Lies, Deceit, and Secrets

Chapter 17 - The Keep

WC - 449

Stepping out into the purple tinted world of the watcher's, Grian felt a surge of panic, his hands shot up towards his face feeling for any sort of mask that would be causing the color shift. He sighed as he assured himself he was not back in the watcher's arms and started to lead the way towards the keep.

The watcher's world looked vaguely like the surface of the moon, the ground was a weird dusty beige, the lack of flaura was a stark difference to the plains the hermits had set up camp in, and the purple tint covering the world made it seem as though you were wearing glasses. The sounds, or lack of were deafening, as if wearing noise canceling headphones. Every step would send a dusty cloud of dust flying, every breath was stuffy, and every hermit felt a sense of dread at being there.

As they got towards the keep, Grian couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. 'Where are the watchers?' He asked himself, when he was there the keep would have at least five or six watchers going in and out but he didn't even see one. Brushing it off as dumb luck, he took a step into the closest tower. He knew this place like the back of his hand and led the hermits straight to the dungeon. As much as he wished he was wrong, he knew that even decades would not let him forget what happened to him with the watchers.

As the hermits walked through the dungeon, Grian couldn't help but look around at the cells around him. They were only doors with bars to see through on the outside and inside they were just as bleak and barely the size of his wingspan. The hermits peaked into each one trying to find Stress but every single cell was empty.

Eventually they came to the end of the hallway and there was one door left to check. Grian looked inside to see Stress, badly beat up and unconscious. Chain's grabbed at her arms and legs holding her in place and she had several bruises on her face. Signaling to the rest of the group that he found her, he slowly started to use his magic to unlock the door. As the door creaked open, the hermits got a full view of their friend, gasping at how bad she looked. Most of the hermits stayed in the hallway but some immediately ran to Stress. Grian turned around to get out of the way and gasped, a shiver going up his spin at the sight of the figure standing behind the group holding Mumbo in her arms.

"Hi Grian."

Dear Reader,

I have several things to say, the first is a thank you. I quite literally just hit 1k views and wanted to thank you for all the love and support. I started writing this spontaneously and even though I've got a mini outline written am mostly going in blind chapter to chapter, constantly changing the outline I've made. The next is that I'm so sorry for hurting Stress and putting Mumbo in danger and I promise that I wasn't planning to at first but just kinda did. I'm also really into poetry as you might be able to tell by the shear amount of imagery I used and hope you like this chapter as I'm actually quite proud of it.  The last is just kinda like a me thing but I'm currently having a random panic attack about literally nothing and my ankle is in a decent amount of pain for yet again, no reason. If you actually read this essay of an author's note thanks so much, and on that note ttyl!

With warm regards,

Star (She/They)