Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mumbo was a spoon.

It was commonly agreed that Mumbo was, while not necessarily dumb--clearly seen in the many contraptions he builds regularly-- he was a spoon. He didn't think many things through and more than occasionally missed important details. Overall, it was agreed that Mumbo was, in fact, quite a spoon.

This spoon found himself at bedrock level, setting up a rather simple redstone line, and at the end, a piston and the dragon's egg lay. It was known that this method could break through the otherwise impenetrable material, as it was used to break through the ceiling of the nether a few times to set up farms. 

No one, however, had broken through the bedrock of the overworld. It was unventured territory.

Well, you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat, and Mumbo was certainly curious. 

Powering the line, Mumbo dashes to the end, and finds, instead of the egg, a hole in the bedrock awaiting him. Success!

Letting out a whoop, he dashes towards the parting in the bedrock layer, peering into the unknown.

What awaits him is a familiar sight: the void. It was an ever present threat in The End, inky black with an almost static like jitter. Soft grey particles drifted up, almost like dust. Deceptively peaceful looking.

In truth, falling in would be an almost instant death sentence, tearing the unfortunate victim apart, particle by particle, leaving them disoriented and empty handed when they woke up again. As Mumbo could attest, the experience was quite unpleasant.

Despite this, he leans in closer to the opening. If one were to ask him why, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Perhaps a slip, or maybe just another spoon moment?

The Void calls to Mumbo.

He slips into the great abyss, falling into the embrace of The Void.


It’s different from The End’s void. It’s almost...peaceful, watching the world fade away from view.

It is an awfully quiet death, watching static cling to him as soft particles continue to drift away without a care in the world.

Mumbo wakes up.

Chapter Text

It’s slightly worrying that their mustached friend wasn’t showing up to their meetings. While Iskall and Grian initially started with jokes and jabs about Mumbo seemingly having “better things to do,” like building walking cities and having his base flooded with chickens (which clearly had nothing to do with Grian, nope, no siree!), it was pretty unusual for the well dressed man to go on for this long without contacting anyone, and the short time they did see him, he was snappish and rather irritable. Pretty out of character for the normally calm and friendly man.

Thus, the remaining Sahara duo came up with a plan: Grian would check up on Mumbo’s farms, because while he would probably wreck them while pressing every button in his path, he would also probably be able to more quickly spot his friend’s AFK spots than Iskall, while Iskall searched Mumbo’s base, being the one who could probably not destroy his storage system. If either found him, they’d contact the other to update what was happening.

Iskall set off, sailing over the ocean quickly and arriving at the spherical base, the goofy eye looking down at him. He noted, with slight shock, that the careful landscaping that Mumbo had set down seemed to have started to wilt away. Was Mumbo really here? The base should have been in better shape had he visited here as often as he usually did.  Maybe he had just AFK’ed at his industrial district for too long. Iskall hoped so, as it seemed that there were almost no signs of life around Mumbo’s base. He was starting to have his doubts that he’d ever find his friend here.

Regardless, he traversed the base. With how large it was, it took Iskall almost half the remaining day to find Mumbo, stationed near his bed. Strange, he looked paler than usual. As he called out to Mumbo, his friend’s eyes snapped up to meet his.

Mumbo still seemed pretty grumpy, glaring at Iskall as he rasped out a simple,

“Why are you here?”

“Dude, where have you been? We haven’t seen you in a week! Are you okay?”

“It’s none of your business.”

Mumbo did not look okay--besides his pale complexion, the bags under his eyes were deepening, he sounded like he swallowed enough sand to build a second Sahara, and he went from simply irritated to outright venomous. Red eyes bored into him, as if they were trying to will him away from sheer rage alone.

Iskall started to reach for his communicator, to tell Grian the news, but was interrupted by a hand grabbing his wrist.

“Iskall, get out of my base.”

“Mumbo! You’re clearly not okay! I’m not leaving until we get some answers and you get some help.”

