Empires SMP oneshots

Children for a day

           Count fWhip of the Grimlands giggled as he poured a drop of the amber mixture into the vial. As the liquids swirled around, smoked hissed, and then the liquid was clear. It was ready. fWhip was sure of it. Now, all he needed was a test subject.

           He flew to spawn, his potion in hand, and found a couple of emperors sitting at the chairs. Lizzie, Gem, Sausage, Shrub, Jimmy, and Scott. fWhip spread out his elytra and landed, narrowly missing the campfire. "Hello!" He said casually, and everyone greeted him back. "What's this all about?" "I was bored, so I called a meeting to see what we could think of to keep ourselves busy without starting another war," Sausage said. "Well, I've got the thing for you." fWhip replied eagerly, taking out the potion. "And I apologize in advance for whatever happens next." "Wait, fWhip-" Gem started, but her twin lobbed the vial at them and the potion splashed all over the emperors. 

           The effect was instantaneous. Gem and Sausage shrunk down to the size of little kids, while Lizzie, Jimmy, Shrub, and Scott looked only slightly shorter. Everyone looked around bewilderedly. "Wait, how come you're all still grown-up?" fWhip asked. The Seablings stared at him in confusion. "Who are you?" Lizzie asked. "I'm fWhip. Uh, how old are you?" "A couple centuries, why?" Lizzie asked, and fWhip's mind reeled. So that was why they were still grown-up. The potion he made was supposed to make the user thirty years younger, but if Lizzie was a few centuries old the effect wasn't exactly noticeable. 

           "How old are you?" fWhip asked the other emperors. "A few centuries," Scott answered, looking cynical. "A few centuries," Jimmy echoed. "Eighty six," Shrub said, sounding like a child. fWhip shook his head. Of all the emperors he hit the potion with, he had to choose some of the ones who were really old. Of course that happened. 

           "So, how did we get here?" Scott asked, and fWhip realized that he had a lot of explaining to do. He was bargaining on the emperors being too little to be suspicious of him, but with the four of them a few centuries old... Then the mechanic remembered. Where were Gem and Sausage? He looked around. They were gone.

           "Gem?! Sausage?!" He called out worriedly. "Sausage? Gem?" There was no reply. Hurriedly, fWhip started making plans for a search party. "Um, who are we looking for?" Shrub asked. "My twin sister and best friend," fWhip said. "Gem's got red hair and a really big purple hat, and Sausage dresses up like Santa Claus." "So you mean the ones right behind you?" Jimmy said, pointing. fWhip whirled around to find little Gem and Sausage sitting on the ground, looking innocent, like nothing had happened. "They- they weren't there before," fWhip sputtered. Then Sausage blinked and he vanished. "Oh boy," fWhip said with a sinking feeling, remembering Sausage's magic. "This might be a little more chaos than I wanted." 

           fWhip, feeling responsible like he hadn't been in years, started figuring out what to do with the younger emperors now. He admitted to them that he used a potion to try and turn them into kids, but he hadn't known their exact age, so that was how they'd ended up like that. "Gnomes are teenagers when they hit a hundred years old," Shrub said, childlike and sweet. "So I'm still a tween, if that helps." "Okay," fWhip sighed. He didn't ask for a crash course in gnome ages, but now he needed someone to watch Shrub while he looked for Sausage and Gem, who vanished again. 

           Pearl showed up, apologizing for being late to the meeting, and realized that she had missed a quite lot. fWhip put Scott and Shrub in her charge, no matter how much Scott said that he was a grown elf and that he could take care of himself, and he took Lizzie and Jimmy to Mezalea so they could stay with Joel. "Why are my wife and brother-in-law acting even less mature than they usually are?!" Joel asked, looking frantic. "I used a potion on them to turn them thirty years younger. But it turns out they're fish gods who are centuries old, so that didn't work. Don't worry though, in twenty four hours they'll be back to normal," fWhip promised. "Okay," Joel said, acting like that now he had gotten an explanation, everything was totally normal. 

