> Welcome to Cubeland
>  by Zaleros
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Sheep
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Well, that’s just weird” I said, looking over the field of grass covered in animals that looked like someone put boxes together and was using magic to make them move.
I think some introductions are in order. I am a changeling from outside of the pony filled land called Equestria. We recently had this bright idea to attack the capital because of love. Yeah, we need the stuff to survive but seriously, why did we attack the capital of all places!? 
I’ve never really understood our queen but I’m not about to tell her that since I like being alive more than correcting her misguided schemes to satisfy the hive. Don’t get me wrong, Chrysalis is a good leader, she really was looking out for us but mother of Celestia was that a bad place to start.
Personally, if given the choice, I would’ve started our assault somewhere not filled with beings with power that rivals our leader. I would’ve chosen somewhere simpler, like that Ponyville place…well maybe not since those Element users live there but at least somewhere that wasn’t Canterlot.
Anyway, it seems that that blast that flung us all out of their lands was more powerful to some than others or something because as everyone was flying through the air, more like flailing in confusion actually, I saw some of them disappear into what appeared to be multi colored portals or something. Some were pink, others were orange, and mine was purple.
Well, I think they sent us to other places because when I woke up everything around me was shaped like a cube. Everything! The dirt was cubical, the trees were cubical, hell even the sand was cubical! And now this is the weirdest part: I wasn’t cubical. Well, that’s actually normal for me but the world I’m in seems to disagree from what I’ve seen so far.
“I really wish I knew what in Tartarus was going on.”
Since all I could see for now was some animals doing what I’m sure was grazing in the fields, I figured now was as good a time as any to get a view from the sky. I opened my wings and checked to see if they were ok and they checked out so I started them up and flew over a hill, except replace flew over with crashed into.
“OW OW OW MOTHER OF OW…what’s going on?” I checked them again and they were fine, so I tried again only to meet another faceplant into the ground. Now I was starting to get really worried, my wings have never failed me before and I stocked up on plenty of love during the invasion so why wouldn’t they work? I decided to figure that out later and looked around for something that I could change into that wasn’t eating grass…nothing. Sighing, I settled on a cow since they could pull a mean stampede if you spooked them right. Again I got no results.
“Alright, now this is beginning to scare me” I said out loud to no one in particular. I decided to assess my situation now since the sun, a bunch of squares by the way, seemed to be passing over the half way point in its journey. I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t change, I couldn’t understand why this world was a bunch of squares…yeah, that sounds like everything I know about this place so far.
Getting up, I saw one of the animals, a sheep I believe, running away from something. I looked at what could be attacking it when suddenly this wolf just popped up out of nowhere and killed it. Now I know what you’re thinking “oh wolves attack things, no big deal” but this was different, it literally showed up from nowhere in a giant field with nothing to cover it and it seriously just ran into the sheep and then the sheep disappeared in a puff of smoke. The whole thing was weird and it only got weirder when the puff vanished and there in place of a sheep were two floating blocks with the same color as the sheep. I suppose the weirdest part was the fact that even though the wolf literally just killed a sheep that none of the other animals cared. None of them, at all seemed to even take notice. Then the wolf just wandered away and vanished as quickly as it had appeared. With this I decided buck it and went to walk over to where the sheep was and look at the stuff.
Suddenly the wolf was visible again, I stopped and it moved away and it was gone, I did that about five more times and came to the conclusion that I should’ve told Chrysalis that her plan was stupid so that this would’ve never happened.
When I got to the…whatever it was the sheep left behind instead of a corpse, I noticed the objects were floating and spinning in a circle motion but not moving anywhere so I got in for a closer look and about had a heart attack when they flew right at my face. Somehow they became positioned on my hoof but I couldn’t feel them or do anything about them.
“I really hope this is just a weird dream I’m having because this is just weird,” I sighed and assessed the situation again. I was in a place made of cubes, the animals poofed out of existence and drop stuff when they die, wolves apparently had free roam and none of the animals seemed to care at all when one took the life of another animal, and if I wasn’t close enough to something I couldn’t see it. That last one seemed pointless since it’s usually true anyway but in this case it was true beyond what we would usually consider normal. “Oh boy Craft Hammer, you are in for it now” I said to myself, “stuck in this weird place with no way out that I can see. How cruel can fate be to my life!”
I really wish I would've just been quiet and let myself not get dragged into what was soon to become my life until I got out of here.
> Wood
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After a few hours of walking you’d think that I’d be used to this block on my hoof, I’m not. It was still one of the weirdest things I’d come across so far, on par with the whole limited vision and none of the animals caring about that killer wolf. I followed the wolf for awhile but it kept stopping for no reason and finally fell down some really big crevice in the ground. After that I just decided to keep walking. 
