Present Day

Iskall's POV-

Something was up with Mumbo. An idiot could tell that. And even if Iskall had any doubts, a recent interaction involving TNT and an extra three hours of work solidified his claim. Mumbo had been acting funny ever since he first returned from the depths of his base. Perhaps he couldn't see it before, but he did now. He just had to figure out what it was.

But it was one thing to know something was up; it was another entirely to prove it. Now, that would be a very difficult task to do-- be it that there was no good way to document events at all. Iskall was in a bit of a tight spot on that account. Or, rather, he would be in a bit of a tight spot, had he not spent hours messing around with his precious communicator. And over those hours, he discovered a little feature of which he had never been aware, nor been told. 

And this feature would help him in his mission. 

That is, when he figured out what exactly his "mission" was.

Because, at the moment, Iskall had no clue. 

All he knew was that he had to get some kind of proof that Mumbo wasn't normal. What he would do next, he didn't know. How he would go about actually getting said proof, he didn't know. What he would even count as proof... he didn't know. Iskall didn't know a lot of things about his "mission", he was finding. He mainly just wanted to do something about Mumbo.

Because this Mumbo, this wasn't Mumbo. This wasn't his friend. He wanted his friend back. 

And he was certain that other people had been noticing as well. The other day, the swede had caught a certain two Hermits hanging about a new detective shop. And he could swear that X had been acting funny around Mumbo the other day when the redstoner magically came back.  So this wasn't a baseless accusation; Iskall could totally back up his claim. He just needed solid evidence.

But first, he needed to check in on his dear friend, Scar. The Hermit had recently placed an order for an abnormally large amount of slime that Iskall hadn't had in his shop, and he intended to deliver it. He also made a mental note to ask why, exactly, he needed eighteen stacks of slimeballs. After grabbing the shulkerbox filled with goodies, the Hermit took off into the sky on his elytra, shulkerbox in hand, on his way to Scar's drill.

As the cyborg navigated over the server, however, he immediately got distracted by a certain death trap-appearing thing being built by none other than the moustached suspect himself. And this wasn't at his industrial district-- it couldn't be some kind of mob farm or another. It was very curious indeed. Iskall hesitated for just a moment... before putting the shulkerbox into his inventorial pouch and diving down to the shopping district, right outside Grian's barge, where the redstoner was buried in his work.

But as he was diving down, Iskall felt a sickening crack from right behind him. Oh no. Within a moment, he was plummeting the rest of the way down to the ground. Thankfully, it was not far, and Iskall survived the fall. Unfortunately, while he survived, he didn't exactly land stably on his feet, and the swede stumbled forward, tripping over a line of string stretching from two tripwire hooks. Throwing out his arms to break his fall, Iskall fell forward.

But not on the ground.

Grasping at air, Iskall, tumbled down the hole, his eye wide. But his foot snagged on a stray root on the ground, preventing him from plummeting down into the seemingly endless abyss. Gritting his teeth from the jarring pain in his ankle, and legs, and pretty much his entire body, Iskall twisted back up, grasping the root with his hands while he wriggled his foot out. Once he was free, the swede pulled himself back out of the bottomless pit and stood shakily to his feet, staring Mumbo, who had been standing a few steps back the entire time with a mildly amused expression, right in the eyes.

Before he spoke, Iskall allowed himself time to let his racing heart slow down and to regain his shaky breath. As it turns out, nearly falling to your doom twice in the span of three minutes is not good for your head, and Iskall's was still spinning, both from the stress of the moment and the large amounts of quick movements and disorientation.

After a moment, the swede finally spoke. "So, Mumbo, what are you doing?" His voice was just the least bit raspy and low, and he spoke mildly slowly, letting each word sink in. For he wasn't wondering 'what Mumbo was doing', no, he knew exactly what he was doing. Building a trap or prank of sorts that involved sever height damage right outside of Grian's barge. What he wanted to know was why Mumbo thought setting up a death trap right outside a frequented store was a good idea in the slightest.

