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It's a bright and early 2pm-on-a-Tuesday and the game is starting late. It's not that big a deal, it just means they might end up running slightly over schedule, half a day or so at most.
Grian's tearing his hair out.
"I don't know why it's not working."
"I'm telling you man, needs more lapis."
The rest of the players sauntered off about an hour ago for a late lunch, with a promise to remain nebulously within shouting distance. They're dotted around the shaded edges of the meadow down the hill, having an impromptu and fairly disorganised picnic amid the dappled sunspots and dozing butterflies. There'd been a game of frisbee earlier using one of Joel's hubcaps as the disc, but as the heat of the day had worn on people had lapsed into sun-soaked afternoon naps and idle chatter. The not-too-distant hum of conversations, brightened with the occasional bout of laughter, drifts over on the breeze.
Grian throws in the last of the lapis powder. He aggressively takes a breath to calm himself before jamming the lynchpin back through the middle of the ring runes. The redstone-lapis mixture begins to glow, little sparks dancing along the forking lines of the sigil. Tiny arcs of lightning begin to crawl and straddle the radial curves and staves, climbing up the lynchpin's wrought iron length. A single point of ice-blue light begins to coalesce over the ritual circle, brightening and rising upwards as the spell comes to power.
Then the whole thing fizzles out with a smell like burning hair.
"Well now you've just overloaded the sigil." Scott observes.
"Yeah, I would've added it in a bit more of a controlled way maybe?" Impulse rubs the back of his neck and chuckles. "You're getting some of your lines crossed there, buddy."
The small contingent hunched over where the world border ought to be are not enjoying a friendly picnic on a nice summer's day. Instead, they are enduring the trials of Sisyphus with an added helping of "all of your friends kind of need you to get this rock up this hill or the next couple of weeks are going to be spent playing Go-Fish indoors instead of the fun death game you've spent months putting together."
Or at least, this is how Grian's afternoon is going; Scott and Impulse are just kinda along for the ride.
The thing about spell-casting is that basically no-one actually knows what they're doing. Ever. Magic is far more art than science and the method mostly comes down to vibes in the moment, and at this moment the vibes are rancid.
They've been at this for nigh on two hours. Grian's patience snapped in hour one and his friends' demeanours have slowly shifted from helpful supportiveness to the look you give a zombie trying to keep its head from falling off.
"We could get Scar to look at it?" Impulse suggests.
"You know Scar isn't actually a wizard, right?" Grian responds flatly.
"I mean, he's always got some kinda tricks up his sleeve!" Impulse's cheer is load-bearing against Grian's sourness.
It's honestly not the worst idea, Scar does usually have something up his sleeve, for better or for worse.
The question is just whether or not Grian is willing to pay for it.
With a groan, he rises from his crouch and turns around to look down at the meadow. His muscles cramp in protest over spending so long holding the position and he rolls his shoulders with a grimace as he tries to locate Scar amongst the scattered party of players. He can feel a sunburn creeping over the back of his neck and he doesn't appreciate it.
He spots Scar parked near to the meadow's centre along with Bdubs, Cleo, and BigB, who're alternatively lounging in the soft grass and playing cards with the novelty custom decks Grian had had printed back when his soul still possessed joy and whimsy.
They're about the only ones braving the open, forgoing the shade to sit in full view of the sun's judgement. It's strange, actually, thinking about it from Scar's point of view. Grian can understand the others' tolerance for direct sunlight in 25 degree temperatures; Bdubs (solar powered), Cleo (no body heat), and BigB (BigB) are all being normal but Scar doesn't have any reason to subject himself to the afternoon heat- wait- no, never mind, it's so he has an excuse to have his shirt open, should've fucking guessed.
Grian sighs deeply, screams internally, then grits his teeth.
"SCAR, WE NEED YOU TO LOOK AT SOMETHING." he calls, flaring his wings like signal flags and waving his arms.
Scar fails to notice even though several other people's heads turn towards the commotion in interest. Grian goes from gritting his teeth to grinding them.
