When the fight had ended, things actually weren't too bad.
Sure, with the lords they'd been planning to move quicker and skip past the End (which was a city, Gill had to reassure Jesse upon seeing their bewildered face, not something bad), but the bandits were actually more vicious and had more numbers than they'd expected, so they'd ended up wasting enough time that by the time they were at the End, the sun was barely grazing the horizon, and after some arguing about light magic (which none of them had, or in the case of the lords, they didn't have a good), they decided that they weren't about to try out Jesse's weird skill with magic again without practice (which Jesse did not have) and to just stay the night at the End.
But on the bright side, the worst injury anyone on their end had obtained was a bloody nose (Gill gave a thumbs up and just said he'd ice it when Jesse fussed over it), and they'd all learned that Jesse could use a little bit of fighting training, since they actually weren't half bad at it.
(Isa, however, did murmur to Harper when Jesse happened to be listening at one point to not teach them anything lethal, and Harper must've agreed with this sentiment because she nodded rather vigorously.)
The gates to the End weren't exactly the most encouraging things to look at- tall obsidian pillars that towered above Jesse's head, with glowing crystals at the top, marked the perimeter of the city, and the gates were black wire that were shaped like dragons and snakes.
They had to let one of the dragons on the gate sniff their ID before they were allowed in (the dragon started licking Jesse's hand instead of sniffing the ID when they got close, which caused Isa to laugh and Harper to have to redirect the dragon to the actual ID), but since they all had ID cards they were all allowed inside.
The sky was a deep purple the second they stepped in, clouds vaguely purple and more like wisps of smoke than anything else. The streets were lined with yellow stone that looked like it should feel squishy but didn't, which threw them off a little bit, and many of the buildings were accented with smooth purple blocks that were called purpur, according to Lukas' impressed whistle and remark on them.
It was somewhat fitting, considering the block was a shade of lavender.
"Welcome to the world's most empty city," Mevia said sardonically, spreading her arms. "Makes you feel like it's The End of the world."
Jesse giggled at the pun, while Harper sighed and Gill closed his eyes, looking like he was physically restraining himself from cringing.
Isa shook her head and patted Mevia on the back. "Moving on... shall we head to the palace? Soren will be there. Or at least he'll have a welcome message with some form of instruction on what to do if we're staying there, since he might be poking around the End."
"Yeah... honestly, don't feel like dealing with Endermen anyway."
Jesse blinked and twisted around to look at Petra, who was rubbing her face tiredly. "Endermen?" they echoed, in a bewildered way.
Aiden nodded, glancing at the walls. "Soren's weird..."
Yes, that explains a lot.
He noticed their bewildered expression and clarified, apparently deciding their confused expression was more annoying than having to speak to them. "He's got this weird obsession with Endermen. They don't necessarily enter the city, because that could potentially get really dangerous, but the enchantments sometimes keep the Endermen stuck up against the walls so that he can examine them."
"The enchantments eventually kill the Endermen, since it's too dangerous to just let 'em wander around, but I can tell you, from experience..."
He made a face, lips twisting slightly as the memory apparently made him rather uncomfortable. "It's not really fun to go walking through the streets and turn a corner to see a screaming Enderman up against the wall."
"Ah... is that why the city's..." Jesse paused, regarding the spookily empty city, before gesturing expansively at the spookily empty city.
Petra nodded, crossing her arms. "Yeah... though, this city has historically been pretty empty, since negative magic is drawn to the area. That's why the sky's all purple once you come in," and she pointed up at the violet sky. "Negative energy's so heavy that it's messing with the sky. Legend tells of some great source of negative energy being kept here before the gates in Jupin were created, and from what Ivor says occasionally, I think it might be pretty true."
"Oh," Jesse said, rather cleverly. "I see..."
"Don't be so negative, it's not the End of the world if we stay here," Mevia replied, her facial expression not changing a whit.
This time, everyone except Jesse groaned at her.
Soren- one of the barons, according to Mevia- wasn't there upon their arrival, although he did, in fact, have a pleasant welcome message at the entrance that told them that if they knew the password, meaning that they were a lord or another baron or someone there on their behalf, they were free to find a room to stay in for the night and he would try to see them when he returned.
They did in fact know the password (Harper uttered a quiet 'Command Block' and the entrance doors pretty much flew open), so that was nice.
Well, Jesse supposed he could've been in the building, but if he was there, he was sure hiding pretty well.
Not that it was hard. It was surprisingly large, considering only one person lived in it, wooden hallways with polished floors that were warmly, if somewhat dimly, lit. There were little plants on little tables, and in every segment of every hallway there was a fountain.
(Gill splashed Maya at one point, which caused her to splash him back, which caused Isa to intervene to avoid them splashing the floor.)
