Eye Spy with My Everything Eye Chapter One| Etho’s Birthday(?)

Tags as if it was ao3: Hermitcraft, Life Series, I'm sorry to all Canadians, AU, Don't fact check me on these events and their realism it's a story for a reason, beta-readers welcome, no romance, character death maybe, multiverse travel, obscure references, psychological horror maybe, dead dove do not eat, PG tho (hopefully)

Chapter One| Etho’s Birthday(?)

Our little protagonist was busy planning away in his little observatory. He had recently built the planets and the stars and now he was on to working on the farms—oh how tedious! 

He had spent some time yesterday gathering the materials for a mob farm. As he dreaded to place his first blocks, a certain GeminiTay barged into his base with a perfect distraction. 

“Hey Grian! Today’s Etho’s birthday!”

“Is it? We need to surprise him then. But oh no, my base; there’s so much work to do! Whatever will I do? Welp, I guess that will be Future Grian’s problem. Let’s go, Gem!” Grian immediately ditched all of his plans and went for his chest monster to scurry around for a pair of elytra wings. With a spark from their rockets and a swoosh from their wings, the two took to the skies.

They navigated through winding rivers with starter-house-bridges and man-made mountains and headed towards a cherry mountain where Etho’s base, the Complex, was located. The Complex was… a build of all time. To put it in Grian’s words, the man has somehow built the interior of the base first. But somehow there was no exterior.

Etho was still sleeping somewhere up in the alleyway he was working on. The two carefully looked around, trying to figure out where Etho would probably be hanging around the most often. They eventually settled on a yet-to-be-developed summit of the mountain, covered in chests and shulkers that were actually organized.

“Hey Grian, what should we do for this one?” Gem asked as the two naturally started digging up a big square hole. They weren’t sure why, but it felt like the most natural thing to do.

“Hmm, I don’t know. Ooh, maybe we place a cake here. And when he eats it, we can make it so that it triggers an observer and he falls down and we sing him happy birthday!”

“Do you have the redstone skills for that?”

“... We can wing it.”

Grian grabbed a handful of redstone dust, repeaters, observers, pistons, and whatever he could find in his shulker box. With the materials, the duo started to lay the trap; one that was way too obvious in hindsight. They covered the ground in sand that was floating on signs. Once the cake was eaten, the observer would detect it and trigger the piston beneath and break all the signs, causing Etho to fall and be forced to listen to Gem and Grian’s amazing singing skills. As Mumbo’d tell Grian, ‘it’s not that complicated really.’ Except… it actually wasn’t that complicated. Grian had made similar traps tons of times before.

It wasn’t the highest effort birthday surprise they had done, but they still had three hundred and something more guesses to go before they got all the dates. And to be honest, Grian had run out of ideas by the fifth surprise. He’s just been making whatever came to mind.

After finishing laying out the trap and preparing some last minute jingles with noteblocks, the sibling-like duo hid underneath, waiting for the star of the day to wake up.

—a while later—

After a suspenseful wait—and a couple games of I Spy With My Everything Eyes, Etho was finally up. They waited patiently for him to come closer to the intriguing, and quite obviously suspicious layer of sand sitting right on top of his mountain. Etho chuckled, looking at the cake and the sign saying “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” on it. He immediately knew who was responsible for such shenanigans but still decided to entertain the prank by taking a slice out of the cake. As soon as a slice was taken, mechanical sounds whirred from the bottom, and all the sand fell in an instant, plummeting Etho down into a massive hole filled with waterlogged slabs waiting for him beneath. Gem and Grian welcomed him into the hole with a very disharmonious rendition of the Happy Birthday Song.

“Wow, thanks guys,” Etho said once things finally settled down. “Unfortunately, it’s not my birthday today.”

“Oh…” The two looked each other in the eyes. “Welp, another foiled attempt. We’ll get him next time. Right, Gem?”

“Yeah, for sure.” 

“So, what are you guys gonna do now?” Etho asked.”

Not wanting to work on his base, Grian looked over at Gem. Thankfully, she had an agenda for the three of them today.

“Actually, we got a request for our services at The Bad Egg. We should check out what’s going on,” Gem said.

“Do you know who it might be?” Grian asked.

“No idea. All I have is this weird note.” Gem pulled out a book and quill from her pockets, giving it to Grian.

Grian opened it up and started reading it aloud.

Dear EGG,

 I am in request of your immediate help. Please prank There has been a terrible development as of recent: a lack of ghasts in Joel’s base! please help decorate Joel’s base by covering it with dried ghasts. The supply is already there for you to work with, and once you’re done, you’ll naturally find your payment in his base. 

Sincerely, someone who’s definitely not False.

“Hmm, I wonder who it could be from,” Etho said in a sarcastic voice.

“Well, it’s definitely not False,” Gem joked.

The three laughed. But a prank was still a prank, and since they were professionals, so they got down to business.

Flying south towards the whimsical and totally-not-at-all-suspicious land of Smallishbeans, the three found grey shulker boxes lying in front of his giant rainbow in the shape of a cauldron as if to reference a pot of gold. Inside the shulkers were heaps of dried ghasts. There must’ve been like a million of them. Like, actually a million.

The trio got to work and started placing the ghasts all over Joel’s base while making common banter.

