The Temptation of Power ||| Hermitcraft Watcher AU

Chapter Three

Take the mask, T∴𝙹's voice echoed. Grian was ripped from his dream to his shivering, curled up body in his bed. He sat up quickly, and the voice replayed in his head as he realised fully what it had said. How he'd been asleep in the first place despite the cold was a mystery to him, but that wasn't important. Take the mask, the voice replayed again as he tried to take it in.

Whether it was his own imagination or the Watchers was a question he didn't need answering; it was definitely the Watchers. Even his own nightmares couldn't make the pull to the mask stronger.

He brought his legs to his chest, pressing his fingernails into his ankles through his socks in an attempt to ground himself somehow.

He wanted the mask. He needed it. The magic, the fire, the purple, the warmth. He could feel which direction it was in, could feel it calling out to him like a mother calling for her child after getting separated on a crowded beach.

Grian was shivering, and he was sick of it. He was sick of being cold. He was sick of the fear and the not-knowing.

He got up, wrote a half hearted note thanking Etho and Iskall for letting him stay over, and took off into the moonlit sky.

Within minutes he was crash landing into his starter base because he couldn't be bothered to land properly because he just wanted his mask and his magic and some warmth so he stumbled inside feeling the magic get closer and closer and he reached out for it and-

He gasped as the flame previously surrounding his treasure slapped against his fingertips before getting bigger for a second and extinguishing.

It was as good as he'd imagined it. The white material welcomed his hands with a warm fuzzy tingle that shot down his arm. He placed the mask on his face and all the cold disappeared, like it had never been there in the first place.

Raw, excitable, beautiful energy flooded through his mortal body and seemingly took over. His wings flickered into existence and his back lost the empty feeling he hadn't even noticed before. He smiled a smile of pure joy as all the things he'd missed came back to him.

He lit his hand with the incredible flame and stretched out his wings for the first time in years. The power he now had was ineffable, beyond understanding, there were no words to describe it.

* * *

Morning came too quickly. Grian would've travelled back in time to relive the few hours he spent in bliss if it weren't for the fact he wasn't strong enough yet. Yet? He thought. That meant he would use the mask again. He bit his lip, part of him knew he shouldn't and that he was only giving in to what the Watchers wanted from him, but the rest of him didn't care. The rest of him wanted the magic.

When he really thought about it, he knew he should be scared of everything that was going on, but for some reason he wasn't. It was just... what was happening. He accepted it. Maybe he wasn't thinking properly.

As he took the mask off the cold fell over him like a cloak, wrapping around him and shielding him from the hot air. His hands tingled for a few moments after placing it in his Ender chest. He felt colder now that he'd experienced the warm.

He wanted the empty feeling inside of him to be filled up again with energy, but it was too dangerous to give himself that privilege during the day, when any hermit might pay him an unexpected visit.