Chapter Text
it's the end of yet another day of runs, and Couriway is excited to finish for the day. through his rather lovingly hand-crafted electronic armband, he fills out the necessary information in his stat-tracking spreadsheet, and readies up to do his last run. through his armband's controls, he effortlessly creates a new world to complete — like the fourteen others he'd done today. or, so he thinks.
he spawns into a desert. upon further inspection (known as 'turning around to get a look at your surroundings',) he notices just how big it is. that, and the odd ice spikes jutting straight out of the sand. it catches him rather offguard (is that even possible?) before he walks closer to get a better look. the ice spikes were visibly generated over the sand, rather than under or in it (how would that even be possible?). it looks pretty darn cool though, he has to admit, despite the questions he had.
(he doesn't know how many questions he's gonna be asking during this run.)
as he enables the f3 overlay on his glasses to get a look at the biome overlap, he managed to take note of the seemingly irregular desert biome he's in being classified as a 'petrified taiga' (what?), even before he came face to face with the oddly generated ice spike. there's too many oddities already within the first few seconds of this run, and he has a thought in the back of his mind that it's not gonna be the end of them — especially because the ice spikes weren't an ice spikes biome either, but rather the same, odd 'petrified taiga'. he can already tell this is gonna be a light purple run, at least.
(it's not even the start of all the oddities. there's so much he won't even know.)
ignoring the biome oddities (and turning off his f3 overlay), he turns around to see if he can find anything of use to actually get the run started (i should've done that as soon as i spawned in), only to notice he somehow completely missed a village right next to his spawn (i should've just checked the worldgen after the run).
it doesn't matter that much, in the grand scheme of it all — he isn't going for world record, he isn't playing against someone else, he's playing no reset and for himself. but even then, he still values consistency, and consistency isn't wandering aimlessly about because some really weird world generation caught your eye.
taking a sharp turn towards the village, he can tell immediately that it's a.... spruce village (huh? i expected a desert village, but..) with no blacksmith. his only other iron source would be an iron golem, but he doesn't see it upon entering the village. he overlaps looking for the golem while rummaging for resources in chests of some rather run-down houses covered in chaotic splashes of what seemed like viscous deep blue.
as he goes through everything, he's struck by an odd feeling of being watched, and brushes it off — the village isn't abandoned, there's no cobwebs, so he's just being watched by the villagers minding their own business. stepping out of the last chest house, he takes a moment to look around, before being hit with a harrowing realisation that there are no villagers here. he's not sure how he didn't even notice that until now. he's not sure where the golem is, either.
(attentive, aren't you, little one?)
it takes him a bit of looking around to find what looks like a golem. it's lying slouched on the ground, idle and unresposive, with overgrown vines and the same chaotic splatters of deep blue paint all over it (why is there so much blue paint everywhere?). he hits it and builds up three, crafting a wooden sword on top, before looking back down and realising that it.. kept laying there (what? that doesn't...)? jumping back down, he swings his sword at it, relunctantly staying on the ground beside it despite expecting it to attack him. when it continues to lie idle, he proceeds to swing his sword at it enough times to kill it. it drops ten ingots and an unrecognisable cyan flower. Couriway stands there, staring at the unusual drop.
(hm. unexpected results for you, huh? you clearly don't come from here...)
impulsively blurting out his train of thought, he suddenly states "...Okay. Clearly something is wrong here," before picking up the iron and... rosevine flower. taking a moment to pause and think as the sunlight feels noticably warmer on his skin, he talks outloud to himself. "First the ice spikes, then the weird biome, blue spatters of paint everywhere, the odd pieces of flint in the house chests, and now ten iron and a weird flower from an unresponsive iron golem....." it's only been three minutes, but he can't just throw it all up to some weird glitches.
