.

Without warning, Scar gripped Grian's arm and dragged him off. But Grian didn't really notice where he was going, as something else gripped him along with Scar. It was like... deja vu. Didn't Grian grab Scar like this some time ago? But he didn't even meet him until ten minutes ago. So why... The gremlin glanced back at Cultie, who was busy reading a book.

Whatever. Grian looked back ahead to where Scar was dragging him, and his jaw nearly dropped clean off at the sight. It was like walking into a storybook—there were fantasy-like pillars stretching far into the sky, and handcrafted flowers towered over everything, providing ample shade for the rabbits and other small animals. There were even a few birds! Speaking of, Scar dropped Grian's arm as a cockatiel landed on it.

It started screaming.

Grian wasn't a stranger to birds approaching him and screaming, but usually, they didn't gesture to certain things like they were completely sentient. Scar, however, was unfazed and just sighed. "Sorry, one sec," he sighed and tapped the shard of glass on his cape. It started glowing! How fancy. Astonished, Grian watched as Scar stared at the bird on his arm and opened his mouth. Instead of words, chirps came out.

Was he... speaking bird?

Frozen in place by the scene in from of him, Grian just stood there as the two finished up their...conversation?... and the bird flew away in a huff. Scar tapped his glass shard again and it stopped glowing. When he spoke again, it was completely normal, as if nothing had happened. "Sorry about that, friend of mine needed something. Birds, amiright?" He said nonchalantly, like he didn't just do some weird magic. Grian just nodded in response.

Maybe he should ask Scar later about getting one of those magic glass things for himself. Perhaps then Mister Minty would finally start listening to Grian. That is, if he was still in the Aquaviary when Grian got back; the gremlin wouldn't be surprised if the bird figured out a way to leave while he was gone.

Before he could say anything regarding the magic, which was unlike any admin commands Grian had ever performed, Scar reached out to grab him again. This time, however, he dropped his hand. "Sorry, instinct," he chuckled. "Just... follow me, actually, no dragging needed."

"Oh, don't worry," Grian reassured his new friend as they walked through the area. "I'm used to it. This place is beautiful!" He exclaimed, changing the subject. "How long did it take to build?" He couldn't choose what to fixate his gaze on; everything that they passed was just as fantastical and intricate as the last. The builder could appreciate the artistry.

His appreciation seemingly delighted Scar, as he opened his mouth to let a torrent of words fall out. "Oh, so my friends and I actually built this before we had any idea of what else we wanted to do, or what we wanted to do ourselves—we have an area where were work together, and then our own areas, you know, even if we don't do much there—and so we just started building a few pillars and everything eventually fell into place!" The two had stopped progressing, and Scar began to bounce around, pointing to things as he rambled on. Grian followed his...enthusiastic bud with his eyes, soaking in all of the information. "So you see this giant diamond flower in the center here? There's actually a bubble elevator inside, it goes down (and back up, I guess) to below the plaza! That's where we keep the phantoms."

Wait, what? "Phantoms?" Did Scar and Grian have the same phantoms? Because the latter could not imagine keeping one alive, let alone as a pet.

"Oh, yeah, so the phantoms were False's idea—you'll meet her soon—because she thought it'd be fun to have them counter-act Stress's little normal animals," he said, still somehow managing to speed up. "I'll bring you down later if you want, just don't expect to live very long because we've brought many phantoms down." He laughed, but it sounded just a tad bit pained. Many items must have been lost down there.

Grian realized that they had, in fact, been moving during all of this when the two eventually reached another archway not unlike the one they had passed through to get in here. He gaped, for on the other side was a vision completely different. Instead of the colorful pastels of the first area, this was like a metropolis, with towering buildings and moving floors. It was like he had fallen into some sort of sci-fi movie. And here he thought his world was impressive!

"Welcome to the game central," said Scar. "I'd bet my bread this is where your friends are." Scar was right about the game part of the name. Upon further inspection, each of the buildings was some kind of game, be it multiplayer or singleplayer, deadly or safe. Who has the time to do any of this? After a moment of scrutinizing a row of flashy buildings, Scar pointed to a relatively short but wide one. "In there, no doubt. Wouldn't put it past them," he mumbled, barely loud enough for Grian to hear. That was less than reassuring.

The two walked up to the building. "Well, what is it?" Grian asked, looking for a window to peer through. It was while doing this that he realized, none of these buildings have windows. Not a single one. Huh, that was an interesting choice. It certainly made them seem less inviting. He wondered why Scar and his friends did this.

