Chapter Text
Some time ago all Grian dreamed of was having a stable form, of truly becoming what he saw as “normal”. He always dreaded the fact that, supposedly, that wasn’t possible. Shapeshifts have to change their form after some time or else it’ll get uncomfortable or painful or they could even lose control of their form.
Back then, Grian didn’t know just how much he’d hate being stuck in one form.
Granted he was hoping to be stuck in a normal form. Not one that left him unsure of just how many limbs he actually had and without the ability to truly communicate.
He shouldn’t have been surprised though, it seems like the Watcher’s specialty is to take things from him and twist them into something painful.
He still felt the discomfort and pain from being unable to shift but he now didn’t have the ability to fix it. It was meant to be painful though, it was supposed to be a punishment. The Watchers had stolen his ability to shift in an attempt to force him into complace, and as a warning. He didn’t listen though. Of course he didn't, he really hated being told what to do!
Thus he was sent to rot in an empty, unused world.
He supposed it was better than an abandoned world. At least here there was still a chance of someone showing up. Even if he wouldn’t be able to communicate with them and would likely scare them off.
So for an amount of time that was impossible to tell, Grian wondered.
It wasn’t all bad for a while he just explored the world, finding whatever it was he could, and he found some pretty cool things! If he had hands that were capable of properly holding things or still had the ability to access an inventory he would have collected so much.
He did pick up some animals though, mostly accidentally. Cats, parrots, and chickens had particularly taken a liking to him and often followed him around. Though many other animals often joined, other birds were fairly common along with ocelots, foxes, and allay. There was even one time when he picked up a creeper and somehow a sniffer. The latter of which he was still very confused about.
He never named the animals though, not after he learned that they usually didn’t stick along for too long, either because of their life span or just because they, for whatever reason, just randomly wandered off sometimes.
So after all that traveling he decided to return to the area around spawn. This meant he had less animal follower but he had seemingly become a more steady part of the ecosystem. Which on some level reaffirmed for him that on some level he was still a shapeshifter, that somehow despite his physical form the creature around saw him as one of them. It was strangely reassuring.
So he continued like that, living as a part of the environment. He also spent a lot of time wandering cave systems in the area, just to continue trying to find something new, something entertaining.
Ultimately he slept most of the time.
Truthfully, Grian wasn’t sure when the world began to change.
Perhaps he just wasn’t as observant as he’d like to think. At first he thought some trees may have been missing and he found one or two structures that he’d never seen before and quickly looked around whatever parts he could get into with his now very large body. But he never thought anything was really off.
The first time he truly thought something was weird was when the animals began acting weird. They rarely went near the new structures and many seemed to disappear. The mob especially were disappearing at a slightly alarming rate. He did some light investigation, mostly looking out for anything Watcher related just in case, but when he didn’t find any telltale signs of the Watchers he simply retreated underground.
Xisuma was very excited when preparing for season 8. He really was! The world he and Keralis and Cleo had found was beautiful! aside from an unexpected feeling of getting creeped out at some points when surveying the world he didn’t notice anything wrong!
But the feeling that something was wrong with this world persisted long after everyone had begun setting up. At some point the feeling morphed into one of being watched. Xisuma thought he was over thinking, but…
“A feeling of being watched?” Cleo questioned, brows lightly farrowing, after Tango brought it up.
Xisuma had accidentally found himself in a large ground conversation with Cleo, Tango, Keralis and Cub.
“Oh yes!” Keralis jumped in, “I have also gotten a similar feeling!”
Xisuma watched as Cleo’s brow creased more.
“Yes, I’ve been also feeling as though something is watching me,” Cub agreed, “I thought that maybe it was just a mob. They’ve been acting pretty weird since we got here.”
Have they? Xisuma hadn’t noticed.
“And you’re not worried about this?” Cleo questioned.
“Well now I am!” Tango responded, “I thought it was someone pranking me or something, but one hermit can’t alway keep eyes on all of us!”
“Do you still feel watched right now?” Cleo asked.
“Yes,” All four of them responded in unison.
“You too, Shashwammy?” keralis now asked.
“Sort of ,” Xisuma nodded, “It’s mostly been more of an uneasy feeling but I thought I was just being paranoid. I whenever we move servers I get a bit out of it for the first couple weeks.”
“You probably wouldn’t if you actually slept, man,” Cub responded, to which Xisuma sighed.
The Hermits always brought up his sleeping habits, but as far as he cared they were perfectly fine! He was a voidwalker and everything, so no one technically knew how much sleep he actually needed. The fact that he didn’t know either was beside the point.
“I’ve been sleeping, I just need to keep an eye on the code for the first week or so just in case,” Xisuma defended.
“Right,” Cleo drawled.
It looked like Keralis was also about to say something, likely having to do with Xisuma’s sleeping habits but luckily for him, Tango cut in first.
“Is there anything weird with the code?” Tango asked, “I mean like that could cause the mob behavior or the feeling of being watched or anything?”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Xisuma responded, “Though I’ve been mostly looking for any immediate dangers so if I focus on the mobs I might be able to figure something out.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Tango sighed.
Xisuma nodded. He’s heard of very few glitches that can cause strange behavior in mobs, but he’s never heard of anything about a staring issue.
His hand landed on his shoulder, “It’s probably just going to be nothing, man, mobs just act a bit off sometimes,” Cub reassured.
“Yeah, they definitely do, but I’ll still check just in case,” Xisuma agreed through his own anxieties.
He left his friends pretty shortly after just so that he could check over the code as soon as possible.
Xisuma sighed and slumped down in his chair after hours of checking over every inch of the code that affects mobs. He found nothing out of the ordinary. Which meant one of two things; this was just how mobs on this world worked, or that whatever was causing the sensation of being watched and the still ever present feeling of dread was not a part of the mobs on the server.
But, if it was something else then he had no idea where to start his search.