Couriway has made the advancement [Acquire Hardware]
"...so it has to be world corruption? That's the only thing that could explain all of this, but..." the timer keeps going as he thinks everything over. it's hard to come to terms with the fact that, despite completing a run thousands of times, he's somewhat lost and doesn't really know what he's doing. "...I guess we just do what we always do." after crafting an iron pickaxe, axe, bucket and flint & steel, he turns northwards and starts walking. "Where's the closest lava pool?"
(lava pool? what are you planning to do here? you can't mine obsidian, and yet you hold materials to light a portal...)
Couriway has made the advancement [Isn't It Iron Pick]
(i might as well aid you a little in what you're looking for, young mortal.)
not before long, he spots something catching fire in the distance and heads towards it, picking up water from a river on the way. it's a short treck south of the village, and buried a little in the sand. a lone, leafless tree seemed to have caught fire from a lava pool. the pool itself is more than big enough for a portal, but certainly not something he would've spotted, were it not for the tree catching fire.
building out in the lava pool, the wooden plank he stands on catches fire and with a sudden "-Ow!", he throws the water down beside the plank and jumps into it after the surrounding lava turns to obsidian. after catching his breath and making sure he's no longer on fire, he effortlessly moves the water and constructs a nether portal like he'd always done. click. the nether portal lights, and he steps through.
Couriway has made the advancement [Stone Age]
Couriway has made the advancement [Hot Stuff]
Couriway has made the advancement [We Need to Go Deeper]
nine minutes into the run, and he's just now entered the nether. he spent a lot longer meandering about than he'd initially thought. f3 overlay back on, look around — (bastion's that way) — dig six blocks into the wall, boat in the newly created crevice, sprint, jump in, jump out and break the boat. not the first time he's had to dig through a bunch of wall, but it always feels like a slog.
his pickaxe hits slightly below half durability before he finally breaks free of the wall. unfortunately for him, he takes a good bit of fall damage from falling onto the terrain below. getting back up on his feet, eating some food to get his health back up and stretching his wings after being in such a cramped tunnel, he looks around to find a good path towards the bastion — only to find himself on a small crimson forest island surrounded by a giant lava lake.
"And of course the terrain isn't any better once we get out... Right." Couri takes a deep breath, and starts chopping down a few trees for blocks. what he doesn't expect, is that instead of simply floating — the trees fall to the ground once a part of their trunk is broken. after chopping down a few and getting vaguely used to trees being affected by gravity, he sets down a crafting table and makes a stack and a half of crimson slabs, saving the rest of the wood for later as he starts building out above the lava.
(...you know how to construct a portal with a single bucket, and yet you don't fly? you have wings. do you not know how to?)
he builds out for a while until he finally reaches the bastion — a small opening leading straight into a housing bastion, in an otherwise odd looking, thick netherrack column. from what he can see, it seems like doing manhunt would work best; especially considering where he was entering from, and the terrain. so off he goes, breaking the center chest and running along after opening a double chest. he seems to get a little lost (that's not how bastions should generate?), but manages enough to do an improv alternate manhunt route.
Couriway has made the advancement [Those Were the Days]
Couriway has made the advancement [War Pigs]
Couriway has made the advancement [Ice Bucket Challenge]
after digging out all the gold blocks and rummaging through all the chests he knows where to find, he crafts all the gold he's found into ingots and throws it all in with the piglins. and so, with a moment to assess his inventory, he starts to organise it; on with the golden boots and pants, throw out the magma cream, which leaves ten obsidian, an unbreaking I diamond pickaxe, a crossbow (i'd prefer a regular bow but we'll have to see,), fourty-two arrows, and more than enough inventory space for all the trades; which he drops down besides the hole to pick up. on with the iron boots, throw away the leather, quartz, enchanted book, magma cream, crossbow, any gravel past a stack, blackstone and water bottle —"What?"—; make nether bricks, glowstone dust and string (make sure to throw one out while crafting it all to keep string for a regular bow) into blocks.
(no blackstone, no water? but ender pearls and potions.... we can fix those barters for you.)
Couriway has made the advancement [Who is Cutting Onions?]