“Get out! Don’t bring anyone here! I can’t even stand you being here! ”

“Mumbo, please, Grian’s worried too-”

“ Screw him! Just get out! ”

“... Mumbo, I-I’m not going to leave. You need help. You look like a mess! You sound like a wreck! If you don’t want anyone else around, I’ll respect that, but I’m staying put. ”

The two glared at each other for what felt like an eternity before, finally, Mumbo broke off the stand off. It seemed Mumbo sensed he had lost the argument and conceded. He shot one last bitter glare at Iskall, then flopped down onto his bed.

Iskall shot a text to Grian on the communicator, quickly explaining that Mumbo was indeed at his base, but that he had it under control and that Grian didn’t need to come. Grian, from what Iskall could tell from his responses, was extremely reluctant to follow Iskall’s advice, but after a short exchange of messages, finally agreed to leave them alone and only meet up after the issue was resolved. He was clearly unhappy with it though.

Iskall tried to figure out what was going on, all he could piece together was that Mumbo had a quick project near Sahara and afterwards, became increasingly irritable and sick, and soon, shut himself from the hermits altogether.

His thoughts are interrupted by a sudden wheeze as Mumbo starts coughing. Iskall looks up, and suddenly realizes what’s happening.

Mumbo look’s scared. His eyes are wide, flashes of panic overcoming him as the colour seems to drain out of him, the red tie fading to a dull grey. He gasps as his coughs fade to a dry wheeze before going silent. Mumbo looks like he’s trying to say something to Iskall as he grips the green suit sleeve, but no sound comes out.

Iskall can do nothing but watch as the emotion fades, the pained creases in Mumbo’s face slowly drop as his face goes blank, as if every emotion were sapped from him. Bright, almost glowing, yet lifeless eyes stare through Iskall as he backs up.

Iskall realizes he’s in over his head. He backs up, feeling like a cornered animal for the first time with his friend.

He’s stuck with Mumbo.

The air suddenly feels too thick, too heavy, and it’s getting hard to breathe.

He almost thinks he sees static buzzing in the air.

Chapter Text

Grian circled over Mumbo’s industrial area, before descending upon the control room. Landing, he shook out his wings before casually striding to the panel, buttons waiting. As his hand hovered over them, he paused, as he came to a realization.

None of the farms were on.

Was Mumbo actually here? Sure, Mumbo didn’t think things through sometimes, but no one in their right mind would AFK for a week and not notice that their farms were off for that long, right?

He was tempted to message Iskall immediately that their friend was most likely not at the AFK spot, but decided against it. If Mumbo really was there, and Grian missed a spot check, well, no one would be happy to put it lightly. Spreading his wings, he dove out the door and glided toward the pit.

Silently cursing the messy landscape for making any chance at possibly finding Mumbo near impossible, he quickly scoured the normal areas that Mumbo would stay, then scanned the area again. There were no new structures, so it’s not likely Mumbo found a new spot.

Just as he started to climb up to the farms themselves to search for clues, his communicator pinged. Finally! His wings fluttered in excitement before he flopped down to read what was going on.

... oh.

Excitement turned to confusion then irritation as he furiously messaged Iskall. He found Mumbo! Why couldn’t he come over to check on his friend! It’s not like his presence would make the situation worse!

Iskall seemed convinced otherwise. Huffing, he gave into frustration and sent a passive aggressively worded message that showed he saw the message loud and clear. He wasn’t wanted around them.

Fluffing his wings, he flew off.

It had been a few weeks since, Grian remembered. He had tried since to check with either Mumbo or Iskall, but neither of Sahara answered back. While he would understand that it could take time to help Mumbo. Too bad he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on with either of them.

He was tempted to visit Mumbo’s base, but had a feeling that it would only make things worse. Besides, Iskall specifically said to not come, and he hadn’t really noticed anything when he passed by Mumbo’s base.

Honestly, he felt bad for getting so frustrated with Iskall. Being left in the wayside kind of stung, but he should have asked what was going on before getting snippy, he thought.

He was starting to think that Iskall was angry at him for getting so snippy the last time they communicated. Maybe that’s why Iskall wasn’t responding. And Mumbo clearly seemed to have something occupying him with how absent he was.

Sighing, he made a decision. He took out his communicator.

“Hey, Stress, can I ask you a favour?”