With the end of season 6, I went on a draft-cleaning spree! I forgot that I almost finished this one, so enjoy an awkward first draft!
"Oh goodness, what have I done?" Iskall cackled.
"Look at you! You have my moustache!" Mumbo cried, reaching for his own face. "And I have your eye!" The pair had just stumbled out of Iskall's desaturator, and it was instantly clear that the two had been stitched together, looking like two puzzles that a child had accidentally mixed up and pieced together.
"This is incredible! I have two eyes again!" Iskall bounded into the grassy clearing across from the machine, marveling at the patch of dandelions blanketing the ground. Trotting after him, Mumbo peered over his shoulder. "Does having a robo-eye really affect your vision that much? Looks the same to me."
"If you turn it on you'll see." Iskall reached up and pressed a button on the side of Mumbo's new eye, and Mumbo stumbled back with a cry.
The patch of dandelions hadn't changed, but a new overlay appeared in his vision. Statistics about the flowers popped up in the corner, and a glance around the clearing made information about different blocks cycle through quickly. "Too much information!"
"Yeah, but you don't need a phone now, so that's useful. By the way, can I have your phone?"
Mumbo handed his phone to Iskall dazedly. Using the last of his common sense, he shut his eye off, breathing a sigh of relief when his vision returned to normal. It was disconcerting having one eye now- like walking around with one eye closed- but it was better than having it turned on. "So how are you going to fix this?"
Iskall blinked in surprise, looking up from the phone. "Well I guess I'll work on an unscrambler, but I dunno how long it'll take," Iskall mused. "Math is harder when I don't have a computer chip telling me the answer."
"But you built this thing in ten minutes! Just make something to undo it!" Mumbo cried.
Iskall shot him a glare. "You're a redstoner, you know it doesn't work like that. Besides, this machine is made for resaturating; I can't just reverse it because it was never meant to jumble us."
"Fine," Mumbo conceded. "But do it fast! I miss my mustache..."
The next day started off rough for Mumbo. He skipped the bathroom that morning, desperate to avoid looking at the messy scruff that had replaced his precious mustache. Having only one eye was also throwing him off more than he realized it would. He refused to turn it back on, so he stumbled into his bubble elevator, tripped on a pebble in the shopping district, and crashed into the Tag Tower trying to activate his elytra, just to name a few incidents. After that he finally decided to turn the eye back on, for the sake of having some depth perception again.
That afternoon, feeling a little more settled into things, Mumbo returned to his industrial farms, planning to improve some redstone to distract himself from everything. He pulled out the old blueprints for his witch farm, and quietly set to work optimizing the old design. This was truly his favorite part of redstone; coming up with detailed plans, calculating to make sure everything worked in tandem properly. As much as he hated his new mechanical eye, he couldn't deny it was really useful to use it as a calculator inside his head.
A few hours later he stood, stretching. He had managed to reduce the size of the redstone by three blocks, and had increased drop rates by three percent. He slowly gathered his redstone boxes, dumping them at the base of the machine reluctantly. He was exhausted physically, and the mechanical eye had been giving him a headache again. Mumbo glanced at his blueprints again, ensuring everything looked right one last time. When he looked up, however, the blueprint stuck in his vision, projecting onto the structure like a 3D model. Mumbo cried out, stumbling a step back before realizing what had happened.
Gah, what in the world?
Mumbo squeaked as a voice spoke in his ear, almost like it was inside his own head. "Who's there!?"
Mumbo? Is that you?
"Iskall? Are you here?" Mumbo whirled around, searching the pit for signs of him to no avail.
No, I'm at my place, but I just got super panicky over nothing. Did you feel that too?
Mumbo wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Wait, hold on. You can talk to me telepathically? How is that possible? You startled me terribly!" He accused.
Now don't blame me, I think we're linked now- like, mentally. Me and Doc can communicate with our transmissions, like walkie talkies, so I think we have the same thing now. Your fear was loud enough to project through the closed connection, so I got worried. Now, why did you freak out?
"Um, the eye made a hologram of my blueprints... Can you hear all my thoughts?"
Only when we open the signal. And don't you love the projection? Makes building a lot easier!
"I guess, it just startled me is all."
Iskall giggled, and Mumbo could practically hear him smirking. Alright, I need to get back to work, talk to you later. With that, Mumbo felt Iskall's presence fade from his mind.
Returning his focus back to the world in front of him, Mumbo remembered the blueprint overlay. Iskall's reassurance comforted him having a robot in his head, so he slowly set to work building, trying to take advantage of the new overlay. It really was an incredible feature if Mumbo was honest, but having the eye turned on genuinely just made his head spin. He hurried along, managing to finish with enough time to fly home before dark.
As Mumbo lighted gently in his base, he was grateful that the day was finally over. As helpful as the eye had been occasionally, it was tiring being a totally different person- literally. He switched the eye off as he clambered into bed, breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully Iskall was making good progress with the unscrambling machine. Iskall hadn't been nearly as bothered by the mixup as he had been, Mumbo mused. He wasn't sure if that meant Iskall was having better luck getting things done than Mumbo, or if he didn't feel the sense of urgency that Mumbo had to return to normal. He couldn't be bothered to worry any longer; Mumbo fell asleep instantly, thankful he was one day closer to being himself again.
IT WORKS!!!
Mumbo bolted awake from a dead sleep with a cry.
MUMBO IT'S GONNA WORK!!
"Iskall?" Mumbo mumbled, sitting up. His blood was racing in his ears from the shock. "What's going on?"
I finished the blueprint and it's gonna work!
"I'm assuming you mean the unscrambler?" Mumbo perked up as the fog lifted from his groggy thoughts.
Yes! Finally, I need some sleep. Iskall laughed, making Mumbo smile.
"Get some sleep man, we can build it together tomorrow."
Night, Mumbo.
Mumbo settled back into bed, but his mind was fully woken up. His eye showed that it was three in the morning, but there was no way he was going back to sleep. He tried counting comparators, but it wasn't quite enough tonight. He couldn't stop thinking about finally getting unscrambled.
"Hey Iskall, are you awake?" He whispered into the dark.
Yeah, you too?
Mumbo shrugged, and then realized Iskall couldn't see it. "I'm tired, I just can't sleep I guess."
You wanna see something cool? Go to settings, and enable sleep mode.
Mumbo turned the eye back on, managing to navigate into the settings and flipping the switch for sleep mode. Instantly, projections of stars danced across the cieling, twinkling in and out of sight. "Woah..."
I know right? Wish I had that right now, it always helps me sleep.
Mumbo smiled, hearing the wistfulness in Iskall's voice. "Hey, why don't we build the machine tonight? Neither of us are sleeping, clearly," Mumbo chuckled.
Sounds like a sleepover to me! See you soon.
I also wrote these two paragraphs that I liked but never fit in lol
"It was all Iskall's fault!" Mumbo immediately shot a finger accusingly at Iskall. "He made this machine in ten minutes and decided we should try it at the same time!"
Iskall stuck his hand in the air slowly, snickering. "Yeah, it was my fault."
Love you, my little stars!
-RaeTheStar