//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: The Decision // Story: A Tale of Crafters and Ponies // by Dolphy Blue Drake //------------------------------// Chapter 6: The Decision Year 8, Day 16 I managed to be the first one out of bed today, so I quietly went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the children and my guests. This time, I made a bit of a variation on breakfast from the usual. I still prepared the usual bread, porkchops and milk; but I decided to mix thing up a bit by replacing the apples with bowls of fruit salad (I had to check the crafting guide for that one. It’d been so long since I last made one, I’d forgotten how! But now I remember: a bowl, an apple, a melon slice and one of those nameless berries that grow on the odd bushes that aren’t exactly cubes (unlike the named berries, which grow on cube bushes)). Sacred ambrosia (the multicolored kind. Not the plain pink kind. That’s just plain ambrosia) would’ve been nice, but I haven’t told the children about the fauna that’s been showing up in the Promised Land lately, and I don’t think they’re ready to learn that I had to kill pixies to get one of the ingredients for the drink (pixie dust). I prepared a slightly different meal for our guests. I just replaced the meat with berry medley bowls (I hoped that that wasn’t too much fruit for one meal). As I set the food out on the table, I called the children and our guests down for breakfast, but then I heard a noise coming from the kitchen, so I went back to investigate. ------Ponies------ Now where did he put that cake? Pinkie thought as she rummaged through the fridge. She’d seen him put the leftover cake in it the night before, but he apparently hid it quite well. Her hoof touched something soft, so she pulled it out. She’d found it! Pinkie took a slice and started to eat it when she heard footsteps coming towards the kitchen. Before she could react, the adult Crafter had entered the room. “Oh, for the love of—“ he cut off at the sight of Pinkie eating the slice of cake. “Well, I guess you can finish that,” he sighed. “Just don’t take another piece. The last two pieces are for Kryanna and Huey, since they made most of last night’s dinner themselves.” Pinkie finished the slice of cake and closed the fridge. “Sorry.” “Well, breakfast’s on the table,” Dolphy told her before turning to leave for the dining hall. “I think everyone should be ready by now.” Pinkie followed Dolphy to the dining hall, where everyone else was already waiting. ------Dolphy------ I apologized for the wait and sat down at the table. After everyone else sat down, I gave the okay to start eating. The children were quite surprised at the change of food. As I said before, I hadn’t made fruit salads in a long time. Breakfast went smoothly, and after everyone had finished eating, I walked over to Twilight and asked her if I could talk to her and her friends in private. She asked me to wait until they could talk things over with each other, so I agreed to wait, and took the children to my old house to learn about enchanting. ------Ponies------ After the Crafters had all left, the ponies were alone in the large building, so they decided to discuss their situation. “These Crafters are so cute!” Pinkie said. “I think we should help them! Then we can have a party to welcome Dolphy’s wife and friends back!” “What could possibly be cute about the denizens of a world of cubes?” Rarity asked. “Everything!” Pinkie replied. “The children especially, but Dolphy’s kinda cute too!” “Those kids really are nice, aren’t they?” Rainbow Dash added. “They only knew me for a few hours, and they were already cheering for me like devoted fans!” “Ah just don’t know…” Applejack said. “This world is pretty strange. Ah just wanna go home, where everything’s normal.” “Dolphy seemed really nice,” Fluttershy said quietly. “He talked to me last night to explain their choice in food. And his daughter was so scared of those… ‘Endermen’. I felt really sorry for her.” Rarity opened her mouth to object again, but Twilight cut her off. “Rarity, Applejack… How would you feel if Sweetie Belle or Applebloom were in constant danger and you couldn’t protect them by yourself? Wouldn’t you want help?” Applejack blinked in surprise, then nodded. “Ah suppose you’re right, Twi. It’d be rather selfish of me to not help when Ah’d want the same thing.” “You’ve got a point, Twilight,” Rarity admitted. “This is too much for him to handle by himself.” “Then are we all in agreement?” Twilight asked the group. The others nodded in reply. “Okay then, let’s give our host our decision.” With that, the six ponies left Town Hall and walked across town to the house where Dolphy was teaching the children. Twilight used her magic to open the door, and then led the others inside. The house was made of the same blue wood as all the other houses, and most of the carpeting was wool dyed to a kind of orange color. “Orange? Really?” Rarity muttered. They heard muffled voices from upstairs, so Twilight led them up the staircase to the second floor. There didn’t seem to be a third floor, but the voices still seemed to be coming from above them. “Now, children,” Dolphy said, “this is an Enchanting Table. You’ll need one for most kinds of magic, and some stronger monsters will be very difficult to defeat without enchanted weapons.” The ponies looked around for stairs, but couldn’t find any. “Hey, a ladder!” Pinkie said, drawing the attention of the other five. Sure enough, there was a blocky ladder leading up to a hole in the ceiling. “They must be up there! Let’s go!” Pinkie exclaimed and climbed the ladder. The other ponies followed, and what they saw was quite impressive, to say the least. The attic wasn’t that big, but there was a square “ring” of bookshelves surrounding a table made out of the same black material as the portal