This is the most technically complex game he's ever tried to run, the hours on prep time are already running into the hundreds. Even Secret Life had fewer moving parts than this. If it falls apart before the first hurdle he'll literally cry.
"SCAR!"
Cleo finally takes pity and wrestles Scar's attention away from his card sharking, pointing him in Grian's direction. Scar waves back with a jovial grin.
In the minutes Scar takes to disengage from the massacre that is any card game with Scar and ramble up the gentle incline, Grian is already regretting all of his life choices. Why is he doing this, why does he live only to suffer-
"Well, hello there gentlemen! What can I do for you on this fine day?" Scar says, apparently oblivious to Grian's stewing rage.
"If this bloody border doesn't start working soon I'm going to explode." He's half-joking. There's probably some spare TNT in Triviabot's cache somewhere.
"We can't get the world border spell up." Scott clarifies drily. "I think it hates us."
"Yeah, we've thrown enough lapis at it to blow an enchanting table." Impulse adds. "And we've tried every combination of runes in the book. Aside from that, we're kinda at a loss here."
"It's never done this before." Grian wails, spinning around to glare down at the sigil again. Its fractal paths remain infuriatingly lifeless. "This is the same spell we've used for every single game, I don't understand why the border's not coming up."
"Oh Grian, we all have problems getting it up sometimes." Scar says in a conciliatory tone. Impulse tries to hide his snort, Scott doesn't.
"Scar."
"Here, let little ol' Scar have a look at it." Scar wheels around Grian to inspect his apparently piss-poor handiwork, Scott and Impulse stepping back to give his rig more room at the circle's edge.
Grian watches him with narrowed eyes.
A look of concentration overtakes his features, eyebrows furrow, lips pinch. His gaze goes sharp and calculating as he scans over the ritual circle and the objects lying inside. It's a display of intense focus and Grian's pretty sure it's entirely affected.
After a moment Scar grins and goes "Well, I see the problem here, G!"
"Oh, do you?" Grian replies cautiously.
"This is illager magic!" Scar beams, seemingly proud of this great revelation, and then doesn't elaborate whatsoever.
"Is that a problem?" Impulse asks, peering down at the scrawl Grian's carefully constructed border spell has degenerated into.
"Well, it means you've put the wrong dang runes for one thing! You're getting your standard galactic all higgledy-piggledy with your illager stavework here." Scar skates a finger along a section of the powdered lattice that looks literally identical to the rest of it.
"And how would you know illager magic?" Grian grouses.
Scar just winks at him, which is infuriating.
"We've never had problems with the runes before." Scott reiterates. "I don't see why the spell would suddenly stop working now."
"Well, I guess the runes must finally be getting sick of the mistreatment. I mean how would you like it if you were always being forced to rub shoulders with irreputable illager runes?"
Scott rolls his eyes. "Fine then. How do we fix it?"
"Hmmmmmmm." Scar draws out the hum as he wheels himself slowly around the circle, looking at it very thoughtfully. "Well it's going to be a tricky one, of course."
"Of course." Impulse echoes drily.
"Could take all afternoon, especially in this heat. I mean, whew, have you guys been standing out here all day?" Scar asks like he hasn't also been out here all day.
"I really, really need this to work." Grian replies. "I don't care what you have to do-" Not quite true, a lot of what Scar does is deeply concerning, but he'll think about that later. "-I just need the border up."
"Well, I can solve that problem." Scar comes to a stop on the other side of the circle and turns to face them.
"You can show me how to fix it?" Grian says hopefully.
"Oh Grian," Scar replies softly, "I can't work miracles. But!" he announces over Grian's spluttering, "I think I can recombobulate these runes for you."
"How long will that take?" Scott asks, having clearly balked at the "all afternoon" comment, "And do I have to be here?"
"Depends!"
"Depends on what? Which question are you answering?"
"Spellcasting's a difficult business," Scar spreads his hands in a don't-blame-me sort of a way. "Y'know, might be a few minutes, might be a few hours."
"What do I have to give you to make it a few minutes?" Grian says with an air of resignation.
