a bedrock-breaking mob?
"I'm not saying I'm happy there's a bedrock-breaking mob on the loose," Etho said nonplussed by the entire revelation, "but you gotta' admit…that's kinda neat."
"There isn't a bedrock-breaking mob," Xisuma said, utterly baffled. "I don't understand- you're sure it wasn't a player?"
"I know Scout is our new mascot, and we've only had him for a week now," Scar confided, staring into the depths of the Boatem Hole with a whimsical lilt to his words, "but I would kill everyone on this server if anything ever happened to him."
Mumbo spluttered, failing to gather his wits long enough to reply. Pearl laughed melodically, wiping her dirtied hands across a gardening apron now repurposed to her terraforming apron. Impulse was absent that day, off visiting the rumours of Doc once more flexing his ability to break the natural limits on the world.
"Well, don't go killing anyone," Pearl teased gently, "you may not get too far before needing someone to get your things."
"Hey!" Scar complained, whining at Pearl's jab. "I could totally kill someone! Maybe!"
"Uh, only if you convinced them to take off their armour," Mumbo joked, laughing wildly at Scar's dejected expression of betrayal.
"All of you are dead to me," Scar said, crossing one hand across his chest in a dramatic fashion. "Nobody loves me, except Jellie."
"Aww, we love you, Scar," Pearl soothed, offering a golden apple from her shulker chest, "would an apple cheer you up."
"...Yeah," Scar confessed, twirling away from the bottomless pit to pluck the apple happily from her palm.
Pearl hummed to herself, cocking her head slightly. The Boatem Hole was a deep terrifying thing, stretching to bedrock and then beyond. The details Impulse carved to the edges of the cliff added a new layer of depth to the passage, transforming it from an unsettling drop to something near a work of art.
"Are you thinking of adding more to the hole?" Pearl asked, wondering if she too should contribute to their community monument.
"I was thinking maybe about some vines," Scar confessed, cocking his head. "Do you think Scout would like some vines?"
"We're making a lot of presumptions about uh, Scout," Mumbo admitted. He reached into his side bag, brushing aside small pouches of redstone and bits of machinery had hadn't yet placed back into storage. Withdrawing a handful of recently roasted potatoes, he tossed them in with a hefty overhand lob.
After the last spud vanished below the rim of the Boatem Hole, Mumbo settled to contemplate the unknown question before them. "I- I mean…what if ah, what if Scout is a….lady Scout?"
"Oh well, I didn't think we were presuming genders here," Pearl mused.
"Why cant Scout be neutral?" Scar protested, whining a bit, "I like the name Scout. Names are hard!"
"I mean, maybe Scout is just…Scout" Mumbo said a bit lamely.
"Well I love Scout," Scar stated happily, stretching his arms above his arms as he cracked both elbows with a happy sigh. "He's our creepy cryptid monster!"
"Yeah, a cryptid," Pearl agreed with a chuckle, "maybe Doc will get jealous that we have a strange entity."
"Only if it starts breaking bedrock," Mumbo said, glancing toward the rough skeleton that would be his megabase, "hey, so…I know we're making this uh, enormous mountain range but…Scar are you planning on filling the gap between Pearl's mountain and my-."
"Your armchair?" Scar teased, wiggling his eyebrows, "why, yes I am! I'm thinking a grand palace in the sky! An enormous beautiful mountain that will make this place…a lovely place."
"I'm not sure we're the targeted audience for your sales pitch, Scar," Pearl chuckled, patting his shoulder reassuringly, "anyways! I've been meaning to head out and meet with Keralis. We have some ah, clock shenanigans."
"Have fun!" Scar chirped, waving her off.
After a moment of pause, Scar slowly turned to look at Mumbo. His relentless stare made Mumbo shift, uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze.
"What?" Mumbo asked, stuttering slightly under such attention. "Have I got something on my face?"
"Just that beautiful mustache," Scar stated, a small Cheshire grin slowly spreading across his face, "say…how much stone do you have?"
Spluttering on a slightly shrill and exasperated noise, Mumbo hastily admit, "not ah, not enough for anything. I've been meaning to set up a beacon and dig away to get materials but…"
"How about," Scar offered with a devious gleam in his eyes, "we jump into the Boatem Hole and dig down there and go looking for Scout?"
