Chapter 4: Not What I Was Expecting...
Like I expected, it only took me and Jesse about 20 seconds to get to Ivor's house. It was only a few yards away from the Order Hall and Reuben's memorial.
I climbed out of Jesse's shirt pocket to take a peek at Ivor's masterpiece with him. The base of the house was constructed out of nether bricks made to resemble tentacles, while the top mainly consisted of stone bricks with several lapis lazuli blocks and a lot of vines formed to look like a skull shape.
At first, the house was made to serve as a lava deposit, in case people ever ran out of it. But since so many people protested that they could accidentally burn themselves if they weren't careful, Ivor came to his senses a bit and reluctantly turned it into a water house for the sake of their benefit and safety. But hopefully he should still have all of his alchemist equipment and everything.
"Do you want me to keep you in my pocket as I climb up this ladder, Petra?" Jesse asked looking at me and pointing to the ladder behind him.
"Yes, Jesse…" I said in a calm tone, sinking back into his shirt pocket as both of my hands let go. "This seems like the safest place for me to be if you're gonna do something like that."
"Alright. Just be sure to hold on if you think you're starting to slip out." He told me.
I just gave him a nod, even though he probably couldn't see me from in here. I then felt like some invisible force was throwing me up and down in his pocket as he started climbing the ladder to Ivor's house. I held on tight to the soft walls of white fabric like he said so I could minimise how much this would happen to me.
Soon enough, this feeling stopped and I was free to let go of the fabric I was holding onto. Jesse's hand reached into his pocket and picked me out again, putting me on top of his shoulder alongside his enormous smiling head.
Jesse's attention diverted from me to Ivor's iron door as he knocked on it about four times before waiting for him to let us in.
"Come on Ivor, please be in…" I whispered to myself.
The iron door was then opened, and as I expected, the alchemist in his green robe was there waiting for us.
"Jesse!" Ivor called out his name as he gave a mercy face of joy.
"Hi, Ivor!" Jesse greeted back as he waved his hand at Ivor.
Ivor quickly noticed that pint-sized me was sitting on Jesse's shoulder and his face of joy changed to one of confusion. "And… Petra?" He said with bewilderment. I gave him a nervous chuckle as I felt my skin go pale. He approached my tiny body further, examining how small I had become.
"What on earth happened to you?" Ivor asked, intrigued in how I got this small. "How did you get so tiny?"
"You think we can have this conversation inside your house?" I asked, shrugging off his size-related questions as rhetorical. "I don't want anyone else to notice me like this." I placed my hand on my black sleeve as I finished my response.
"Why yes!" Ivor responded with glee. He backed up from us so we could walk into his house. Once we were inside, the alchemist flipped a switch beside him and the iron door slammed shut.
The interior of Ivor's house consisted of brewing stands on a wooden table, chests full of empty bottles and potion ingredients, plenty of books on shelves, and a water deposit mechanism which Olivia built for him... and looked way more complicated than it needed to be honestly.
"So Petra, what happened to you?" Ivor asked me for what felt like the hundredth time. "You're about as small as a silverfish!"
"Yeah, I know!" I acknowledged, my arms spread wide.
"We suspect that it has something to do with the potions you brought to our party last night." Jesse said.
"My potions?!" Ivor barked in shock.
"Yeah." I said. "These potions in particular had this blue-ish liquid in them. I don't know if that'll give you any idea of what they were, but that's the best I can describe them."
Ivor looked away from me and Jesse as if he was lost in thought for a second, then he looked back at us to give his word on the subject.
"I didn't bring any of my shrinking potions to the party, did I?!" he asked hysterically.
"Shrinking potions? Is that what they were, Ivor?" I asked out of curiosity, climbing my way down to Jesse's hand as I did so. Jesse had a good idea of where I wanted to stand, so he opened his hand so he could bring me to a decent height with Ivor.
"Oh no…" Ivor groaned, wanting to bury his face in his hands at this point. "I didn't even have time to examine the potions before I sent them to the party!"
Jesse set me down on the table behind him as he continued the conversation with Ivor for me. "We came here to ask if you have some sort of antidote on you." He said.
"Unfortunately, no… I don't." Ivor sighed, looking down at his feet ashamed of what he's done to me. He brought his head back up as he continued his speech. "I did try to make an antidote, but no matter what combinations of ingredients I tried, my test subjects wouldn't grow back to normal size. So I gave up. Exactly why I never destroyed those shrinking potions is beyond me."
