Can I just say that I've never had so many reads so fast on any book?? Like hi where did you all come from it's been only a week and there's already 700 reads???? Da heck?!

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Day three of Hermitcraft Season 6 started off with screaming.

Jevin was staring at his hands, which were in NO WAY his hands! Instead of the normal flesh they had been when he went to bed last night, they were now slimy, slightly see-through, and BLUE. His fingers were blobby and round and simple, nothing like the refined fingers they had been before.

He didn't even want to see his face in the mirror right now.

Jevin's phone was going off on the floor beside his bed where he had set up for the night. It was a constant buzzing as other people texted each other in some flurry.

"Looks like I'm not the only one having a weird dream..." Jevin muttered and nervously reached for his phone. His gooey hands easily stuck to the device but didn't sink in or damage it in any way.

<TangoTek> AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS HORNS?!

Tango had sent a selfie of himself looking very spooked and also slightly terrifying. There were indeed two dark golden horns protruding from the side of his head, slightly curved inward and extending just behind his head. His eyes, which had been fairly normal before with the only oddity being red eyes, now had the whites red and his iris an unnerving yellow. Despite the drastic differences, it was obviously still the same Tango.

<Renthedog> I have wolf(?) ears and a tail, I think this is a problem

Ren has also sent a picture. He didn't have such obvious differences as Tango, but his human ears were missing and on top of his head were two canine-like ears the same color as his hair, perked in slightly different directions, and there was the tip of a furry tail poking out over his shoulder.

<MumboJumbo> I thought everything was normal until I started doing redstone this morning and I could place redstone on the side of blocks. I accidentally powered it with my hands???? What????

Jevin quickly switched the the camera on his phone and took a picture of himself- at least, a blue slime man that was in the same location and outfit as Jevin. It was disturbing to see himself in such a bizarre and inhuman form.

<iJevin> help

<MumboJumbo> oh my...

<Xisuma> alright everyone meet in the shopping district and let's see if we can figure this mess out?!

Jevin slipped his phone into his hoodie pocket and reached for the door handle to head into the nearby "shopping district" which currently housed only a few outlines of buildings. Most hermits right now were grinding out the basic survival stuff so they could get on to the good things for the rest of the season.

However, Jevin was surprised when his arm stretched half a block forward and he grabbed the handle despite it being out of normal arm's reach. Jevin stepped forward, and his arm retracted to a normal length.

"This is so weird..." Jevin muttered to himself before hurrying outside. The sunlight felt different on his body (no kidding, he was literally made out of a different material) and it was strange how he felt sticky, but not uncomfortably so.

He was thinking about this mess and what had happened just before, and decided to try something.

Jevin looked at one of the trees on the border of the districts, and thrust his arm out.

His arms extended and he grabbed one of the larger branches.

"Woah!"

Then Jevin's feet started being pulled off the ground as his arms started to reform and he was pulled in the direction of the trees. Jevin panicked and let got of the branch, which was probably not the best idea as now he had flung himself through the air.

Jevin saw a crowd gathered outside the skeleton of a build that Impulse had been building.

"Look out!"

"Ah! It's a flying slime?!"

"No, Jevin!"

"I got it!" Mumbo pushed his way to roughly where Jevin looked like he was going to crash and threw down some slime blocks. Jevin cringed as he waited to bounce on the green blocks.

The blue slime landed on the slime blocks, but immediately felt himself hold fast as his hands stuck to the other slimy material and he awkwardly flipped from momentum. He opened his eyes to see Mumbo, Iskall, and Cleo looking over him in concern.

"Jevin?" Cleo questioned slowly.

"Heya," Jevin tried to wave to the other hermits, but his hands were still stuck to the green slime blocks. "Might if I get some help?"

"I got it!" Iskall cheered immediately and punched the slime blocks. Jevin let out an "oof" as he hit the ground on his chest when the blocks disappeared from beneath him.

"By the way, I'm keeping these," Iskall told Mumbo, who rolled his eyes and held out his hand to help Jevin up.

There were confused looks all over the place. Tango shifted his weight awkwardly, clearly not comfortable with the horns or red eyes. The other affected hermit, Ren, didn't seem to bothered; he stood normally and had his tail swishing behind him, although he occasionally frowned when one of his new ears flicked seemingly without his permission.

"So, I know I look weird, but I think Jevin's the worst of us," Tango stated, finally breaking the silence. There was a nod of agreement.