Diamonds were mysteriously fewer in quantity, increasing their rarity almost tenfold. Other hermits were scrambling for any sort of protection, equipping iron armour until they could gather enough precious gemstones to craft something safer.
In the dim tunnels deep below the ground, both Scar and Mumbo deviated from Impulse's gilded slime farm into the treacherous caverns below Boatem.
A few hermits had ventured through the depths and lit the way with torches. The gentle glow staved off hostile creatures, but not all of them were deterred. The occasional spider skittered above them, large enough to eat a person whole. Occasional zombies stared into empty darkness, barely moving until either of the two walked too close. Creepers, the most dangerous by far, hissed quietly as they wandered the high deepslate walls with insect simpleminded movements.
"This is horrid!" Mumbo moaned, swinging his pickaxe through another patch of tuff, "there's no diamonds anywhere!"
"This is the worst season by far," Scar agreed, slugging an embarrassing amount of copper over his shoulder. The ores clattered together, shimmering slightly in the orange flickering light. "At least there's copper!"
"We should just start charging copper in our shops," Mumbo agreed, nervously lingering to Scar's every movement, "hey uh, there's a uh…that creeper's kinda close."
"I'll protect you," Scar assured, waving his sword around half hazardously, "you may be peace this season but I am certainly not!"
The creeper ignored them, absolutely oblivious to Scar's best attempt to kill it. It wandered off, vanishing into the darkness and into a cavern opening below their feet.
Mumbo laughed shrilly, the sound bordering on something near to hysteria. Anxiety drove his hands to twitch, fingers fluttering in a random beat as he stuttered, "oh thank goodness! I don't think End Crystals would help much here."
"Who knows, maybe they're good for mining?" Scar asked, seeming far too relaxed in the deathly environment.
"Oh, like that respawn anchor nonsense?" Mumbo scoffed, shaking his head at the memory, "I'll stick to the pickaxe technique."
"Yeah well, that technique isn't working the best right now," Scar said, gesturing to their useless trails through the rock. "Honestly, I'm just happy to have this much copper right now."
"At least I have redstone," Mumbo agreed, not as happy as his friend with his recent finds, "but honestly? I wasn't lacking redstone."
Scar gasped, the loud inhale startling Mumbo once more into timid anxious energy. Mumbo bounced on the tips of his feet, nearly clinging to Scar's back as he glanced into the unsettling darkness.
"What is it?" he asked, holding his pickaxe tightly in his hands, "is it a creeper? A skeleton? An enderman? Scar- Scar please tell me you didn't look at an enderman."
"I just had the best idea," Scar said, which frequently was the precursor to a terrible idea, "what if we ask Scout…to bring us diamonds."
Mumbo blinked, processing the words twice (just to be sure he understood properly) before he wilted. Sighing, he sat on a granite outcropping, pulling one leg to his chest as he stared at the other man quizzically. "You want to…ask Scout to mine for us?"
"I just think it isn't fair he got you and Impulse so much redstone!" Scar whined, waving his torch so quickly the orange flame fizzled at the movement. "I mean, I don't want redstone, but I wouldn't argue to having a cool secret Santa living in a hole."
"Yeah but- we didn't really ask Scout to get us redstone."
"Well I'll ask him then," Scar said breezily, hooking his pickaxe to the harness on his hip. "We don't need a lame cavern! We can get diamonds the cool way!"
"I can't believe you're trying to barter with an unknown potentially imaginary monster," Mumbo teased, following hastily in Scar's footsteps. Navigating the thin narrow tunnels took some time, their frequent torch placement turned the return journey significantly safer than the cave spelunking, but did nothing to stave off monotony. After the first half hour of the slow walk home, both Mumbo and Scar broke into song with increasingly baffling lyrics, until neither men were capable of identifying the original words.
"This is absurd!" Mumbo laughed, testing the word 'milk' as after the fortieth repetition it no longer meant anything to his brain, "I- I can't even reckon how to spell it anymore!"
"It's a mystery!" Scar agreed, cackling merrily as they finally exited their labyrinth to the welcoming sounds of mindless slimes. The large barely-sentient creators squelched along, chasing bits of apple cores or wheat seeds someone had tossed to them earlier.
