Archive of Our Own ^beta

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“I’m not sure we should go in there…'' he said, looking at the abandoned temple in front of them. “We’ll be fine! Stop being a scaredy cat and come on!” Joel said, starting to run towards the temple’s entrance.

“Joel! Be reasonable here! This place was a watcher temple, they wouldn’t abandon it without reason!” Pix yelled towards Joel’s direction, running after him. This day was already very weird, one of the server’s borders just decided to fall, weird old magic spiraling everywhere, and a random watcher statue appearing in spawn.

“Joel! Please, Fwhip doesn’t need us to be injured, he’s having enough trouble trying to figure out why the border shattered! We aren’t even supposed to be here!” Pix begs Joel, he really didn’t want to get in trouble with the admin, but it was also technically his responsibility to make sure the players are safe.

Joel mainly ignored the admin assistant, instead exploring the temple and not noticing the dark glitching coming from a statue. Pix didn’t notice it either, too busy trying to convince Joel to not go deeper into the temple.

Joel continued exploring, memorized by the interesting interior of the abandoned temple. It was an old building that looked sort’ve like a church from 1952, a once great building that was once used as a way for watchers to worship their creator. It had long since been abandoned and was covered in overgrowth and had many cracks throughout infrastructure. There was something eerie about it, wisps of black magic fluttered around, getting more concentrated towards what was once considered the sanctuary.

Pix was starting to get freaked out, ‘This was not in the job description.’ he thought to himself as he tried to keep up with the player that seemed to like to explore creepy abandoned temples. He didn't know why this place was abandoned, but watchers don’t just abandon their temples for nothing—something had to have happened for them to just abandon it. “Joel, please… this place has traces of black magic, magic that was forbidden for a reason” Pix tries to reason, red wings shifting uncomfortably behind him.

“What’s a little magic going to do to us? Make us into crazy people? Ha!” Joel retorted, not knowing the true danger of black magic. “Black magic has been known to make those exposed to it go hostile towards others… We need to be careful! We don’t know what we’re dealing with here…” Pix stated, having witnessed people lose their minds because of the cursed magic. He had scars caused by people who had used black magic, he knew firsthand how dangerous it could be to one’s mentality and how one could lose themselves to the darkness of the magic.

There was a creaking behind them, like stone dragging on stone. Pix swiftly turned his body around, sword in hand and wings flared in a protective manner in front of Joel. His deep brown eyes locked with dead, onyx ones. His breath hitched as he stared at the figure in front of him with both surprise and fear.

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Pix and Joel were running, what from? You may ask, a freaking statue, that’s what. “Still think this was a good idea?” Pix hissed at Joel as they ran deeper into the temple. “That’s not fair! How was I supposed to know that a watcher statue would come to life and chase us!” Joel shouted. They were getting very close to the sanctuary and black magic was wrapping around their ankles.

Joel tripped, falling forward into the sanctuary’s door. Pix tries to pull Joel up and drag him into the sanctuary to get away from the statue that was probably trying to kill them. He put his arm around him and hoisted Joel up, dragging him into the room.

“Joel, can you stand?” Pix asked hurriedly, trying desperately to keep the player safe. “I don’t know..” Joel responds. Pix immediately changed his grip on Joel to help him get further in the room, he managed to make it to the center of the room when the orb hovering over the altar glowed and then flashed.
*— — —With Fwhip— — —*
He felt the server shift as strong watcher magic surged through the server all at once, wincing. He checked the code on his admin panel to try and get a semblance of what just happened. Once he sees just how big of an impact the magic had on the coding he quickly rushed to his coding room to try to get things back in order.

Fwhip was pacing in the coding room, fairly panicked for a very logical reason–his assistant and a member of his server’s files disappeared, like how they do when the person dies. So yes, Fwhip was panicked. He was hoping that it was just a minor glitch, but that was probably wishful thinking on his end, he was hopeful, not naive.

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Pix opened his eyes before immediately closing them ‘Too bright…’ he thought. He tried to open them again, this time the light wasn’t so bright. Once his eyes adjusted, he noticed he was being examined by a blonde, blue eyed admin with silvery wings.

“Oh, you’re awake! Thank the stars-you had everyone worried that you were dead and the watchers were using you as a warning to not mess with them.” The admin said in a tired/relieved tone.

Pix blinked, extremely confused as to why that would happen. “Why in the name of the council would that happen?” He asked. “Because that’s just like the watchers to make an example out of someone who isn’t registered on any known server, anyways, what’s your name? Mine is Grian.”

Pix looked even more confused at Grian’s statement. “But I am part of a server, Empires SMP to be specific.. and my name is Pixleriffs, but everyone calls me Pix.” “Hmm, maybe a leap in time then? I don’t know of any servers known as ‘Empires SMP’.” Grian says, somewhat confused as to why this would’ve happened.

“Wait, where’s Joel?” Pix asked.

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Joel woke up with a start, panic rising as he realized that he wasn’t anywhere that he recognized. A gentle, yet rough hand pushed him back down.

“Careful there, your wing is broken, we wouldn’t want to make it worse, now would we?” A feminine voice said, sounding somewhat familiar in a way. “Wha?” Joel said, scared and confused.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties was looking over him, her demonic features softening as her white wings flapped slightly. She looked like a less scarred and younger version of Pearl. But that didn’t make sense-Pearl wasn’t an admin, was she?

The woman spoke again, her voice soft. “My name is Pearl, and you are currently in my mentor’s server, Evo. Do you remember your name or how you got here?” Joel hummed. “My name is Joel and I think I was being chased by a statue…”