that had taken them to this world. It had a diamond on each of the upper corners, it had a red cloth on top of the table, and there was a book just… floating above it, without any traces of any kind of magic Twilight knew of keeping it hovering. The children were gathered on either side of the set of bookshelves, watching the adult dragon-like place a blue sword on the table. He looked up when the ponies entered the room. “Ah, hello!” he said, smiling warmly. “You caught us near the beginning of class, so please just wait a little bit.” Various runes were floating through the air from the bookshelves to the table, seemingly made out of nothing but energy. Dolphy cleared his throat and addressed the children again. “I’ll be enchanting this diamond sword for this demonstration, children,” he said. “Remember: fifteen bookshelves produces the strongest enchantments that can be gotten from an enchanting table, but you’ll have to give up some of the energy you obtain from slaying monsters—“experience”—to do so. You won’t know what you’ll get until after you cast the spell, but usually your safest bet is to use the most expensive spell the book gives you, since the higher cost usually means better enchantments.” The children watched intently as the dragon-like studied the page the book had randomly opened to on its own. “Hmm… Let’s see…” Dolphy muttered. “Okay… Yes. That’s the one that costs the most, so it should work the best.” He waved his hands over the blade and read the words in the book out loud. They made no sense whatsoever, though. Suddenly, green balls of energy shot from his hands into the blade, causing it to glow with a purple aura. “I picked up some of those things from those ‘Endermen’ things last night!” Rainbow Dash whispered to the other ponies. “I wonder if I could do that.” Dolphy picked up the blade and inspected it. “Okay, not bad,” he said. “It’s got a level 4 Sharpness, a level 4 Wisdom, a level 2 Penetrate, and a level 3 Looting. That’s actually quite good for a diamond sword. Gold could get an even better set from the table, but gold breaks really easily, so iron, diamond or amethyst are usually your best bet.” Hop raised her hand. “Yes, Hop?” Dolphy asked. “How’d you know the enchantments just by looking at it?” the rabbit-like girl asked. “Looking at it isn’t actually how I know,” the dragon-like replied. “Looking at it just sends the knowledge straight from the weapon into my head. There are other ways to find out, but I’ve always preferred looking at it.” Dolphy led the children to the other side of the attic, where an anvil, six dark gray furnaces and two chests with diamond trim were sitting. Most of the ponies followed, but Twilight couldn’t stop staring at the enchanting table. How does that even work? She wondered. The magic isn’t any kind I can identify! I can sense something coming from it, but that’s not a kind of magic I’ve heard of before! Before Twilight could inspect the table, Dolphy was standing next to her. “You came here to talk to me, right?” he said, causing her to jump slightly. “Oh. That’s right,” Twilight said in slight surprise. “Did you six come to a decision?” the dragon-like adult asked. “Yes, we did,” Twilight replied. “We’ve decided to help you, Dolphy. We can see that you’re in need of a lot of help right now.” Dolphy smiled in gratitude. “Thank you, Twilight,” he said. “That means a lot to me. The children are going to be quite happy, too.” With that discussion over, Dolphy resumed class and taught the children more about enchanting, which intrigued Twilight just as much as the children. The class went along smoothly and without incident, and after ten minutes, Dolphy was letting the children attempt to enchant one at a time. “Dolphy?” Twilight asked as the dragon-like walked by her. “Yes, Twilight?” he replied. “How does that enchanting even work?” Twilight inquired. “It doesn’t resemble any magic I’ve seen before.” “Well, magic is something I don’t fully understand myself,” Dolphy admitted. “I know that the ‘experience’ I told the children about is the source of most magic in this world, but it doesn’t seem to be accessible without the right objects. I don’t know how these objects allow me to tap into my inner well of magic; I only know that they do. It’s quite frustrating at times.” Twilight nodded, but she was still a bit confused. “If you want, you could read up on the subject of magic in this world. The library has an extensive collection of books on the subject. None of the Crafters wrote them, though. We found them in a stronghold’s library and brought them back with us. The books are a bit confusing to me, but you might be able to figure them out. You seem like you’re really smart.” Twilight blushed at the compliment. “All right children,” Dolphy said to the group of young Crafters, “class is over. Please return to the Town Hall while I clean up here.” The children complied and climbed down the ladder one at a time. Once only Dolphy and the ponies were still in the house, the blue dragon-like sighed. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in this house for anything,” he said. “Wyvern, Kryanna and I lived here before the disaster that took the lives of most of our friends.” He turned and climbed down the ladder and waited for the ponies to follow. Once all of them were down the ladder, he continued: “Thanks again for promising to help me. I feel that these children need more than just me to take care of them, especially Huey. That boy has no family anymore. Every child but Huey and Kryanna has a sibling to call family, and Kryanna still has me. But Huey has no kin of his own right now. I feel so sorry for that boy.” Dolphy led the ponies down the stairs and out the door. “Well,” he said, a smile returning to his face, “I’d like to show you something, Twilight. I think you might enjoy this.”