Chapter Text
“I don’t think I want anyone else to experience a death like that,” Scar admits to Grian with yellow shining in his eyes, as they make their way to the desert. The guilt from what should have just been a prank builds, and Grian averts his own green gaze.
“I want to make a place that’s safe,” Scar continues, when they reach the biome, as Grian cuts down cacti so Scar can pass unharmed. Grian stays quiet, keeps leading Scar into endless sand, hoping that he has enough water for their voyage to keep Scar alive. “For everyone.”
“And I think,” Scar says later, as he watches the chest he places sink slightly into the sand, “if you don’t mind G, I’d like you to help protect it.”
And that is how the oasis is born.
—
At first, Scar wants to build their base on top of a sand dune nearer to the edge of the desert. All good bases, he tells Grian, are built on top of mountains and sand mountains are, obviously , the best of the best.
Grian gets to work on placing the initial blocks, outlining the building that they’re going to build upon. While Scar is off building connections, Grian focuses on building the foundations for their new home, trying his best to build their safe haven.
Pickaxe in hand, Grian spends most of his time mining materials and feeding the llama that Scar has brought back to their small starter base. He descends deep into caves in search of diamonds and brings back enough to replace the cracked iron chestplate that Scar had been using when he’d first been killed at the village.
He’s about a week into building the base, has gotten the first floor finished, when a pair of hands shake him awake in the middle of the night.
“ Why ?”
“Grian,” Scar says, eyes electric and grin wild. “I had a vision for what we need to build.”
Half-awake and trying not only to rub sleep from his eyes but also sand too, Grian lets out a small mumble of gibberish and half connected syllables that might constitute language to someone far more coherent than him.
“G, come on, get up!” Scar continues, tugging at the sheet beneath Grian with enough strength that he topples to the ground with a thud and another whined ‘why?’
By the time Grian has removed the taste of sand from his mouth and groggily pushed up onto his feet, Scar is halfway out of the door. Grian glances between his armour and his sword, grabs the sword and races after the man he’s found himself indebted to.
It is, rather unsurprisingly, really fucking dark in the desert at night. Lit only by the stars and the glow of the waxing quarter moon, Grian races after Scar as he rushes past the few torches they’ve set to burn overnight, further into the desert depths.
“This way Grian,” Scar calls, when Grian’s alarm starts to shift into worried yelling. “I need to show you where we’re setting everything up!”
They descend the sand dune, traversing the small fissures in the sand, narrowly avoiding falls into the canyons below.
“Can’t this wait until the morning?” Grian pleads, his voice shrill as an arrow flies past them both, mobs catching notice of them.
Scar ignores him.
Grian doesn’t know why he expects anything else, really.
Instead of arguing or yelling more at Scar, he settles instead on trying to keep the mobs at bay. Why Scar didn’t think ahead to put on armour before his mad dash into the wilderness, Grian doesn’t know, but he does know that if Scar dies tonight, he’s never going to hear the end of it.
“Here!” Scar says, chest heaving as he throws his arms out to signal at what is just more endless sand. It’s… it’s just sand, there’s no significant landmarks, not even cacti here. “It needs to be here, Grian!”
Grian lunges past Scar to slice into the creeper that is beginning to sneak up on his distracted friend. It crumbles into gunpowder seconds before it seems ready to blow, and his chest deflates with relief.
“ What needs to be here?”
“The temple, Grian!” Scar says. “It’s how we’re going to make sure everyone can stay safe. We’re going to build the desert temple!”
For a moment, Grian stops fighting the mobs around them to truly process what Scar’s telling him.
Please don’t tell him that Scar’s creating a cult.
Grian has to follow this man until he loses his first life, but he does not want to lose it because he’s joining a cult.
“And you couldn’t tell me about the temple in the morning?” Grian splutters with disbelief, as a zombie catches him in the shoulder, blood oozing from the wound as he staggers forward.
“I had a vision, Grian,” Scar emphasises. “You don’t ignore visions!”
“You do if it’s three in the fucking morning, Scar!”
“I’m not saying we need to build it right now, I just wanted to show you—”
“Scar,” Grian says, deathly serious. “If you told me we were going to start building this thing in the middle of the night, I think I might just have to leave you to all of these mobs.”
He heaves out a sigh, pointing a hand back the way they’d come. There’s blood and gunpowder and small pieces of web clinging to his skin. “Come on, we can do all this tomorrow.”
Scar hums, clearly thinking before yawning. “We’re starting on this first thing in the morning, G!”
“Sure, sure.” Grian sighs, because clearly, his life is in shambles and he has no control over it anymore. At least he stopped himself from saying: ‘We can deal with the cult in the morning’. “Let’s go home.”
“Not home,” Scar says, “just back. This will be our new home, Grian.”
—
When the sun has risen and the hour is far more reasonable, Scar packs their materials away into his inventory and heads out into the desert. He leaves the coordinates written on a small sign outside of their build.
From the way Scar takes his bed along with most of their inventory, Grian realises that this build he’s been working on has already become redundant.
