Chapter Text
-~-
There was soft grass under his fingertips, gently grazing his face as he tilted it a bit to the right before opening his eyes. The sun had just come up, shining beautiful rays on the land around him, casting shadows from trees and warming up the grass.
Grian puts a hand on his face, rubbing his eyes shortly before finally finding the motivation to sit up. As he slowly got used to the bright light he spotted some figures in the distance; moving figures, seemingly players as well.
Right, he finally knows where he is now. He is a player in a death game, a game about lifes. He fights against gravity as he stands up, stretching out his arms in a dramatic motion, his wings flaring up a bit as he does.
They had gotten a bit messed up from laying in the grass- and let’s not ignore that he had been teleported here.
He takes in his surroundings, noticing some pumpkins not that far from him along with flowers. He should probably talk to some of the other players that have been here just a few minutes longer than him.
They were standing by a river, Grian spotted a crafting table next to them along with some of the worst tools in the hands of a few players. They were already progressing and his instinct only told him to join- well, maybe a little more than just his instinct.
He squints his eyes, trying his best to see who was actually standing in the distance. He decided he’d figure it out while walking their way.
He did, not needing to read the name tags to know which players were already conversing. Scar, Lizzie, Etho, Gem and Bduouble.
He can feel a small tingle in his wings as he approaches them, thoughts racing in the back of his mind. Creating unnecessary parallels between the players he sees.
Gem is the first to notice Grian walking up to them, wings a bit higher than needed but no one could pick up why. ‘Hey! Grian!’ she yells over at him, giving him a short wave and a bright smile.
It made the other players look at him as well, all giving him a smile and saying a quick hello before continuing their previous conversation.
‘Cleo is gathering stone with BigB, we need logs Lizzie’, Bdubs argues in a lighthearted tone. ‘But flowers are useful too.’ Etho lets out a sigh. ‘Finally here, Grian?’ It’s asked like a question but it sounds rather rhetorical so Grian lets out a short laugh.
‘I didn’t miss much, right?’ Grian asks, letting his wings close against his back to show some more hospitality towards the other players. ‘Not really’, Gem says right after she takes the last log from the tree they were standing by.
‘Me and a few others are gonna live up that mountain.’ Gem points towards the only mountain within the area, a proud look on her face. Grian quirks an eyebrow. ‘With who?’ ‘Cleo, BigB and Scar.’
Grian looks over at Scar, who seems to be in a deep conversation with Lizzie and Bdubs about what they should gather. ‘Claimed yourself a good place, huh?’ Grain says with a small grin, scouting the area around it for any other places to build a base.
Gem hums as she crafts the logs into planks.
To his right he can see Cleo pull someone out of a hole, he guesses it’s BigB right before she pulls him out. ‘Alright, we’ve gathered some cobble- Hey Grian.’ She hands Gem some of the cobble she had mined with a now broken wooden pickaxe.
‘Sweet.’ She gets to crafting some new and better tools. ‘Should we get some saplings before climbing up that mountain?’ Cleo asks, inspecting the leaves from the chopped over tree. BigB and Gem agreed, knowing arguing with Cleo about it wouldn’t help them in the slightest.
‘Are there any other players?’ Grian asks, placing his hand right above his eyebrows to block the sun as he looks around again. ‘I heard that Jimmy and Impulse ran off somewhere’, Scar chimes in.
Grian looks over at Scar, making eye contact for just a second. All he could see in Scar was past lifes, memories hidden far away in his mind so that they wouldn’t interfere with the game. It made for a weird sight, one-sided memories of so many interactions, yet he had to keep up a poker face.
-~-
Scar restrains the need to furrow his eyebrows when Grian gives him a weird glance. As if Grian was trying to look through him, figure out what Scar had going on even though they were barely ten minutes into the game. He couldn’t decipher what colour Grian’s eyes are, stuck between a really really dark brown or just straight up black.
He’d have to ask Grian at some point.
There was a suppressed need to reach out to the avian, maybe Grian wanted to join his team. Before he managed to form a thought, Cleo interrupted him.
‘Let’s go.’ Scar breaks eye contact to look at Cleo who put away a few saplings she had grabbed from the left over tree leaves. Scar steals a quick glance at Grian who was looking the other way now.
