//------------------------------//
// Aftereffects 
// Story: Minecraft: A New Adventure 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Steve and Alex, upon returning to the Overworld as Pinkie clearly stayed in the Lost Dimension, found that Octavia left the Waystone that they appeared near, no doubt messed up due to the fact that she had died in the other dimension and was turned into a monster by one of the foul parasites.

"Octavia, are you alright?" Alex asked, deciding to wait until they were outside the village, since she didn't want to frighten the Villagers that were in the village right now, especially since none of them had any idea if the residents of the village knew that Crafters had multiple lives, only to pause when their friend turned to face them.

"No! How could I ever be alright, after my body was invaded, my mind was broken, and my body was twisted into that foul form?!" Octavia replied, where they could see that, after the rapid series of events in the Lost Dimension, she wasn't the same person before they followed Pinkie through the odd portal she had created, there was a haunted look in her eyes, as if she was expecting something bad to happen, "I'm going back to my tower, shutting the door, and doing one of two things: either sleeping until I can't take it anymore, or continuing my work on my tome... I'm tempted to do the latter, just to take my mind off of things."

The pair stood there for a moment, wondering if there was anything they could say to help Octavia through what she was feeling right now, witnessing death and being reborn like that, and before either one could say anything she entered the base of her tower and closer the door, indicating that she wanted to be left alone. As she walked up the stairs, a reminder of the fact that she needed to renovate the tower and make it more mage-like, or how she envisioned someone like Twilight transforming it, Octavia felt like she had a headache. She was positive that it was a leftover side effect from being taken over by a parasite and being connected to whatever mental network they had, if they had one anyway, but she did her best to get over what she was feeling right now as she reached the upper part of her tower. She had spent too long on Pinkie's activities and less on everything that was in her tome, where she was grateful that Pinkie made sure to keep it and the lens safe, items she'd rather not replace, meaning it was time for her to focus on her tome and learning more about the secrets that were inside it.

As she pulled out her tome, however, Octavia paused as her left hand shook for a moment and she watched as her fingers started to push out into the same claws as her parasite form, where panic filled her eyes as she gripped her wrist and just focused on enforcing her will over her body, something that caused the mutation to retreat and returned her hand to it's normal form.

Come now, Octavia, surely you want to experience the power of the form we gave you again? a sinister voice asked, one that sounded like it might be multiple voices speaking at the same time, or one having an echo of some kind, likely the leader of the parasites, or the Admin that created them, meaning she was still in contact with whatever they had inflicted her with, hopefully contained so she couldn't spread it to the others, Or maybe you want something... more?

"NO! I don't want anything to do with you or your foul kind!" Octavia replied, where she practically threw herself into one of the corners and did her best to ignore the dark sounds that were trying to invade her mind or her body, or both based on what happened back in the Lost Dimension, though she also refrained from raising her voice, just in case someone was in the surrounding area.

You say that now, dear searcher, but you've heard the Call of the Hive, and sooner or later you'll come seeking us for all sorts of power and knowledge, the voice replied, though as it got close to the end of the statement it sounded like it was getting further and further away from her, which was fine with Octavia since she wanted nothing to do with the dark dimension Pinkie had created a path to so they could explore it, they always do.

While that worried Octavia, as it implied there was no turning back and that she was doomed to become a warped creature at some point in time, though before she could process that information, and what it meant, there as a knock on the nearby door, which was weird since no one else was up here, and when she opened it Octavia found Pinkie in front of her, her hair straight while possessing a pair of dragon wings, and being slightly taller than her now.

"Hey Octavia, sorry about earlier... if I had known how dangerous that dimension would be, I wouldn't have allowed you and the others to go in without your gear." Pinkie said, showing that she was annoyed with herself for what had happened, and part of Octavia agreed since it had resulted in her death and rebirth, and apparent madness if she couldn't figure out how to get rid of the voice in her head, "Those parasites really gave us quite the scare."

"For me and the others, anyway, since it seems like you stayed behind to dominate them." Octavia remarked, as while she was taken aback by the style of Pinkie's hair, a sign that she was angry with someone or something inside her had snapped, a rumor that she was able to confirm, her new height and her wings really caught her off guard, especially since it looked like she was becoming more like a dragon as time went by, "Nice wings by the way."