"Can you at least try again for Petra?" Jesse asked with genuine, friendly demand in his voice. "Please?"
"Okay, Jesse… I'll try…" Ivor said as he placed his hand on Jesse's shoulder and put a smile on his face. He broke apart and started to walk around the place shortly after. "But finding the right combination of ingredients might take me days! Maybe even months!" The giant alchemist slammed his hand down on the table as he said the last word of his sentence, knocking me back with this earthquake effect and nearly crushing me in the process. I slowly placed my hands on the wooden surface and got back up on my own two feet as I ran back to face Ivor.
"Hey Ivor, be careful!" I shouted while raising my clenched fist at him. "You almost friggin' crushed me! I thought you'd be more careful now that I'm this tiny!"
"Oh! Sorry, Petra!" Ivor said, taking his hand off the table. "I didn't see you there!"
"Anyway, how long did you say making an antidote would take?" I asked out of curiosity, not being able to catch what he said the first time around.
"Days or maybe even months." He answered. My jaw dropped when he gave me his answer. That was not the answer I was expecting at all… "Please tell me you're exaggerating on that!" I said desperation in my voice.
"Sadly, I'm not…" Ivor said all miserable and grief-stricken about it. "There are too many ingredient combinations for me to try! I could've tried over 600 of them a week from now and I still wouldn't have found the right one to bring you back to normal!"
"Well, that wasn't the answer I was expecting…" I said with notable cracks in my voice. "Is there anything else you can do for me in the mean-time?" My voice cracks were able to stop as I continued my sentence.
"Well…" Ivor began, walking over to grab a chest behind him. He placed the chest on the table in front of me. The chest was not much different from all the others, except it had a golden handle and the writing "Tiny Blocks" engraved on it.
"Tiny Blocks?" I read off the chest wondering what that meant.
"Blocks that are small enough to fit in the palm of hands like yours." Ivor told me. "These were one of the few contributions I made towards those who were follow victims of my shrinking potions." He shoved the chest a wee bit closer to me. "They're all yours, girl."
"Thank you, Ivor. Hopefully we'll hear from you about the antidote soon." I smiled at him.
That following night, Jesse and I were back in my room with the chest of Tiny Blocks that Ivor gave us. Jesse had locked the door to make sure that no-one would come in and notice I wasn't as big as I used to be.
The gargantuan, hulking brunette opened up the Tiny Blocks chest and poured the contents onto the floor about a metre beside me, and before I knew it, I was staring at all the pieces like a blank canvas with the will to build whatever I wanted.
After an hour, I managed to build a house that was perfect for my ant-sized self. I gazed at my masterpiece with a massive smile on my face and so did Jesse. The exterior was made of spruce wood planks which all laid along a cobblestone frame, with two wooden doors in the middle. There were also two glass windows on both floors, and I even went as far to build a fancy roof out of stairs, with a little help from my titanic brunette friend in red suspenders of course.
I went inside the house to see what else I did with my artistic touch. The ground floor's terrain was made of oak wood, which was the only type of wood separating it from the over-abundance of spruce I used. In the middle was a couch made of two jungle wood planks acting as arm rests, and one slab of the same material. There was also a kitchen where I could place my food into one of four furnaces, which would prove to be very efficient if I wanted to cook several things at once. I also laid down a crafting table there where I was able to create a brand new miniature version of my signature golden sword, 'Miss Butter'. And the second floor was mainly just a bedroom with a double sized bed near the wall.
By the time I considered my house finished, the sun had set and the moon was out, the most obvious sign that me and Jesse were ready to go for bed.
I plopped on my spacious bed with my red blanket underneath my body and started to yawn… Jesse's hands tore my roof off with a loud rumbling noise so he could say what he always says to me before the day is done…
"Good night, Petra."
I gazed into his beautiful emerald eyes… "Hey Jesse, can you bring one of your fingers down here please?" I asked.
"Okay, sure." He said with that beaming smile I loved so much. He sticked his index finger into my bedroom and closer toward me. When it was a good distance away from me, I gave the finger a big hug and planted a passionate kiss on it.
"Aww…" Jesse said with affection of what I just did. He brought his finger back and started to slowly place the roof back where it was.
"Good night, Jesse." About five seconds after I said that to him, the roof went back in place with a clicking sound. I flipped the switch beside me to turn the light off, and with that said and done, I managed to fall asleep with no issues whatsoever.
Maybe being this tiny won't be so bad after all...