The eyes of the animals as I passed them caught my attention. I couldn’t help but notice that their eyes were always spread out far, not toward the nose or one eye looking off to the side but both of them were just on the sides of their heads…I didn’t understand this world and I felt I never would but I made a note of it in my head and kept going.
“Oh…my…Celestia, I am BORED!” I yelled at the sky after I laid on my back at stared straight up. “How am I supposed to get out of here when there is nothing but these weird block animals and open fields of NOTHING!” with that I sighed and looked to my left and noticed a tree. It was, you guessed it, square shaped. The trunk was cubical, the leaves were cubical, the entire thing…was cubical. 
The constant sight of these weird cube things and the animals made from magical boxes started to seriously irritate me and I got up and ran over to the tree. “WHY IS EVERYTHING MADE OF CUBES!” I bucked the tree as hard as I could. I know the tree didn’t really do anything to me but I needed to release some of my anger on something and the tree just happened to be there. As I bucked it as hard as I could over and over I heard something each time but it didn’t register until I worked through five years of dealing with Chrysalis perfecting her princess Cadence, at first it was pretty nice since she’s actually a nice pony but after so long it’s just annoying. That’s when I heard a thud noise and turned around since the only noises I’ve heard so far were the wolf’s bark, the animals’ different sounds, and this really nice music that I couldn’t for the life of me place where it had been coming from.
When I looked at the tree I realized all the bucking I’d been doing had no effect on the tree. This confused the crap out of me since those five years I worked through were really long years and that should’ve been enough to make some kind of dent on the tree, but of course this tree had nothing wrong with it. The whole world was just weird and this tree wanted to continue the weirdness trend so prevalent around here.
Since I kicked the tree, and nothing happened, but I heard a noise, I did the most sensible thing anypony would’ve done in my position. No, not look around for the source of the noise, that's too obvious. I slammed my hoof against the tree again and that’s when I saw it. The tree had a crack in it for just a moment. What in the name of Celestia have these trees done to be this fragile and yet that sturdy, not even the trees in the Everfree Forest were this weird, and those stupid things just moved around to mess with your mind if you stopped paying attention to where you were going for even a second. I beat the tree a second time but this time twice as long…more cracks…I stopped, they disappeared. “What in the…how do you…how did it…WHAT?” I muttered in what I think was reasonable confusion because seriously, what kind of trees do that?
Determined to find out what this meant, I beat at the tree until the cracks were so intense that it actually broke and turned into another one of those floating blocks, but that kind of escaped my notice for a moment because there was a floating tree now devoid of a section of its trunk and apparently gravity was on vacation or something because it didn’t fall down or even look like anything was going to happen.
Instead of questioning it any further I made a mental note that trees learned how to conquer gravity and that I would need to learn their ways so I could fly again or something because walking was getting boring fast. I took another look at the sky and realized that the sun was starting to set but it looked pretty bright still. Then I looked behind me…darkness. Back around…light. At that point I just gave up and grabbed the block that the tree gave me and I started walking away from the tree.
That’s when I saw the lights off in the distance. Hoping to find some form of civilization I ran full speed thinking about how I’d be able to enjoy a nice bed or at least the company of something that wasn’t necessarily made of blocks. As I jumped from block to block, trying to get to the top, I heard a noise I thought wasn’t real and froze in place. I took a combat stance, I was a soldier before this and all so this shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, and turned around ready to fight even though I was utterly scared off my hooves by the sound. I thought to myself, ‘Please not be real please not be real PLEASE NOT BE REAL’ but it was real. Apparently in this world where everything was made of cubes, zombies were real. 
Oh yeah, I’m afraid of zombies but don’t tell anypony back at the hive or they’d kick the snot out of me for being a coward. We aren’t supposed to fear anything since we can BE anything but zombies always took the cake for me, which was fine since I never liked cakes.
Anyway, this thing was standing on its two hind limbs but it didn’t try to attack me. That fact wasn’t really on my mind though because, again afraid of zombies, I was only thinking about how to kill the accursed thing. Once I realized that it wasn’t after me I retreated back into the shadows of the nearby trees and moved my way closer to the lights. 
Slowly but surely I made it over the hill and lost sight of the foul demon plaguing this world with its moaning and constant chatter of brains…well that one didn’t say it wanted brains but that’s what they always want so I’m sure it was thinking that. Wait, can they think? Hmm, I never thought of that but I never wanted to know before anyway so whatever.
When I saw the source of lights, I was over the hill and almost cried tears of joy at the sight of buildings and fences and…well, some kind of beings. These ones stood like the zombie but their front limbs were closer to their bodies and their noses were HUGE. If you thought a cow had a big nose then wow were you in for a surprise.