"Oh, thanks. I got them after putting on the Ring of the Dragons, which I found in one of the buildings before I used my warp scroll to leave the dimension." Pinkie replied, where Octavia noticed the black ring on her finger, for the first time since she had been busy thinking about what had happened to her a few moments ago, to which she held her hand out, as if she was offering the relic to her or something, "Want to try it out?"

"Thanks, but I think I'll pass for now... maybe once I get over the shock of what happened, and my death, I'll try it out and see what it does to me." Octavia said, as she wanted to make it seem like she was focused on the transformation aspect of what she had been through, even if her demise at Pinkie's hands was another reason, something that caused her friend to nod for a second before lowering her hand, "Sorry if I seem out of it, I was planning on resting and doing some research into the other pages in my tome..."

"And you were interrupted by a voice in the head?" Pinkie finished, something that caused Octavia to pause, which made her wonder how much Pinkie had seen, before realizing that this was the insane mare of Ponyville she was talking about, it was possible that she had sensed her distress and rushed up here to see what was up with her, "Don't worry, we'll figure out how to beat those nasty parasites and their foul master."

For some reason Octavia felt that there was more to the 'we' that Pinkie said, as in more than the two of them, Steve, and Alex, as if there was some unseen fifth member to their interesting party, but since her friend didn't elaborate she kept her mouth shut as Pinkie wished her well and fell over the edge, spreading her wings and flying back to the village. Once she was sure that her friend was gone, for the time being since she was known to do some weird things before coming to this world, Octavia started to gather her materials and got to work on figuring out the secrets of the Thaumonomicon, the first being the creation of Nitor so she had floating lights. Of course she still had plans to renovate and expand her tower, to the point where it wouldn't resemble what she started with, in fact part of her was thinking of mimicking the wider and taller towers they noticed when they were exploring some time ago, but she needed some sort of material to make such a structure, causing her to sigh as she left the tower. She needed a stack of Arcane Stone, the very material she had only just unlocked with her research, yet she didn't have the ability to mass produce it, much less on the scale to make what was in her head, so she collected her materials, headed down the tower again, and entered the village to track down Pinkie, who was in her workshop, likely empowering her scythe further.

Sure enough Pinkie stopped for a moment to see what Octavia wanted, since she expected her to be asleep after what she had said earlier, before lending her some assistance, creating multiple stacks of the stone she needed for her tower, far more than what Octavia had wanted, but she wasn't about to complain.

With that done, and her Inventory had a lot more resources than she had before she came here, Octavia returned to her tower and stashed most of the stone away as she unlocked more of the tome's information, though she knew it would take a long time to delve deeper into the tome's mysteries. One of her experiments involved creating a new source of coal, or at least she attempted to and found that the process described in the tome meant she made little explosives, causing her to sigh as she realized that there was far too much for her to consider and recognize. She found a way to make some sort of brass, which she figured would be important for another part of the tome's remaining secrets, and when taking a break Octavia glanced down at the ground and scanned several items with her lens, adding some information to her tome as she considered what else she could do. She even started what the book referred to as Essentia Smelting, which was the process of breaking items down to do something and to begin she had to break down each of one of the six crystals, all of which caused small explosions that she had to shield herself from, but she was sure she learned something and found a few new pages in her tome.

Using Quartz Silver, fragmented pieces of Nether Quartz, with the Crucible she found that she was able to make various Vis Crystals, of all sorts of elements based on what she was seeing, and such a thing allowed her to open more pages for her to look into as she avoided thinking about the Lost Dimension.

As time went by Octavia found that she spent a lot of time studying and experimenting, where she realized something was off, because before going into the parasite infested world she would spend a longer period of time on studying each part of the tome and performing whatever experiments she wanted to do. She realized what was going on after some thought and paused when it dawned on her, the Voice of the Hive, as she was calling it since she had no other name for what she had heard after leaving the other dimension, had left her a parting gift in the form lost or additional knowledge. It was the Voice's way of ensuring that she'd come looking for it in the future, seeking more power and information, and effective and rather dark strategy when Octavia took a moment to consider what it meant, as the Voice was likely going to require a trade for her to gain more advanced knowledge. A trade that would be part of her body for the information, until she was twisted into a monstrosity bent on learning everything about the world while seeking to cover it in darkness, or whatever the parasites wanted, and by figuring it out so soon she didn't have to worry about falling for it in the future.

As Octavia worked, and considered what she needed to do next in terms of her experiments, she found that Pinkie was in her workshop, creating something or empowering her deadly weapon with more powerful enchantments, though she did know that they would make the parasites pay when the time came to do so.