Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Another world

           Grian stood there, in his base, staring at the strange purple crack in his wall. Or rather, through it. Because he could have sworn that he'd just seen his friend Gem on the other side. The other hermits would have told him that he was imagining things, that no one could see through the distorted purple ectoplasm that made up the portal. But Grian had better eyes than they did. So that was how he was able to see her. The question is, why is Gem on the other side?

           Suddenly the figure who looked like Gem vanished. Grian blinked. He hadn't seen her move. She was just gone. Like she teleported. "What are you staring at, Grian?" Grian nearly jumped out of his skin when Gem suddenly materialized right next to him. "Gem!" She giggled. The elf could be very sneaky when she wanted to be. Or maybe she teleported.

           "Did you just teleport here to scare me?" Gem tilted her head at him, her deer antlers swaying. "What do you think?" She glanced at the giant portal. "This is the thing we're going through?" "Yeah," Grian said. "It's been sitting here long enough and we haven't done anything with it yet." 

           "Is it safe to go through it?" Gem asked. "We don't even know if it leads anywhere, or if we can get back." "Well, things have been coming through," Grian said. He'd been so surprised the day when he found a fox and a pig just wandering around in his basement, and he'd attributed the incident to them wandering through the portal from the other side.

             "And Grumbot says the portal leads to another dimension." "You told me he also knows nothing about it," Gem said. "Which is why we're going!" Grian declared. "I mean, why not?" He didn't understand why Gem was so against the expedition. 

           Gem just sighed. "Well, I'm not going." Grian blinked. "Aw come on, Gem, why not? All our friends are going!" "I'm staying here," Gem said with a tone of finality, activating her elytra and flying off. "Please remind False that we're going through today!" Grian called to her. He frowned. Gem was one of his closest friends.

           Not his best friend, of course, his best friends were Mumbo and Scar, but after them, she was the closest. He knew what she was like; her favorite things, her mannerisms, and all that stuff friends knew about each other. And the way she acted about the portal was waving bright red flags in his face. 

           Grian looked at the portal again, and then an idea popped into his head. Why hadn't he thought of it before? He ran to his storage room and grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. He scribbled 'new portal, who dis?' on it and then tossed it through the portal. As soon as they made contact, the paper was swallowed up by the sea of glowing purple. Grian, satisfied, went to get a chair and sat down in front of the portal, waiting for a reply. Surely someone would find his note soon. 

           It was even sooner than he expected; just as he sat down another sheet of paper flew back through and fluttered to the floor. Grian noted it was too big to be his note. He picked it up and saw that it had writing on it. He tried to read it, but the letters were confusing and indecipherable. They weren't even printed in a neat line.  "Toy mica jam is nifty?" Grian blinked. The message made no sense. Maybe it got scrambled by going through. At any rate, he definitely needed to get the expedition to the other world started soon. 

---

           False was in her lab, surrounded by countless experiments and scientific tools. On her left was an electron microscope. Next to that was a jar full of pickled lizards. On the table behind her were strange electronic devices that only she knew what to do with. Built into the wall were shelves full of scalpels, DNA sequencers, electrometers, and the like.