Chapter 62: The End Wilds
Overworld Calendar: Month 6, Day 25
The End felt different to Salsh. But then, he had become a very different person since the last time he was there, about an Overworld month prior. So much had happened in such a short time, especially for him: he was well into adulthood for his kind, at least 50 years old compared to his new friends. His life before the civil war's outbreak had been largely uneventful, with his focus going toward his studies, but when the conflict began to stir, everything had changed. How long ago the troubles started, he couldn't really say; the whispers of a militant tribe's uprising had first reached his ears almost a decade earlier. Most of the Endermen hadn't seriously considered the risks, but he'd been more cautious- or more paranoid- than the rest. Whether or not he was glad to have been proven right, he didn't know.
Despite how long it had been, the last month or so of his life had been among his most eventful, and it all centered around his two new companions. How would he ever pay them back for their help, or for their kindness? They were willing to go further with him than he ever could have asked of anyone, when even the rest of his own tribe had been skeptical of the Acolytes' threat. Alice and Matthew were, in many ways, closer to him than anyone else. Perhaps he'd needed an outsider's perspective to open up a little.
They and the Dwellers of the Ashen Fields had spent the last few days wandering the End wilds, encountering no traces of civilization in the vast expanse of yellow stones and chorus trees. Salsh wasn't sure where his portal had dropped them, and there was no easy way back to the Overworld to reorient themselves. Unlike portals to the Nether, which were designed to spontaneously generate identical frames at their destination, End portals were one-way only, meaning a brand new frame had to be built to allow a safe return to the entry point. The materials required, Eyes of Ender especially, made the prospect difficult.
For their part, Matthew and Alice seemed to be in good spirits about temporarily being stranded in another world. They stayed close to Salsh throughout their travels, speaking with him and Dunera and trying their best to learn a bit of Endish.
"So, you just choose your own names here?" Matthew asked at one point. "You wanted to call yourself 'He Who Dances in the Forgotten Night?'"
"The expression of our individuality is encouraged. With so many caretakers sharing responsibility for our young, it wouldn't be right for any one of them to decide our names. The choice is left to us once we are able to speak." Salsh chuckled, recalling when he was able to name himself. "We learn very quickly… our first words are often within weeks of hatching."
"I wonder what our End names would be," said Alice, "if we can choose them ourselves, then… hm… Matt, any ideas?"
Matthew cracked a grin. "Maybe, 'She Who Charges Into Danger Headfirst.' Salsh, how would we translate that?"
While she gave him a punch on the shoulder for the remark, Salsh thought about it with a frown. "I'm not sure that would translate very well. In any case, you'd still need a tribal suffix."
"Something at the end?" Alice asked.
"Correct. You may have noticed, the Dwellers' names end in -reis, the suffix for the Terman'esreis. Likewise, I am Salsh'namisherad, of the Terman'esherad."
Alice appeared to mull it over, then blushed. "Well… I guess the closest thing to a tribe for me is the Oakeson family."
Matthew went even redder. "A little forward, isn't that?"
"Heh heh… yeah, a little…"
Salsh thought their bond was fascinating. He had difficulty grasping how anyone could be so devoted to only one partner; Endermen were often polygamous. He'd heard such relationships weren't impossible among Overworlders, yet they were uncommon, and Matthew and Alice's love (in the romantic sense, at least) extended only to each other. Personally, Salsh wasn't sure he'd be able to handle so much attention from a significant other, not by himself.
The group finally came across a landmark of note on their fourth day in the End: an island covered in far more chorus trees than usual, dense enough to obscure the terrain. As they came to a stop on the neighboring island, preparing to warp across the gap, the Cindered One appeared to laugh.
"I know where we are now. The Watchers of the Whispering Groves live here. We may petition for their aid; I was a close friend of their chief before I left for the Land of Endless Blaze."
Salsh's friends held onto him as he teleported, bringing the three of them to the forest's edge. The rest of the Dwellers followed suit, but a problem became apparent as everyone got a closer look at their new surroundings.
The trees were tall, yet most of them were in poor condition. Hardly any fruits were growing, and the stalks looked to have been stripped apart, with discarded plant matter littering the floor. Scores of tiny bite marks could be seen up and down the trees, occasionally boring straight through them. Salsh shuddered at the sight; he knew exactly what had done this.
"L-LOOK!" Alice shrieked. "THE GROUND!"