Jevin shrugged. "I have no clue what happened, but I'm a slime now and launched myself halfway across the district in like ten seconds, so it can't be that bad?"

"At least you're not hearing really strangely..." Ren muttered. "I can hear sheep eating grass from beyond your base."

"Alright, alright, settle down everyone," Xisuma announced, getting everyone to quiet down. "Does anyone know of anything suspicious that happened between last night and now?"

Immediately everyone online shook their heads.

"I mean, I found this weird tattoo looking thing on me earlier? It looks a little like my Iskallium emote on Discord," Iskall commented, rolling up the sleeve of his hoodie to reveal a dark green block marking on his arm.

"Did you have that before? That seems like something you would get..." Impulse commented dryly. Iskall looked offended.

"No, of course not! Why would I bring it up if i had had it before?"

"Wait, I found a weird power-button looking mark on me when I was getting dressed as well and it certainly wasn't there before," Mumbo realized, "I didn't think much of it until I started working on my zombie farm and suddenly I could place redstone in weird places and I kept powering things without having a power source in my hand. Do you think this could have something to do with it?"

"I like your thinking, Mumbo," Doc agreed, engaging in the conversation. "Something weird happened last night, well, more like early morning, I couldn't sleep, and I was fighting some creepers, and suddenly they all blew up way too close to me, but did no damage. I thought I had just gotten lucky, but then I found a weird creeper tattoo on my neck later."

Others quickly started mentioning an abnormal marking on them. Impulse had a strange circular object, Cleo a flower, Xisuma had what looked like half his helmet and half of another. Half of them had no idea about any powers, but the consistent appearance had to mean something.

"Wait, do I have one?" Tango questioned, quickly rolling up his sleeves to examine his arms. Impulse, standing next to him, pointed to Tango's hands. Sure enough, on his left palm was a five-point star centered in a circle.

Tango stared at the mark. "Are you saying I'm a demon now?" He questioned before looking up with wide eyes. "Dang."

"Ooooooh, I get what you're going at." Ren nodded and swiftly pulled off his shirt.

Mumbo squeaked and covered his eyes while Cleo looked very uncomfortable and Doc whistled.

"Why have you been hiding that, man?" The cyborg asked jokingly. The innocent ones made a small sound of protest.

Ren rolled his eyes with a smirk. "Ha ha, very funny. But can someone check my back? Only place that I can't see myself so,"

"It's bad enough seeing Doc with just his lab coat sometimes," Mumbo groaned. His hands sparked with red lightning, which made him and everyone else jump before it disappeared and Mumbo stared at his hands silently.

"I'll figure it out later," he muttered to himself. Ren was looking over his shoulder attempting to see his back, but seemed to be struggling with his new tail. Xisuma rolled his eyes and held the tail out of the way and traced a pattern across the center of Ren's back.

"Yep, another tattoo. It's pretty cool, like a howling wolf?"

Ren nodded and thanked X and slipped his shirt back on.

"Makes sense. So I guess that's the cause of all this then, these tattoos?" Doc summarized.

"But where did they come from?" Jevin asked. "I wasn't a slime last night!"

The gathered hermits looked to each other without a clue.

"Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to go see what we all can do! Come on Tango, let's go find Zed and show him how cool you look!" Impulse announced, grabbed Tango's hand and started pulling him away. Impulse immediately started chatting things up with Tango, effectively normalizing everything and continuing on as nothing had happened.

The other hermits started to split up as well, heaving solo or in pairs back to their bases, calling "see you later!" to everyone no matter what had just happened.

I guess this is just normal now? Everyone seems to have a tattoo and power. Huh.

Jevin wasn't sure how to feel about this. He effectively wasn't human anymore, did that make him any less of a person? He didn't feel any different on the inside. No funny feelings or awkwardness functioning.

If no one else is going to make a big deal about it, I guess I won't either. I guess I'm a slime now, sure, alright...

Jevin looked at his cloudy hand. First thing he was going to do was learn how to slingshot himself across the server.

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Did I do alright??? I'm not sure how to feel about it. I mean I like it, but I also feel like it's not quite right?? Does it feel written awkwardly to anyone else? Maybe it's just me being the one writing it lol. Tell me what you think!

So yeah, ORIGIN of Tattoo AU. I kind of want to write more, but also I know I need to write ToL and other non-Hermitcraft fanfics, Molly challenged me to see if either of us can write something worse than Icarus and that's going down >;) too many things to do not enough hours to do them!