Chapter Text
Scar was trapped in a sense. An annoying sense. He’d fallen through a portal that had deposited him on a world just close enough to the dimension he was now trapped in. It had only been a mild annoyance then, he only had to put in new coords into his communicator and he’d be able to portal back to the hub no issue—except he was close enough to this dimension. Someone in said dimension had been yanking at various magical beings outside of their comprehension in an attempt to make some sort of pact or deal for power.
Scar…wasn’t usually the sort of creature you could summon. The sort of Being you could bind! Certainly! But, not the sort you could summon. Even evokers that appeared to summon vexes were just summoning ones they had already bound to themselves, and those vexes weren’t players on top of that. Scar was in a lot of ways, resistant to magic, as in by his very nature he tended to consume most magic cast upon him before it had a chance to affect him. Not many things could stand up to the ravenous appetite of a vex.
So, he wasn’t immune or technically resistant in the normal sense, just, even deadly dangerous magics, well, a vex could digest anything, he himself had proven that vexes could in fact digest the Void, and Watchers. Although managing to eat a watcher was highly unlikely for any vex or than him or Cub, since Grian just…let them do that. To be fair in exchange Scar had totally let Grian eat some of his code, and Grian had let Mumbo eat his soul—really hermitcraft was very progressive about this sort of thing. He let Cleo have any limbs he managed to lose, whether they used them for parts or as snacks varied, but they appreciated the gesture.
So Scar never really worried about magic snatching him up and stealing him. Sure, Watcher magic could do that, but he always managed to take a decent chunk out of them when they kidnapped him for the next life series…and he wasn’t seriously fighting…the life series were fun!
So…this was unexpected.
The fool who’d latched onto his magical signature had no idea what they’d just done, the magic of the dimension he was being pulled into was different enough that he couldn’t eat it at first, it took too long to figure out how to sink his teeth in. But by the time he landed in the terrible ugly summoning circle he was already well on his way to completely eating this guy’s soul.
He did stop when he realized that was what the power source for this strange different magic was. Oops. He knew what soul magic or soul powered magic tasted like, but dimensional differences he guessed. He couldn’t have known really!
“Please! Don’t kill me! I wish only to make a deal! An exchange!” they pleaded weakly from the ground where they had collapsed.
“And you grabbed someone random? You don’t have a single binding sigil that would work on me here! You’re lucky I realized what you were powering this summoning spell with and stopped eating it! This is reckless, and I’m one to talk, but you really nearly got yourself killed! And you’ve horribly inconvenienced me!” Scar lectured.
“Nothing, no one, I’ve been searching for a power that could do what I needed, and not a single Being was capable of what I desired, so I searched, and then like fate, your magic appeared at the very edge of reality, no, beyond it, just enough for me to reach out—please! Only you can help me! I will give anything you ask in return that would not hinder my goal!”
Scar sighed, “That depends on what part of my magic you need. If you’re looking for destruction and chaos and consumption, I don’t really do that at this sort of scale. As in. I do that recreationally with people I know personally where it will only affect them. For fun. I don’t let that aspect of my nature out, it took a lot of time to control it and I’d rather not undo that and have to set it all up again. But if it was the other part, the creation part? The aspect of the Universe Experiencing Itself? I can do that. I do really need to get back home though.”
“The hall of my ancestors fell millenia ago, I am the last living descendant of the bloodlines that can pass through the magical barrier that was meant to preserve it. I am unable to continue it, and the restoration efforts will die with me, the barrier I have also failed to take down though I have tried again and again. I just wish for it to at the very least not be forgotten, locked away for eternity. I want the power to rebuild it to its former glory, and craft a new preservation spell that would let it stand forever without locking it away. I wish for my history not to be forgotten with time, or at least if it is, for there still to be something physical, a mark for someone to look at in wonder. As they once did before.”
Scar was honestly surprised by the request, he had assumed he’d been latched onto do to being a vex, and was expecting some ‘take over the world, kill my enemies’ speech. Had no player wandered into the range of this person’s magic during their entire life before him? Well. Alright. That didn’t sound like it would take long.
“In that case, I will help you do all that and in return I would like your assistance in sending me back to where you summoned me from. I don’t believe my magic is the right sort to pass through the barrier around your dimension on my own.”
They started crying their thanks, Scar patted them on the back. Really, it was annoying but no hardship.
And he did fulfill his side of the deal, and his summoner mostly fulfilled his as well. Determining that there was an artifact that would allow him to more easily consume the magic of this dimension, which would then allow him to use said magic himself to pass through the dimensional barrier, leave Avantris, and get back to Minecraft. His summoner had passed from old age before they managed to locate the artifact which was unfortunate, but Scar had felt the relieving presence of Watcher eyes at his back—specific ones—Grian, so he wasn’t too concerned.
Grian had located him, and while the pesky bird hadn’t managed to get into the dimension himself, some level of communication with home was now possible. Scar would write notes in galactic, wait until he was certain Grian had Seen them, before burning them. It did allow for him to reassure the hermits that he was working on his plan to get back home, and that there was a way.
He wouldn’t say no to a rescue party or any level of assistance they could manage, but he would probably be able to get out on his own eventually.
But it seemed assistance was managed, eyes inside the front pocket of his jacket, vanishing and leaving the weight of enchanted paper behind, a train, ghostly in nature, rushing towards him, coming to a stop.
He flashed the Stranger a brilliant smile, passing him the ticket without even a blink, not even waiting for the frog hybrid to ask for it. Or not frog hybrid, species seemed to work differently here. The Stranger seemed amused by Scar and his clear delight at the train.
Scar stepped into the car helpfully labeled ‘live ones’ and smiled winningly at its fellow occupants, an elf in a bone-white mask that matched her bright white hair, the only skin visible the tips of her ears midnight black like the night sky, a golden-haired man in armor decorated like roses, with blood red eyes, if it weren’t for the scent of roses and holy light and the heartbeat Scar might have thought him a vampire, a scarecrow with glowing orange eyes, a strange crow that was very much not a crow, the crow felt vaguely demonic in nature but leaned more towards eldritch horror aspects, he couldn’t tell how much of that would be if it was a demon stuck in a crow shape or if the demons of this dimension were just more eldritch in their vibes, a zombified crocodile hybrid dressed as a pirate, the curses just wafted off of him and there were crossroad deals sparking all along his soul like neon signs screaming that this guy is so easily scammed for magic, practically begging Scar to walk up pull out some mildly enchanted crystals to trade while making eyes at the patron that had left their mark lounging on the zombie’s soul, and a fae creature of a more mundane variety, a satyr perhaps? She seemed rather closer to a deer hybrid in appearance however, but perhaps there were simply more satyr subspecies or sexual dimorphism here, as she very much registered as fae. The fungus and death and decay and rebirth spun around her in orange instead of lavender, but if Scar closed his eyes and only looked at the magic he could whisk himself away to years past and a previous season where his magic danced with Mother Spore’s and it looked a lot like that.
These people made Scar feel all soft and nostalgic.