And then I had a bright idea, “I wonder if they’re friendly. They can’t be any worse than that zombie back there.” So I walked closer to this place, given the size I decided it was probably a village and these were the villagers, “Hey! You in the distance!” Not to any surprise, given what I’d seen up to this point, I was ignored. Weird, the only ones who’ve ignored me before were most of the hive…unless they were beating me up for making bird houses where I thought no one could see me.
I assessed the situation again. Animals didn’t seem to notice me, wolves ignored me, these villagers ignored me, was I freaking invisible or something!? I cracked a big smile and ran around to take a look at the place. The roofs looked like they were made of some kind of wood, not exactly like the tree I broke but similar, the walls were stony or wood, they varied between houses, most had doors which seemed to react when I tapped them with my hoof, again like that tree, and there was a well filled with water. I took a good look at the well and saw that the water was pretty flat, and pushed into the typical square shape this world seemed to have. I thought about getting some since I was getting thirsty when I noticed that I didn’t have a reflection, “Wow, I really am invisible. This is cool!”
Then I heard it, a loud thud sound behind me. I turned around and saw this huge…metal…thing. Not really sure how to describe it but I’m pretty sure I heard somepony talk about something like this before and called it a “golem”. I just looked at it as it came closer since I was invisible and whatnot, why should I care that this golem getting closer to me? Then it hit me. No, not the metaphorical way where you suddenly realize something, I mean the literal bucking way where it slapped me in the face and I went flying.
“OW, WHAT THE BUCK!? I THOUGHT I WAS FREAKING INVISIBLE!” I yelled as I got up, pretty dazed from the slap I received from this metal golem. As I ran from it I heard in a solid, metallic voice “INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! ELIMINATE THREAT TO VILLAGERS!” Well, at least I’m not the only one who can actually talk in this weird world. I was expecting at least maybe the cows to talk but all I got from them when I saw them was the typical “moo” so I guessed they didn’t talk here.
So I ran from the village, the one place that seemed like it might be alright for me to sit and learn this world with others that I could observe and probably learn something from by watching what they were doing. Well at least I learned that I wasn’t invisible, but if I’m not invisible then why didn’t that zombie attack me?
That thought was enough to make me stop and look behind me, the village was a good distance away and the golem apparently stopped chasing me so I just sat down and passed out from pain and exhaustion, not caring about zombies or golems or villages. That stuff could just wait for the morning.

> Saplings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I had a dream that night, thank Celestia too because it was the closest thing I’ve had to normal since I came here. In the dream I was making a house out of wood, which was actually normal for me as I often would daydream about redoing the hive. Those went along the line of getting rid of the hexagon shape in favor of a simple square shape, it seemed ironic now since I was stuck in this world of cubes and box animals and boxish golems, as well as zombies which still scare the crap out of me but I think I’m getting better since the one I encountered didn’t try to kill me or anything.
Well, I woke up soon after I built my house to the sound of a cow nudging me with its face. I got up and pushed it away, actually I tried to but I guess if I try to use my hooves for anything it’s destructive because the cow ran away after jumping and having mooed like it was in pain or something. I wasn’t really sure what to say about this so I just got up. Then I realized my throat was really, really dry. I forgot to get a drink from the well and now I was paying for it.
I sprinted over in the direction that the village was and saw the golem still guarding the area. With that I moved on and within a few minutes I found a small area that looked like a watering hole. There really wasn’t any way to confirm whether it was safe though without testing it myself since none of the animals appeared to need water, again this world piled weird upon weird. It had animals, weird beings called villagers, and metal golems but nothing drank water here? Why was it here then? I gave into my thirst and just drank the water…I dropped my questions I had about the water because it was cool and quenched my thirst just fine. I made another mental note to myself, the water was just fine to drink.
Having filled myself with water, I realized I had another problem. “Oh crap, I’m going to starve here.” All I had seen so far were animals and villagers and a golem, none of them looked like they were feeling the love I needed to feed on to survive. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself, there wasn’t anypony else around to talk to but I liked hearing something every now and then and it just happened that I was the only one around that could actually talk and wouldn’t try to kill me for being around others. “I’m not in my own world so maybe the rules have changed.” And with this, I began to contemplate how I’d be able to bend the rules of being a changeling.
After a few hours I had no clue what I even thought I was supposed to do and just decided to break down some of those trees I found before. While I walked I noticed there was some more stuff on the ground. I saw arrows, bones, some weird looking meat, and even a few more pieces of whatever that sheep dropped from before. I looked around for another wolf and there it was, splashing around in the water but I just ignored it while I grabbed what I could. Not once so far had I figured out where the buck this stuff was going but I just went with the idea that it simply vanished. I really hoped it wasn’t that though since I could probably find a use for some of it.
