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It’s a nice day. There’s a breeze outside, and birds are chirping over the sound of the jungle’s soundtrack.
It’s a nice day outside, and you are stuck inside this tree, sparring with a plant.
It’s a nice day outside, and you just realized that it’s a nice day outside.
It’s a nice day outside, and you’ve just been defeated, sitting on the ground, the plant looming over you in victory.
What a travesty.
It’s a nice day outside, and you are a horrible, horrible player.
There’s only one thing on your mind as of this moment, and it’s not the situation happening right now.
*Fish. Fish Fish Fish Fish—
“0K4Y, 0K4Y.” Griefer scowls, grabbing you by the scruff of your jacket and hoisting you up. The leaves on his neck rustle up in agitation. You slowly turn to stare at him, expression blank and eyes wide, dead.
*Fish.
You’re asking for permission to leave.
“G33Z–” Griefer looks slightly disturbed. He slowly sets you down, the scowl on his face slowly dropping into concern. “G0 F1SH. 0R WH4T3V3R... 1’M D0N3 4NYW4YS…”
You instantly rip yourself out of his grasp like a feral cat and scuttle on the ground toward your backpack, picking it up, the swords clanging on each other in a cacophony of agonizing sounds. You don't even bother to put the backpack on, instead dragging it across the floor on your mad dash to the door, the swords scraping on the ground.
The tree will be finee… it'll heal itself.
Griefer winces at the infernal noise, but you ignore it, opting to instead keep walking away. It’s customary for the two of you to just barge into each other’s places, and leave just as suddenly... well, for you to barge into Griefer’s place, anyways. Cause you were. Homeless and all.
But that’s not important right now. You’re not thinking about that.
All you can think about is fish.
You throw yourself out the tree’s opening without another word, tugging the backpack onto your back and making a mad dash forward. The bridge wobbles under your feet, and the tree golem assigned to its post barely has any chance to react or show confusion before you barrel past it, your sheer speed causing it to tumble off the edge with a cut off scream.
The fast travel menu appears in front of you while you run, and your hand moves up, spamming the button to the meadows.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap click click click click clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickcli
A rush, a pull, and your foot touches down on soft grass. You continue sprinting forward, jumping ledges and drop kicking any noobs that unfortunately stumble into your path. Their little yellow bodies go flying, disappearing into the distant horizon.
You step off a ledge.
You suddenly meet empty air.
Its comedic how there’s a bit of a lag before you fall, and you tumble through the sky, landing face first on the ground in front of a very baffled fisherman. The worm seller slowly sets down their rod, making halting, hesitant steps toward your still body.
“I,” they stutter, making their slow way over to you and leaning over to stare, their brows furrowed in concern. “Player? Hero? Are you… okay?”
*Fish.
You shoot up into a sitting position, and your head snaps to look them in the eye. They flinch, blink, then point at themself. “Me??”
You nod, then sit up straighter.
*Fish.
“You mean…” they frown. “The bait?”
A nod. You nod at them.
A pause.
“I have the bait… if you have the money…?”
*Fish.
It doesn’t matter how much money it costs. It doesn’t matter how much they have.
You need to fish.
“Uh, uh—” The worm seller looks to their fellow fisherman for help. “Uh– uh—”
The other fisherman slowly turns his head.
“🐟”
“…” The worm seller deadpans, then facepalms. “Of course you wouldn’t be any help.”
You end up spending a hundred Tix on ten worms, which are shoved into your pockets until your pockets can’t handle any more. The seller ends up lending you their rod, watching you nervously as they lean against the rock wall.
Meanwhile, you’re GAMBLING. The other guy doesn’t seem to have much luck getting any catches, but you’re KILLING it.
*Fish.
*Fish.
*Jellyfish.
*Shark.
*Fish.
*Jellyfish.
*Fish.
*Fi— NO, IS THAT A SHAR—
“Woah! No need to announce all of your catches!”
An obnoxiously printed shirt enters your vision, breaking you out of your Flow™, and you feel your face slowly twist into a scowl. You glare upwards, making eye contact with the one, the only, Shedletsky.
His own face is set in an annoying ass grin. The bandages covering his head no longer make him look bald, at least.
At least.
…
You preferred him bald. At least when he was bald, he didn’t have the audacity to do what he was doing now. Cause he knew he was smackable. Bald ass.
But now he wasn’t bald anymore, and his face was extremely punchable.
You feel the shark lose its latch on your bait.
The worm is carried away with the fin’s departure through the water.
Oohhh, now he’s done it.
“So, temporary employee!” The dumb fuck says, that grin still on his face. “I see you’re having fun!”
*I was until you got here.
He completely ignores your jab. “Anyways, I have some good news! We’ve found the Windforce! I’m going to request that you go get it!”
*But I just got the Fi—
“You know what to do, temporary employee!” The BITCH says, completely ignoring you. “Here, I got you a train ticket– don’t run into any bandits like last time, haha!”
You slowly stare at his outstretched hand, then up at his smug face, looking at you like you weren’t busy at the moment. Like you weren’t literally enjoying your time off.
A plan slowly forms in your mind.
*Windforce, yeah?
“Mhm!” Shedletsky beams, annoyingly shaking the train ticket at you. “Let’s chop chop and go!”
*I’ll do you one better. Windforce, huh?
You mutter, barely audible. You stand up, reaching for the ticket in the admin’s hand. Shedletsky’s grin grows wider.
Your fingers brush against paper. Then, you reach up, and suddenly latch your hand around his wrist.
You’ve never seen a man’s smile drop that fast. “Huh—”
With all of your might, (and it was a lot of might, considering you spent the past few months– possibly even years at this point, you had no idea how long it’d been– beating the crap out of things that didn’t really matter to you) you spin on your heel, dragging the admin with you.
*WHAT IF I WIND YOU WITH ALL MY FORCE—
Then, you fling him. He doesn’t even get time to scream before he ragdolls through the air, smacking face first into the water and just… sinking.
You turn away and pick up your fishing rod again, sitting down and casting one final line.
A bite! You tug, and tug, and— oh! A shark!
Smiling, you stand back up, stepping over the slack-jawed fisherman on the dock and making your way over to the equally slack-jawed worm seller, handing them back their rod and exchanging your goldfish for meager Tix. You don’t mind– you got a shark!!!
Your fingers grip cold metal and you climb up the ladder without another word, leaving the two fishermen to stare at the floating, surfacing body of the admin you had just brutally punted into the water like a volleyball.
“…Is… he… alive?” The seller asks, scooting closer to their friend.
“🤷”
“I’m… not sure either.” The seller slowly moves forward, extending their fishing rod to poke the admin floating face down in the water.
“Bleefph me abloneb,” came the gurgling reply, a hand reaching up to weakly swipe away the offending, poking stick. The seller jumps and quickly retracts it, looking at their friend with a concerned expression. “Do you think… we should leave.”
“👍”
“Fair enough.” The two fisherman quietly gather their stuff and tiptoe away from the crime scene, leaving one floating admin who was slowly rotating, his face slowly rolling toward the air. Soggy hair clings to his skin.
Shedletsky pulls out a chicken leg and quietly munches on it, ignoring the way the water decided to, for lack of a better term, wet.
He floats there for a while.
“…Hey, they got the train ticket. Win-win.”
Somewhere, you’re screeching in fury as you realize one of your jellyfish has been replaced with a fuckass train ticket.
Those poor train passengers.