Unrecognizable

~Chapter Twenty-Five~

Sage's POV-

As the moustached clone and the admin walked down the stairs to the laboratory, a loud thumping sound came from somewhat further down. What was that? Sage glanced at Void, who was staring down in the direction of the sound with an expression of concern. "Oh, dear.  Any clue what that could be?" A thousand scenarios ran down in Sage's head, though he didn't focus on any. Rather than being fearful, he was honestly intrigued.

Void, however, seemed to be the former instead of the latter. "I... have no idea," he admitted. His voice was low. He drew a somewhat shaky breath. "Let's go." As he quickly began to walk down, it was clear to Sage that he was just trying to push through. Hm. The ceiling closed up above Sage, and the faux-Hermit took that as a cue to follow Void. 

He pulled out a torch, as it was a bit too dark for his liking. Since he and Void had begun to develop this secret laboratory into something more than just a small room with a couch and a few machines, Sage had to be more careful where he was putting his hand as to not accidentally hit a button or lever. To be honest, it was a tad annoying, especially given that there was nothing like a railing to grasp onto following the stairs. The flickering flame illuminated the stairwell as he caught up with Void. The thumping stopped. The two made it down without encountering anything. How strange. 

"What could've been making that?" Sage questioned, glancing back up the stairs. He half expected someone to come down the stairs just then and couldn't deny having tensed up just a tad. He glanced around the room. Could there be a shadow lurking in the corner? For just a split second, he locked eyes with Mumbo Jumbo, who had a hint of amusement present on his face. He, suppressing an eye roll, quickly turned back to Void, who was also staring up at the steps. 

"I couldn't tell you," was Void's response. "It must've been some animal." The admin turned back to Sage with an expressionless face, much unlike the one he had before. "I'll go check." Sage gave a thumbs-up as the other began to ascend back up the staircase and turned away to the newest installment in the underground lab-- a locked door. 

On the wall on the right of the stairwell was an iron door that led to yet another secret room. Beside the door was a set of four buttons. Each needed to be pressed a certain amount of times to open the door. It was quite an interesting setup, though the entire time Sage and Void-- mostly Void, if Sage was being honest-- were building was almost filled up with Mumbo chastising them on how there was a much simpler way to build a combination lock. Very annoying. Even if Sage refused to let it get to him, he still had to focus very hard on blocking him out.

Sage didn't have the best memory ever, so he intended to make himself useful while he waited. A vague memory persisted of the code, so Sage quickly punched it in to make sure. Two first, one second, no third, three fourth. The imposter heard a click of the iron door being unlocked and pushed it open. As it slammed with a thud behind him, Sage pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled down the code. One would think that someone who was essentially AI would have a near-perfect memory, but apparently, they'd be wrong.

Before leaving, his gaze fell on the table in the dark room, dimly lit by a few scattered torches. On it sat a diamond sword, decorated with the hues of enchantment. Next to the sword was a piece of chorus fruit to be used later. Sage still wasn't entirely sure how Void intended to use chorus fruit, but the moustached man had agreed to supply them nonetheless. It wasn't like he had too much of a say in the matter anyway. 

A memory flashed in his mind. It was of when he was building the farm. Sage himself had never built anything before and lacked the muscle memory of placing redstone, so he had messed up a few thing. With all of Mumbo's memories all jumbled up in his brain, who could blame him for forgetting some things? However, it did lead Grian to make his detective business which eventually led to Sage revealing himself to Grian.