This entry contains spoilers for its corresponding chapter of At the End. Be warned...

I hated writing this chapter. I absolutely hated it.

Not due to the content, but I was in a terrible, awful mood the entire time, mostly because three people who I thought were friends tossed me out of heir life within a few seconds and never looked back. That, in turn, caused a bout of depression that delayed the chapter even more.

Enough about my angst.

I found a strange pattern in my posting. Assume for a second I had all the time I needed to post a chapter. That would mean chapters 9 and 10 would be together and 12 and 13 would be together. 11 was a last minute throw in. That would result in, for every two pony chapters, there was one Crafter chapter. Interesting coincidence.

I wrote this chapter to serve three purposes:
Introduce Barricade, who I will talk about shortly.
Highlight the main plot points so far so the readers can catch up on current events if they missed anything.
Introduce a few more points about the Crafter's and the Endermen's powers.

I first heard of Barricade through the crossover story Justice Itself. That in turn lead me to the pony's creator KnightMysterio and Barricade's first role in the story Mothers. I really enjoyed Barricade's authoritive and boisterous demeanor, especially because it proved to be such a sharp contrast to Fluttershy, her daughter. After a brief chat with KM, he granted me permission to use Barricade, to which I am eternally grateful.

Barricade, or a role similar to her's, was needed because I hadn't developed the Mane Six character's or story lines for quite some time. Sure, Twilight was in The Lion's Den and The Hitchhiker, but she really didn't do much. I needed a chapter where the Mane Six actually proved useful and interacted with each other. Not doing so sooner was an oversight on my part, and I needed to fix that. Barricade gave me the chance to bounce banter and ideas between the Mane Six, especially between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, while at the same time, developing an interesting character and deepening the stories of other characters. Barricade will be appearing again, rest assured.

Originally, I had planned for Pinkie and Applejack to meet up with Lyra and have her talk about the Crafter and her impressions of him a little, but I trashed that idea because I would be restating most of what was said while she was in the hospital. No need to do that, so I came up with the excuse that they were both working. It was either that, o restate, point-for-point, what the readers already know. That's boring, so I just folded in Lyra's words with Fluttershy's guesswork on the Crafter.

Twilight's scenes with Diamond and Archmage Czarina were to develop functionality of the portals. I haven't touched on them much, but the portals will play a part later on in the story. You've already scene an absolutely massive one drop both an Endermen and the Crafter on Equestria, a moderately large one bring in the entity in the chapter The Pillar of Abaddon (Who we will see again), and, if you haven't guessed by the dead grass hint, a normal sized portal that brought in a lone creeper that exploded next to Canterlot Castle. The only pony/entity that has yet to have an in-story backstory is the entity in Chapter 9. We'll see that thing again, too. Very soon.

The sword is very important, because it introduces just how alien the Crafter's world and powers are to Equestria's. Equestria, despite its fantastical nature, abundance of magic, and magical creatures, abhors to a specific set of physical rules and constants. Wood grain exists in Equestria; you've all seen it. But you can't see it in the Minecraft window now, can't you? Granted, that's partially due to terrible graphics, but you get the idea.

The sword is my foothold, along with the Crafter's numerous rants about the moon, to how strange his world truly is. Take what you know about the world of Minecraft. Now try to rationalize those rules. That's what I am doing. Somethings don't make sense. There's a reason for that.

On a side note, Pinkie is best pony. That's why she's so awesome. But honestly, I believe what I told another reader, along with the Doctor Who quote:

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

Pinkie, despite all her eccentricities and craziness, is likely the most open-minded and perceptible, once you get around her quirks. Personally, I think she's an intelligent and intuitive pony, but just loves to have fun even more.

And... I believe that's everything for this chapter.

Allons-y!