"Okay so, how are we doing this?" Mumbo asked, gripping the cobblestone safety railing on the overlook of the void-hole. The railing had been installed by someone- likely Impulse, and created a scenic overlook of the gap of existence while also encapsulation all the necessities of a resting area. Scar already collapsed himself on a nearby bed, placed conveniently for any tired wayward hermit.
"I'm thinking…a shrine," Scar said, staring thoughtfully at the roof of the slime farm. "Maybe a shrine mixed with a couch."
"A couch shrine?"
"I just think that if Scout keeps peeping at us all day, he may as well have a comfy spot," Scar defended with a grin, "and we have so much wool! Well, I have a lot of wool since Impulse pranked me."
"Ah, so we're using Impulse's wool," Mumbo giggled, settling himself on a chair with his miner's lunch. At this rate, all of Boatem could be sustained off of golden carrots and baked potatoes. "I mean, I don't really know how uh, big Scout is. Maybe Scout is smaller than a Vex?"
"Nah, I'm going to guess at least the size of a Blaze," Scar countered, stretching his arms to vastly overestimate the size of a Blaze. "I'm thinking we just make a pile of wool. And a shrine in it too, a great big offering platform so we don't keep throwing things into the void."
"You just want to stop falling in," Mumbo guessed.
Scar flushed, squawking embarrassedly. After a few seconds where he couldn't form words, he reached above his head to hold his hat and pulled it low enough to hide his eyes and face behind the brim.
Constructing the shrine involved multiple trips to bring down the precious cargo. Each descent was increasingly dangerous as Scar neared the end of his elytra's durability, but refused to mend it since he could 'do that later'. Both men argued about the most efficient way to clear rock from the crevice, happily ignoring the face that Impulse had already accomplished the majority of the work.
Towards the bottom of the Boatem Hole, at the junction of stone to deepslate, they hollowed out a concave bubble recessed into the wall. Taking turns to lob clumps of wool into the pocket they made, the shrine slowly built itself up. Some wool was lost to the void as both Scar and Mumbo attempted to drop wool from the surface of the world, missing the hollowed area by more than a horse-length.
By mid-afternoon, the shrine was a felted stamped assortment of rainbow fiber, some gleaming the bright colours of dandelion yellow and freshly stained green from smelted cactus. The majority was white, as Impulse had used that colour only in filling up Scar's swaggon. Coincidentally, all of Impulse's sheep were white and now, quite naked.
Gemini had visited their valley with a great amount of birch wood, preaching the worship of the specific type of tree. Mumbo thought personally that birch was quite an ugly colour when natural, and Scar didn't have the energy to go chopping spruce or oak to build planks for their little project. The birch was stripped (bark scraps tossed enthusiastically into the void) and segmented into pale planks. Assembling the altar, it was a near miss to not set the entire crevice ablaze when Scar tripped over a poorly placed lantern.
"I can't believe how close we were to destroying it all," Scar said solemnly, ignoring Mumbo's spluttered 'we?' as he placed the last bit of quarts to finish the center table. "Poor Scout would never forgive us."
"This feels like a weird underground picnic," Mumbo said under his breath, struggling to keep his balance on top of the indecently thick wool flooring. At least the center table was secure and ready for their humble offerings.
"Okay, what should I write on the sign?" Scar asked, pulling out a birch sign (the only use for birch according to many).
"Well," Mumbo said, "how do we know Scout knows English?"
Scar stared at the sign in dismay, struggling to think of how to convey such a simple want. Quietly, Scar asked, "...can Scout read doodles?"
"How do you doodle a diamond?"
"With a lot of hope," Scar admitted sheepishly, searching his bag for blue dye and the luminescent ink from glow-squid.
Their drawing of a diamond was recognizable, if not a bit lopsided. The two had worked for so long, by the time they felt finished the sun was dwindling in the sky and Bdubs was complaining across their communicators that Pearl and Keralis were harassing his sleep schedule.
The lingering odd sensation of being watched had not faded for the entirety of the day. After a period of time, they ignored it. Initially ominous and unsettling, it became a comforting weight (although a bit strange) to have someone watching their work. It wasn't often they had guests in each server the Hermit's frequented. They rarely had the opportunity to show off, or make more elaborate unnecessary things for an audience.
