#teaish7

There was a day where she tried something powerful: resurrecting a mob. That’s quite an ask for the Void, but not impossible! Marm had faith that, after some trial and error, she’d get the result she wanted

So what would appease the Void? Hay? Stacks of wheat? Mangrove saplings? Spinning downwards with an armful of precious items? Oh she experimented alright. And when her mind is set on a goal, she doesn’t give up

Bring back Doovid the horse

But Marm’s mind wasn’t entirely on the horse. She thought of the horse, and the player who stood next to it. She remembered how Milkman joked that it looked exactly like Doovid, the frequent confusion on who was being referred to, the funeral she thought was for the player. Doovid the player was subconsciously attached to her ritual

Bring back Doovid

Marm let go of selected items. But on that day, someone else fell. Someone who was equally devoted to appeasing the Void. It didn’t matter where exactly Teaish was, or what she was doing prior to this, all that mattered was a constant truth to the world: she wanted to feed the Void. Could’ve been to refill her hunger, or maybe she missed a step somewhere, or the random urge to let herself drop into the blue abyss crossed her mind. Every single time her feet left solid ground, she embraced the Void’s will to eat

In the window of time Marm reached for stronger magic, Tea made her last willing fall

There must be balance. An entity is given the player-exclusive ability to respawn, another player loses it to become an entity that cannot. A horse becomes undead. A witch becomes lifeless

What if she unknowingly sacrificed her own island partner

And what if, upon the cold realization of what she’d done, another dreadful thing clicked into place: to bring Tea back would be to invoke the name, memory, and body of another. A player for a player

She can’t. She won’t trade lives like that, she’s not cruel. Doovid the horse came back incomplete, she pushes away the imagination of what Tea would look.. or be like… if her magic was still shaky, which wasn’t gonna happen, because she wasn’t gonna sacrifice anyone else

Time passes, and there’s a different soul crying in the Void. It will never be redemption, but it’s a real, tangible opportunity to save someone else. The Void still requires her to fall into its mouth, there’s still trial and error to reach that voice again. It will consume her, and only her, to grant this wish— even if it stains her own soul

There will be a way to rescue this one

The first sign that something is wrong comes in the form of Avid beginning to ask after Tea more often. It’s odd. Avid’s always been closer to Marmalade than Tea, and relations between Mangrove and OSSHA, and by extension Jungle, are strained to say the least.

That’s the first sign, but it starts before that.

Tea sacrifices herself to the void more often than Marmalade does. Most people who don’t know them very well assume it’s the other way around, but they’re wrong. Marmalade sacrifices herself to the void because she thinks, knows, that it’s the right thing to do. She is devout, yes, but however readily she leaps off the edge she always puts her things away first.

Tea is different. She slips off the edge easily, uncaring, unthinking, laughing even as she respawns. To an outsider, it might even look like mere clumsiness.

Marmalade sacrifices herself to the void out of duty. Tea just does it.

Eventually, Avid notices.

“Tea~ish!” he calls. “Come visit OSSHA with me!” “No way!” Tea answers, fleeing to her storage room. She frantically rips out a page from her spellbook and scribbles a message: Avid’s being weird. Blame him if I v, but doesn’t finish writing before she hears Avid coming. She stuffs it in a chest and starts trying to break the floor beneath herself—but too late.

Avid lets out a huff of air. He’s done it. Tea is safe now, and hopefully with her gone Marmalade will see reason and comply with OSSHA regulations. Now, he has to get out of here before he’s seen.

Marmalade isn’t alarmed at first. She and Tea are often awake at different times or working in different places. Several days pass before Marmalade gets suspicious of the fact that she hasn’t seen Tea in a long time. Neither, it seems, has anyone else that she asks. That’s when Marm becomes truly concerned.

Unfortunately, there’s not much she can do. Marmalade searches around the kingdoms of course, but she doesn’t find any sign of her island partner. Eventually, there is no choice but to give up; no other option but to wait. Wait, and hope.

Wait, and hope. That’s all Tea can do, trapped floating in a tank. She’d tried to get out, when she’d first woken up, but it hadn’t worked. Something about either the tube or the substance she was submerged in suppressed her magic then and is still suppressing it now.

Tea doesn’t know how long it’s been. There’s no clock in here, no sky, and no way to record how many days have passed even if there were. Tea can’t move. Can’t twitch. Even thinking is a strain; her thoughts feel sluggish. Clouded. Her senses are dulled. It’s torture.

Panting, out of breath, Tea sprinted in the direction the shadow had gone. This was indeed towards the valley, if her memory was correct. Towards the weird valley with the fallen trees. 

