It takes exactly two seconds between Impulse looking up at the top of the Secret Keeper and him realizing what he's actually seeing up there to decide he is officially sick and tired of seeing ghosts.
There are seven entire ghosts around the thing today -- a couple appear to be tinkering with the secret delivery mechanisms. Impulse squints at them.
"What are you doing?" he says.
"Trying to figure out how to load more tasks into this thing," one of them replies, kicking one of the blocks with buttons on them. He's got a full beard and some weird green glowing mushrooms poking out of cracks in his face. It's definitely... a look, Impulse will give him that. Very Mycelium Resistance. "But whoever designed it used freakin' command blocks, and you can't even see the randomizer run."
"How many times did your randomizer break again?" one of the other ghosts calls from up on top of the Secret Keeper.
"Never!" the mushroom ghost protests, causing at least two other ghosts to crack up laughing. "It worked completely flawlessly except for user error."
One of the ghosts, someone who appears to have a floating cactus block for a head, snorts. "And programmer error."
"You shut it," the mushroom ghost responds.
"He's not wrong," the more normal-looking brown-haired ghost over by the command blocks says absently, purple eyes clearly focused on trying to trace the wiring back to the actual command blocks.
Impulse just stands there, bewildered -- both because the ghosts are actually talking to him, and also because these are extremely weird ghosts to be talking to who look nothing like anyone he's even vaguely heard of.
"Fine," he says, "you know what, I'll bite. Why are you guys here?"
"Checking in," a ghost sitting on one of the lower rocks says. He's wearing blue and yellow, looks to be a little more transparent than the others. "Y'know, new season and all that?"
Impulse squints at him. "No, I meant, why are you following me?"
"Ohhhh!" The ghost laughs. "Hadn't looked into what you were doing yet, and these guys wanted to see if they could get some of their tasks into the machine, so I just brought everyone along."
"That's not really a good answer," a ghost leaning inside the alcove under the Secret Keeper says. He's got a mask pulled up over his face, though his voice doesn't really sound muffled at all.
"What," the blue and yellow ghost says, "am I supposed to say something like it's because you're one of the people with no hard-and-fast thematic associations to stick to and therefore easier to facilitate a meeting with and freak him out more?"
Impulse squints harder. "Are you guys Watchers?"
The blue-and-yellow ghost snorts. "Hah! That's Martyn's lore, bud, not yours. Nope, nothing to do with the Watchers."
"Aren't you technically--" the ghost in the alcove starts.
"Tsssssshhhhhh," the other ghost replies by way of shushing him aggressively, "spoilers!"
"Alright," the alcove ghost says, spreading his hands in mock defeat, "fine, have it your way. He's right though. Not Watchers."
"Lowercase-w maybe," the brown-haired ghost still inspecting the redstone with the mushroom ghost says, "but otherwise, no."
Impulse is starting to feel like he's wandered into something way above his pay grade.
The alcove ghost snaps his fingers. Impulse notes somewhat absent-mindedly that he has, like, a lot of piercings on one ear. "Hey," he says, "come to think of it, we might be able to help you out with some stuff."
"I swear to God," another ghost says from on top of the Secret Keeper, "if you try to sell another person on your weird coffee god thing again-"
"I wasn't going to!" he responds. "Honest! I was just gonna say, it looks like there's a plains biome here, that means oxeye daisies, that means suspicious stew with regen if you can get a good source of mushrooms."
"Unfortunately," the mushroom ghost says, looking up from where he and the other ghost appear to now be trying to cram books into the ground, "the space for the hearts seems like it just kinda vanishes when people get hit. At least, if I'm not misunderstanding the programming."
"If you're misunderstanding the programming then we're both reading this code wrong," the brown-haired ghost says. "And I'm pretty sure I used something similar here for Dark Path stuff, so probably not?"
"Dang," the alcove ghost says, then tilts his head back towards Impulse. "Maybe make splash poison potions, then? That'll take out a good chunk of someone's health if they can't regen."
"He is green," the cactus-headed ghost says. "Why's he gotta make poison potions right now?"
A shrug in response. "Never hurts to prep early."
The blue-and-yellow ghost leans forward, squinting at him. "Alright," he says, "one of my wisps give you that idea or what?"
Another shrug. "I mean, what if they did?"
"Last time you started listening to his wisps," the brown-haired ghost says, "they told you to try and kill everyone just because I beefed it before the dragon fight."
"It would've worked if you hadn't warned them," the ghost in the alcove replies. "I can't believe you tried to sabotage my attempt at avenging you."
"I can't believe you listened to them in the first place," the blue-and-yellow ghost says. "They're bloodthirsty, they don't really give good advice."
"And I," Impulse says, having inched his way over towards the new task button, "am going to take my task and leave, because you guys are weird."
He hits the button and flips through the taskbook.
"End every sentence said to another player in a question?" he says, squinting down at it.
"You're already doing better than some of us were!" one of the ghosts on top of the Secret Keeper yells down.
"Oh my god, shut up!" the mushroom ghost yells back, and then turns to Impulse. "Hey, by the way, have you considered getting a pet parrot?"
"That's still a bad loophole and you know it," the blue-and-yellow ghost cuts in.
"I heard him just fine," the brown-haired ghost says. "Hey, hang on -- that's one of ours! It worked!"
Impulse decides he's not even going to bother trying to be polite about leaving. He has had entirely enough of these ghosts in particular.