"This feels kinda like that cave of mysteries," Mumbo remarked, setting a chest for storage on the center of their altar, "you know the one Tango made? That had Timmy the pig?"
"Yeah, and Tango kept leaving things in the crate until Impulse and Pearl ruined all the fun?" Scar asked, slightly bitter at the thought. "If Impulse or Pearl touch this chest, I will not be happy."
"Mumbo!" Impulse shrieked at the first light of dawn, slamming his fist against the door to his small van, "Mumbo! Get up!"
Mumbo burst from the door, spluttering in confusion and panic. "What is it? Is something on fire? Did Scar fall into the void again?"
"Hey," Scar muttered, pouting from behind Impulse's shoulder.
"No! Better!" Impulse crowed delighted, "so, I checked the altar thing because it seemed really neat, right? And I got back pretty late so when I went down to check it out-."
"You went down already?" Mumbo gasped, feeling much more awake and alert. "What happened? Do we have diamonds? Redstone?"
"Better!" Scar shouted in triumph, wielding something similar to an enormous feather duster.
Mumbo stared at it, waiting for some sort of elaboration. Both Impulse and Scar watched him, nearly vibrating at the uncontainable excitement. Mumbo paused, wondering what on earth he was missing.
"See?" Impulse asked him in a loud whisper, hands gesturing towards the feather duster, "look at it! Isn't it amazing?"
"It's…nice?" Mumbo guessed awkwardly.
" Nice," Scar repeated, excitement receding under disappointment, "aw, I thought you'd get all babbling again."
"I mean, it's a nice feather?"
"It's Scout's feather," Impulse corrected.
Mumbo's head snapped around so quick it may have audibly popped, " what?"
"There's the excitement!" Scar cheered, waving the long feather back and forth. The thing was a difficult colour to identify, a dark grey bordering on slate but without the blue undertones. Maybe maroon? Or purple if Mumbo squinted.
"It's so fluffy," Scar sighed happily, touching the wispy tufts towards the bottom of the poofy thing. It didn't look like the sort of feathers chickens had, it looked a bit like the sort of feathers Pearl stuffed her pillows with.
"It's definitely not from a bird I know," Impulse agreed, still vibrating in excitement, "but see- I found that yesterday when I went down to check down the altar. And it didn't leave it there, no….Mumbo…I think I startled it."
Mumbo balked at the implications, head snapping between the feather and Impulse's thrilled expression. "You…you saw it?"
"Oh I saw it!" Impulse shouted, laughing wildly with glee, "It was really dark and it took off right away, and I didn't get a clear look at it-."
"Tell him! Tell him!" Scar cheered.
"Okay! So, I saw it…" Impulse trailed off, eyes bright and thrilled, "...and from my view it kinda looked like a big anteater!"
Mumbo hadn't expected that. He couldn't really remember what an anteater looked like- they weren't native to the server's he lived on but a few worlds had diverse animal species and fauna. Had Xisuma enabled new animals to spawn here? He would have told them all, so that didn't make any sense.
"But Mumbo…anteaters don't have feathers!" Impulse declared, grinning like he won a stack of netherite.
Mumbo blinked, struggling to understand. He asked very slowly, "So you saw…a big…feathery…butt?"
"Well, no," Impulse pouted, huffing and crossing his arms, "it was more like a really big poofy tail thing. But there were two!"
"It had two tails?" Scar asked, surprised at this new information. "That doesn't seem very convenient."
"It was all feathers," Impulse told them sagely, "picture a lot of feathers on a horse, and then add more. That's what Scout looks like!"
"But you didn't get a good look," Scar stated, petting the fluffy feather with his hands, "but this is a really big feather."
"Scout exists," Mumbo stated dumbly, the truth slowly slipping into his sleep affected brain. "You- this means Scout actually exists."
"Dude, this is so cool," Impulse laughed, "we actually have a Boatem Mascot!"
"I can't believe this!" Mumbo said, running both hands through his hair quickly, "we- this is absurd."
"Dude, I'm going to spoil Scout so much," Scar said, sighing dreamily. "I love our resident feather duster."
"It's kinda weird that there's a feather creature underground," Impulse said, "where does it fly? Or is it just…fluffy?"
"Underground-chicken?" Scar guessed, his voice turning high towards the end.
Scout wasn't only an underground strange feathered creature, he was a kind strange feathered creature.