There were even two floors, although the upper floor was more cramped than the bottom and seemed to be more of a thing to access other rooms from if you happened to end up up there and not just have to default back to the ground floor every time.
After everyone had brushed their teeth, coming to Jesse's room because they'd apparently picked the only room with a good sink (that was Mevia's excuse, at least) and changed in their pajamas (Harper seemed very happy to see them in footie pajamas, which made Jesse tint rather pink), everyone bid each other good night (except Maya and Gill told each other that they both hoped they died in their sleep, which seemed like an odd way to express affection to one another) and headed off to bed.
... and Jesse couldn't sleep.
They should've been able to, by all means; the bed was quite comfortable and the room was dark and Reuben snuffled in his sleep against their chest comfortingly like a breathing teddy bear, but they just couldn't drop off into sleep.
They tried to count Enderman bloops from outside the walls, but that just made them more nervous instead of lulling them to sleep.
After seventeen bloops, they wiggled out from under the covers and decided to walk around. It wasn't exactly the best time to go for a walk, but they could probably tire themselves out by just going around in circles, and they needed to get some sleep anyway.
The hallways were empty- big surprise. They were still dimly lit, and every door, though shut, wasn't locked.
So by the time Jesse had spent two hours walking around (with no change in how much they wanted to sleep, unfortunately), they'd found four bathrooms, a laboratory that was pressed right up against the city boundaries, a few living rooms, and they were pretty sure one room was a kitchen.
Then they came across one doorway that was...
Well, it was less normal than the others, to put it kindly.
It was covered in knitted pictures.
When Jesse pulled the door open, they found a rather large room that looked as though it was a little slice of Jesse's world that had been taken out and plopped into Cosmos, somehow perfectly untouched except for the fountains and bridge.
The room also looked remarkably like it was made of wool.
They stepped onto the grass experimentally. Yep, that was wool, alright.
Squishy and solid all at once, they practically bounced in place as they looked about. The wool sky was blue with clouds of white wispy wool hanging from the ceiling. The leaves of the trees and the bark were wool, the grass was wool; in fact, the only thing that wasn't wool was the water in the stream and the fountains, which were made with wood and made the rest of the wool world look a bit more artificial in comparison.
Jesse couldn't help but stare around themselves in interest.
"Hello."
Jesse squeaked, jumped, and turned to see a man with unruly ginger hair and a thinning forehead. His mustache was the same color as his hair, and it was also rather curly. He wore a simple kind of suit, although he had a chestplate under his arm and they felt as though he'd been taking off the brownish, blue-decorated armor when they'd come in, and he was regarding them with a somewhat wary gaze. His eyes were gleaming red; bright and strange compared to the other demons Jesse had met.
"What are you doing up?" Soren asked.
A/N: Soren is also a ninja, apparently.
Nah he's just... isolated xD
A good chunk of my hair is now a darkish pinkish color. I think it's lovely xD
Random question of the chapter (RQTC, boy it's been a really long time since I've done these): What color would you dye your hair (or did you dye your hair, if you have in fact dyed your hair) and why?
I dyed my hair pink because I like the color pink, and it's been a part of my avatar for at least a few years.
I am me. Reviews are my mangos. I love mangos. (I'm not even kidding when I say that, I'm eating a mango as I write this.)
Responses to reviews!
Toni42: Indeed xD / Yeah, she's not allowed to be a softy. No niceness! Well, a little niceness. / Jesse mostly has the advantage of a) having an eerily good aim for sensitive areas, and b) people thinking they're a smol bean so they're not exactly doing their best to prevent themselves from getting smacked. / Heeee xD
LegendEmpress: Oh noooo, that sucks :/ I'm probably doing a gameplay on my YouTube... soonish xD / Ahh, thank you xD / Heheeeeee xD
ThinMintE: It's less that and 'don't try to kill them or they're gonna fight back'. Usually they'd probably feel really bad about it. / They do! I've never owned plants myself, haha.
TheAmberShadow: I only widened the pool, my friend. Don't feel too bad about fishing around for puns; I'm beginning to run a bit dry myself. / Indeed indeed xD / Teleportation spells are very draining and they'd only be able to do it once a day, plus unless you have some kind of control on the other end there's no way to guarantee where you end up. And since only one district is actually working on machinery and it's just now turned out a computer, a subway is asking for a bit much xD / Yeah, actually, though they will probably have to go home xD / No, actually. You might've noticed that I keep mentioning every once in a while that Jesse can feel someone watching them. / If you were once the same person, Harper adopting Jesse by proxy would sort of make Isa and Mevia godmothers or stepmothers; although if they are gracious they would take the title of aunt instead.
DarkbeastDend: It's more that they got very lucky and got some nice training in. Especially speed. you can't hurt what you can't hit xD
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'byeeee!
x.X. A.L. X.x