Couriway has made the advancement [Suit Up]
once all the trades are done and his inventory is organised, he's not sure what to think of it. "Nine stacks of pearls and eight fire res???? Oh my god, what even are the odds of that??" he takes a moment to think about what just happened, before excitedly exclaiming "There's no way this isn't a purple run!". even though he has absurd luck with his trades, he's running low on hunger and doesn't exactly have any food left or readily accessible. "..I have to hunger reset though, so I guess it balances out." so he throws down a crafting table, crafts a respawn anchor, sets his spawn, and throws a pearl at the wall until he dies.
(oh. so you come from a world where.. that's not how it works here.)
(? and you're saying that as if we can't make it work like that just for it?)
(goodness me, you don't need to sneak up on me like that.)
(we both noticed you'd been watching the mortal for a while.)
(truth be told, we're about as curious as you are. we can bend the rules a little, no?)
(i'm not stopping either of you. i was gonna bother you about it if you hadn't just appeared out of nowhere either way.)
(well, i suppose we all agree, then?)
(it's not like anyone can stop us! the crowned hornbeast doesn't care, and the antlered wingbeast is dead!)
(sure, you two go on. although, no reincarnation. that's not what it's used to.)
(it's used to waking back up as itself when it does this?)
(from what i can tell, yes.)
and to him, he respawns right where he left off, unknowing of the fact that this isn't how it works here, and that he's caught the attention of three deities. to him, it was just respawning like he'd always done, and not had his soul and physical body being stitched back together after death. picking back up all his items, splashing a fire resistance potion on himself, ignoring a slightly itchier back and mining his respawn anchor, he enables chunk borders and his f3 overlay with the piechart, and sets off to look for the fortress.
after a little bit of crossing chunk borders to find the general direction — "17 chunks west. And it's all a big lava lake.... This terrain really isn't letting me off easy." he builds out a small slab bridge, before spotting some sparse terrain and pearling ontop of it. after getting onto some actual terrain, he rescans for the fort, continuing to head westwards after disabling his f3 overlay. it takes a few pearls to get to the fort — it's buried pretty deeply into the terrain, but the nether bricks stand out enough from the terrain for him to spot it and head in.
(you weren't lying. that weird bird doesn't fly.) (i can't tell if it's because it doesn't know how to, or thinks it cant.)
Couriway has made the advancement [A Terrible Fortress]
seventeen minutes into the run, and he's just entered the fort. it's labyrinthine, and it takes him forever to navigate. it feels much bigger than a usual fortress, but it's hard to tell, considering just how buried it is. four minutes later, he's just found the good part — three minutes after, and he finally stumbles upon a hallway containing both of the spawners–right next to eachother, and in a deeply buried part of the fort. before activating them, he sets up a hunger reset spot, charges his anchor, and throws a pearl to suffocate himself in the wall.
(do we have a way to, stop it from doing that? that can't be good, if we have to keep reviving it.)
(...drop it some food, perhaps? it seems like it replenishes health near-immediately through that.)
(wasn't it looking for some in the bastion? bit stupid, 'cause the piglins eat that.)
(oh, yes, it was looking for porkchop in the chests.)
(i'll just drop it next to that weird anchor. for all it knows, one of those nether pigs could've been flamed by a blaze!)
(...sure.)
"...How did a hoglin die here...? I don't remember one being here. This isn't even in a crimson forest..." is the first remark Couriway has upon "respawning". he picks up his stuff, scratches his face a little, re-equips his armor, splashes another fire res, picks up his anchor and then the.... 9 cooked porkchops that lie beside his anchor. "Huh.... Weird, but hopefully that's enough." he brushes it off as yet another case of world corruption, before throwing down his crafting table and making two beds, before activating and clearing both spawners with a bed explosion. it doesn't take him too long to get the blaze rods he needs (i swear one of those blazes dropped two rods), and so he crafts his eyes, sets up a portal to blind, and goes through.