           Now the tinkerer had to look for Sausage and Gem. His first impulse was to check in Mythland. As he flew there, he noticed Bubbles. A lot of her. There were so many dogs, all looking like Bubbles but with different-colored collars, all in Mythland. And they were trying to get baby Sausage to behave. "Bubbles!" Sausage shrieked as they tickled him. "That's my job! I'm supposed to tickle you!" fWhip had no idea what to think when he landed. "Uh, Bubbles, and Bubbles and Bubbles and Bubbles, uh, what's going on?" One of the Bubbles started scratching out letters in the dirt. fWhip, feeling like nothing could surprise him, started reading. 

            "We have been taking care of Sausage for longer than you can imagine. As long as Sausage doesn't figure out how to shift the entirety of reality into another dimension, we can handle this." fWhip sighed with relief that now he only had to look for Gem, then he shot a double take and reread it. "Wait, shift the entirety of reality- How powerful is Sausage?!" All the Bubbles did was blink at him. 

           "Pleurotus ostreatus, Lentinula edodes, Lepista Clitocybe," Shrub recited, pointing out the various mushrooms growing among the giant beanstalk in Gilded Helianthia. "Amanita phalloides, Armillaria matsutake, Agaricus bisporus brunnescenes,"  Pearl was impressed. She always knew that Shrub was a mushroom gnome, but she didn't realize that she was this knowledgeable in fungi. Scott also looked impressed, but he was trying to hide it. Just then, fWhip came flying in. "Have any of you seen Gem?" He asked. "I found Sausage, the Bubbles are looking after him, but I can't seem to find Gem. I checked everywhere in Crystal Cliffs, she's not there." 

           "Oh, that's not good," Pearl said. "Where could she have gone?" Just then, Sausage came teleporting in, followed by several Bubbles. And a few trees that teleported with him. Everyone jumped. "Sausage?!" Pearl yelped. Sausage giggled and teleported away, but the trees didn't go with him. He reappeared a few meters away, and when he touched a fence post, suddenly a whole boulder came crashing out of the sky and landed on it, just narrowly missing him. The little king of Mythland laughed. "Magicis fun!" 

           Several Bubbles let out what sounded like a tired sigh and teleported to him to make sure he didn't do anything like that again. Shrub watched them very interestedly. "They're so cute!" She said, reaching out to pet one of the Bubbles behind the ears. "Bubbles, have you seen Gem?" fWhip asked, and some of them pointed to Pearl's beanstalk. fWhip looked up and blanched. "Gem, get down from there! I'm supposed to be the one in a precarious position! And you're supposed to be the one trying to get me down!" 

           Next to a swaying limb of the giant beanstalk, Gem smiled, using her staff to keep her afloat. It looked like she was walking on air, and she probably was. Worried, fWhip activated his elytra and flew up to her. "Come with me, young lady," He said sternly, but Gem stuck her tongue out at him and singed him with a fire spell. "Ow!" fWhip yelled. "Gem!" Pearl winced and flew up to join him. "Come on now, little missy," She coaxed, taking hold of her shoulders and bringing the wizard to the ground with her. "Can't I have any fun?" Gem pouted. "Gee, I forgot Gem used to be less responsible," fWhip said wearily as he landed next to them. Then he leapt aside with a yowl as a grand piano materialized where he had been standing a moment ago. "Sausage!"

           Joel sat on the couch, eating popcorn. Baby Sausage had been in Mezalea a little while ago, and he somehow managed to teleport an entire orchestra into his backyard. And now Lizzie and Jimmy were trying to figure out how to play the instruments, whilst wearing fishbowls on their heads. It was actually very entertaining, the shenanigans the Seablings could get up to. Suddenly, the two of them became the slightest bit taller, and they looked around bewilderedly. "Joel, why am I wearing a fishbowl?" "Ah, it was fun while it lasted," Joel sighed.

           "fWhip, you are so grounded!" "And you are too!" "What did I do?" "You went missing for hours and when I found you, you were dangling from Pearl's beanstalk! Do you have any idea how worried you made me?!" "It's all your fault for making me a child!" "I want to be a kid again!" Sausage said wistfully. "NO!" Everyone shouted at the same time. "Aw, I can't have any fun around here," Sausage grumbled.