"Oh we are rich," Mumbo breathed, voice hitching in stunned shock. "This is- this is absurd!"
"I don't think I've had this many diamonds in my life," Scar said, sounding pained. He held the cluster in his hands, letting the jewels spill between his fingers back into the chest. "How many are here? There has to at least be a stack."
"I well- yeah. I mean I've had more diamonds before, but not this early in the season," Mumbo admitted, marveling over the sight. "I think uh, Scout doesn't like your drawings much, Scar."
"I tried my best, and honestly? I'm not that upset," Scar said, caressing the pile of diamonds. "I mean, I'll need lapis eventually. And I don't know where he got a heart of the sea , but man…we're rich."
Mumbo set his diamonds back in the pile, hurriedly dividing the collection into four equal parts. Each for Boatem, whose members had already agreed to split the profits.
"I don't really have need for a conduit," Scar confessed, poking the rare sphere with one hand, "what about you? You're going to have a waterfall for your base, right?"
"I'll check with Pearl," Mumbo agreed, "but I could use it for sure."
"In that case, it's time for me to flaunt these in front of someone else," Scar giggled, clutching the gemstones close to his heart. "Oh! We should leave one so Scout knows what we want! And isn't just grabbing any blue shiny things."
The ominous sensation of being watched wasn't present until much later. When it did arrive, it was fleeting and flickering, wavering and vanishing quite quickly. It felt different, less oppressive on the back of their heads.
"Uh oh," Scar said under his breath, ascending the line of scaffolding they hastily threw up for entry, "I think we upset Scout."
Scout, clearly much more cautious since Impulse quite literally stumbled upon him, took greater precautions.
It was more often than not you could venture down into the depths of the Boatem Hole and feel the absence of its watchful gaze. Clearly, wherever Scout had hid or spawned, the requirements weren't exactly right anymore. The chest at the bottom of their shrine often took days before changing, their offerings accepted and exchanged for a variety of odd bits. It felt like a new discovery, a new piglin bartering mechanic only those in Boatem had access to. It brought up a new question, lingering at the forefront of everyone's mind quite clearly when Impulse ascended and appeared from their official water elevator, hauling a shulker box filled with new trinkets.
"So…" Pearl said, sitting comfortably in the grass as the four worked to sort the newest bits into approximate piles. They often didn't have a perfect number, sometimes things were provided that some deemed more valuable than others. Scar just about cried at the sight of oxidized copper. Pearl, Mumbo, and Impulse all stared in dumb stupidity at the physical real chunk of budding amethyst- something impossible to move.
"...has anyone else ever met Scout?" Pearl asked, sorting calcite into rough equal sized piles. "Has Keralis seen one? He does the villager trading, yes?"
"Not that I've heard," Impulse said, eying his collection of deepslate with a keen eye, "I can ask Iskall. He and Etho sometimes do a bit with villagers and Piglin."
"Not to put a damper on things," Scar said, rolling a golden apple between his hands contemplatively, "but…why don't we just ask the boss man himself?"
"I'm not asking," Mumbo blurted nervously, "I- I still can't look X in the eye. Not since the…the melon incident."
"He lagged everything so badly Xisuma had to do a rollback," Impulse translated for Pearl's sake, "it was a tragedy, really."
"I can ask him!" Scar said, childish delight guiding his movements as he drew his communicator quickly, typing away at the screen with focus. In synchrony, Pearl and Impulse's pocket vibrated. Mumbo's hip sang a cheerful tune for his notification.
Boatem was a lively place, filled with plenty of friendly faces with the growing ruckus of a party in the making. Bdubs appeared on the horizon with a swarm of llamas, carrying cargo and rockets that were filled with dyes for decorative displays. Tango and Keralis arrived, the missing pair from the Big-Eye trio, lugging candles and copper to sell to Scar's increasing addiction. Gemini appeared over the horizon, darting to Pearl's side to discuss in great detail their new use of moss and dripstone. Xisuma arrived on the horizon, traveling along the hand-shoveled paths on the back of a beautiful horse. Finally, once the Boatem crew thought no new guests would arrive, both Etho and Iskall strode into the valley atop sweaty exhausted horses.