“So Etho, when is your birthday?” Gem asked.

“Well, you’ll figure it out some day at this rate.”

“Yeah, when we become eighty. Grian, what are you doing?!” Gem got interrupted when Grian started trying to trap her in a pile of dried ghasts. Caught red-handed, he let out a mischievous chuckle.

“Guys, we should play a game,” Grian suggested, changing the subject.

“We should play I Spy With My Everything Eye”

“Great idea! Let’s play I Spy With My Everything Eye.” Grian said.

“Huh? Did someone say something? I mean, I’m down, but who’d you hear?” Gem asked, slightly concerned about the British troublemaker’s sanity.

“Oh, uh… I’m not sure. Anyways, let’s have Etho start! Etho, what do you spy?” Grian said. Must’ve been the wind or something, he thought to himself.

After careful deliberation, Etho came up with something. “Hmm, I spy with my Everything Eye… something that starts with the letter M.”

“Is the answer ‘maple syrup?’” Grian guessed.

“What? How’d you get that?” Etho said, somewhat shocked.

“Gosh, Etho you’re so Canadian,” Gem jested.

“Hey, you’re Canadian too. Besides, what else is there in Canada except maple syrup?” Grian joked.

“Hey, too far! There’s… me. And Etho.”

“Sohrry,” Grian said in a terrible Canadian accent.

The three laughed as they continued working on the prank, placing ghasts all around the base. Honestly, the dried ghasts became overused as a joke like three months ago, but there was something funny about placing a bunch of them to mildly irritate Joel. They continued the game, with Grian’s word being Nymph, Gem’s being Gargoyle, Etho’s being Grey (with an ‘e’), Grian’s being Yellowstone, and Gem’s being Uptown Girl by Billy Joel.

As they finished placing the last couple of stacks, Grian uncovered a chest in the ground.

“Woah! Guys, come check it out. It must be the payment,” he remarked.

“Huh, not the payment I expected, but it’s still nice I guess.” Etho started grabbing the contents from the chest.

It was filled to the brim with shulkers full of TNT.

The other two also joined in, helping clear out the chest of its many, many contents.

When they finally took the last of the TNT out, they realized they were in trouble. A sharp click came from the ground followed by the sound of something igniting. EGG, in realization of what was happening, began running away as fast as possible. Sounds of explosions started to chase them from behind. Gem and Etho were able to make it by flying with their elytras, but Grian was a beat too late, succumbing to the damage from the explosion. A large portion of Joel’s base had exploded, but thankfully, the dried ghasts took a bulk of the damage. It was a good thing that Joel was busy farming in the end.

Once things settled, Gem and Etho went back to search the damage for whatever remains of Grian had survived. There wasn’t much, but most of the important stuff—like the tools and armor, had luckily survived.

Grian was now back in the Observatory, respawned with the explosion still vivid in his mind. His breath got caught in his throat as he swallowed through the wrong tube in a panic. The telescope. His mind whispered. He listened, stumbling his way into staring through the telescope. From the distance, he could see Etho and Gem coming back with his stuff. He felt a bit relieved looking at the sight. He then turned a bit to the right, and up into the sky.

The sky had gone dark, stars twinkling across. It was pretty. But the stars weren’t what Grian saw.

No.

Peering straight back at him—as if they could see, were a pair of purple glowing eyes watching as if they expected for him to do something. Startled, Grian backed away from the telescope and decided to go out to greet his friends who were coming towards him. He made his way to the bottom of the observatory and walked down a hill, ready to meet his friends by the moat.

The two flew in and landed safely in the water. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Gem asked as she was giving Grian back his items.

“Yeah, just a mild headache that’s all.”

“You sure? You look… not so well,” Etho said in a concerned voice.

“Huh? What do you mean? I look totally–”

Grian looked down into the running water and his reflection… caught him off guard. He looked fine. His body was still healthy and normal. His eyes though…

His eyes looked as if they contained the entire cosmos within them. They were like a deep void that peered all the way into the edge of the universe. It was strange, but he couldn’t stare away. It almost felt… Hypnotizing.

“Hey Narcissus, snap out of it!” Gem snapped.

However, it was no use.

Suddenly, a rush of energy rushed through Grian’s body, sending him into a spasm. The other two looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do.

“G-guys, I don’t feel too g-good…”

Etho and Gem tried to help him calm down, but he stopped moving, collapsing onto the ground.

—later—

Grian woke back up, his head still spinning as he regained conscience. However, Gem and Etho must’ve already left because he was alone. They must’ve brought him somewhere though. He was in a room that he wasn’t that familiar with. It was a very sandy room, with most things being built out of sandstone and birch. It was pretty cramped as well, looking more like a starter base rather than a proper seasonal one.

“Gem? Etho? Are you guys there? Mumbo? I think I need one of your therapy sessions right now.”

Silence.

Checking that he felt a bit better, he got out of bed and noticed a ladder on the other side of the room. He climbed down it, exiting to the view of a small desert barricaded in cacti and lava. The house sat atop a small, sandy hill. From the distance, Scar could be seen running up towards him.

“Grian! They took Pizza! They took Pizza Grian!” Scar yelled in a desperate voice.

Pizza?