There weren't any signs to show that the shadow had passed through here recently. Then again, there almost never were. Tea was, as far as she could tell, the only one here who ever thought to make her paths visible. 

Tea thought about why the shadow could have been running here so fast. Maybe the people that they'd spoken to had told them somethign important? Maybe, just maybe, they'd found a way to rescue people from Limbo, and the shadow could now escape, and be free of this hell. The little yellow thing that they'd had with them when they left was still a mystery, but still one that wasn't nearly important enough for Tea to care. 

She tried to think of who that void-stained hand could have belonged to. No one that she knew had been afflicted that badly by the void, but in her time here, she may very easily have missed things. 

She kept running. 

The valley was right here, and-

Wow, Limbo never ran out of surprises, did it?

Where an empty valley once sat, a bright building stood. The sign on the side of it read Wafflehouse. 

Tea got a very uneasy feeling just looking at it, so she stayed back. If she'd learnt anything in her time here, it was that staying far away from anything was better than getting up close and narrowly escaping death. Through the window, she could see three shapes. 

One of them was... something purple. Tea couldn't tell what it was. 

One of them was the shadow person. 

And the third one was the cloaked being that had tried to kill her. 

Backing away, her stomach just about flipped into her throat. The cloaked being turned to face the window, staring directly at her- she could see their single eye, glowing, narrowing in suspicion. Their gaze sent a whirlwind of fear through her, until they turned away once more, back to whatever conversation was happening on the inside of the Wafflehouse. 

For a moment, Tea was confused. Why didn't she get threatened again? Had they decided she wasn't worth it? Were they just busy right now, and were going to come outside and deal with her as soon as they were done? 

She looked down at her hands- or rather, where she assumed her hands would be. 

Somehow, she'd managed to turn herself invisible?

Really, she shouldn't be surprised. Ever since she'd learnt how to do magic, she would randomly start glowing, or be stronger, or be faster... all sorts of things. Especially when she got scared or startled- that, according to Marm, was what tended to trigger dormant or resting powers back into activity. 

And the last time the cloaked being had scared her, she'd thrown a rock at them with the power of a lot of strength levels. Maybe it was a good thing that this time, all that happened to her was that she turned invisible? 

Suddenly, a low droning noise came from the Wafflehouse. Since she was now completely see-through and thus undetectable, Tea tiptoed closer to the window, and was able to peer inside just in time to see the shadow vanishing, fading away while being overtaken by the same purple stuff that was disappearing from- wait, she recognized that person- that was LEON! Why was he down here?! 

Then, in her shock, she stumbled backwards. 

Landing with a grunt and a splash, she decided to run while she still could, in case she'd been heard. Risking discovery was too dangerous, and she doubted she could find out anything else while she was here, since the shadow person had completely vanished. She knew the way back to her tree as well as she knew the back of her own hand, and could only hope that the cloaked being didn't know where she was going. 

Something inside her still knew that if they truly wanted to, it would be no issue for them to track her down. But fortunately their interests, from what she could tell, didn't extend that far- otherwise she wouldn't even be alive right now. 

Feeling safe only once she was inside her tree, Tea wished she had more powers than just making some stupid potions. Marm could do all sorts of things, like casting powerful spells to grow giant trees with what looked like no effort at all... Tea could barely manage to make a single flower appear! If only she could grow some more vines to hide herself. 

She might be a little less afraid, then. 

She didn't even realize she was crying until she gasped, breaking the silence and scaring herself. 

She'd never even gotten to talk to the shadow, had she- maybe she should have been bolder, maybe she should have tried to talk to them, maybe she should have tried to help them escape. They could see the door, she could open it, they could have escaped!

