Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from Hourglass. I have a BIG announcement, everybody! I finally got myself a girlfriend! I mean, I did a month ago, but I kept forgetting to say anything. Still, though, I never imagined I'd be lucky enough to find myself a girl that was this fantastic. She's here on Fanfiction, too! Her username's SonicTheHedgehog-Nerd.
Anyway, on with the reviews!
Replies To Reviews
spark n' Jetz: I'm not sure how the whole "wrath of Satan" thing will go. I'm just wondering if I'll be able to pull off such a character with accuracy.
Guest: Yeah, just click on "Guest" down by the box where you type your review and type in your own name. Also, I'm not nearly as familiar with the stories of Pokémon legendaries as I should be, so I wouldn't know.
Volcanic the hedgehog: Oh man...I just thought of that when you said it. Ohoho! YEAH! Awkward silences, I summon thee! XD
Now then! Let us get a move on, shall we? This chap's mighty interesting, I might add. Enjoy!
Chapter 3: Poison Plants and Pervert Plants
As Jeff awoke from his exhaustion-induced slumber, he found himself lying on a bed of...mushrooms. It was surprisingly comfortable. He was considering lying there forever, not worrying about a thing for any time more, but he was rudely interrupted by the sound of shuffling feet. A face suddenly appeared above him with no warning and he gave a jolt, attempting to jump up onto his feet but felt a searing pain on the right side of his body, making him just slump over.
"Jeff! 'Tis me, Martin!"
Jeff's eyebrows knotted together as he stared at the person who was standing above him. He had a chubby face and a Duck Dynasty beard. The hair on his head was just as wild and the same color of caramel. He had wrinkled features and looked just above fifty years old. If this man had not said his name, Jeff would have never recognized him.
"Wait, Mayor Mushroom?!" he shouted unbelievingly, forcing himself into a sitting position to get a better look at the former mayor of his hometown of Smelttown.
Ex-Mayor Mushroom was wearing what appeared to be a loincloth made of jungle leaves over his crotch, but that was about it. His enormous belly was covered in cuts and his legs and arms in bruises. It appeared as though he'd become a survivor of some remote forest since Jeff had last seen him. Ex-Mayor Mushroom looked down at himself and laughed heartily.
"Ah, yes! My appearance has changed quite a bit, that is true!" he said, and suddenly launched into a monologue before Jeff could say anything. "You see, it all began on the day of our long-forgotten capturing. As you may recall, we were trapped below the pyramid inside of that room of gold. And, as you may also recall, I was supposedly drowned in the process of the room filling with liquid gold because I was unwilling to let go of my precious golden artifact.
"Well, I must have been only submerged for about thirty seconds, because I found myself gasping for breathing, wet with liquid gold in the hot sand of the desert with the temple within sight. There was some sort of drainage system inside the temple, I suppose. The mummies found me lying there eventually and I was forced to flee into the jungle. I traveled for six days and nights, only able to live off of my supply of mushrooms for food in the harsh conditions. The jungle has changed me, Jeff, that it has." Jeff gawked at his old mayor, struggling to process what he'd just heard.
"Everyone thought you died!" he exclaimed, raising a hand. "But this whole time you've been living off of fungus in the jungle? With only a loincloth? Do you have no respect for yourself?"
Ex-Mayor Mushroom merely shrugged and replied,
"Losing my position as mayor has brought me down to such a level, yes. You may call me just Martin, my dear old friend."
Jeff squinted at the mushroom addict and retorted,
"Listen, I don't know where your ideas are coming from, but we're not friends. You ARE partially responsible for my family's poverty, just in case your excessive consumption of mushrooms has jogged your memory."
Martin frowned as his brain was starting to catch up on the insult. Jeff tried to stand up so he could leave, but more pain spiked through the right side of his body. He looked down once he'd steadied himself and felt an immediately sickening feeling in his stomach. His right leg was missing entirely, with just a bloodied cloth bandage over his entire right hip.
"Uhhh..."
Martin shook his head solemnly when he noticed Jeff staring at his wound.
"Ah yes! Unfortunately, when I found you, you looked like a dead man just floating there, adrift at sea. I took you in my boat and brought you here to raise you and fill you with the proper knowledge you need to know to survive on one leg! Trust me, I have experience with this kind of disability! Why, back in 'nam, we went for DAYS without one leg. Or both! Sometimes even a kidney..."
Jeff groaned and shifted his position, trying to be comfortable.
