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Parrot doesn’t usually pray to the admins but he hoped that for once in his life, he could experience a peaceful morning. One where he could plan his speeches, organise a gathering and appoint players with new roles. He’s not even asking for the full day.
The overhead view of the Northern Council looked natural and serene, as builders busied themselves with working on the staircase and statues. Parrot readily stretched his wings and then picked up a quill at his desk.
Outside his room, he heard a quiet thud on his rooftop. Then a louder, quiet thud outside of his window.
He suddenly had a bad feeling. Maybe a sapling just fell onto his windowsill and– no, no that’s Spoke. That’s a miniature-sized Spoke squished against his window. His last flicker of hope extinguished when he opened the window and heard loud, incessant, headache-inducing bickering as two tiny Wemmbu and Flame-shaped figures walked into view.
Is it even possible for them to be audible when they’re that small?
“Who was the one who thought it’d be a good idea to carry all three of us on their one, single elytra?!” The ends of Flame’s dreads flickered with fire, which to Parrot endearingly looked like small candles.
Wemmbu snapped back, more immature than he probably realised. “Well, excuse me for thinking you were at a normal weight capacity! I’m going to start calling you Fatty Flame from now on.” He mocked in his Elmo voice. “Fatty, fatty Flame, almost broke my elytra with his heavy-”
“Wemmbu, do you want me to push you off this ledge?!” He heard a quiet murmur of ‘d’alright’. “And what about this situation suggests that anything is ‘normal’?”
“Bro, if anything, we should be aurafarming with this new form. Imagine the amount of secret, high security bases we could break into-”
“SILENCE!” Spoke bellowed, echoing throughout the room. Everyone froze.
Only then, did Wemmbu and Flame notice a humongous Parrot, who stood above them, observing and staring. The biggest bird.
Wemmbu attempted to do an aristocratic bow before Flame elbowed him in the ribs and he cussed out loud.
Spoke cleared his throat. “Uh.. Sorry for the sudden visit. We didn’t know where else to go and since you’re the king and all…”
Parrot carefully scanned over the three of them. Spoke puppy-eyed him while his tail wagged in mischief. Behind him, Wemmbu and Flame were whispering, probably talking shit about how ugly and un-intimidating Parrot looked from their angle.
Nobody looked sorry in the slightest. It’s like their character development had regressed to the Mafia days. He considered whether this was a dream or he was straight up hallucinating but he has pinched his thigh about thrice now.
He deadpanned, tone resigned. “I’m not even gonna ask how you’ve landed yourselves in this predicament. Just come in.”
The three stumbled in through the window and promptly made themselves at home. Spoke ran to start climbing on Parrot’s hand. Wemmbu wiped his grimy shoes on the seemingly important documents. Flame laid his back against the wall with a sulk that screams ‘I wanna be with my dog.’
Parrot let out a sigh, already uninterested in indulging any more of their bullshit. “All I’m gonna say is that I’m really busy right now so if you guys have any ideas on how you can turn back to normal, I’ll try to help the best I can.”
“This is all Spoke’s fault, he had us go on a stupid side quest-”
“Look! All we know is that there was a magical-”
“Bro, Parrot- listen, they promised me-”
Somebody, shoot him. “No, no, guys! Everyone, stop! I said ideas!”
“I was getting there!” They yelled in unison.
“Yo, what am I looking at right now?”
“Oh God.” Parrot rubs his temple. “Theo.”
He must’ve heard Parrot yelling. Wemmbu, Flame and Spoke’s expressions stilled, processing if Theo discovering them was a good thing. They concluded it was not.
Not even three seconds had elapsed before Theo was doubled over, laughing and pointing at the shrunken ones.
“Theo, don’t point and laugh at them…”
“Oh, sorry.” Theo wiped his hand over his face to reveal a poker face. He walked to stand side by side with Parrot. Then he started trembling and laughed even harder than before.
“No.. Like come on! How can I not…” He struggled to speak between wheezes. “Laugh at them! They’re like, 1 apple tall!”
“I’d say we’re more like the height of a pear.” Wemmbu argued.
“Dude, if only your voices were high pitched like the Chipmunks, we could get all the royalty funding from you.”
“Parrot, stop him! He’s suggesting child labour!”
