Chapter 138: The 3 fold fish

As far as woods go, this is most definitely the most unique. Unique… No, that is a misnomer. This forest is Alien, truly and completely. Foreign in every aspect compared to my earthen perspective.

With ashen endstone as the earth, stone-like black trees, and ghostly leaves, only Alien can describe such an odd sight. Alien doesn’t mean bad; in fact, I would call this the best forest I have ever visited.

The run of the mill woods and light forests are relatively tame and boring. Mystical and enriched forests such as the one a jog away from my house would be next in awesomeness. Now, this is two stages higher.

Wincing in pain as I brush along a bush with armor bypassing thorns. Can’t escape them even in god-like armor.

Having walked for some time, I gaze up. Seeing a terrifying sight, a chaos dragon island. A circle of end stoneendstone debrisdebree circling like the rings on jupiterjupitor. The center island endstone enriched with obsidian; unmistakably a chaos dragon island. Having already waypointed my entrée point, I have no need to mark it further. It is good that I have already found one.

Losing focus as I gaze at the spinning disk, black lighting occasionally darting off it. It took me a moment for clarity to return to my mind. “Odd.”

Poking Chic, who is still enamored by the island of death. She jumps up and then does a little dance in panic. “Calm down. You don’t want to look at it for too long.”

Instead of getting an eye roll, a witty reply, or anything Chic-like, I got a downtrodden nod. Quickly, a somber atmosphere spread between us like a thin mist. Feeling a chill, I get goosebumps along my arms.

“Chic… Let’s go this way.” Dragging the spider in a random direction, just to escape the area. Wouldn’t have been surprised to see ghosts on the way out, but we didn’t see one, to my gratitude.

Like a membrane of water, we escaped the cold atmosphere. Letting go of the breath I was holding and appreciating the lack of existential dread. “That was weird.”

Chic just shivers; before shaking her body like a wet dog; “okay, that is a little cute. Even if you were replying to me in agreement.”

Chic just starts walking, “that way then.”

They nod and then walk faster. The density of the forest quickly increases, from slightly sparse trees totoo a wall of foliage. It was a little jarging seeing such a disparity, but we continued anyway. Moving through the dense vegetation, getting nicked by the occasional etherealetherial plant.

Just as suddenly as the foliage thickened, it disappeared. A clearing revealed; walls of trees surrounding a beautiful crystal pond. An enderman sits on a rock in the middle of the pond, knees to their chest. I approach slowly, not silently, as to not scare them. They quickly notice me from a distance, turning their head like a robot.

“Hello,” I say hesitantly.

They move the rest of their body towards me, still sitting in that same position. It wasn’t easy to see at first, but they are wearing a dress. A purple, almost black skin-tight dress; with simple decorations, it blended in really well.

An extremely young and feminine voice replied, “Who?”

“My name is Aeternum; nice to meet you.”

The young Enderman nods, or should I say Enderwoman. Returning her gaze to the pond, to which I follow the direction she is looking. Silver-scaled fish are swimming in the pond; she is watching them.

Approaching but remaining to the side of the pond, I watch them with her. They swim around playfully, nibbling on each other before playing chase. I notice white particles slowly dropping into the pond; the fish are eating them. Following them back, I see them being released by the Woman.

“What are they eating?” I ask her.

“Food.”

“What type of food?”

“Dimensional energy.”

“I see; can they eat other types of energy?”

She nods; before returning to the fish. Focusing inside, I draw a thin trickle of mana towards my hand. It was harder than I thought it would be. It came out irregularly, sputtering and spitting like a coiled hose.

Even poorly done, it still produced flakes of mana. They slowly dropped towards the water like feathers, disappearing. A fish; who was circling the rock she was sat upon slowly approached me.

They began to nibble on the blue energy. They shiver slightly, before blue streaks form along its body. It then slowly swims towards the surface, the blue energy blooming. It rises from the pond and floats like a hover fish, eating the mana far closer to my hand.

Finding it amusing, moving my hand side to side; it following my hand like a cat with a laser.

Taking my second hand, I released a trickle of golden energy. Finding it extremely hard to create the two streams. Coming out even more irregularly, to the blue-streaked fishes displeasure.

Turning to my side, I see Chic enamored with the water. Swirling it around with one of her legs. Returning my gaze to the pond, I see another fish approaching the golden energy. It quickly reaches the pooling energy, eating it with haste. A golden ripple spreads over the fish’s skin before a golden camouflage pattern appears.

It begins to create echo images of it doing different things, some playing with other echoes, others eating, and some doing tricks. Is it creating echoes of different timelines? What is that golden energy?

One of the echoes actually attacks the bluefish. Producing an illusionary combat scene as they duke it out. The bluefish flying around and using gorilla warfare, whereas the golden fish leaps out of the water like a torpedo.