Now, Iskall couldn't think of a single reason, other than purely the heck of it, to do something like Mumbo was doing, but the answer he got surprised him, yet made complete sense. "Hermit Challenges," Mumbo answered, an unreadable smile creeping onto his face. Not a syllable more, not a breath less. Mumbo didn't say anything but, 'hermit challenges.'

Mumbo was always thinking up the weirdest and most elusive things for his 'Hermit Challenges,' Iskall was honestly a tad surprised he didn't think of that himself. And Mumbo didn't ever elaborate on anything. Iskall wasn't about to get more out of him.

He still didn't like the completely blank expression Mumbo's face held after Iskall nearly died multiple times.

But he hadn't the time to spend dwelling on that; he did have a delivery to make, after all. So, without another word, and just a wave of goodbye, Iskall leapt into the sky... and fell right back down to the ground because his elytra was still broken. Right. He had forgotten about that. Luckily for him, though, he had packed a spare in his pouch. He pulled it out and replaced it with the old one, quickly strapping it on and waving goodbye to Mumbo before taking off towards Scar's drill.

As he flew, Iskall thought about what had just happened. His elytra broke--he had to fix that; he nearly died twice-- would be more traumatizing if that didn't happen as often as it did; he accidentally stumbled upon some work-in-progress Hermit Challenges thing-- whom it was for, Iskall didn't know, but he had a good guess; Mumbo had once again been acting weird-- as if he needed anymore reason to lose trust in him; he missed a chance to try and get some proof-- though he wasn't sure what he would even have counted as proof, so maybe there wasn't much of a loss there; and he just now realized he was going in the complete wrong direction-- crap.

After a good few more minutes, Scar's drill finally came into Iskall's view, and who was standing right outside, looking up at the flying swede, but the Hermit himself. He couldn't see him very well, though, as a light fog had begun to surround them. Oh, well, he'd just have to be more careful. Iskall touched ground and pulled out his delivery with a, "Hallo, Scar!" 

His friend grinned as he gratefully took the shulkerbox out of Iskall's hands. "Hey, Iskall! Thanks for the delivery!" Scar tucked away the box in his pouch as Iskall watched with slight bemusement on his face. 

"May I ask why you ordered eighteen stacks of slimeballs? And not just two stacks of blocks," Iskall inquired. "Whichareprobablyinstockrightnow," he added under his breath. Would it not have been easier to just buy a few stacks of blocks from the store, rather than have Iskall come all this way for a special order?

Scar shrugged. "I actually wanted to talk to you, and this seemed like a good way to do so. Plus I wanted slimeballs."

Iskall inhaled, raising an eyebrow and holding up his communicator. "You couldn't have just asked to meet up?" He was losing Scar here.

Apparently Scar was also losing himself, as he began to sputter over his words. "Well- I just thought- well it was just easier to-"

Iskall laughed, and lay a hand on his flustered friend's shoulder. "Kidding, kidding. What did you want to talk about?" He stepped back, folding his arms as scar devolved into senseless words mixed with hysterical laughter. He didn't question why Scar needed slime. That was one of the things you don't ask about, especially as a salesperson; people have their reasons. Iskall did have his assumptions, though. Being the self-proclaimed sorcerer-wizard-magician person that he was, the cyborg assumed it must have something to do with his magic crystals. 

Iskall himself was a firm believer of Scar's magic. Of course he would be-- his own unnatural eye was powered by a magic-infused diamond that Xisuma had made for him years ago after an unfortunate skeleton incident. So of course he was intrigued in what Scar planned to do, but he stayed quiet about it. For now, at least. 

Scar stopped laughing and turned more serious, and Iskall immediately knew Scar's true intention. This was about to turn into a lovely talk about- "Have you Grian being a bit... different, lately?"

Well that went somewhere that Iskall certainly wasn't expecting. What was Scar talking about? The cyborg shook his head. "No, I can't say that I have," he admitted. "In what way? He seems better than before, right?"