Grabbing his pickaxe, Grian sets about tearing down the walls, before packing his own inventory and making his way towards the coordinates that he’s been left.
The desert heat is stifling, and Grian has to change from his usual red jumper into something cooler, something with fabric that feels less like it’s boiling him alive. He sips at water as he wanders, heat leaving his cheeks flushed red and hopes that whatever Scar has planned for this temple, that he’ll have some shade to hide under while they work on everything.
“G!” Scar calls when he finally reaches the place. Somehow, it seemed less of a distance during the night, when the desert was less torrid. “Over here, over here!”
The temple hasn’t been started yet, not even the initial blocks planning the foundations out, but Grian wasn’t exactly expecting there to be any progress in that regard.
What Scar has set up is a shoddily built gazebo. The walls are haphazardly placed chests, and his bed is already half buried in the sand, but at least it offers a small relief from the beating sun.
“I’ve spent the morning mass producing candles,” Scar says, as Grian stares at the gazebo helplessly. “You know, it is sweltering out here today. I thought maybe it’d be easier to just light this place up and build at night instead!”
“It really needs to be here in the desert?” Grian asks, even though he knows the answer. Scar just stares at him and that’s, yeah, pretty much the answer he was expecting. “Sure, fine, desert temple—how’re we going to do this?”
“First, we need to excavate a lot of sand.” Scar points towards two shovels sticking out from the sand and for a moment, it is only the fact that Grian owes this man his first life that keeps Grian stood beneath the shade of this gazebo. “And then… ah… actually, maybe one of us should clear the sand and the other should get resources for the temple.”
Grian considers which option is most likely to get Scar killed in his head—dehydration and heat stroke, or descending back into the server to gather blocks they need for their build. He rubs at his temples, trying to ease away a slow building headache.
“I’ll get resources during the day while you sleep,” Grian says, “and I’ll help during the evening to get this started.”
“When are you going to sleep, Grian?”
“I’ll nap.” He points to the bed. “Sleep, and I’ll be right back. What blocks do we need?”
“Quartz,” Scar says, looking somewhat apologetic. “We’re going to need a lot of quartz. As much as you can get your hands on.”
“I’m sorry, you can’t choose some other block than that?”
Scar shakes his head. “The temple needs to be quartz, G.”
Great.
Quartz means going to the nether and Grian is not kitted out enough for a trip to the nether. Still, he supposes this will make for a quick get-out-of-owing-his-life card, since he’s no doubt going to die to every stupid creature that roams the place.
“Sure,” Grian sighs, and prepares for a long day of grinding and trying his best to stay alive.
—
Grian has made the advancement [We Need To Go Deeper]
—
The Nether doesn’t kill him.
Somehow, Grian thinks that it specifically does not kill him because dying now would be too easy .
By the time he comes back from hours of mining, stacks of Nether quartz in his inventory, his armour scuffed and in need of urgent repairs (and enchanting), Grian feels half dead.
At least he’s still alive?
He’s not entirely sure if this is a good thing.
The desert doesn’t feel as overwhelming after spending a day in even more hellish temperatures, so at least Grian has that going for him. The sun isn’t quite setting yet when he reaches the edge of the desert, which is good considering the lack of torches this far from the temple Scar is setting up.
He squints at sand to see if he can spot the gazebo Scar’s set up and sighs when he realises he can’t see it as a speck on the horizon.
…He’s not doing this walk again. With obsidian in his inventory, Grian’s planning on building another portal much closer to their base. No way is he going on such a long trek each day.
Grian walks.
And walks.
And walks.
And then, at the edge of his vision, there’s the small gazebo. Scar’s not inside, but rather to the right of it, shovelling blocks of sand into open chests. Past his quick build, there’s an enormous crater in the shape of a waning moon.
Staring, Grian lets out a long sigh. If this is what Scar’s going to use as the foundation for their temple then he really doesn’t have enough quartz mined out.
“Please tell me this isn’t for the temple,” Grian sighs as he stops by Scar, hand shielding his eyes from the weight of the blinding sun. “I don’t think I can manage gathering resources for a temple that’s that big.”
“Welcome back,” Scar says. “It’s not for the temple, no.”
“You’re not just saying that, are you?”
“No, no.” Scar shakes his head adamantly. “No, Grian, this is all for the oasis that the temple is being built at.”
Grian stares for a moment, turns to look at the crater, and lets out another sigh. “...The oasis?”
“Every temple in the desert needs some sort of oasis, Grian.” Scar explains, as if this makes complete sense and the added work isn’t completely insane . “We need to be able to sustain ourselves out here, so that we can be a safe haven for anyone seeking shelter!”
Grian closes his eyes and lets out a long breath.
“...I’m going to have to go on multiple trips to fill this up, aren’t I?”
“Sorry G,” Scar says, apologetically. “I’ll help with it too, don’t worry. Did you find any quartz?”
Scar looks at the nether quartz that Grian’s brought back and grins so wide that for a moment, Grian almost thinks all the hard work is somewhat worth it.
“We’ll start on the foundations tonight, G, this place is gonna look a- may -zing.”