Taking my eyes away, I am curious what nature energy will do. But I also don’t want to stop feeding the other two fish. Using an impossibly level of willpower, I push a stream of nature energy out my chest and down an imaginary line into the water. The strain on my mind is causing the mother of all headaches. I can hear the beat of my heart, like a drum in my ears. With every thrumb, my mind goes blank in pain, my will wavering.

Somehow, I hold on. With what little CPU I have left, I muse how this is good mental training. Distracted by the pain, I only spotted the last fish moments before it ate the green energy. Its body shifted towards a green and brown, scales turning to leaves and branch like spider webs across its body.

Using those branches, like limbs, it grasps and pulls the green energy towards it. “That fish just grew arms.”

Just as my mind was about to crumble, something strange happened. They all started shimmering like ghosts. Slowly, they floated towards each other. Overlapping like ghostly layers in a painting.

The ghostly appearance begins to shudder and crack, lines of light appearing along its body. It suddenly coils up like a spring and launches towards me, striking me in my chest. I recoil back, but don’t feel any impact. Hastily removing my chest plate and shirt, I see a tattoo. “What the hell.”

Looking at the tattoo over my heart, I see a 3 colored triangle. A small fish within each of gold, blue, and green triangles; “I am so very confused.” How did I go from feeding fish to getting a tattoo.

Looking over, the Enderwoman is staring at me, eyes wide. She suddenly averts her gaze, looking down at the water. Realizing I am a little indecent, I re-equip my clothes and armor. Once I am fully clothed, she looks back over at me. Slowly approaching, her long legs making the water easy to navigate.

She stops shy of 2 meters from me, crouching down ever so slightly. Giving off a far more mature vibe, she simply says, “curious.” Before walking away, slowly and carefully. She disappears into the foliage moments later.

“You know, that market is sounding pretty good right now.

Chic looks at me, sending me a mental image of laughter.

“Let’s go.” Grasping the spider, I teleport back to the entrance. Making sure I am pointed directly where the arrow is pointing, I fly at maximum speed.

A short while later, I begin to see a massive white line on the horizon. It keeps growing as I get closer, revealing an uncountable amount of islands connected by Endstone bridges. On top of the islands, purple, white, and black buildings of obsidian, endstone, and Purpur.

A closer look reveals a thriving city of enderman milling about and going about what appears to be relatively human lives. Nothing major is different, aside from the doors being 4 blocks tall and everything slightly further apart. And those signs are 3 or 4 blocks off the ground.

Landing on the edge of one of the larger islands, I quickly set a dislocator waypoint. It is at this point I realize I don’t know how to find that helpful Enderman. I had a slight moment of panic before a forceful push on my left shoulder sent me stumbling.

I hear a familiar voice, “Hey ma dude, that was quick, man.”

Turning around, I see an enderman, and by the voice, the same one.

“Right, I am a beacon.”

“Yeah, you get it. Now, let’s go…”

He then drags me into the market. It caught me by surprise, being grappled, but I chose to just go with the flow. He took me through a side alley and then into another darker alley. By this point, I am thinking something dodgy is going on. Thankfully, Chic was already shrunken down and stashed in my armor.

He suddenly comes to a stop, knocking on what I thought was a wall. It quickly opens, revealing a small room. Inside, warm lights reveal a table, a bar, and a window into a kitchen.

“Sit, man, sit,” he gestures. We each take a seat on some comfy wooden chairs. Which I found quite foreign in this very alien world.

He turns to me, “this place sells the best, damned cheese stuff chorus in the damn world. You gotta try it, my friend.”

I just shrug, a bit late to back out now. A waiter approaches undressed like my friend over here. The Enderman orders for us, asking for the “usual.”

When the waiter leaves, I turn back to my friend. “So… What should I call you?”

He lets out a hearty laugh, “Paul. You can call me Paul.”

“That is a very human name.”

“That is because it is. Enderman names are boring.”

“I see.”

“Ma always said Key is a perfectly fine name. I said no, Paul is far more fun. And that is why I got exiled from me mother.”

“Harsh.”

“Right, she even took ma favorite grass block.”

Finding this whole conversation very funny, “how evil.”

“It is fine; I now have a lot of grass blocks. She cannot stop me now.”

“Didn’t you have a father to turn to?”

“Nah, he got eaten by a Shanki after laying into me ma.”

Pausing for a moment to process what he said. “I see.” I simply reply.

Quickly, a sweet smell spreads through the room. A plate of Chorus fruit oozing cheese is placed on the table. Paul turns to the waiter, “may the abyss shine on you, thank you.”

The waiter replies, “and may it look on you fondly, your welcome.”

Paul then turns to me, what are you waiting for… Eat!”

And so I did, after removing my helmet. Honestly, they were unique. They worked just like apple and cheese, a sweet and sour mix. I enjoyed the meal but felt more confused than satiated.

“That was interesting.”

“Nah, it was tasty,” Paul replies. Patting his belly, even though it is exactly the same size.

“You know, I don’t know how to pay here?”

“Don’t worry, my treat. Anyway, you from the green, you can trade. Stuffs valuable down here, good trades.”

“I see.”