The Secret Lives of Endermen 30

Year XXXX June 24


  With my work sent off to better alchemy labs and my own limited skills exhausted, I am traveling with Sven and Tiny across the land to return to Effar and his clan.  They take it in turns holding onto Kefka and myself while the other vanishes for two to three hours at a time while our carrier teleports ahead to cover ground rapidly.  When it is time to switch, Kefka and I are handed off and our previous carrier departs to eat and recover and we teleport ahead so the cycle continues.  They have been staying out and pushing their luck as the sun rises, neither has been burned as such but their skin seems tender, as if they had sunburns.

  Which lead me to a meeting I never expected and it scared the ever living out of me until the potion wore off.  Sven and Tiny were out cold in a greifed cabin that let in more light than I thought Endermen could tolerate when I began hearing something outside.  Keffy growled and whined but when I looked out and saw nothing for a moment when an empty suit of beaten up armor ran up with an enchanted sword in the correct position.  I flailed for my pack and managed to get tangled in Tiny's legs when the invisibility potion wore off.  Would you believe that I knew the parson that appeared inside that armor?

  I have to hand it to Romero, he knows how to make an entrance and he sure will not let me forget that I screamed like a woman when he appeared.  I changed my trousers and Kefka was assured I wasn't in any danger, all while Sven and Tiny snored loudly.  He looked different from what I remember.  Aside from the iron sword, he's added some red highlights to his dark hair and has a black bandana around his mouth so he looks a bit like a bandit.

  He is still a mob hunter but since our last encounter, he hunts smarter, studies his quarry, and makes sure not to outright kill the neutral monsters that must decide if they will harm people.  We shared a meal and talked, it is the first time I spent more than a few minutes with a Hunter and gotten to know them as companion.  He still is hunting for the Ender that killed his family and while I personally would not wish harm on any one I must say this young man has quite the drive to see his mission be fulfilled.

  That brief time in Old Stargrain made me really miss human contact and over the next few days travel I found myself wondering if I should take a break from my research to see if I can find a woman that shares my passions for these surprisingly gentle creatures that have claimed so much of my time.  I daydreamed so thoroughly about finding the right woman that I didn't notice a teenage boy running after Sven and I until the Ender stood very still and started growling.  I had to thump Sven hard on the chest to get his attention away from what had drawn his ire.  It really works wonders; he looked startled and tried to focus on me so he completely forgot about our guest.

  The lad was in his early teens with hair a lighter shade of brown than Romero's hair had been, turquoise eyes that got bluer if you looked at them long enough.  He wore blue clothing so he was a little difficult to see in the gray dawn light.  Thanks to the moonlight reflecting from his glasses that I could find him so quickly, the kids about as tall as I am and is lanky with his age but there's a fierce intelligence his eyes and absolutely no fear of Endermen.  After I distracted the bandaged adolescent carrying me he went back to eyeing Sven's lower legs without making the Ender mad.  My first thought was that those glasses of his were special but my research couldn't have reached the capitol city in just four days.

  Tiny came back to us at that time both full and satisfied in a swirl of those purple particles and straddled the young man whose name is Theo.  Tiny hissed his surprise as the human youth split his face in a grin and Kefka jumped free to tackle the man and licked the blue clad youth silly, it was an unexpected break in the routine but a needed one.  In the end, Tiny and Sven were chasing Kefka while the wolf happily dashed around with Theo's pack clenched tightly in her jaws.  I had the chance to talk with the brave youngster who approached Endermen without a pumpkin on his head.

  Theo has been studying Endermen for seven years and has died several times for his work; I was astonished when he showed me a leather-bound volume of my earliest work.  They were corrected and organized by date with precise lettering that effectively used the page without waste unlike my own writing.  This citizen scientist has compiled his observations into journals he has kept to himself and published in only a few towns near his home.  Theo also told me of the works of a lady scientist whom he has taken inspiration from about how belief may affect Enderfolk.

  I'm no expert on such things but I do not see how ones beliefs can affect another creature but I cannot rule it out either.  Her writings have lead to a spread in human daring and some amazing results that Theo demonstrated, the ability to look at extremities without angering their owners.  When I first began, any glance would set these lanky creatures into frenzy and I had thought that Sven was tolerant of my attention because of constant exposure to me.  If this theory on belief shaping interaction holds water, I have great hope that we can live peacefully with Endermen and learn from each other to the benefit of both species.


                                                  Henri Lemark