"What do you have to- Why G, I don't want anything from you. I'd do this out of the goodness of my heart."
"No, no, you're going to want something." Grian points an accusing finger at Scar's general unscrupulousness. "Even if it's not now you'll end up coming up with… I don't know, something. If I give it to you now then at least I know what I'm signing up for, and we can get the game moving again."
Scar puts a finger on his chin. "Hmmm, nothing's comin' to mind, really! How about we leave it at an IOU? For when I 'come up with something'." His grin is positively Cheshire.
Giving Scar an inch is often more dangerous than giving him a mile. He gets creative.
"Urgh, fine. Just get the spell working." Grian groans. He can only guess when this will come back to bite him. Probably when they're both red names.
"It's a deal then." Scar holds out a hand. The hair stands up on the back of Grian's neck.
And there it is. For a moment, just one moment, he tastes the earthy scent of creeper dust and the coppery flavour of vaporised blood. Then it's gone, like sand in the wind.
"No." He grits out, glaring at the proffered appendage.
"Aw, come on Grian, a man's got to have his assurances." Scar bats his eyelashes like his sclera aren't glowing faintly.
Grian runs his hands through his hair in exasperation. "Can't we just be normal? Can't we just be normal for once in our lives?" How is he always falling under some life debt to Scar? At this rate he's going to have to sell Mumbo's soul as well for the collateral.
"Well my friend, how do I know you're not going to take my help and then skedaddle without so much a look back?" Scar's grin turns a touch harder. "Remember Last Life?"
If the air between them is slightly hotter than it was then it's not because of the sun.
Impulse coughs awkwardly.
"Fine." Grian grits out, taking Scar's hand. "It's a deal, but I'm not teaming with you this time around. You have to use it on something else."
They shake and there's a cracking sound. A buzzing wave of pressure rushes outwards, making everyone's clothes flap about as it expands and dissipates.
Grian feels the spell settle under his skin, the sensation of something constricting around his muscles, girdling his bones.
He lets the feeling of static fade from the back of his throat before he tries to form words.
"Alright, that's my end done. Now fix it." He jabs a finger at the thaumagraph sprawled lamely in the dirt. Scar grins and it's all teeth.
"It would be my pleasure."
Everyone instinctively takes a step back as he leans over the magic circle. Eyes never leaving the maze of lines, he reaches back over his shoulder and withdraws his cane from its holster. Using it to brace himself in his chair, he reaches down and wraps a hand around the lynchpin.
Then he twists.
The runes nestled within the line work writhe and warp. Searing blue smoke pours upwards as the sigil shudders and rearranges itself, lines flowing into new and unfamiliar configurations. What's left is a decidedly pricklier looking thing, written in runes Grian doesn't recognise, in a pattern that's oddly painful to look at.
What's left is a glistening pearl that hovers for a moment, effervescing in the air, before suddenly detonating.
The world border springs to joyous life. Materialising over them like heat haze given form, its surface shimmers and ripples, iridescent waves rebounding around the arena as it settles into its confines.
A disorganised cheer with some half-sarcastic applause goes up from the picnic goers, who set about packing everything up and stowing it back in the convoy of off-road vehicles they're taking to spawn.
"Well that was exciting." Scott remarks, stirring the ashen remains of the ritual circle with the toe of his shoe. "Remind me to never get on your bad side in a magicians' duel."
"Oh no, don't be silly Scott, I don't have a bad side." Scar says, like a liar.
Scott and Impulse wander off to go help with packing and hopefully scrounge up some lunch for themselves before the party sets off again. Grian should probably join them, but even with the stress now dissolving into weary relief he still finds he hasn't much appetite. Maybe it's the knowledge that this was just one obstacle- there's still so much left to get set up before he'll have gotten this thing off the ground- or maybe it's because he can still feel whatever binding Scar has put on him wrapped around his throat.
He turns to said binder, who's rummaging through the saddlebag on his rig.
"Aw, dang it. I think I left my inhaler on the other side."
"Scar."