Those Who Whisper Always Lie

Chapter 5

Grian saw a few other hermits as he approached a new floating building. It was made mostly out of smooth stone, but just has Iskall has said, there was bedrock detailing on the building. It was like nothing he's ever seen, but at the same time it was familiar. The building floated on an island of dirt that hung down like it was ripped out of the earth and placed in the sky. The building didn't even have normal walls, it was made of large arches that allowed people to look and fly directly through the building. On top of the main floor, there was a bell tower that had an actual bell in it. It looked like it was hooked up to eventually ring, but Grian had no idea why.

Grian landed on the floating island where Iskall was waiting for him along with Stress and Cleo. The two girls were in the middle of a conversation about the building and what could be inside.

"There you are!" Iskall called out to the approaching builder, which got the girls' attention. Grian waved at the three of them as they all got closer together to discuss what to do next.

"So this building just... showed up?" Grian asked.

"Overnight, Cleo and I was just here yesterday and there were no signs of this building," Stress said, Cleo nodding along to what she was saying.

"Who would build something like this? And how?" Iskall questioned.

"This would of taken hours maybe even days to build," Grian said, analyzing the build once more, "There's no way nobody saw this in progress."

"Should we go inside?" Cleo spoke up, everyone nodded in response.

"Be careful," Iskall told the others, "This could be trapped."

The four of them stepped into the strange building. It was a beautiful on the inside like it was on the outside. There was a spiral staircase in the center and around the outer edge of the building lied a large rectangle of bedrock, with some parts of it missing and being stone bricks like the rest of the floor. There were vines everywhere, like this build has been here forever. But that could never be the case.

Slowly and one by one, the four of them made their way up the staircase. The second floor seemed to be in the roof of the building. It was incredibly dark, and it surprised the hermits that there wasn't a single mob chilling in there at all. Iskall took out a torch and lit it with a flint and steel, lighting up the attic of the strange place.

There were four chests in a line at the back of the room. Each chest had a sign with their names on it. The four hermits looked at each other, silently and in shock. How did anyone know they would be the four to explore this place? It made no sense. It could of been any of the hermits here! But no, whoever built this place knew.

Each one of them approached the chest with their name on it and they slowly opened them up one by one, hoping that one of them wasn't rigged to blow. None of them did.

Grian looked inside his own chest and found a book inside, it wasn't signed by anyone at all. He slowly opened it up. Inside was something written in strange alien language.

Grian furrowed his eyebrows. He's seen this language before, but he couldn't recall where. He stroke his fingers over the letters, they were hand written. He immediately picked up his hand away from the book, scared that he might smear the ink. He was lucky that he didn't. Grian looked towards the others to see what was in their chests.

Stress got a silk touch pickax.

Cleo got some heads.

And Iskall got diorite.

Grian chuckled at the upset Iskall who grumbled about this being some kinda prank. Everyone knew that he hated diorite. So whoever made this place, knew about some of the inside jokes of Hermitcraft.

After conversing with each other, the three hermits looked at Grian to see what he got. The builder simply handed the group the book, "I feel like I should know what this says, but I don't."

"It looks like... those symbols that float around the enchantment table!" Stress pointed out.

"Stress! You're a genius!" Iskall grabbed the book from the girl's hands and heads down the staircase, the other three following him. They all made their way to the nearest enchantment table where Iskall took off the book on top and replaced it with Grian's. Then he opened it up. The text was now in english.

"What once was one has split in half.
Don't believe the golden calf.
They will preach the just and fair.
Tell you wrong about the heir.
Don't be fooled cause they are sly.
Those who whisper always lie."

It was that night when Grian got home. Iskall said he was going to talk to Xisuma about the building and call a group meeting to catch everyone up to date on everything tomorrow.

Grian set down his elytra and sat on his bed. This week kept on getting stranger and stranger. Grian was just glad it was getting out to more hermits, so it wasn't just affecting him anymore. There was definitely something wrong in Hermitcraft and it wasn't just the voice in his head. Maybe even the other hermits have been hearing voices calling to them too!

Grian suddenly felt the urge to go outside. He steps out of his huge futuristic base and looks up to the sky.

There was a shooting star!

Grian closed his eyes, "I wish I could just get some answers."

He opened his eyes again, the star was so bright. It was getting brighter. And it was getting brighter. The star got closer and closer and panic finally settled on Grian. He started running to the other side of his base but it too late.

BOOM!

The explosion flung Grian into the air and he hit the ground with a large thump. He turned around to where the star crashed, it looked like a creeper explosion, and in the center stood a man with large pointy ears.

"Hello, Grian."