"Martin, I think your mushrooms really are wrecking your brain; you have two legs, not one. Anyway, I really just need answers. You, of course, don't know this, but I'm actually an Aetherian. I died in the Overworld and went to the Aether for a little while as an angel there. Somehow, though, I jumped off of those floating islands way up there and managed to land back in the Overworld once more. It isn't possible, though! Any Aetherian would be dissolved into the code of the Minecraft Dimension if they attempted to go past the boundary separating the Aether and the Overworld. That's why I need to know how I got here!"
Jeff looked up at Martin and found him to just be slouching there, his mouth agape and his eyes slightly glazed. He suddenly snapped back into reality and declared,
"My greatest apologies, Jeffrey, I was thinking about pumpkins. You were saying?"
Jeff clenched his teeth and muttered,
"Just get me to the nearest town, alright?"
Martin clasped his hands together happily and said,
"But of course! Here, let me help you up, my dear fellow!"
"Yeah, whatever." grumbled Jeff as he reluctantly let the mushroom maniac help him to his...foot.
He leaned on Martin's shoulder as they walked/hobbled slowly towards the nearby jungle. Jeff could only hope that the crazy individual beside him actually knew what he was doing. Plus, where the heck was 'nam?
He may have been only fourteen, but Johnny owned a Bed & Breakfast place just outside of Sunflower Acres. Usually, he got maybe two customers a month, if that, if there were people who happened to wander into the village. This was because the town he lived in was hidden beneath a canopy of jungle trees in the center of the wilderness. Product placement was a difficult aspect of life, that was for certain.
At the moment, Johnny was lying asleep in bed, dreaming of the wonderful days in the jungle, picking flowers and harvesting cocoa beans to make fresh chocolate for his homemade rolls at Ol' Malcolm's Bedroom. This had been the name of Johnny's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather who had started the family business hundreds of years ago. The key to the shop was passed down from generation to generation—a rare find, that key, for it was an extremely rare mod that their family had been lucky enough to come across. That very key hung by a thick handmade iron chain around Johnny's neck.
Unfortunately for Johnny, his dreams were rudely interrupted by the loud banging of a fist on his shack's door. Groaning, he got out of bed, fixed the spots on his head where his flat brown hair stuck up and then shuffled towards the door, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear them. The knocking didn't cease until he finally unlocked and opened the door. The sight before him immediately made him step back in defense. What looked like a fattened villager carrying his one-legged wife was standing just outside with looks of frightening alertness on their faces.
"WANT STAY!" shouted the fat one, brandishing a wooden sword.
"M...Mar..." was all that his wife muttered; her voice soundly oddly like a man's.
Johnny looked at the two villagers for a moment, deeply confused, but finally spoke again, gesturing inside.
"Would you like to, er, rest?"
The fatter of the two nodded and stepped towards the doorway. He turned himself sideways to be able to fit through and squeezed inside, then turned again to face Johnny.
"WANT BED! WANT HEAL! WIFE LEG!"
Johnny looked over at the wife's missing leg and immediately understood the urgency. They may be villagers, but they were still living creatures that needed help. Johnny quickly ran into the kitchen, grabbing a couple porkchops and then heading back out into the main room. The villager and his wife were already rushing into the left of the two bedrooms. He followed them and watched as the fat one set his wife down on the bed. Johnny gave the female two porkchops, but she wouldn't eat them. The man shoved him roughly, shouting,
"WANT HEAL! WIFE LEG!"
Johnny scurried away in fear, though he knew he could easily fight the villager off if he needed, and rushed into the back room behind the front counter. There he kept all his medical supplies, which, to be honest, wasn't much. He threw open and chest and rustled around frantically for some kind of potion that would help. In vain, he grumbled,
"Oh, I'm no good with these tricky tonics!"
Finally, though, his hand grasped some cold glass. Lifting it up he found a shimmering blood-red potion—exactly what he needed! He ran out of the back room and into the bedroom again, hastily handing the potion into the villager woman's hands. She removed the cork and lifted the bottle to her fat lips with shaky hands. She drank only a third of the bottle, but in an instant they all watched as her leg grew back miraculously. The villager woman's eyes lit up with joy and she stood triumphantly to her feet, hugging her husband.
"MARTIN! YOU RIGHT. WITCHCRAFT BE GOOD SOMETIMES."
Martin the villager turned to Johnny and nodded in thanks, then said,
"WE GO NOW." They left Ol' Malcolm's Bedroom seconds later, leaving Johnny in a state of shock and satisfaction. He'd just saved the life of a villager! With the burden off of his shoulders, he walked back to his own bedroom and lied down, sighed happily as he closed his eyes and began to drift off once more...
"KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—"
Johnny was back unlocking the door in a few seconds, grumbling to himself about late-night customers. Once the door's lock had been removed he pulled the door open. ANOTHER fat villager and his one-legged wife was standing there.
"Want stay!" shouted the fat one.
The wife, who looked more like a man smeared in cocoa while wearing vines for hair, struggled in the fatty's arms, trying to get him to let go.
"Martin! This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard! Look, this guy's a Minecraftian, not a villager, you dumbass!"
Martin's brilliant plan was to dress them both up as villagers and demand entry into the first shelter they laid eyes on. Of course, his brain being poisoned by some bad shrooms, he didn't think it out too well. Martin shook Jeff to quiet him and whispered loudly,
"Shhh! Keep quiet or he will detect our phoniness."
Johnny rubbed his eyes and moaned. He was a nice guy, but it too early for this kind of thing. He opened the door wider and jabbed a thumb towards the two bedrooms inside.
"Would you like a place to stay, sirs?" he said as politely as he could.
Martin squeezed inside without answering, banging Jeff's head against the outer and inner walls in the process, making him slump over like a rag doll. He targeted Johnny and pointed a grubby finger at him.
"Of course, it is clear to me that our disguises have fooled you not in the least, but it is still irrevocable that you allow us to stay here. My colleague here has a leg that will not regenerate by food nor by potions; that witch we unexpectedly met was very unhappy, I'll say. I've received burning marks all over my bollocks!"
Johnny pursed his lips and nodded to pretend like he knew exactly what Martin was talking about.
"Well, um, great...you may stay here for the night. Either of the two beds is free."
Martin smiled broadly as he carried Jeff into the bedroom on the right and set him down on the bed. Johnny came in the room and eyed Jeff's bandages.
"You say you've tried food and potions?" he asked, looking down at Jeff, who blinked a few times as he was coming back from his dizziness.
The boy standing in front of Jeff looked like a tall and strong young man. He had flat brown hair that reached his ears and a kind, clean-shaven face. Handsome, too. His clothes were very light—khakis, sandals, a brown T-shirt.
"Yes." he mumbled, still waiting for his vision to clear.
Johnny pondered this for a moment. If food and potions didn't work, he sure couldn't help them. He did know someone who could, though.
"There's an old woman about three miles west of here that knows about wounds of all sorts. Maybe you should just go see her."
Martin and Jeff looked at each other. Then Martin swung his fist in a happy manner and declared,
"Well, jolly good! We must depart at once!"
Jeff piped up from the bed, protesting,
"I'm not going anywhere 'til I get some sleep! You've been getting tree branches and vines in my face all evening."
Johnny smiled and gestured out the bedroom door, saying,
"Mr. Martin, you are welcome to stay in the other room if you'd like."
He honestly would have rather ran right out the door while dragging Jeff behind him in search of that woman, but he stopped himself with was little self-control he possessed. Thanking Johnny for the extra bed, he strolled out of the room to the right towards his new chambers. Johnny looked back down at the man in the bed, guessing his age to be about thirty or so, and decided to reach out a welcoming hand.
"My name's Johnny Bed. Most people just call me JB, though."
Jeff grinned and lifted his own hand, shaking the other's; this one's grip was pretty strong.
"Well, JB, my name's Jeffrey Ironblock. I prefer, Jeff, if you don't mind."
"Not at all." said JB, starting off towards the door.
"Have a nice night!"
JB closed the door to Jeff's room, finally granting him peace.
Jeff was woken up suddenly by the sound of bloodcurdling screams. His instincts made him attempt to launch himself out of bed in preparedness, but his instincts had already forgotten about his missing leg. The result was him falling over the foot of the bed and smacking his chin on the floorboards.
Groaning in pain, Jeff forced himself into a sitting position, rubbing his chin with a grimace. Suddenly, the scream came again, right from outside of Ol' Malcolm's Bedroom. He dragged himself up against the foot of the bed and got into a shaky stance. Hopping on one foot, he made his way across the room towards the door, holding onto the wall for balance.
It took him a full minute to make his way out of the bedroom, the main room, and all the way around the outside of the shack. When he did get around back of the Bed & Breakfast, his eyes widened when he found Martin trying to roast JB over a fire; he was currently tied to a long stick by vines, rotating slowly over the fire just one block lower.
"HELP! MANIAC!" he screamed.