"Oh, this is a neat place," Etho remarked casually, dismounting from the enormous beast with far too much poise. The man had opted to avoid the use of elytra for the entire season, using tridents and horses as his mode of transportation only. Clearly, he had taken well to the change.
"Oh that's a beautiful mountain," Bdubs cooed, eying the combined range spanning from Pearl's granite and reddish hue to the naturalistic organic form of Scar's handiwork into the sheer faces of Mumbo's half-built palace. The ravine was quite a sight, stretching high into the sky with a demanding presence.
"Why thank you," Scar said, sliding near his fellow organic builder, "I'm quite happy with how the moss has come in."
"Oh I love moss," Bdubs told him intensely, "love it. Just a great block."
The hermits hadn't really reached a point where they could all meet and discuss the things they had done. Scar hadn't seen Etho for the entire season so far, the reclusive man simply vanished after the first day with whispers of horses and the shattered savannah. Iskall had been a more vocal member on the chat, teasing everyone and dropping the alluring hint that prismarine would soon be for sale.
"Hermits," Xisuma greeted, waving towards some of the shyer members of the group, namely Gemini, Pearl, and Mumbo's still lingering embarrassment and guilt from the melon incident.
"Shawamy!" Keralis greeted, going so far as to throw his arms around the armoured admin, "how nice to see you! What a beautiful face, it's an axolotl, yes? Ah, lovely."
"I'm a fan of it myself," Xisuma said breezily, patting his friend on the shoulder with an armoured hand, "how has the server been treating you?"
"Oh, wonderful," Keralis said, "Tango found a spider spawner, and Bdubs has made that mountain. You've seen it, yes?"
"Rode past it on my way here," Xisuma said, nodding in the direction they had arrived from, "beautiful build, a bit empty on the inside though, yeah?"
"Shh, don't tell Etho," said Keralis with a wink.
Some of the gathered hermits were interested in the rumoured existence of a new mob- Etho one of the few. The man, although frequently aloof, had a strange paralyzing intensity to him when he fixated on something of interest. This time, at least, it wasn't about a kaleidoscope of a base.
"I like the name Scout," he said, toeing a bit of dirt into the bottomless pit, "and I'm kinda digging the hole into nothingness."
"You four are lucky I didn't think it was a bug," Xisuma scolded them gently, staying a safe distance from the edge, "I almost came over to see what was wrong when I started getting alerts."
"Well, you see…" Impulse said, looking guiltily into the depths below, "I ah…I didn't remove all of the bedrock?"
"Oh ho ho," Etho said, heterochromia eyes locked on Impulse as if he were the newest redstone update, "now that's interesting."
"You didn't remove all of it?" Xisuma asked, voice shifting a bit higher in stress, "it bugged? But- I've been running at least a dozen debugging-."
"No no! I ah…well…" Impulse trailed off sheepishly, "Scout uh…took some out for me?"
Xisuma stared at Impulse blankly. Impulse wilted.
"I'm not saying I'm happy there's a bedrock-breaking mob on the loose," Etho said nonplussed by the entire revelation, "but you gotta' admit…that's kinda neat."
"There isn't a bedrock-breaking mob," Xisuma said, utterly baffled. "I don't understand- you're sure it wasn't a player?"
"No I mean, I can show you even," Impulse said, gesturing into the hole, "you need to move a whole shelf of bedrock to piston it out. There's some blocks missing but the area around it doesn't have that- you'll notice it instantly."
"Man, we should have brought Doc," Etho remarked, shifting on his feet. He had a vaguely sleepy expression on his face, hair askew and flopping as he cocked his head a bit to the side. He asked, "have you seen Scout?"
"Yeah, just briefly," Impulse explained, "I scared him off and now he's really nervous to come back. He's really big, maybe the size of a ravager? And all feathered."
"Feathers," Xisuma repeated, looking desperately at a loss.
"Does Scout like golden carrots?" Etho asked.
"A bit? He'll bring things sometimes, we have this little shrine down there and we trade stuff. Scar asked for diamonds early on and we ended up getting a beacon out of it."
"Aww man, I'm lucking out in the savannah," Etho complained lightly, jamming his hands in his pockets. "I like this guy."
"He seems too sentient for a mob," Xisuma said, plucking something from the aether visible only to himself. If Impulse looked too hard at it, he could see the distortions and incompatible hues suggesting something beyond that of normal reality- something only an admin could access. It hurt his head, pulsing behind his eyebrows so he averted his eyes after a few seconds.