‘Yeah, yeah- sure.’ Scar looks at his team, all of them making their way towards the mountain. He quickly joins them, leaving Grian behind. Something in him wonders about him, about that weird stare he gave Scar. He’s sure he’ll talk to Grian again at some point, saying that they just talked is a bit of an exaggeration though.
He catches up with his team, all he has is a wooden sword and a pickaxe. They’ll probably upgrade as soon as they settle down on the mountain. He notices some holes on the side of it, they’d have to check for any caves later on.
He never felt more out of condition than when he was climbing that stupid mountain. It definitely needed some stairs or a ladder because pulling yourself up on edges made from dirt just to get a few metres higher isn’t the best way to go.
He wipes some sweat off his forehead as he gets to the top, taking the last few steps. ‘We really gotta make some stairs for this!’ BigB cries out as he’s almost there as well. ‘You’re right.’ Gem wipes the dirt off her hands, hair a bit disheveled.
Scar watches as Cleo places down a new crafting table and some chests. ‘Do you think there are caves under here?’ Scar asks the whole team. ‘Probably’, Gem shrugs, checking out the area they’ve got to work with.
Scar folds his arms, looking over the ground below them. He heard something about tasks in this game and he furrowed his eyebrows when he did. What if it was like Secret Life? He didn’t want to repeat the events from that, he didn’t have that much of an attachment to what happened, but something in him still wondered.
They hadn’t been given an instruction about how to get a task or what it even was. Saving up on resources is definitely the best thing to do with their lack of knowledge. ‘Let’s go check out the cave’, Scar says, still looking down the mountain, catching a certain avian as he does.
‘Scar, we barely have any food.’ Scar lets out a fake annoyed groan. ‘We just got up here!’ Scar and Gem laugh at BigB’s resentment for going down the mountain again. ‘Me and Cleo can go’, Scar suggests.
‘Now that’s an idea I like’, BigB says. Cleo walks over to Scar. ‘We can go if you stop staring at whatever.’ Scar gives her another fake annoyed glance. ‘I’m just watching.’ Cleo motions to Scar to follow her, so he does.
The two of them slowly make their way down the mountain, too busy with trying not to trip to make any small talk. They stopped in front of a big hole that led inside the mountain. ‘Seems pretty big, huh?’ Scar says, holding up his wooden sword.
Cleo looks around for some coal. ‘I’ll make some torches.’ She walks over to some stone filled with coal and starts to dig away. Scar just inspects the cave as much as he can with little light, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.
It didn’t take long for Cleo to hand him some torches to hold up and place down. ‘We need iron for a shield, darn those stupid skeletons.’ Cleo looks over at all the mobs roaming around in the darkness.
Scar holds his torch up high, seeing some ores glisten in the yellow light. He scans around until he finds one that is within their reach. ‘Here’, he says, pointing towards some iron ore. They both make their way over there, watching their step with all the little crevices and small drop-offs in the cave floors.
Scar gets to mining some stone to make a furnace, both of them being done at the same time. As Scar places down a furnace he looks at Cleo again. ‘Y’know, we can see everything from that mountain.’ Cleo nods, putting coal and iron ore into the furnace so it can melt down.
‘We can watch over everyone’, Scar adds, looking upwards a bit to envision the view again. ‘Kind of like we’re overseeing them’, Cleo says, leaning on the crafting table. The light from the furnace was enough to light up the area around them to make it safe.
‘Wouldn’t that make us overseers- That should be our name!’ Cleo laughs a bit at Scar’s excitement. ‘We’ll have to pitch it to Gem and BigB.’ ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll agree. It’s such a good name’, Scar says proudly. There’s a big grin on his face.
Cleo shakes her head with a smile before taking out the iron bars. Within a minute she hands Scar a shield and her stone pickaxe. He holds his torches in his leftover hand, the other occupied with a shield. ‘I’ll light it up.’
Cleo hums in response. ‘We can’t go far though.’ Scar agreed as he placed a torch against the wall. ‘Let’s go for some tools and maybe armour.’ Scar mines into some iron ore he found.
He tried his best to ignore the nagging feeling in his head that mobs were so close to him when he was so unprotected. Exposed to the cold air of the cave and a lingering presence in the dark.