"Oh, this is a game called Rav-" Before he could finish, the doors burst open and four people came running out, followed immediately by a large creature.

Ah. 'Ravager' was what Scar was trying to say.

The first one out was a girl with strikingly yellow hair. "The ravager escaped!" She called out frantically, ushering Doc and Cleo, both busily searching their pouches for weapons as they went, towards the other figure, a shorter girl dashing off to the side while the ravager followed the first.

"I noticed!?" Scar replied, caught off guard. "Why didn't you kill it?!" After shaking his head out, he unsheathed a sword encrusted in diamonds, shimmering with enchantment.

"We were a bit focused on making sure we didn't die ourselves!"

"Fair point," said Scar. He waved his hands around in the air. "Hey, stupid, c'mere!" The ravager, apparently taking great offence to this, turned angrily towards Scar... but it kept going, its beady black gaze landing on Grian instead.

Uh oh.

The gremlin hurriedly dug through his pouch. Where was his weapon? It had to be in there somewhere! No way he left if at home, right? The only thing in there was a rust old iron sword. That's really not good. He backed up, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and remembering that he nearly died earlier as well from drowning. Why did it always have to be him who died? Grian glanced around for somewhere to duck into, catching Scar's eye in the process. For someone who seemed generally pretty optimistic, he seemed shockingly concerned. It wasn't his life on the line!

There was nowhere to hide, and there was no way Grian would beat this thing. He pulled out the ruined sword and held it in front of him protectively. It ran at him, ignoring the arrows sent by the blonde person. Grian prepped himself for impact, but it never came. Instead, the beast disappeared in a flurry of red particles.

What?

Confused, Grian stood straight up and glanced around. Who killed it? How? His eyes landed on Scar, who was being supported by the yellow-haired girl. His eyes were pressed shut, and his breathing was labored. This only confused Grian more. Huh? What?

Scar's other friend walked up to Grian and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to face her. "Yeah, that command really messes with the magic, which is, heh, not good for him," she said like that explained everything. "He'll be fine, don't worry." Grian was definitely still worried. Wait... command?

"What command is that?" The gremlin tilted his head, trying to think. He had never heard of any commands that could just poof away monsters like that, and he spent a long time testing out things to see if they did anything.

This time, the person beside him seemed confused, except at Grian's evident ignorance. "Oh, well, 'slash kill.' You know, the one that can one-shot anything?"

Grian's stare was blank. "I've never heard of that," he said slowly, shaking his head. And maybe it was better that he didn't. "Anyway, should we like, leave Scar be? Or is he...-"

"Can you guys stop talking about me like I'm dying or something?" Scar's voice came from behind Grian, and the gremlin turned around to see that he was pretty much back to normal. "I'm a wizard, not a weakling! Don't give these guys the impression that I'm some fragile grandpa, Stress." He rolled his eyes, shooing the other away. So the one next to Grian was 'Stress'. Cool.

The yellow one—her name was Yellow now—flicked Scar's shoulder. "Well then maybe stop acting like a fragile grandpa, then," she suggested ever-so-nicely.

"Well then maybe, False, stop putting me in positions where I have to slash kill things! Speaking of," he said. "What happened? I was just showing Grian around, you all totally ruined the mood, guys!" Scar pouted, crossing his arms. Grian was curious, too. With the way these three reacted, it didn't seem like this was a common occurrence.

Stress now spoke up. "Well, you know Ravage Run, the whole 'who can get closer' game? Well," she chuckled, brushing a flower out of her face. "I don't want to be rude, but...-"

Rolling her eyes, False cut her off. She pointed at Cleo. "Cleo here went for the diamonds, got caught, panicked, and forgot to close the gate." Grian turned to Cleo, whose green skin had a clear hint of pink as Doc jabbed her with his elbow. "Like a wimp."

Before Cleo could retaliate, another voice came from around the corner. "Sorry I'm late, got a bit... sidetracked." A cloaked figure came strolling into view. Cultie! Grian waved, but paused, for, as he got closer, Cultie's movements seemed almost staggered.

"Are you alr-" Grian began.

"Yup! I'm fine. Now..." Having the full attention of everyone there, Cultie said with a flourish, "Does anyone here feel like meeting some new—or old—friends?"

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No one's POV

[[valueT ME=not_found]] Ago

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It's so easy to lose track of time. For instance, one could sit down at a computer with the intention of working for twenty minutes, but then realize three days later that they never got back up. Isn't the brain silly like that?

It's a good thing He didn't have a brain, or, at least, not a human one. There was nothing to tell Him to take a break.

-(Author's Rambling)-

Magic man! Happy 2022!