Iskall had felt a bit bad leaving Stress behind. The brit had seemed... off recently, and there was a tinge of guilt in leaving her behind. He had so much on his mind as well, though, so he couldnt stay on one thought for very long. 

He was flying over to Grian's base, which Mumbo had indifferently moved in. Hopefully the man had managed to pull himself out of bed and start doing something other than moping. Iskall couldn't blame him for that; but he knew it wasn't the best for his mental or physical well-being. 

He wasn't even sure if the man had been eating. 

When he landed, he noticed the doors to the mansion had been closed. That was either a very good or very bad sign. He darted down, poking his head into the empty mansion. The bed Mumbo had been sleeping on was still there, but the mustached hermit had vanished. He almost worried before noticing a bit of light coming from the corner of the large build. 

He frowned, walking over to the new structure. It was a large blackstone and spruce building, not one of Mumbo's best builds, but undoubtedly his style. There was a thick spruce door blocking the room - and Iskall considering knocking before deciding to step in anyway. 

Mumbo was there, facing away from him on a wool couch. There were bookshelves in the corner and several other books scattered around the floor and table. It reminded Iskall of the tiny reading area he had made when he was waiting, back before everything had changed. 

There was a fireplace in the far wall, the source of the light - and the only source of the light in the room. Mumbo was leaning forwards scanning through a book with the small amount of light he had. 

The swede walked up behind the man, looking over his shoulder at whatever he was reading. 

It looked confusing. Nothing redstone-y, just a lot of big words about the universe and world exploration and stuff. When had Mumbo become so interested in this sort of thing?

Before the man even had a chance to speak, Mumbo felt his presence. He looked up, before turning slightly, meeting eyes with the shorter hermit. 

Mumbo's eyes widened, and he practically launched off the sofa with a "Goodness gracious!"

Iskall laughed, covering his mouth as Mumbo dusted himself off and grabbed the book he was reading, which he had somehow managed to toss across the room. "Warn a guy!" Mumbo snapped, "You nearly made me jump out of my skin!"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry." The swede snorted as Mumbo sat back down, "Wasn't going to scare you - but I didn't even have to try."

Mumbo rolled his eyes with a small smile, he leaned back, and reopened his book, skimming back to where he was. Iskall blinked, "What are you reading anyway? Looks like more stuff about magic."

Mumbo hummed, "Something like that. After you took that book back to Stress she thought I was interested in the topic, so she brought me a few more right after. She seemed quite excited about it."

Iskall crossed his arms, leaning forward on the back of the couch. That must of been before Grian... or maybe right after, to help take Mumbo's mind off of everything. When the hermit got interested in something - he wanted to know everything about it. He glanced around the books on the floor, guessing that most of them had a similar theme. 

It was a good distraction, Iskall smiled. "What's this one about?" 

"It's about interdimensional travel," Mumbo held up the book, pointing to a drawing of a netherportal on one of the pages, "It talked about the origins of the common dimensions, as well as some of the few that are harder to travel to. A lot of these can only be accessed on certain worlds. It's really quite fascinating."

"Right," Iskall nodded, that part he at least understood. "What's that one?" He pointed to one of the other portal drawings. 

"That's a broken Aether portal. It used to be a common dimension, but apparently it vanished a long time ago and no one really knows why." He closed the book and picked up one near his feet, opening to a bookmarked page. "This book talks a lot about the Aether, about the attempts to get there."

He showed Iskall a detailed drawing of a portal. It was the same shape and dimensions as a Nether portal, but it was made of glowstone instead of obsidian. "It's activated by water rather than fire," Mumbo added. 

"Huh, weird." The swede tilted his head, glancing at the small text on the page, "This is a pretty thick book for just talkin about a dimension that no one apparently knows about."

Mumbo nodded, "No, its much cooler than that!" He peeled to another tabbed page, "This researcher has dedicated his whole life to Aether research. He's translated some of the text from old manuscripts and discovered a lot about how the world used to work. He's an avian-hybrid, so he wanted to know more about his ancestral dimension."

Iskall blinked at this information, "Avians are from the Aether?"

Mumbo nodded again, smiling, "That's what I was so shocked about! Apparently ancient species from the Aether retreated to the overworld and settled here with the rest of us. It's hard to find any information on it though. The avians and other hybrids stayed pretty close together for the first few centuries, only spreading through other worlds recently."

Iskall was silent this time, just giving a small nod to the man. Mumbo frowned, looking down at his book and running his thumb over the page, "Grian's an avian," he spoke softly, "A part of me wonders if maybe he knew about the Aether. Or if..." he paused, swallowing, "if it has anything to do with what happened to him."

Mumbo wiped his eyes, stopping himself from crying, "If maybe something happened and he went back home."

The swede hugged Mumbo from behind, squeezing him tight enough to earn a grunt. He had thought Mumbo was just distracting himself from everything, but even in his mourning he had been looking for any signs. Anything to find their friend. 

It was smarter than just looking around the End, he supposed. 

Mumbo took a shaky breath and Iskall released him from the embrace. 

The mustached hermit whispered a thank you before continuing to turn through the pages. He looked like he wanted to say something, but neither he nor Iskall said anything. Iskall simply glancing over his shoulder as he read. 

Then something caught his attention, "Hey, that's.."

Mumbo flicked back to the page Iskall had been looking at, and Iskall leaned over, taking the book from him to look closer. Mumbo gave him an odd look, "Is something wrong?"

