My Faithful Student Twilight Sparkle
It is good to hear that you are doing well.
Once you have done more gathering, you will be able to make a large variety of foods. Look for various plants that look like food. There are six types of garden-like plants as well as various berries you can transplant. You can also find various fruit trees. Take threee fruit of the kinds that grow under the leaves, and combine it with a sapling, and you will have fruit saplings to place on the ground and get fruit. A cookbook of food recipes and dishware recipes is being included for Pinkie.
I also advise you to start a mine as soon as you can. The tome can assist you. The Tinker books will help expand what can be done with what you mine, but they can be difficult to understand.
Also, you will need to collect and breed the farm animals, as well as kill the extras. Yes, i know you would not want to, and i do not advise Fluttershy being present, at least at first, but rest assured these creatures are not intelligent, and they will drop useful things. Spike may like the meat, and feathers, leather, and other such byproducts have important uses. However, if you make shears, you won't need to kill the sheep. I believe there should be a recipe for basic wooden shears somewhere...
I have informed your families of the portal issue, so they will not worry as badly. I did not tell them of the night terrors and while some as your brother, my dear Twilight, would probably be able to handle it, most won't. You will find some letters in this package which i am sure will be encheering, as well as extra scrolls which you can reply with.
Rest assured Twilight, we will find a way to bring you home.
By the way, you might find emeralds useful should you find any. They might help you if your magic is weaker. Try making a mine pointing at large mountain ranges. You might be able to find a few.
Oh and there ARE villages. But they are few and far between. They are occupied by strange boxy creatures with big droopy noses that are the same shape as the zombies but are friendly and may trade with you.
Princess Celestia
Twilight blinked her eyes open as dawn's light softly glowed over the grasslands. She turned off the light spells and stretched. As she looked about, behind her came a flash, that felt hot. Twilight spun around and giggled. A sleeping Spike had just received another package from the Princess. She smiled softly and lifted the package away, back to the cave entrance. The first scroll was Celestia's latest message, and Twilight was delighted with the information and the prospect of letters from home. "Hmm," she mused, "I wonder if we could set up a message book like Sunset and i use... " Searching the bundle for a scroll marked with her cutie mark, she settled down to read as the others began to wake.
After message reading and breakfast, the group stepped outside. Twilight combined the last three cherries with a sapling, which she plopped onto the ground, so it could grow. Applejack spent more time kicking trees, to make more tools. Once they had a few wooden pickaxes, and a supply of wood, they headed into the mountains a short distance and mined at the visible stone and coal until a large chunk of cobblestone and coal had been gathered. They had also come across a couple of the rare Lucky Blocks, one which had dropped an iron axe and sword, and the other had dropped a precious block of emerald.
Fluttershy and Pinkie and Rarity had stayed behind. Pinkie continued to break grass and explore. She found some plans that looked edible, so investigated them. There was barley and something called gardens that could be broken to receive plantable produce, though if handled carefully, could be brought home first, and even duplicate in time once placed back down. These gardens had been mentioned in the tome. There were also quite a few plants that could be broken to receive a usable ingredient and seeds. Fluttershy chatted with the animals who did not answer back, but it was calming, being with the friendly critters. She soon discovered that some nearby creatures, called blocklings, were easy to tame, and soon had a couple blocklings keeping her company. This really made her smile, though keeping track of them was difficult.
It was getting late when Spike, Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow returned to the others. They had started a mine, and also gathered some of the visible stone and ores. There was several stacks of stone, as well as andesite, granite, coal, marble, and a little iron. There had been other ores but they generally left them alone until better picks could be crafted. They had also made torches, as well as stone tools. Chests and a furnace were crafted, and the faster ponies ran out to spread out the torches. Twilight pointed out it would be easier on her, using torches rather than magic every night. Magic was great for emergencies but torches would be a more permanent basic lighting source. Once the cave and clearing had been lit, a stone hoe was produced and quickly made a plowed section of land upon which all the available seeds or fruit were planted. They did manage to hoe up some worms, and when they placed the little creatures, discovered why they are considered gardeners friends.* At the same time, Pinkie took the barley that had dropped from the barley plants she had found, turned into flour, and cooked them. Everyone rejoiced to have the warm bread.
Dear Princess Celestia
We are managing to do all right. We started a mine and a farm.
Fluttershy has already befriended a couple of blocklings.
Pinkie found some of the gardens which you had spoken of. They are now growing in the garden. She also found wild barley so we have some of that kind of barley growing. Fresh, hot barley loaves were delicious!
While we were mining on the mountains, we found a couple lucky blocks! One dropped an emerald block! Could you help explain their uses?
Everypony were much cheered by the letters from our family! Thank you for them! That reminds me... do you think we could use books to write to each other, like Sunset and i do?