Elusion (HermitcraftxEmpiresAU)

THANK YOU

First and foremost thank you everyone who's been reading, voting and commenting on this story. It's been a blast writing it! It's been a great way to entertain myself and escape reality over the last nine months or so.

Honestly I didn't do much planning for this story or Collision. I got an idea of how I wanted it to end and winged it from there. Somehow it all came together in the end, but I'm sure there's plenty of plot holes to be found lol.

I did one draft which ended up being almost completely different to the final product. Originally the story was set in Hermitcraft with zero mention of Empires. I started writing just as the crossover happened and that changed the course of the story completely. Originally Bdubs was hiding Etho in the basement due to mistrust of him throughout the server.

The corrupted Tango you saw was previously going to be Scar, who was damaged when going through the rift.
The only thing that remained constant from the original draft was that Etho was made a Watcher when he got trapped in limbo. What is limbo? Basically the space in between servers I guess, the void you could call it.

This may come as a surprise, Etho and Bdubs were never going to become a thing. I planned for Etho and Tango instead but later changed it since it didn't make sense for the plot. And I didn't really want this to be a ship heavy story, I wanted it to be more lore based.
I didn't originally plan for Pearl to be a Watcher either. I only discovered she was part of Evo in the early days of writing this. After that I knew I had to incorporate her somehow and came up with what you see now. Same story with Jimmy.
I always planned for Ren to die at the end of Collision, it was genuinely a last minute decision he would be revived. I felt like everything was just too unresolved. Plus the likelihood of the Watchers finding someone else to do their bidding after that simply wasn't plausible. For a bit I considered Doc but I just couldn't picture him to be like that. He's psychopath, not a villain.
Xisuma was originally going to sacrifice himself instead of Fwip, but I figured it'd make for a better plot if it was Fwip instead.
Anyway here's some final notes that I tried my best to follow while writing this.

- The multiverse is infinite
- Watchers are pretty much all powerful. The only thing they cannot do is bring back the dead
- Admins have control over all that is code, which is nearly everything. They cannot control players or the mind though, that is the Watchers job. But unlike Watchers they don't use magic. Their power comes from manipulating code
- Listeners are like a mix, but much weaker. They can travel through portals but are limited in every other aspect. Their most prominent strength is their ability to bring back the dead, which they can only ever use once
- The mind IS made of code, which can alter how a person looks, feels and acts. Despite it being code, admins cannot access it
- The body is merely a vessel, but the mind cannot survive without it. If the original body is destroyed, the mind will fade away
- The reason the Watchers failed to make Jimmy one of them is that they didn't believe him to be worthy. Instead they cursed him with the Canary Curse
- Normal weapons cannot kill a Watcher. They can be enchanted to do so though, and coupled with the power of a Watcher they can kill
- When the Watchers control someone, part of their mind splits off into the person's mind, similar to how Tango's mind was split. But they are able to to control it with their magic
- The tentacles that held Doc back from returning to his mind are merely the magic of the Watchers preventing him from taking control
- Empires False hasn't really gotten mentioned since Collision. Part of the reason she got killed off was because I didn't want to deal with doing a section with False's lore too much. But I assure you she's with them all in the afterlife
- The crack in the sky during the final battle in Collision was the Watchers trying to forcefully tear the server apart, corrupting it with their magic. Had it have covered the entire server the server would've simply collapsed and disappeared into the void, either killing or rendering the Hermits and Emperors stuck in the void
- Etho was half under the control of the Watchers for a while as they didn't want to arouse too much suspicion or cause Ren to feel guilty. Hence why they merely took control when necessary
- Some of you may have figured it out, but all of the Watchers have their human self and their Watcher self. Their Watcher self will always be power hungry and evil, so their human version must remain in control to be sane. All of them have both, even Aiqaz and Reijo. Which one of them that was in control is up to you to decide for now
- Galactic is the native language Watchers speak but they speak English around those who don't understand. When someone becomes a Watcher they will be able to automatically understand it
- If Cleo had been a normal human she would have succumbed to her wounds and died. Being half zombie saved her

If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment, I'll answer as soon as I can! :D
I'll probably edit this when I come up with more stuff

Soon.