Couriway has made the advancement [Into Fire]
he blinds into a flat plains, and immediately gets his angles for axis travel. his first angle is -32.4, and his second is -31.5. a 0.9 angle change, so roughly a thousand blocks. it's only after he re-enters the nether that he realises, despite it being nighttime in the overworld, no mobs had spawned. not that it's worth complaining over, it was rather convenient, but certainly... odd. once again, he brushes it off as just another weird glitch, and heads to the nether coordinates for the stronghold, building another portal, and going back through to the overworld.
(where do you have this knowledge from?)
his portal lets him out on the surface in a swamp biome, and he throws another eye. it travels the same direction, and he does axis again — to find that the stronghold is only few chunks away. he proceeds to throw a with an outstretched arm, blurting out an extremely surprised and vaguely terrified "Wait, what?–" before his pearl lands, and he stands in the chunk with the starter staircase; the visage of his arm being feathered and scaly like a bird's talon, however, had him stunned.
(the oddities weren't even close to done. at what point can you no longer blame it on world corruption?)
"I..." he stands still as he turns his arms and hands around to just... look at them, ever so slightly horrified of what had happened to him. the wind blows gently as he just quietly stands there, catching the newly formed feathers on his face, leading him to run his.. talons, over his face, ruffling his new feathers in the process. snapping himsef out of his own thoughts, he bluntly states "Okay. Focus. I can deal with this after I complete the run." and digs down on 4,4 in the chunk, hitting the stronghold's floor directly from the staircase.
Couriway has made the advancement [Eye Spy]
he effortlessly navigates the stronghold after doing preemptive. the portal was straight behind a hidden wall in the not-very-5-way (mid lead down to nowhere, and the hidden pathway was the only other way to go). he'd caught a glimpse of his reflection in a fountain room on the way, but waved it off. he just needed to complete the run. he wanted to be done with this. there's way too much going on and he doesn't have the time to unpack it as he pre-crafts everything and sets up for another hunger reset, before suffocating himself again. with his carefree pearling around terrain, the nine porkchops had not been enough, and there wasn't any food in the altar chests he'd come by.
(i have many questions.)
(i fear all of us do.)
(there's not a way to give it more food, is there?)
(at this point you might as well just drop some steak or something infront of the portal.)
picking back up all his stuff, splashing yet another fire res and breaking the bed after respawning, he stumbles slightly as he tries to walk. "....Oh." the realisation that his body shifts every time he dies and respawns hits him, before he waves it off again (just finish the run, we can think about that later). his inventory is organised, and he jumps in the middle of the portal (one eye), placing down a piece of gravel and turning around as he puts the remaining eyes in the frames.
Couriway has just earned the achievement [The End.]
twenty-five minutes into the run, and he's finally entered the end. he's not used to having talons for legs, though, and immediately wobbles — falling off the end platform and into the void, before he saves himself with his wings. he hovers beside the end platform for a minute, shocked that he isn't getting a 'flight is not enabled' message from his comms, and blurting out "That would have been a LOT nicer to know I could've just flown EARLIER!" his first thought is to just pearl to the main island, but considering his new-found knowledge that he can just fly.... maybe it's better to just fly there, instead of taking more damage.
(it CAN fly! why not until now?) (i assume it didn't know it was allowed to. that looks like muscle memory.)
(....what is it doing here anyway?) (i'm not sure. it's clearly not from here.)
landing on the main island (it's too late to zerocycle the dragon), he runs towards the center to do set up for—"What the fuck?" is all he manages to vocalise, as he comes face to face with an empty end island. there is no end fountain, and there's no dragon either. he's stuck here, and his world almost collapses in on itself. he looks around, trying to see if there's anything, but only sees nothing. even the end pillars aren't as they're supposed to. they're crumbled and broken, and some of them are cut so eerily perfect.
and just as he somewhat comes to terms with what's happened, he gets a notification from his comms.
Fulham has joined the game
(Shit.)
<Couriway> don't go to the end
<Couriway> don't die