"There's no history of any players accessing the server, only the whitelisted hermits," Xisuma said, finally sounding frustrated at his failure, "I can't even find an entity on the local chunk register, and mobs show up on that!"
"Well," Etho said as he stretched his arms above his head, "what if Scout was here first?"
Xisuma stared at Etho, looking a bit faint. Etho shrugged his shoulders, relaxed about the possibility of something else living beneath their feet. "I'm just saying, maybe Scout was here all along and now he's curious about his nosy neighbors."
"I need to run some scans," Xisuma said, voice warbling in such a way it seemed he may burst into tears.
"Have fun," Etho said, smiling with his entire face. "Impulse, want to go grab Tango and make a trap?"
"Oh man, that sounds like fun," Impulse said although his twisted grimace betrayed his words, "but…I don't want to hurt Scout. He's like family, you know?"
"Oh I didn't mean to hurt him," Etho said, stretching the words with a small chuckle, "what about…ah…well, Mumbo lives here too, right? How about a little observer-camera action?"
The benefits of having four redstone builders crammed in a small makeshift theater built behind the cavernous façade of Mumbo Jumbo's half-mountain, was the sheer quantity of odd ideas.
Observers were never in short supply, not when Etho plopped down shulkers filled with enough stock to supply a small store. Tango had his own collection of bits and bobs, levers and buttons and a freakish number of redstone lamps. Impulse and Mumbo both possessed an ungodly amount of redstone powder, to the point it was an environmental concern.
Observers were meant to view changes and provide a signal based on that change- they were multipurpose motion-detectors. The benefit of them lay in their grey unassuming exterior, easy to hide in rock and chiseled stone. Redstone powder itself wasn't that noticeable if you were experienced with hiding it- and Tango had plenty of experience.
Trapped chests were placed, carefully oriented against wool (and hidden redstone lines), observers were linked in complex chains to provide a near immediate output on an enormous assembly of lamps and lights and Etho's expertly crafted piston-powered-face.
("This is an important aspect," Etho told them sagely, patting his monstrosity with one hand, "I mean, it'll tell us if he likes it or not."
"How will we know?"
"It makes a happy face or a sad face.")
The four men settled in the shade of the setting sun, squinting at constellations different from their previous home. The nearby sea was far enough where the waves could not be heard, but the smell of salt and water soothed a restless thing inside them.
"You know," Etho said, popping open a bottle of sweet berry juice, "ignoring the fact we worked for almost an entire day straight, this was fun."
"I will never get over how insane your mind works," Tango told him affectionately, peeling off a bit of bread to lob at the masked man. Etho stared at him, tipping the bottle of juice back to drink through his mask without breaking eye contact.
"He's a monster!" Impulse cheered happily, sprawled back on his chair around their little bonfire, "where's Beef when you need him? Someone! Help!"
"Oh, stop that," Etho teased, "I only wear socks and sandals the majority of the time."
"You know, I can't really judge considering I wear a suit almost every day," Mumbo said, "but that seems like a horrible fashion sense."
"I didn't forget those Mumbo-for-mayor shirts from last season," Etho countered, lifting his eyebrows, "and I know you designed them yourself."
"I- you may have a point there."
They talked, waiting long into the evening and the beginnings of night. They had started to think that it may be for naught- but Impulse's understanding of Scout won out.
"Oh! Look!" Impulse gasped, pointing at the wall of lights beside them, "look! It's lit!"
"No way," Tango stated, squinting to discern what exactly that lamp signified, "look, that's just…that's one of the observers near the back corner, right? Leading into that nasty cavern Mumbo almost died in."
"Peace Love and Plants," Mumbo stated weakly.
"It could be a bat," Etho said, although he too was leaning forward in interest. "I mean, there's plenty of bats down there. You should probably clear those out."
"Yeah I'll get right on it," Mumbo confirmed weakly, watching in awe as the lamp spread to the next- a clear crude path from the entrance past an observer further inside.
"Boys, I think we found ourselves your cryptid," Tango announced, flopping back in his chair dramatically. The poor thing creaked, groaning under the jerky movement. Reaching out with one hand, Impulse happily passed over a bag of potato chips.
