The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 19 - Reap what you have sown

           Sheriff Jimmy and Lady Katherine headed to Tumble Town together. When everyone had realized that King Joel had left early, presumably to his holiday home in Jimmy's empire, Lizzie had insisted on Katherine, the healer, going there with the sheriff, just in case. "Joel's too thickheaded to believe Xornoth exists; if he runs into trouble he won't tell the danger until it's too late." And it looked like Lizzie was right.

           "Jimmy! Get me down!" Joel yelped from where he hung precariously in a tree. "How did you get up there?!" Jimmy asked as he tossed his elytra to the Mezalean king. Joel caught it and put it on and finally jumped down from the tree and glided to safety. "Xornoth," Joel said grimly. "Oh, you finally acknowledge his existence?" Katherine said sarcastically, then quickly backed off at the look on Joel's face. "Sorry, are you hurt?"

            "No," Joel said. "Just my pride. Now I have to admit I'm wrong!" "Can you finally give me a point for that trivia question I got 'wrong' when I amswered that Xornoth was real?" "Why do you care so much about a trivia question that happened months ago; there's a literal demon running loose!" "Just checking to see if you weren't pulling my leg about believing Xornoth is real, and based on your reaction you definitely believe he's real."

           "Speaking of Xornoth, I heard him mention something about the Fae." Joel said. "What else did he say?" "Something about them stopped his corruption?" Joel shook his head. "Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention." Jimmy wandered over to the glass box that he had built around the Fae plants, feeling curious, and his breath caught in his throat when he saw it. The glass box was almost entirely obliterated now; the plants had burst out faster and further than he had expected and had grown over basically half of Tumble Town. The other half, hidden at first by the ridges and bumps of the mesa earth, was now seen to have red tendrils rising out of the ground and enveloping important buildings.

           "Jimmy, what- oh no." Katherine and Joel ran over to where the sheriff was standing, gazing at his empire, at a loss for words. "It's begun." "What happened to my empire?!" Jimmy shouted. "It's all... corrupted!" "The blue plants are good corruption, though," Katherine said. "Sausage told me about some blue corruption he found that repelled the red corruption. I guess this is it." "Why do they look like plants?" Joel frowned, then glanced at the flowers Katherine wore and his face lit up. "Katherine, do you think you can use your plant magic to spread it to the other empires?" "Maybe," Katherine said doubtfully. "With these kind of magical corruption plants or whatever it is, I'm not sure how much my magic can work on it."

           At that precise moment a note appeared in her hand and she read it aloud. "Dear magic flowery creature, you have our permission. You may take cuttings of our plant to grow in other empires. But be quick, the demonic creature spreads his corruption. You must reach the other lands before he does, or else we cannot grow." All three of them looked up to see the tiny black and pink figures circling above them like guardian angels. "Are those the Fae that Lizzie told me about?" Katherine asked. "Yeah, and I guess they're on our side."

           Katherine showed Jimmy and Joel how to safely cut off pieces of the plant that were still able to be replanted and they cut off four sizeable bits of blue corruption each, one for all the other empires. Then they flew off to replant them all. Animalia was a mess of blood red corruption by the time they arrived, and when they tried to plant the propagule it was overwhelmed and wilted away, much to Katherine's sorrow. Sanctuary was also full of corruption, but it had less than Animalia and they managed to successfully regrow the blue corruption. The same could be said of many of the other empires.

           As Katherine was busy trying to speed grow a plant, Jimmy thought he heard a noise down the alley and left to check it out, hand on his gun. As he saw nothing, he turned to get back to Katherine and Joel, but a voice stopped him. "Greetings, sheriff." Jimmy jumped backward, frightened out of his wits. The voice chuckled. "Aw, don't be so scared. Its just me, Xornoth." "Xornoth?" Jimmy echoed, heart pounding. "What do you want?" "Oh, nothing from you. In fact, I'm here to ask you what you want. Power? Respect? The chance to get revenge on those who've wronged you? The only price is to ally yourself with me." Jimmy had to admit, all three sounded rather tempting. But he's a demon. I can't take an obviously cursed deal.

           He said aloud, "Your sales talk could use some work." Xornoth laughed. "I've been using it all day, trying to get you emperors to join me. You have no idea how taxing it is, being manipulative." Jimmy snorted. Yeah, right. "Well, I'm not letting you manipulate me. I'm the sheriff, these are my lands, it's my job to keep the peace around here, and joining you will be the opposite of that. End of discussion."

           Jimmy stomped back to Katherine and Joel, who were worried about how he'd just randomly vanished. "Jimmy! You're okay! Wait, are you okay?" "Yeah," Jimmy sighed with relief, " I am. Xornoth just tried to convince me to join his side." Joel and Katherine gasped. "You said 'no', right?" "Joel!" Jimmy practically shouted. "Of course I said 'no'! To be honest, though, I might've said 'yes'. Xornoth offered a bunch of stuff I really wanted, like respect."

           "And why'd you say no?" Joel asked curiously. "I mean, I've spent enough time with you to know you do almost anything to get respect." "Well," Jimmy said thoughtfully, "I'm not trying to be sappy, but I think it's because of how worried you and fWhip were about the demon. I trust you two; you've earned my respect after you stood up for me that one time, and any enemy of yours is an enemy of mine."

           "Aw," Katherine and Joel said at the same time. Joel particularly had a strange soft smile and was turning a flustered shade of red. "That's really sweet of you to say." Before Jimmy could answer, though, Oli came running down the street, calling for anyone. He skidded to a halt in front of the three of them. "Katherine! Joel! The sheriff! Thank goodness I've found you!" "What happened?" Katherine asked, eyes wide with worry. Oli took a deep breath to calm his nerves and steady his voice before responding.

           "It's Sausage."