Tree of Life Pt. 5

                                    

                                          
:)
                          
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"What is Doc doing again?" Mumbo asked out loud. His phone had been vibrating in his trouser pockets consistently for the past two minutes, most of the messages being from Doc, who had been doing something or another.
                          
"Setting up a beacon on the roof so that there's regen up there for when we try to heal Grian. Most of the other trees have beacons around them and Ren went to go make sure those had regen on them too." Jevin replied, not taking his eyes off the brewing potions.
                          
"He sure is chatty then," Mumbo grumbled and slipped his phone out of his pocket.
                          
<DocM77> Guys, there's phantoms up here
                          
<Rendog> you got it man? I'm too far to help
                          
<DocM77> yeah I think I'm good
                          
<Iskall85> tell me and I'll head back to help
                          
<joehillssays> don't lead them into the base! We don't need any more catastrophes to plague our misfortune
                          
<DocM77> ok maybe I don't got it 
<DocM77> he
                          
DocM77 was slain by phantom
                          
DocM77 died. 
                          
Mumbo stared at the message on the screen.
                          
"Doc is gone too," he said blankly.
                          
Jevin looked over from setting up the next brewing stand. "No way!"
                          
"Phantom got him," Mumbo informed. Jevin's shocked expression hardened and he silently glared at the potions with a misplaced fury.
                          
There was a disparaging silence throughout the base as this fact set in.
                          
Mumbo sighed wearily and looked out at the night sky over the ocean around Grian's base. He had stayed behind after the first deaths, both of which happened within the first twenty-four of Grian's. TFC has been in his bunker when he died, so no one had thought that he might have been in trouble until the death message appeared on their phones. Jevin had come in panicked halfway through a serverwide meeting saying that he was late because Wels had fallen ill and wasn't waking up, and just as soon as they got back to the medieval/industrial district border, their phones went off. False hadn't seemed to have been affected at first, but as the hermits were gathering supplies to go on a journey to look for a cure she had fallen to the ground, dropped dead. After that the remaining hermits had left across the ocean and Mumbo had been left to watch over the others. It had been depressing, watching his phone, because at any moment there could have been another death message meaning that they had lost another hermit. Zedaph and xbCrafted, who had joined the server randomly, both died as well. When this finally happened with Scar, Mumbo had been crushed, because then all the optimists were gone and it seemed like a hopeless mission. Soon after, Cub returned to Mumbo's base and the redstoner had been attempting to comfort him as well as keep and eye on everything else going on while the rest of the server was away. There were death messages for Tango and Python, and while that had been the last of it, Xisuma was now ill after Evil X (WHY did they decide to work with that guy?) died and the glitch started working on him as well.
                          
Now the travelers had returned and they were all waiting around Grian's base, as it had the most space and was closest to the center of the server AKA the shopping district. They were occupying the upper floors of the wedding cake, as no one could bring themselves to disturb Grian's pale and still body on his bed among the shulker boxes, laid to rest there until they figured out if they could heal him or not and then bury him properly.