“Actually, I was wondering about that too. Your items, clothes and I’m assuming physical strength has shrunken in proportion to your size but your voices are the same?” Parrot ignored Spoke’s betrayed gaze.
“You’re curious about them. You definitely are, Mr. Know-It-All.” Theo stirred him on.
Parrot narrowed his eyes. “Well, they came to me looking for help so I can’t act like I want to dissect them.” As he eyed up the miniatures. “But besides, we’re busy enough with the coronation so I can’t prioritise them right now.”
“What? Bro, screw your coronation!” Wemmbu yelled, clearly exasperated.
The three had sunk after hearing they'd be stuck in this form for a while, tearing apart at Theo’s heartstrings. To Theo, small equalled cute.
“Parrot. The king has decreed. The coronation will be delayed by one day. Spend this time wisely.”
“Dude, what king? I’m the king.”
“The king of kings. Anyways, I’m giving all your work to your royal advisors so don’t worry, this is much more important.”
Theo gazed over them, wondering what else to say when he landed on Flame. “But Flame, while you’re here I wanna check on your cart pvp skills real quick. Get your kit out, buddy.”
“Bro, what?!” Admins, have mercy on him. Theo started chuckling and striding towards Flame before Parrot shoved him back and out of the door.
“No, we’re not doing this. Thanks, Theo but it ends here.” He slammed the door shut before Theo can get a word in. Then his ear catched tidbits of Spoke rambling, Flame yelling at him to not let anyone else discover them and Wemmbu laughing at Flame’s panic.
He wanted to vaporise.
He closed his eyes and considered the weight of his stupid chungus life and the people depending on him. Breathe. This is just one of the many adversities of a king. Although, he isn’t sure how many encounter 3 mini versions of their friends.
“So, what’s the first step to getting us back to normal?” Wemmbu asked, already recovered from the prior interaction unlike Flame. Spoke squeezed into the gap between Wemmbu and Flame with an expectant grin. Like three peas in a pod. Parrot lightly tapped his fingers. “I guess I have a few ideas.”
———————
Experiment 0
“No, there’s no way I’m doing this- Parrot, I’m gonna die!” Wemmbu tried to fight back against the finger that was pushing him to his doom. He was quite literally walking off the plank.
“You have a totem, bro. Relax.” He nudged him closer off of the board and closer towards death. He decided that popping his totem would discern whether their shrinkage is from a secret potion effect and also shortly give invulnerability, which wouldn’t hurt to have.
In Wemmbu’s defense, dying to fall damage isn’t really a pleasant way to go out though. He knew that from the many chungies who died to his Nuke and Stab shots.
Spoke and Flame watched Wemmbu plummet to the ground from the sidelines.
“Should’ve backflipped off for aura.”
“I’d like to see you try.” Flame scoffed.
“Watch me.”
Parrot barely managed to save him.
Conclusion: Not a Potion Effect
———————
Experiment 1
“Hand me your bread.” Parrot stretched his hand out. Spoke knew what he was trying to do but being treated like a test subject made him want to act up.
“My word! Isn’t there a famine? Is this what a benevolent king should be doing to his-” Parrot snatched the bread from Spoke’s hands, where the margin of error would result in flinging Spoke into the wall. Not the time to ragebait, understood.
Spoke watched as the bread miraculously grew from the size of a sunflower seed to a massive boulder. Well, a boulder in Spoke’s eyes. Then Parrot held out the bread and it dramatically shrunk back once Spoke made contact with it.
“Not fair.” Spoke complained. Parrot half-feared that he would shrink alongside the bread but was relieved to see otherwise. He saw the bread expand to normal after Spoke took his hand off and had an idea.
Parrot hummed as he went over to the anvil in his room. After some hammering, which slightly seemed illogical, Parrot placed the normal-sized, renamed bread on the table, to which the three miniatures cautiously touched it. It did not change.
“Oh my gosh. Infinite food glitch!” Spoke tore a fistful into his mouth. Wemmbu ripped pieces off to throw at Spoke and Flame, which escalated into a full on food fight. Parrot watched the scene unfold, crumbs sprawled all over his documents as his face lifted into an amused smile. He thought to himself, ‘Even kindergarteners could be more civil.’
