Battle Scars - A Watcher-Grian AU story

Chapter 27 - Grian infodumps world building

TW: Mentions of torture, Mentions of death, Trauma, slight self loathing

"So, Solar - I can call you Solar right?" Nova asked.
Grian nodded nervously.
"What information do you have to share with us?"

He took a deep breath. It was time to do it.
"I am a watcher. But I am not your enemy. Neither are most of the watchers. Let me ask you something, how well do you know our history?" Grian tilted his head.
"Well, a few hundred years ago there was an Alliance... But the watchers grew distant... and began to attack servers... and thats when the war started." Nova said hesitantly.
"So you know the basics. Good. That's a start." He muttered to himself, before looking back up at nova, narrowly avoiding looking her in the eyes. "We watchers were scribes, history keepers, gifted with a lifespan that ends only with permadeath, so we have the scrolls and history your missing when it comes to our history, heck, even YOUR history."
"Huh..." Nova looked intrigued.

"I'll pipe up with anything you forget." Seven spoke in his mind.
"Thank you." He replied, before starting.

"So, centuries ago, there were annual ceremonies known as The choosings, where the admins and watchers would choose players who came of age since the last choosing, and make them into either watchers, or train them as admins. Admins were more common, as players are beings of code, meaning it's easier to train players to manipulate it. Watchers are a mix of beings of magic and beings of code, meaning dangerous glitches don't corrupt us like they do to admins and players, allowing us to destroy them. It also means we have to go through a ritual to become watchers, as again, players are beings of code, watchers are beings of both magic and code. It can be rather painful, as the magic needs to know if the player is suitable." He spoke, Seven whispering certain lines of information he didn't have in his mind.
"Huh, this is interesting! but how does this tie into the war..?" Nova asked.
"It's important to give you all the information, so there's no holes in the story." He replied. "May I continue?"
"Oh yeah of course."

"So, Watchers grew in number due to the fact not many died... But with this, many of the watchers became entitled. They believed they were superior. And... A few of these watchers got in the watcher council. They influenced us, causing us to over the span of years, pull away, until we left the joint council. But that wasn't enough... They decided they wanted to take over. They attacked one night. They lost, and split off, to form their own group. We call them the Rebels, they call us the Weaklings. They attacked servers, and we attacked each other. Player blood was spilled, both sides counting as collateral damage. Many servers were caught in the crossfire, leading to you, the admins, declaring war on the watchers. This made our situation far more dangerous. You see, the rebels are... more brutal with their training. They crush their student's spirit until they become a killing machine... And they don't care how many lives are lost, since they'd just kidnap players left and right. Many died." He stared at the ground, he himself shocked. Seven had fed him the information about how the Rebels treated their trainees... He shivered at the thought of what they'd done to him, but being done to players... Innocent players who did nothing wrong...

"Oh-" Nova's eyes widened with horror as well. "Thats horrible!"
"I've seen what they can do, it's worse then you'd think." He replied grimly. "They can make you think your one of them, forget your friends, family- Heck, even make you attack them if they wanted to!" He shivered at the memory... His own fire killing the one he swore to protect... Taurtis' screams... How betrayed had he been? Had he thought of Sam, stabbing him in the back?
"A- Are you alright? It sounds like your speaking from experience..."
'I'm fine...' He wanted to whisper, but the accursed charm stopped him.Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
"I know a therapist if you need one..?"
"Thanks, but I'm not going to be in the Hub for long." He replied, starting pointedly at the floor, before continuing his explaination.

"The watchers didn't want to do anything similar to that, but they were dying quickly. Beings of magic are unable to reproduce, and they couldn't recruit openly with admins trying to kill them, or while they were made out to be monsters so instead, they found young players who were on the edge of their life, or being mistreated, and saved them. This lead to rumors of us kidnapping children, likely spread by the Rebels... The rebels even killed our primal, the first ender dragon, when she tried to stop them."
Tears began to run down his face... This was horrible, how helpless he felt. What was he even doing? A silly 50-year old watchling couldn't do anything to stop a war... In watcher terms, he was basically still a child! This is the type thing main characters would do in a story, not a silly, immature, untrained kid who hurt more then he helped... A immature child who didn't deserve anything like this. Ark and Kanvi, X, Eyn, Pearl, Taurtis... those type of people were heros! Not him, not a useless little watcher who couldn't kept himself safe for three weeks in a secure server!

"Who knows, maybe you ARE a main character in a story..." Seven commented, before getting slapped by the author for breaking the fourth wall, again.

~Fourth wall duck-taping interlude~

"Hey, it's alright..." Nova went to hug the watcher, and after a bit of struggling, Grian submitted to the embrace. It was nice, the feeling of comfort it gave him... When was the last time he was hugged like this? Did he even deserve it? He hurt the servers that took him in, the friends who saved him...,
"This is going to be very helpful. The Head admins may want to hear it themselves, so you know... But they'll believe it! You'll stop the innocents dying!" Nova insisted with her unnerving cheer and energy.
He wanted to whisper a vague 'Sure...' in response, not really buying it, but the charm stopped him from telling the white lie.
He yawned, exhaustion catching up with him... He couldn't remember the last time he'd properly slept... Probably in the rebel's city..? But his memory of there was patchy at best, and he'd used a lot of magic.

"Oh- Are you tired?"
"..." He looked at the ground. Curse that charm for stopping him from lying.
"Why don't we get you a bed, and I'll send your report to the Council to review." Nova replied, catching on to his exhaustion..
He nodded, and Nova stood. They walked through the hallways of the Admin headquarters, which were white concrete, decorated with plants, paintings, and other knickknacks. They weaved through so many twists and turns that Grian instantly got lost. Eventually they reached a hallway with a bunch of doors, all of them with signs on them, some of the signs had names on them, others were blank.

"We're here. This is the visitor dorms." She led him to a door with a blank sign, and wrote 'Solar' on it. "You can stay in this room. I'll come for you in the morning, alright?"
"Alright..." He mumbled "A- Are you sure it's alright for me to sleep here?"
"I'm sure. Go ahead Solar." She opened the door.

Inside was a fairly scarcely decorated room, with a bed, bedside table with a plant on it, a bookshelf, and a desk. He glanced around it cautiously, before entering. There wasn't any traps in sight, so he sat down on the bed, glancing at Nova as if he might have done something wrong.

"Goodnight!" Nova smiled, before closing the door, leaving him with his thoughts. He sighed, fighting between not wanting to sleep in a strange place, and his exhaustion. His exhaustion won, and he lay down into the bed, falling asleep nearly instantly.

A/N
Imagine being able to fall asleep instantly. That's a amazing superpower-
Why do I keep accidentally writing filler-y chapters tho T-T I'm not trying to stretch it out I swear- But we're getting really close to the end.
WC: 1410

-Xera