He is Scar though! A silly cave like this isn’t something to be scared off, so he dug away in the stone. Taking every ore he could find, occasionally fighting off a zombie or skeleton with Cleo. Luckily the both of them didn’t get shot and they surfaced with a grand total of 35 iron ores and a coal supply for a few days.
The sun wasn’t standing as high in the sky, Scar assumed the time was somewhere around 4 p.m. by now. He saw some buildings pop up on the land surrounding him, to the left of the mountain he could see a familiar figure standing next to a small starter house.
Red, yellow and blue wings stood proudly as Grian pointed towards the house and talked to Joel; who was easily recognisable due to his outfit and green hair. So Grian had settled in right next to his mountain- well, there was a river in between the land where they stood on and the rest.
He assumed to see a bridge there at the end of the day, an obvious structure that had to be placed there.
Maybe if he gives Cleo his loot he can go and visit Grian’s island. ‘Here.’ He hands Cleo his iron and coal. ‘I’m gonna go visit that island real quick.’ Cleo quirks an eyebrow. ‘Just visiting?’ ‘Well, it’s nice to know who’s a team!’ Scar argues. Cleo shrugs but gives Scar an “I know you’re lying” look. ‘See you later then.’
Scar turns around towards the island, walking a bit too fast for someone who’s just checking out the teams. Grian seemed to be a bit angry as he was talking to Joel, something Scar had to admit was charming about the avian.
He noticed a dirt bridge on the side, that’d be good to use if he doesn’t want to catch a cold so early on. He carefully walked over the narrow bridge, feeling relief as he stood with both feet on land again.
He walked up to Grian and Joel, who didn’t seem to notice him at first. ‘Already building a starter home?’ Scar asks as he crosses his arms, checking out the building again. Grian turns around to look at Scar, who tried his best to ignore Grian’s reaction. From the corner of his eye he can see Grian’s wings jump up a bit, standing higher than before. His stance was less relaxed, more protective over something.
‘We gotta have a roof tonight’, Joel says. ‘Plus, doesn’t your team have a base as well?’ Scar looks at the mountain, still ignoring Grian’s stare, and he can see a roof pop out. Must’ve been Gem and BigB’s doing.
‘Oh, I guess we do.’ Joel laughs at that. ‘This guy’, he says through his laugh. ‘I’ve been in a cave!’ Scar argues back, a big smile on his face. ‘I guess that is fair, Tango and Bdubs have been caving as well.’ Scar gives Joel a curious look. ‘Is that your team?’ Joel nods as he stands proudly.
‘Have you got a name yet?’ Joel looks down, debating in his head about what to say. ‘We’re the islanders’, Grian says, finally speaking. His gaze had been dragged away from Scar, now looking at their small house again. ‘Ooh, I’m not sure what my team is called. I wanted to pitch Overseers to them but I haven’t seen Gem or BigB yet.’
‘Similar names’, Joel comments. Scar nods in agreement. ‘Well, I better go off before they don’t give me any iron from our collection’, Scar jokes. Joel flashes him a smile and he notices a small glint in Grian’s eyes as he does the same. ‘We’ll be seeing you a lot here, huh?’ Grian asks.
Scar grins. ‘You better bet you will.’
Before they could see an actual goodbye, thunder rang loudly through the sky. Scar bucked down a bit while Grian covered himself with his wings. It wasn’t raining, the thunder was quite weird.
But as Scar slowly opened his eyes again, he noticed a book in his inventory. He looked up at Joel and Grian who were also checking out a book. He grabbed it, carefully opening it to read the content inside.
GoodTimesWithScar
You have been selected as: preventer
Target: LDShadowLady
The rules state as followed:
You may not tell anyone about this, you have until tomorrow’s sundown. If you fail, you lose a life. LDShadowLady may have a killer to her name, avoid this. If someone figures out that you’re a preventer and your target, you fail and lose a life. You must prevent a killer causing LDShadowLady’s death. If LDShadowLady survives until tomorrow’s sundown, you succeed and may be rewarded.
Scar read it again, again and again. He has to protect Lizzie from a killer? There were green names that had the task to kill? Joel seemed to be a bit ticked off from his message, was he a killer? Did everyone even get a message?