"I... I recognize this gem! I have this one!"

Mumbo stood up, trying to see which depiction Iskall was looking at. The swede pointed to it, "I just showed it to Stress! It's for finding specific entities across dimensions!"

Mumbo gave him an incredulous look, "You have something like that?"

"Yea! I mean, I don't really know how to work it - like things look different when I look through it, but I don't know how to actually set it to look for anything specific. I don't know magic and it's not redstone activated." 

Mumbo nodded, snatching the book back, "Hold on, hold on, I think there's a section about this one. I didn't read all of it, just sorta glanced through since I didn't think it was that significant. This could lead to something!" 

He quickly flicked through the pages, looking for a specific number. When he found it - he stopped. It was only a page long. He skimmed through, desperate for anything signifigant. 

The page was only a part of the puzzle. On the very bottom the citations were listed;

"Joseph C. Graffton, Interdimensional Minerals and Substances"

Mumbo pointed to the name, "This is the guy - the one who translated the manuscripts, the author! We've got to find his other book!"

"Wh-" Iskall stepped back, "There's no way we'll find such a specific book on this server! I know we like to hoard stuff but who would have a book on crystals like this?"

They only paused for a second.

"Scar!"

"Not quite," a third voice spoke, making both men jump.

Impulse was standing at the doorway, raising a brow. "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude!"

Mumbo sighed and Iskall laughed, "Jeez man, you scared me!"

The American nodded, "I could tell, what are you two doing?"

Iskall tilted his head, "What are you doing? I thought that Tango had you and Zedaph locked up in your temple."

Impulse rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah, I sortof managed to get myself kicked out. Tango is not happy with me right now."

The two other hermits shared a look, "What did you do to make him so upset?"

Impulse sighed and Mumbo sat back down, motioning to the seat besides him. Impulse smiled and took a seat, Iskall propping himself back on the table. 

"We got in a bit of an argument about being so, uhm, isolated. I was feeling pretty guilty about not helping Xisuma and the others out with..." he hesitated, "the memorial. So I decided I'm an adult, I can leave my own base when I want. And then Tango kicked me out." 

Both the other hermits remained quiet, though the shock was evident. Impulse continued, jumping in to defend his friend; "Don't get me wrong, I know he means well and everything. Like, totally get being defensive with everything that's been going on. But... after I left he was scared that I'd end up hurting Zedaph."

"What?" Iskall leaned forward, "Why would he think you'd hurt Zed?"

Impulse sighed, rubbing his temple, "He apparently has this idea in his brain that the hermits outside of the base are being infected? or targeted or something like that. Like how Grian was acting weird before he vanished, he's afraid all the arguments we've been having are something more serious than..." his voice faded as he noticed Mumbo's upset face. 

"S-sorry," He quickly apologized, "I shouldn't have brought that up. It's just been a bit since I've talked to anyone but him n Zed, y'know," he ran a hand through his hair and looked away awkwardly.

"It's fine," Mumbo shook his head, "If I'm gonna do something about this then I need to start focusing on doing - not just the thinking."

Iskall smiled, "That's good way to think about it."

Impulse raised a brow, "Whaaat are you two planning on doing?"

Mumbo clapped his hands, "We aren't 100% sure yet, but we know we need to find a book."

"A book."

The brit nodded, "Yes. A very specific book that shouldn't be... impossible to locate."

"Right..." Impulse glanced back at Iskall who gave him an unhelpful shrug, "What's the title of this book?"

"Interdimensional Minerals and Substances by Joseph C. Graffton."

"Wow, okay, that is specific. Is that why you two were talking about Scar?" 

Iskall nodded, standing off the desk, "Well, we've got a head start. Might as well go see if he's at his base and ask. Or just go through his base if he's not there."

Mumbo smiled, standing up as well and dusting off his suit, "Are you coming with us, Impulse?"

Impulse agreed, "Sure. Anything to help." 

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

Luckily, Scar was at his base when the men showed up. He was in the main room of one of his large trees, sitting on the floor and scribbling in a journal. 

"I've got bookshelves in.. a lot of places. I try to keep most of the important ones in my room," he informed the men. "That or if they're just good reads, that sorta thing. I don't want them to get mixed in with the other hermits' books after all!" He laughed nervously, pointing the others in the direction of his bedroom. 

The four shuffled up the stairs and entered his room. It was pristine, far cleaner than the rest of his base and the man quickly defended himself, "I don't really come in here a lot, aha. It's more of a, um, book storage room than anything."

Impulse smiled as they all seperated to different shelves, "That's just what we're lookin for."

He glanced at the dozens of books before him, "Aaand you're sure you have this book?"

"The title sounds familiar. Either I have it or someone's got it and I've read it before."

Iskall ran his hand along the spines of the books, skimming the titles, "Well, I guess we're lucky you're a book hoarder." 

Scar gave a weak laughing, glancing through a few titles of his own. 

It only took them about half an hour to find the book. Right as they were on the verge of giving up here, Mumbo pulled an old looking book off the shelf. Like many of the books, the title had faded from the spine; but right on the cover it was there. The answers they had been looking for. 

The men huddled around on Scar's bed, surrounding Mumbo. "Ohhh," Scar said, "I do remember this book! It's not actually mine; Grian lent it to me a while back and I just... guess I never returned it. Oops!"

Mumbo rolled his eyes with a slight smile, already scanning the glossary. 

This was everything they had been searching for.