The forest echoed with a loud rustle as the chorus debris shifted apart. Disturbed by the Dwellers' arrival, dozens of tiny arthropods were burrowing up to confront them. Small, agile, and covered in surprisingly tough exoskeletons, void mites were infamous pests. They would infest chorus groves and even attempt to steal pearls, given the chance. Salsh's personal experience with them taught him they would attack fearlessly even by themselves, and in such great numbers…
The mites charged in a swarm, forcing the Dwellers to disperse. Many of them teleported back to the previous island, but those who remained- the Cindered One included- were overtaken and had to begin stamping on the bugs in a frenzy. Salsh felt their mandibles scraping on his legs, and his thoughts turned to the Overworlders. They'd gotten out of harm's way for the moment by building short stone towers, but that wouldn't keep them safe for long. They had no such protection; they'd be stripped to the bone-
Abruptly, the mites ceased their attack and scattered back into the treeline. Most of the Dwellers hadn't suffered more than superficial injuries, but they were still left shaken. As Salsh looked into the forest to see if the mites were regrouping, somebody teleported out in front of them.
"Oh no, I'm sorry! I told them not to attack anyone unless I was here to watch."
Salsh had no idea what to make of the newcomer. She was a juvenile Void Walker, perhaps slightly older than Dunera, but her appearance seemed deformed. Her exoskeleton was smooth and lacked ridged plating, and her eyes weren't green like everyone else's, but rather a pale yellow. Her arms were disproportionately long and dragged along the ground behind her. Strangest of all, she had a yellow, pulsating growth in the middle of her torso, protruding both on her front and back.
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Her voice was small and meek, and she shook her head as she sputtered out her apologies. "I didn't know it was you, you can go on!"
She teleported again, disappearing back into the forest with her apparent army of mites. The Dwellers reassembled, sharing a few confused mutters.
"Salsh, what… what was that?" Matthew asked.
He didn't have an answer. He'd never seen anyone like her.
Lurex watched her small army of reanimated soldiers with a sense of pride. Raising the dead Blue Walkers was no issue for her anymore, and commanding their loyalty was just as easy thanks to the control essence she'd extracted from the dragon's breath. The vile gas had once usurped the minds of all Void Walkers, but her studies allowed it to be put to use for them now, in keeping with her tribe's goals.
"What was yours, Abyssal Tyrant, will be ours," she thought.
She'd rallied about seventy undead for her next operation, careful not to expend too much control essence at once. The numbers would be more than sufficient to handle the Watchers of the Whispering Groves; they were among the smallest and least militarized tribes. Lurex couldn't wait to see them bowled over by her horde of mindless soldiers. Assembling undead forces was quite the hassle, requiring coordinated hauling efforts of corpses and skeletons from the Land of Bright Sky and Blue Pain to Nuroslar, and then a series of relayed teleportations to get them where they needed to be. But the numbers were worth the effort, and it wasn't as if acquiring dead specimens in the first place was difficult. Blue Walkers were so fragile…
"Lurex'skonaslar! Lurex'skonaslar, I'm back!"
She looked across the encampment. Her team- herself, a few Acolyte soldiers, and the undead- were stationed at the western edge of the Whispering Groves, with the horde being armored up before they moved out. A young Void girl came running from the treeline, her elongated arms dragging behind her. Lurex smiled as she approached, but there was a clear anxiety in her protégé's eyes.
"Welcome, Volas'hirnaslar. How did you fare in the forest?"
Volas was a special individual, being of a rare subspecies of Void Walker called a snareling. Lurex had taken the girl into her tutelage shortly after joining the Terman'eslar, alongside two others in need of guidance. The three were unusual beyond mere physicality, but their talents in reconnaissance couldn't be understated. Lurex kneeled and placed a hand on her forehead, giving her a gentle pat as she caught her breath.
"I was looking around the forest, and all of my mites started to tell me there were people on the south side! So we went to look, because I thought the Watchers of the Whispering Groves were trying to sneak away, but they were really our reinforcements!"
"What do you mean, child? We should not have anyone waiting there, are you sure you didn't see the Watchers?"
Volas swayed back and forth, still looking ashamed. "There were too many of them… there were two weird people as well. Not Void Walkers like us, they were something else. I didn't mean to hurt them…"
Lurex froze. "Two… no, that can't be… tell me, did you see a Void Walker among them with only one arm?"