‘So this is the game?’ Scar asks, still a bit confused. ‘Yes, just gotta stick to the rules’, Grian says, his wings having lowered again. Right, so he has to protect Lizzie, that’s it. Protect her without anyone knowing, that shouldn’t be too hard.
But what if someone was out to kill her? The rules said that not every person has a target on their head. Did he have a killer going after him?
‘I’m gonna go back to my team’, Scar says as he closes the book. ‘You go do that’, Grian states, a weird undertone in his voice. Grian didn’t seem to be as happy with his book, but Scar guessed no one was happy to hear the news that it was already dangerous.
Scar goes back to the dirt bridge, feeling a pair of eyes staring at his back as he left to climb up the mountain again.
Gem, Cleo and Bdubs were already in discussion, Scar quickly joining them. ‘Scar, you got a book too, right?’ Scar nods. ‘Yeah, Grian and Joel got one too.’ ‘It’s a safe bet to say everyone’s got one, right?’ Gem asks.
Scar looks at his communicator, Skizz had asked if everyone got a book as well with some replies stating a quick yes. ‘Seems pretty safe to me’, Scar replies.
‘Okay, I have to ask, what if one of us has to kill a teammate?’ Bdubs asks, clutching his book tightly in his hand. Cleo squints her eyes at him. ‘Why? Have you got one of us?’ ‘No, no, but what if it happens?’ Gem exhales loudly. ‘We follow the rules, right?’ No one disagreed.
‘But- if we do, can we not hold any grudges?’ Cleo visibly thinks at Bdubs’ question. ‘I’d say it depends on how many lives we all have at some point.’ ‘That’s true’, Gem says. ‘Guys, we just have to stay a team’, Scar says, sounding a bit airy as he tries to lighten the mood. ‘If it does come down to that, we should talk about it before burning any bridges, hm?’ Bdubs agrees with a hum while Gem and Cleo nod again.
‘Oh, we’ve decided that Overseers is a good name’, Cleo says, suddenly thinking of it again. Scar lights up at that. ‘I knew it! It’s literally the best name ever.’ Gem laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah. Me and Bdubs got some food, I say we all go caving to gear up better.’ She hands Scar some of the food, cooked chicken.
‘Sweet, let’s go before the sun goes down.’
-~-
Grian had covered himself with his wings out of habit, unsure as to what he should be protecting himself from. It had just been thunder, nothing that could actually hurt him- yet. Scar and Joel seemed to be in a panic as well, unsure as to what had just taken place.
He grabs a book from his inventory, quickly reading the inside of it.
Grian
You have been selected as: killer
Target: Ethoslab
The rules state as followed:
You may not tell anyone about this, you have until tomorrow’s sundown. If you fail, you lose a life. Ethoslab may have a preventer to her name, avoid this. If someone figures out that you’re a killer and your target, you fail and lose a life. You must be a direct or indirect cause of Ethoslab’s death. If Ethoslab dies before tomorrow’s sundown, you succeed and may be rewarded.
So he had to kill Etho as a green name? He could’ve guessed that different rules would apply to different tasks, but it seems that everyone either got killer or preventer if he’s reading it correctly.
He didn’t want to kill so early on and he truly hates being left in the dark about the server games and rules. It gave him less of an advantage of the players around him, less control over himself and the server.
He slowly lowered his wings as he read the text a few times. Kill Etho before anyone knows he has to kill Etho, not that hard.
‘So this is the game?’ Scar asks. ‘Yes, just gotta stick to the rules’, Grian replies to him, wasn’t it obvious enough what they had to do? Maybe Scar was unsure as well about how to handle this all.
‘I’m gonna go back to my team.’ Grian bites his lip harshly before speaking again. ‘You go do that.’ He didn’t mean to make it sound so weird, but he was a bit saddened that Scar was leaving so soon. He’d have to talk things over with his team anyway, but still he kept his watch on Scar as he climbed back up to the mountain.
‘So we- we really lose a life if we tell anyone who our target is?’ Joel asks again for reassurance. ‘Yeah.’ Joel takes a sharp breath in. Grian wonders who Joel had gotten as a target, he assumes Joel is a killer due to his reaction. Maybe he had gotten a teammate.
‘Bdubs and Tango will be here soon I think’, Grian says, keeping his eyes locked on the building in front of him. He let out a small sigh.
Killing Etho was the next best thing on his list now.