And he wakes up on a hill.

Next to him is the word LIFESTEAL, in all caps and obsidian. Above him is a dirt circle of half-built floating islands. There's also a floating sign, BUY, with an arrow down.

Around him: two towers of obsidian, one with a statue of pants floating above it. An obsidian building. A large cartoon plant built out of colored concrete, next to a huge square of ground that has been mined far down into the earth. A brick-and-quartz building. A yellow hexagonal building, clearly intended to evoke honeycomb. A couple bridges across the water, most of which are low-quality wood-and-cobblestone, but one of which looks nicer.

In the water: a ship; a pig statue facing a capybara statue.

On the other side of the water: a nice red-and-white building; a huge, strange triangle of cobblestone, almost a mountain but thin and manmade. A stone-and-green-glass tower with fences around it, low-quality paintings stuck to a few of the fences.

This is a strange place, even stranger than the other places he has been on the surface. (This is likely... not the same surface than he was in before, but there's sun and sky above him and it is uncomfortably bright, so it gets to stay as 'the surface.')

The buildings imply habitation. He picks his way towards them carefully, sticking to the shadows, both for stealth and to limit the pain the light. 

The buildings are empty! However, there's a humanoid (human with red horns and eyes) wearing glowing purple armor picking their way over. He looks like an older teenager— somewhere in the 16-18 range, if he’s human.

"Hey, so, you're new here, right?"

He might be a tiefling? Drizzt isn't sure. 

He is braced to be told to leave. "Yes."

"Great, that's actually really convenient--uh, I guess you might want to gear up first and stuff, I don't mean to stop you right away, but we've got an investigation going on, and you're the only person on the server who is definitely confirmed innocent, so if you want to help that'd be cool." It's not, actually, cool, it means there's a wildcard that Mapicc literally can't frame, but--keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? Better he recruits Drizzt than Subz or Poafa. "--Oh, forgot to introduce myself, I'm Mapicc. Nice to meet you."

... This was very much not the reaction he was expecting. He expected to be chased away, not asked to help with an investigation. 

(The gnolls had asked him to help-- no matter. He will judge Mapicc on his actions, not his own paranoia.)

He does his best not to look over excited about the idea of a friendly conversation. "I would be glad to help. I am Drizzt Do'Urden."

“Awesome, nice to meet you Drizzt. The investigation is— you see all the obsidian around?”

"It's hard to miss." 

“Every night, someone—we’ve been calling them Medusa—turns another build at spawn into obsidian.” Mapicc starts walking to the tower that doesn’t also have a floating pants statue; when they’re close, they can see a small wooden sign in front of it, reading:

To Petrify is to Eternalize/but soon justice will be served

“Yesterday they got the building just north of this one—sign said things always go south—so they’re leaving clues about what they do next. This one’s going to be the courthouse, probably? But there’s not much we can actually do to stop them without figuring out who they are. So that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

He had initially assumed the obsidian was deliberate. It wasn't a common building material in Menzoberranzan, but people had prized it for it's glassy reflectivity in infrasight. 

But someone deliberately turning buildings into it? They must be very powerful. They must be stopped.

It's unfortunate his weapons didn't come with him. 

"I can help watch." 

Shit. Okay. “Poafa’s planning on keeping watch tonight, but—mm. We’ll see how it goes. Ro and I have mostly been asking around, trying to see if anyone has information that might be useful. You can keep watch tomorrow, maybe, if Poafa doesn’t catch anyone? Or—mm.”

Mapicc whispers to roshambogames: shit i fucked up
Mapicc whispers to roshambogames: shit i fucked up
Mapicc whispers to roshambogames: shit i fucked up

(His voice is definitely different in tone when talking about Poafa—skeptical, maybe?)

"If you believe Poafa needs assistance, I can certainly do that." Helping people with tasks they have been assigned that they cannot do: The Drizzt on Patrol Story. 

"It's not that Poafa needs assistance exactly, it's honestly mostly that Poafa is our biggest suspect right now. But it still might be worth letting him stand guard tonight to see what happens; if he doesn't catch anyone and the courthouse turns to obsidian anyway, that's sus, but he might not go for it if someone else is with him--maybe we can have him alone one night and then with you one night, we can see if they're different? If it happens when he's on his own but not when he's with someone else, that's a major point in favor of it being him."

Nice save, Mapicc.

Ah. That makes sense. "I would be willing." 

Huh, not even going to ask for evidence? Well, he'll take it.

"Cool. Uh, don't tell him we suspect him, he thinks we're working together right now. Which, we sort of are."

He wishes he could avoid getting involved in games of manipulation and betrayal but just because it was something done in Menzoberranzan did not make it wholly evil. Though he does intend to avoid Poafa except for their shared watch. He would like to at least minimise the amount of lying. "It would be good to give him a chance to prove his innocence." 

roshambogames whispers to Mapicc: ?
roshambogames whispers to Mapicc: what happened
roshambogames whispers to Mapicc: vc?
Mapicc whispers to roshambogames: in a bit

"Any ideas for how to do that? I'm not, like, sure it's Poafa, it might be Planetlord or Parrot or--anyone, really, we haven't actually ruled anyone out but you. He's just being a little sus, it'd be good to at least check."

"How many nights have you all been keeping watch?" 

"It just started yesterday. We haven't kept watch yet, we didn't know it was going to be, like, a recurring thing until today. Plus Ro's busy with off-server stuff. Uh, we know Planet at least was around the first night, and Parrot, that's why I brought them up. Ro says Parrot's doing another thing that's a secret right now and I trust Ro but Parrot's smart enough that he might be faking us out."

"We can't really rule anyone out without more information." 

Deep sigh. "Yeah. Well, except you."

"Do we know how they might be doing this?" He can fight a wizard, but not unarmed.

"...I mean, it's not that hard, there's probably still the obsidian farm in the End from when Ro and I built the prison. It'd be annoying to do when no one's on, or if it's just one person so they can't use the farm, but, like, even one person could totally do it if they tried."

... that is a string of words. "And then they--" what is the best question to ask here "turn the farmed obsidian into buildings?"

"They... mine the building and replace it with obsidian?"

He probably shouldn't demonstrate having a lot of obsidian but having a little obsidian is basically fine. Ender chest, shulker box, obsidian, shulker box goes back into ender chest before Drizzt could have a chance to look at it. Time to break a piece of grass and replace it with obsidian. Kind of annoying to mine back, but whatever.

...It probably looks like he's planning to crystal Drizzt. Oops. He makes sure his hands (empty) are clear and visible. "Crystals are banned, don't worry."