Jeff flapped his arms wildly as he was shouting at Martin for his attention.
"Martin! What the hell are you doing?!"
Ex-Mayor Mushroom turned to look at Jeff from the side and smiled broadly upon noticing him.
"Jeff, my boy! I did not see you down there with all this tall grass and whatnot! I am simply cooking us some breakfast, is all."
"He's not food! He's a living, breathing person! Get him off of that stick or so help me I'LL roast you over a burning log!"
Martin glanced at JB, who was struggling feverishly at the vines as one of them caught fire.
"GET ME OFF OF THIS THING!"
Martin sighed and reluctantly drew out his wooden sword.
"Alright! Very well, then. What a bloody waste of vitamins, though."
He stomped out the fire and then snapped the vines with the dull wooden blade, making JB fall flat on the hot log below him. He quickly jumped back up and brushed ash off his T-shirt.
"Thanks." he said, looking down at Jeff.
Then he turned to look at Martin, who puffed out his chest heroically.
"Thanks." he said again, much less appreciative.
Jeff hopped back up on one foot and leaned against the side of the Bed & Breakfast. As Martin was walking towards him with a gesture to embrace, Jeff grabbed the wooden sword from his hand and bonked him on the forehead with the flat edge of the blade.
"What in Notch's name were you thinking?!"
Martin gained a look of confusion; he'd expected Jeff to be happy for the free breakfast.
"I was thinking I was in the mood for something exotic, that's what! One mustn't live off of mushrooms for all eternity, am I right?"
Jeff hit him over the head a second time, hopefully to jog his memory.
"Cannibalism isn't exotic! It's inhumane!"
Martin didn't seem to understand a word of what Jeff was saying, so he merely shrugged and walked away defiantly, straight into the heart of the jungle.
"You ladies may dawdle all you care, but I am on a journey to find that woman! An adventure is what I crave, lads! CRAVE!"
With that last word, he disappeared behind a wall of vines.
Vines. Vines, vines, vines. Vines were now Morgan's LEAST favorite block. When Morgan awoke from her shock-induced nap, she found herself suspended in the air by a web of entangling green vines. Snakelike vines were wrapped around her wrists and ankles, as well as portions of her torso, to keep her in the same uncomfortable position. She couldn't see what was below her because of the way she was hanging.
Although panicky, Morgan concentrated on the vines, hoping that she would be able to turn them into something else. She stared hard at the vines around her right arm and focused on her block power.
"C'mon...c'mon! IRON BARS!" she shouted aloud, hoping that her frustration would replace the vines with that familiar iron creation.
No such luck; Morgan Ironbars then realized that these were not vine blocks, but rather something from that mutated mob. She was trying to figure out how to just keep her breathing under control when she felt the vines around her quiver.
Instantly, she started crying, knowing that the creature was awake and coming for her. She struggled against the vines even more, but as she did so they seemed to only get tighter. Her breathing stopped when the Venus flytrap came into view in front of her. The prickly green teeth bared in a grin on its face.
"I am Lalita and I wanna play!" it hissed suddenly, making Morgan jump.
"You can t-talk?!" she murmured, frightened as heck.
"Yes! I can talk! I wanna play!"
Morgan could feel the monster Lalita's vines creeping up her arms and legs, making her shudder. Then she realized that she was wearing hardly any clothes.
"You pervert! S-stripping me into m-my undies?!" she said, trying to sound at least somewhat intimidating, though it came out with absolutely no confidence.
Two vines sprouted from Lalita's main stem and hovered towards Morgan, making her flinch and increasing her frantic cries.
"DON'T! LET GO!"
"Don't let go? Okay! Heehee! I'll never let go..." whispered Lalita excitedly, though she knew perfectly well that her captive was begging.
The two vines made contact with Morgan's calves and then slithered upward from there, passing her knees and to her thighs, dangerously close to her core.
"STOP IT, PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!"
"But I am so lonely! I don't have anyone to play with! To cuddle with!"
Lalita didn't understand Morgan's pleas or the boundary line of cuddling, and so her bristly green tendrils inched closer and closer. When the vines were a mere inch from her core, Morgan's shrieks of protest echoed throughout the walls of the cave they were stuck in, so loud that the echoes made the stalactites starting shaking on the ceiling.
Just as Lalita was about to do what the Lord in Heaven forbid, a humongous chunk of rock fell from the ceiling and smacked her right on the head, crushing the rest of her body along with it. The vines around Morgan snapped and she screamed as she freefell twenty blocks to the cave floor.