If only she could have realized it sooner.

~~~~

This anomaly is more dangerous than the other two ever were.

This one has even more power than I originally assumed. 

If something is not done, the entire balance between the sky, the void, and limbo that I have so carefully crafted could be ripped asunder before I even have a chance to stop it.

I am not one to fear mortals. 

Tea had finally managed to craft a working brewing stand. 

Well, it sort-of worked. 

She wasn't sure how much of its functionality was due to her natural magic and how much was the actual thing- her lack of blaze powder was annoying, but she made it work- but she had a little potion-making station in her tree!

Her woodcarving skills were mediocre at best even with proper tools, so a chunk of wood and a pointy rock didn't make the best bowl ever seen, but it held liquid. She'd also found a much larger weirdly-shaped rock that could probably be used as a cauldron, so she'd carefully, slowly rolled it back to the tree.

Unfortunately, she didn't know what potions she should actually be making. She hadn't gotten hungry since falling, and she hadn't gotten hurt, either. She hadn't seen any actual fire, but there was still the evidence of one, so maybe something to protect her from that would be useful?

Or maybe something to protect her from the mysterious cloaked being.

She- she'd figure it out eventually. What mattered was that it worked! 

Her little base was starting to become more and more comfortable. She was even starting to get used to the uncomfortable bed she had to sleep in. 

Oh, who was she kidding- this was awful. Everything about Limbo was pure nightmare fuel. She couldn't wait to get out of here. 

The potions might help with that?

Tea wandered outside, picking a few leaves off the vines, one of the puffy plants, and with only a mild feeling of nausea, a small bowl-ful of the grey liquid. She set everything inside the brewing stand, and got to work, mixing it all together. It sparkled with magic, letting her know she'd done it all right. 

This potion was going to let her fall down from the tops of the burnt trees all the way to the cold ground as gently as a feather. 

She shuddered as she drank the potion. It didn't taste great- and the ingredients in it, she decided to ignore as much as possible- but she could feel the magic working. Dropping the bowl onto the ground, Tea grabbed ahold of the sturdiest grey vine she could see and began to climb. 

The higher up she went, the more she could see the sky. There was no sun, as she'd discovered before, but the sky was still bright. Yet another one of Limbo's many mysteries. 

Tea reached the top of the tree. Poking her head out above the canopy, she looked around, and all she could see was white sky and grey leaves. The ashes, somehow, reached here as well. 

They seemed to come out of nowhere. 

There was nothing up here. It was even more nothing than the void itself. 

She jumped back down. 

She didn't fall fast enough, in her opinion...

Maybe she should go do the other thing that she did, the only other thing, which was not-creepily try and locate the shadow-person and see if they were up to anything that didn't involve crying. Not a high chance, but still...

They only ever cried. They had been here, only crying, for a thousand years... maybe more. Long enough for their tears to cover over the entire ground. The surface of Limbo had become a lake- a lake of pure sadness. This place was already so devoid of life, it could only kill what little remained. 

It was horrifying to think about. 

Tea was even more horrified to think that she could suffer the same...

She didn't want to die here. She didn't want the shadow to die here, either. 

She didn't know if true death was a danger.

The shadow had only gone to visit the invisible door two more times. Tea didn't feel like following, the first time, since she didn't want to be witness to any more of their sadness- not without a good reason. She'd seen them a little bit afterwards, they were pacing back and forth across a small clearing, crying as they always did. 

But the second time, which was only a little bit later that very same day, she trailed them once more. 

They'd went to where the door was. But the- the door was there this time, Tea could see it- 

There were people on the other side? 

The shadow was talking to people who were on the other side of the door. Tea couldn't usually see the door, and the shadow could communicate through it? Why weren't they just opening it? It wasn't locked, last she'd checked!

Unable to hear what any of the people were saying, she let out a huff of frustration. Her luck was downright terrible these days. The most she could make out was two- no, three... or was it two?... voices. She'd heard the shadow's before, and while she didn't really know what their voice sounded like, she could tell they were talking. 

There was another voice that was definitely someone different, from on the other side of the door. The voice rang a bell in her memory, but she couldn't place it. She must have forgotten what everyone sounded like in the time spent down here. 

She wasn't sure if there was someone else or not. She couldn't pick out any different-sounding voices, but it still felt like there were more than two people talking. 

Tea then watched, helpless, unable to move, something blocking her mentally, as a hand stained black as the void with tiny stars to match handed a little yellow object through the window of the door. The shadow accepted it, and turned away, immediately sprinting in Tea's direction. Panicked, she ducked behind a tree, and the shadow ran past her without spotting her. 

Maybe at some point, she should have spoken to them...

It was time for her to leave, now. She'd spent far too long, here, and there was no way she was going to be staying in Limbo any longer than she had to. She knew the door was there, she'd seen it just a moment prior, she could escape this awful, ruined place, where the trees were charred with coal and ashes fell down through the wind-less air and an ominous light coming from somewhere in the distant sky was reflected on an endless lake of tears. 

Tea felt a tear of her own roll slowly down her face. She missed the sun. 

She missed the sun, and the wind, and colors other than grey, and not being in a constant state of wondering whether or not she was cold. She didn't want to have to hide from weird evil beings, or crying shadows, she just wanted to be back in Mangrove kingdom.

With a grand sigh, she whispered a goodbye to Limbo, and turned around.