There was a pause as Volas hummed in thought, then her eyes lit up brighter yellow. "Yes! There was someone." Then she looked worried when she met Lurex's gaze again. "Did I do something wrong? I told the mites not to attack anyone else…"
"Unbelievable. He's HERE? And those reinforcements of his, they must be…"
Lurex needed to accelerate the operation. If the Dwellers of the Ashen Fields had pursued her forces back into the Land of Infinite Void, she had to attack as soon as possible, before they rallied any more help.
"Listen closely, Volas'hirnaslar. I have a very important task for you and your siblings. You are to go back into the forest and slow those Void Walkers down as much as you can. They are our enemies, do you understand?"
Volas' eyes went wide, and she nodded rapidly. "Yes! Okay, I can do it! We'll slow them down! I promise!"
Lurex smiled again. "I can always rely on the three of you. Go."
Volas teleported away, leaving her to shout an order to the encampment. "We depart at once! Lead the Mindless Walkers on, our target is Himassen, at the center of the Groves!"
Nothing else was jumping out to attack the Dwellers, but Matthew wasn't any less tense after narrowly avoiding death by a hundred small bites. He and Alice didn't have exoskeletons like their Ender friends, and he was grimly aware how easy of a meal they would pose if the bugs returned.
Yet the forest was quiet as the group cautiously made its way further in. Neither the endermites nor their strange master were anywhere to be seen, and the only sounds were the Dwellers' footsteps, scraping along the stone ground.
"Who exactly are we going to meet here?" he asked Dunera, both out of curiosity and a need to distract himself from the eerie stillness.
"They are called the Terman'essen, the Watchers of the Whispering Groves. The Cindered One has told us about them in the past: they're among the smallest of the tribes, but their farmlands are better maintained than anyone else's."
Matthew scratched his head. "Farmers, huh? Will they be able to help us fight?"
"I'm sure they'll do whatever they can once we explain the situation." Dunera looked around, then let out a brief giggle. "In fact, the Cindered One has even told me she once courted their leader, a long time ago. Um… you did not hear that from me."
Alice must have been listening in as she walked nearby, because she laughed as well. "The secret's safe with us. At least we'll get a friendly welcome here."
"Orsu, nasbarsal!"
The Dwellers came to a stop, many of them tensing up as they looked around. Wherever the voice had come from, the speaker was hiding somewhere within the trees.
Salsh growled. "Perhaps you've spoken too soon, Alice. We're being commanded to stop."
More trouble followed when the forest floor rustled again. More endermites were burrowing up, this time encircling the Dwellers of the Ashen Fields. They didn't attack, but Matthew thought they looked eager for the chance. Their master appeared again, and she wasn't alone. She was next to another unusual Enderman, just as short as her but much burlier than even some full-grown ones. His arms looked strong enough to break stone, and the exoskeleton around his fists appeared to have been partly melted away to reveal a thin layer of yellow scales. His eyes were the same color, matching his mite-controlling cohort's, and they were fixed on Salsh's stump.
Someone else warped in, standing between the other two. He was yet another young Enderman, and he looked relatively similar to Dunera, save for the small detail that he had at least ten yellow eyes scattered about his head and torso, with no apparent main pair on his face. He said something in Endish, then let out a shrill cackle as his eyes all focused on Matthew and Alice.
"Bright Sky and Blue Pain!" he declared. "See you here! No going further!"
"You know our language too?" Matthew asked.
The boss pounded a fist on his chest, very nearly hitting one of his own eyes. "See all! Speak all! We Triplets, Terman'eslar! And you… about to lose!"
Alice gasped. "The Acolytes… they're here?"
From much further away, a series of familiar, droning snarls rose up. They were the moans of zombies, and it sounded like there were many of them.
"I think they've got more mobs," Matthew said with a shudder.
The Cindered One made an announcement which Dunera translated: "Himassen, home of the Watchers, must be close, and the Acolytes closer. If they will besiege the city, we must rush to their aid."
"We have no time to waste with you. Step aside and let us pass," Salsh snapped at the Acolyte Triplets.
They looked at one another in alarm, but hearing him speak in Overworldish only seemed to make them more determined to get in the way. The long-armed one made a loud, stuttering whistle at her boss' instruction, and her army of mites charged once more.
And so began their first real battle in the End.