Scar quickly shook his head, then nodded, and finished in som kind of weirs bobblehead motion. "No, I don't mean in a bad way, necessarily. I mean... just different. More lively, more excitable. Definitely big contrast from how he was like when Mumbo was- you know-"

Iskall nodded his head in understanding. Of course he knew what Scar meant. Grian was not himself for the few months of that. He motioned for Scar to continue, narrowing his eye in thought.

"I'm just a bit worried. We both know that Mumbo is... not normal..." He paused for a moment, before taking a breath and continuing, "You have noticed-"

Iskall cut him off. "Definitely." Of course he had noticed.

Scat nodded. "Thought so. Anyway, we both know that Mumbo isn't okay, but I don't... I don't think Grian does."

Oh.

Scar had a point, there. From what Iskall had seen, Grian didn't seem to be showing any signs of mistrust towards the redstoner. The more he thought about it, the more he agreed with Scar's theory. "Yeah, I think you're right. Do you want to go talk to him or-"

This time, Scar interrupted Iskall. "Nonono. Nothing like that. I just wanted to- er- what did I want-" He fell silent for a moment before shrugging. "I just wanted to talk." He made an attempt at a half-smile, and Iskall couldn't help but chuckle.

"Well," the swede said in an attempt to lighten the mood-- though he wasn't sure what exactly the mood was at that point-- as he pulled a few rockets out of his pouch. "pleasure doing business with ya, Scar! See ya around?" Since Scar has prepaid a few days prior, Iskall didn't need to collect any diamonds from him. Scar nodded.

"Yup! See you! Be careful in the fog!" Scar was right. The fog had begun to thicken. Terrible timing, he had to say. After a second, Scar continued thoughtfully, "Think about what I said, will ya?" 

Iskall gave a nod of confirmation and shot himself into the sky, spamming quite a few rockets as he went. It wasn't long before he was up above the clouds, leaving the ground behind and out of his vision. He flew on home silently. Even his mind was silent, not making him think about anything at all. Honestly, the silence was blissful. 

But then something broke the silence. And it wasn't his head. It was, in fact, his stomach. Iskall couldn't remember if he had eaten at all that day, and the sun had reached its prime an hour ago. Now, he couldn't exactly see anything from how high up he was, but by gauging the amount of time he had been flying, Iskall still had a ways to go before he arrived back at his base. And it was highly irresponsible to eat and fly; he'd have to touch down. 

Not looking where he was going, the swede nearly crashed into the nearest place he could find to land, which was a light-colored platform situated in the middle of the ocean. Or at least, he thought it was. The aforementioned 'light fog' had thickened immensely and Iskall could barely see anywhere, even with the light illumination he had from his fancy eye and faint lights from end rods. Nonetheless, he dig around in his pouch until he found something, which ended up being a mere bowl of rabbit stew. Ah, well. He'd find something better once he got back. 

Sitting down and leaning against an end rod, the Swedish Hermit let his mind wander. Unfortunately for his pretty good mood, his mind wandered directly to his plans for collecting proof. If only he had a feasible way to do so. Then maybe he'd have a place to go off of.

But as the fog around him slowly began to dissipate, Iskall looked up and saw bright, light blue lights shining through the fog, that slowly but surely cleared up to show the silhouette of eyes and a moustache.

And as the fog cleared up even more, and the face on the screen of the large robot blinked down at him, Iskall got an idea.

-(Author's rambling)-

:)

Hehe, just kidding. I won't do that to you again.

Quite honestly, I had fun with this one! But then writing Sa- Mumbo excuse me is always fun. Maybe I'm just a bad person. Who knows, really?

Anyway, have a great day, and see you next time, my little Readers!

Promise out!

PS: (Sorry for all the notifs!) Guess who finally got a AO3 account! I'll be putting up the chapters on there soon, including fancy revised versions of the beginning ones! So be tuned for that.