George caught up with Grian and Mumbo as they got further away from the cafeteria.

They led him right at the library and paused in front of Room 221b. Grian pushed the door open with the words:

"Welcome to Hermitcraft."

Inside the room was a large group of students chatting and working on various projects.

George was nervous about the sheer number of people in the room; there must have been more than thirty, but he let Grian usher him inside with Mumbo and closed the door behind them. Grian waved off a few curious glances at the newcomer and walked in front of George, showing him around the club.

"So Hermitcraft is kind of like a club that is made of smaller clubs. People here do a lot of different stuff, like strategy, gaming, arts, robotics-" he gestured to a kid messing with a bunch of wires and a mechanical hand- "Mumbo's brilliant at robotics and programming stuff."

Mumbo smiled as his pale blue eyes met his friend's auburn ones. "It's my favorite."

Grian chuckled, "Personally I'm rubbish at that but I prefer art anyway so I don't do much computing. Normally we'd see our buddy Iskall over here, but- oh wait there he is. HEY ISKALL!"

Grian ran over to where another guy was messing with a monitor. He didn't acknowledge Grian except for holding up a finger and then pointing at the screen.

A second later a message showed up on the monitor.

"o7"

George had no idea what that meant but ok.

"Oh no, it's wrong-" the apparently Swedish guy fiddled with the controls- "there."

"o/"

"Nice." Grian punched his arm and then turned to introduce him.

"Iskall, this is George. George, Iskall."

"Nice to meet you. Are you an exchange student?" George asked.

Iskall laughed. "Yeah, most of us are." He put a hand on Grian's head. "This little guy and his friend recruited me a while ago."

"So is this like-" George couldn't think of a word to describe it.

"Crew, gang, team. We all just kinda hang out and play together, help each other with problems and stuff." Grian shrugged. "It's pretty nice to be a part of such an interesting group of people."

Iskall nodded. "Yes, yes definitely. I would also add that lots of pranking goes on. Mostly done by Grian here."

Mumbo agreed. "Yep, Grian's definitely a prankster." He looked chuffed to bits.

Grian shook his head. "I haven't the faintest idea what you guys are talking about, I would never prank any kind of... well-meaning person in Hermitcraft." He burst out laughing. "No, yeah, guilty as charged."

A girl with blond hair interrupted them. "Hey Grian I got some stuff for you about that-"

Grian cut her off making frantic motions with his hands. "OH YEAH THAT ART STUFF thanks so much False let me just talk to you about that over here-" he pushed her away in front of him, calling back over his shoulder- "Mumbo you can take over the rest of George's tour. I'll catch up with you guys."

"Okay cool." Mumbo looked a little surprised with the turn of events but he was pretty used to his friend's antics. He caught sight of George's confused face and said, "Believe it or not I actually have no idea what that was about."

"Neither do I." Iskall shrugged and turned back to his computer. "You guys have fun, I'll see you later, George."

"Yeah, definitely." George and Mumbo continued walking around the room.

George had to hurry to keep up since Mumbo walked quickly with his long legs. "So, like Grian was saying, we all kind of work together but the people here are interested in a lot of different stuff, so a lot of us do a little bit of everything. Oh you should meet Miles over here, he's a writer."

Mumbo approached a good looking guy with dark chestnut hair that curled down over his rimmed glasses. He blinked when Mumbo waved a hand in front of his face.

"Miles? This is George."

"Hi, George. I'm Miles." He cringed when he remembered Mumbo literally just said his name. "Obviously." He smiled nervously.

George shook his hand and they sat with Miles at the table. George saw he had a sticker on his bag that said My name's blurry face and I care what you think.

George smiled as Miles started to show them what he was doing.

"So Mumbo might've told you I'm kinda an author. I'm in the middle of a story right now that's an au."

He recognized George's blank face and explained, "Alternate Universe. Basically a setting like our reality but a little different; you can change it up however you want so it's pretty fun to write. You can build a rocket ship and then fly it far away." He laughed to himself.

"I mean, technically, you could do that in real life." Mumbo raised his palms, his voice inflecting higher on the last three words.

Miles shook his head. "Maybe you could man, that's beyond me."

Me too.

Mumbo shrugged. "It's really not as complicated as it looks," he said simply.

"Wait- have you actually made a rocket?" George asked.

"Just a small one, it's not a big deal." Mumbo said.

"Yo, that's so cool compared to what I do." Miles ran his fingers through his hair.

"No, mate, I could never write like you do."

"Nah, I literally have no plan while I'm writing. I just make it all up."

Mumbo turned to George. "Don't let him fool you, he's a proper author."

It was at this moment Grian popped up unexpectedly. "You guys taking the mick out of Miles?"

George fake groaned, "Yes, Miles is the absolute worst person here. I demand you take me to someone else." He crossed his arms and stuck out his tongue.

There was a pause in which George realized they weren't familiar with his style of humor. But after a second Miles started laughing and the others joined in, thankfully.

Grian leaned over to Miles' computer. "So how's it going buddy-pal-chum?"

"I'm knee deep in the hoopla chum-mate-buddy." Miles giggled softly. "This story's about to git good."

These guys are so nerdy, I like them.

Later they left Miles to his work and George met some of the other "hermits." They seemed like a neat club, and they were all super friendly. Eventually the bell rang and they had to leave, but George left feeling happier.

(1.1k words)