Lalita crashed down in the center of the cave, Morgan bouncing safely off of her tangle of squishy vines. She landed only two blocks from the massive heap of plant creature and rocks. Thankfully, the falling of the stones from above ceased and Morgan was able to lift her head to look at her surroundings. A waterfall of lava off of a rocky ledge three blocks to her right lit up the tall cave. She cowered at the shadows that skeletons of other captured female Minecraftians cast; the corpses of previous victims of Lalita covered the stone floor around her.
Shivering with cold and anxiety, Morgan stood up and eyed Lalita, whose plant body and tangle of vines were crushed under the rocks that had fallen. Dead.
Ex-Mayor Mushroom sure has taken a turn for the worst! Still, I thought that scene with the human rotisserie was pretty comical. XD I'm not sure whether to feel sad about Lalita dying a lonely soul or just be happy that we've got another creepy character out of the story. Opinions?
Anyway, ON WITH QAA!
To the Glitch: Come on! Set your evil plans in motion! You've talked about ruling the dimensions for two books now! Seriously get a move on!
The Glitch: I am not Lord Frieza! I am Lord Glitch! Lord Glitch takes its time whenever it declares necessary! You will merely have to wait in angst as I slowly crush this universe! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
To Sally the nice plasma guy: Did Gabe want to be possessed? And why him, anyway?
Salutem: I was only looking for a suitable host for my essence. Unlike the Glitch, I explained all of my plans to Gabe before I possessed him and continued to communicate with him while he carried me inside of his soul. I had no intention to entirely take over a person.
To Doughbelly, Boysenberry and Blackberry: Where are the giant robocreepers, cake dragons and Frienderdragons when you need them?
Doughbelly: *flies around the End whimpering, wishing he had company*
Boysenberry: *playing fetch with Calista Cactus on a tropical island in the middle of a large lake*
Blackberry: *lying in a wrecked pile, stranded somewhere in a desert far off from civilization*
And now for the third snippet from Sugar Lords!
Actually, those two hours were quite eventful. In the first half hour they ended up fighting off a giant flock of rabid seagulls while flying over a lake and got swallowed by a whale. To the whale, it was just like eating something that didn't agree with his stomach, because they ended up being spit back out ten minutes later.
Then, in the next half hour they stopped for lunch at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty. Enderdude ended up eating a brain-sucking burger, so Nwinds had to use his mind powers to mentally battle the creature that had embedded itself inside of Enderdude's brain. It was the most intense five minutes of Nwinds's life; everybody else just had to sit at the table and watch as he stared passionately at Enderdude's forehead the whole time.
Throughout the next half hour, the Knights of the Blocky Table found that they had wandered into the Bermuda Triangle. Volcanic was the first to notice, as he was the one that got cursed into randomly disappearing in a cloud of green fog and then reappearing in the same manner. It took them almost no time to find the sea witch who'd cursed him, because she kept stalking them from behind.
The last half hour was the most eventful, though. They made a stop at Dunkin' Donuts because Pastrinator64 said he was dying to get some pastries. Everyone except him was bored, but he thought the stop for pastries was an essential part of life for him. This resulted in an argument between him and Pikale, who'd been ticked off with everyone from the start. That argument THEN resulted in them fighting an epic battle inside of the building. Pastrinator64 won, but still had a difficult time due to Pikale's rage, which had increased his power level from 310,005 to 410,005. Still, being a level 530,090, it wasn't so hard.
Hello, Pastrinator64 here! I realize that I made a mistake when saying what Pikale's power level was back in the bonus chapter at the end of VOiD. I said it was 3,100,050, not 310,005. Just clearing that up! Thanks! :D
Anyway, two hours came and went in a buzz. At last, though, they reached the planet of Malloward, which was now flooded in spoiled chocolate milk. The storm had not yet ceased, so the entire planet itself looked like it was about to leak through its center as its soft surface was slowly dissolving into the liquid. And it smelled really, really, REALLY bad.
One quick announcement, everyone! I will now be accepting OC's. Everyone that has already submitted an OC may submit another if they choose, but I will look at every single one that is submitted before making my decision on which one to pick. You can guarantee that you'll be seeing an OC in the next chapter! ;D
Well, that's all for now! I hope you enjoyed chapter number three, and I'll see you all LATER!
This is Pastrinator64, your fellow writer and reader, signing out!
*throws sugar bomb and disappears behind its cloud of fine white sugar*
..Goodbye for now...
~Pastrinator64 [~]