"Oh, look at that," Etho mused, watching and tracking the disjointed but very obvious slow investigation. "It's sticking to the roof, not the floor. Looks like your guy is a climber."
"He does have feathers," Impulse agreed.
Scout did not stay entirely on the ceiling, but circled it according to the occasional observers. It felt a bit like the game of battleship, waiting and hopping that one of the many sensors would pick up something to give them information. They weren't trying to hurt Scout, merely watch and find unmistakable proof of his existence.
"The real test is the chest," Etho said, drumming his fingers along the armrest of his chair, "I mean, mobs can climb around. Maybe this is just a spider."
"Mobs can't open chests," Mumbo agreed, nervously chewing on his lip, "oh, I can barely watch this."
They waited, alternating between cheering on the unseen entity far far below them as it scoured the cave for any movement or threat. Occasionally, the booed as it detoured around one of their offerings, ignoring steaks and candles (much to Impulse's sadness) with no pause.
Around it traveled, sometimes on the wall and sometimes on the floor. After what felt like hours of paranoid searching- maybe thoroughly investigating what modifications they had made (jokes on it, they had both Tango and Etho to hide redstone lines) to see if they still lingered.
"Oh it's going for it," Tango said, voice dropping to an excited whisper. Mumbo vibrated in his seat, barely able to contain himself.
"So we all left chests," Impulse said unnecessarily, "we just need to see which one it takes things from…"
"And which it puts things in," Etho reminded him, hoping the weird feathered thing enjoyed his selection of random blocks. He had a reputation to uphold, and was quite fond of strange things like mushroom stem.
"He's on one!" Tango shrieked loud enough for them to startle, "Impulse! He opened yours! It's open!"
"Come on, take some," Impulse begged, nervously wriggling in his seat, "if you're here you've never been to the nether! Look at that cool netherrack! Blackstone! Pretty!"
"And it looks like it closed your chest," Etho told the man, trying not to laugh at the dejected expression on his fellow hermits' face, "it didn't take anything according to the item sorter."
"Aww," Impulse moaned dramatically, slumping in his chair.
"Oh that's mine now!" Mumbo gasped, eyes bright and curious, "it's…is it taking something? It's taking something! Look!"
Sure enough, according to the item tally signal, an entire slot had been removed. They waited, curious to see if the other slots would dwindle down- Mumbo had placed a collection of things from the surface (stock from his store, Harmless Harvest) like saplings and leaves. Scout had taken something, but not with as much gusto as expected.
"Oh man, now it's just down to me and you," Tango said, grinning sharply at Etho.
"Mm, I'm feeling pretty good about this one," Etho told him, a competitive drive making itself noticeable.
They waited, curious as Scout seemed to open both of the remaining chests, contemplating something (or leaving the chests open for an ungodly amount of time) much to their dismay. Time stretched impossibly long, leaving Tango questioning if the redstone had broken.
"Oh! Oh oh, look!" Mumbo shouted, pointing at the piston-powered face Etho had installed next to the lights, "it's smiling! Oh, that is a terrifying smile…"
"That means it put something back, right?" Impulse asked, checking the item tally on their chests, "I don't see a difference though? Did it swap something?"
"It must have- oh," Etho said, voice shifting into a high gasp of surprise. Before their eyes, his item tally lowered one by one. Laughing at Impulse and Tango's outraged shouts, Etho flaunted his clear superiority.
"What did you put in?" Mumbo asked shrilly, "how did- what did- how?"
"I told you he'd like the mushroom stem!" Etho crowed, "it's the best block! Mushroom!"
"I lost to a mushroom?" Tango shrieked, falling dramatically from his chair onto the dirt ground, "no! This is horrible! Etho, you can't do this to me!"
"Oh snappers," Etho said, cackling as the piston-face transformed into a smile, and each item slot increased all the way to full once more, "it looks like I got the winning crate!"
"This is the worst," Mumbo grumbled. Conflicting with his tone of voice, he looked absolutely exhilarated, "I thought the mob would like something- food or items or tools, but no! We lost to mushrooms!"
"Mushrooms!" Impulse repeated, sounding utterly dismayed, "and and- and something stupid!"
"Birch logs," Etho stated gleefully, fully aware of how horrendous such a texture was.
" Birch logs!"