A piece of bread landed directly into Flame’s mouth and he looked totally appalled. “Now, you’re gonna get it.” He snuck up on Wemmbu and wind-charged him from behind, causing him to fly and leave a Wemmbu-shaped silhouette in the bread.
“Okay, is this supposed to be a bit..? Lock in guys. We aren’t done.” Parrot waited for everyone to compose themselves and used a hand to hold Wemmbu back from jumping Flame. Spoke came out of the Wemmbu-shaped silhouette, claiming he had built a base, which prompted Parrot to finally take the bread away.
“Now, just to see if it works the other way.. Drop me something that you’ve named.”
Flame dropped the enchanted crossbow that he’s been practicing carts with. Wemmbu dropped some rockets from when he was using his elytra. Yeah, weird, who names their own rockets? Parrot poked at them, noting their lack of reaction.
“What the-!” A pickaxe, touching the side of Parrot’s finger, instantaneously expanded and was inches away from slicing Flame in the head. Spoke felt genuine killing intent in his glare.
“Oh, shoot. I thought that was named!”
Wemmbu ended up jumping Flame, who, in turn, was jumping Spoke and Parrot just wanted to grab them all and throw them out the window.
Conclusion: ..Only affects unnamed items. It does not affect objects recognised as possessions.
———————
Experiment 3
“So, the problem with your conditions is that they aren’t caused by any weird effect or bug that I know of. They’re embedded in your properties themselves.” Parrot didn’t want to think of the implications that this implied. He knew that if the will of a higher being commanded them to be small, he could not defy it for them.
His eyebrows furrowed.”Honestly, I’m getting pretty tired of doing these. I really hope one of you can give me a reasonable idea which can solve this mystery right now.”
“Wemmbu in a torture rack to stretch him back?”
“Did the word ‘reasonable’ go over your head?”
Flame shifted back and forth. “Uh, have we tried actually emptying our inventories to see if there’s an item doing this to us?” Parrot looked at him, surprised.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea, thank you. Seriously, thank you.” Parrot said. Wemmbu crafted a double chest and began stuffing it with his belongings, except Gambit and Crucible, which he stored in his e-chest. Flame and Spoke did the same thing, until a minute in and Spoke abruptly stopped.
“..Oh.”
“What?” Parrot asked.
“I have a feeling you’re not gonna like what I’m ‘boutta say…” Spoke pulled a guilty face, which to everyone was a bad omen.
“Bro, just tell me.”
“Actually, we found this contraption!” Spoke pulled out a strange, ancient device from his inventory. Parrot couldn’t tell what it was.. A bomb? “The moment I touched it, we all blacked out and became like this. Then you two started acting like you didn’t remember it.” He pointed towards Flame and Wemmbu while laughing. “I forgot I took it with me.”
..He didn't know what to say. Parrot threw the unknown object down and started stomping on it. It didn’t expand when he took it from Spoke’s hands but smoke started rising from its interiors.
A few seconds had passed and Spoke, Flame and Wemmbu remained unchanged. Just as Parrot began to think he made an irreversible mistake, their forms shifted, bestowing them their natural size.
“We’re free!”
“Spoke, stay still. I’m banning you.” Flame potted himself and Wemmbu with Strength and Swiftness, to which they both began to crit out Spoke.
“Nooo! Chill, we’re fine- we’re fine now- hey, what gives?!” Chugging golden apples, he whined like he had any right to feel wronged.
“So, you knew why we were like this, told us to get to Parrot’s place and made us do all those stupid experiments for nothing?!” Wemmbu webbed Spoke into a corner as he tried to escape.
“I forgot, okay! I have a very busy, clever and innovative mind!”
“We could’ve died on the way over here! You’ve wasted my time, my energy, and- no, I’m quickdropping you, bro.”
Spoke splashed invisibility and mined down to an escape tunnel. Parrot’s hidden escape tunnel. The other two followed in pursuit and as swiftly as they came, they were gone.
Parrot blinked. He sat down and gazed into the now midnight sky, watching the guards try to stop Wemmbu and Flame jumping over the walls while invisible particles trailed the opposite way. He thought that perhaps peace came in days like this. And he would cherish it.
Conclusion: They’re worth the trouble.
-Parrotx2