Finally I got to the trees past the village, had to make sure that golem didn’t see me, and I started breaking them down. I broke down about fifteen trees before I noticed that the leaves, at least that’s what they looked like, were simply vanishing. Sometimes they dropped what looked like an apple and other times they dropped a smaller tree. I took them and started to laugh, partially from the pain of having nothing else to do and partially from the fact that I was chopping down trees and taking apples and saplings when they showed up. “From my destruction I can create anew, and they aren’t cubes,” I said to myself and I closed my eyes, simply thinking about how I could plant these trees and watch them grow until I chopped them down again for more wood, but what good was that going to do for me? I don’t even know where the stuff was going anyway.
I opened my eyes and started walking back toward that open field I woke up in since the village wasn’t doing me any good and it could have some kind of clue for me. A speck of dust got in my eye so I rubbed it…wait, what was in my hoof? The sheep thing was gone now and in its place was that sapling! Something happened to what I was holding and now I had the tree. This was big, I mean the tree sapling looked small but this discovery actually meant I still had those things I’d been picking up. I thought about what I was doing before and after I noticed the change. The last thing I remember before I noticed the tree in my hoof was that I was beating trees up and taking the blocks, and the apples and saplings and in my hoof was the sheep thing. I thought about the, well to be honest it was the same color as the sheep’s coat so I think it’s safe to say this thing was some wool it dropped, wool and looked at my hoof. The wool was back! “Holy mother of Celestia I think I’ve figured something out about this place.”
Over the course of the day I found out how much fun somepony could have watching stuff appear in their hoof simply because they wanted it to be there. I just thought of something I had and it was there, over and over and over. When I noticed it was night again I decided I should find some real shelter for once and wandered around until I found a cave.
The cave seemed empty and dark, although I expected that much, so I crashed out there for the night. When I woke up the next morning I was greeted by the faces of a zombie, some green thing that looked like it was upset at something and covered in camouflage, and a boney thing on two legs, I think it’s safe to say that thing was a skeleton. I promptly freaked out and ran away, then I heard a voice say “Wait”. 
That actually caught me off guard and surprisingly I did just that. I looked behind me and they were just standing there. They looked amongst one another and they all nodded, then the green thing with a permanent frown started moving toward me. I managed to get myself together long enough to prepare another combat stance. It took a minute but the green thing finally caught up to me and just stood there. I stood there, it stood there…nothing was happening. Well, nothing was apparently going to happen so I let myself relax and wondered why it was here.
“We want to talk to you” the green thing said. 
I just sat there and it said nothing else so I spoke up, “Um, I uh…who or what are you?” I heard what sounded like a chuckle come from it but its face never changed. Another trend I noticed in this weird world, nothing ever changed apparently, including faces. 
“I am called a creeper. My kind have been here since the beginning as well as the zombie, the skeleton, and the spider. We have observed the world and tried to keep it as it is but our world has been plagued by beings called Players.”
“Wait a minute, you can talk?” I realized this was probably a really stupid question, but considering I’ve only been talked to by a metal golem that slapped me harder than that love magic the princess and her groom pulled off back at Canterlot, I was finding it hard to believe that there were things capable of speech without trying to murder me. The silence that followed was pretty awkward and was just getting more so as the seconds passed so I spoke up again. “I mean, can you all talk?” The creeper simply nodded in response. “What about those villagers back there? They didn’t seem too chatty from what I could tell.” 
The creeper spoke up again, “Yes, or at least they once did, they have all sworn to silence. Since they came in contact with the Players, they have abandoned our company preferring instead to consort with those Players.” The last part I was sure I heard a tone of hate and sadness.
I knew I was going to hate myself but I agreed to go with the creeper and meet with the zombie and skeleton to hear what they had to say. They couldn’t be any worse than that golem after all, it just spoke and hit me. So far with these three I’ve just been spoken to, and with any luck it would stay that way.
When we arrived, the two others were still sitting in the cave. “Why don’t they leave the cave?” 
The creeper was silent for a moment “It is because they will burn and die if the light touches them.” Wow, wasn’t expecting that. So light kills them, that explains why I hadn’t seen them during the day and that zombie only during the night.
Something about what the creeper had said before caught my attention when I thought about what it had said so far. It said that the zombie and skeleton would die in the light, what about it? I suppose since it came out to me in the light it was safe to say light didn’t kill it.
“Can we begin our meeting now?” a new voice spoke up. This one sounded like two bones rubbing against each other if that made any sense, I assumed it was the skeleton “My bones aren’t getting any lighter you know.” Yep, it was in fact the skeleton. Mental note, skeletons talk like bones.
“Brains…Start?” the zombie moaned at the two. Figures the first thing the zombie said was brains, I backed out of the cave for a moment to make sure it wouldn’t chase me and bite my head off but from what I’ve seen so far that probably wasn’t going to happen. Either way, I didn’t want to take the chance.
“Yes, we shall begin.” Over the next couple of hours I listened while they explained their role in the world. From what I got out of it the world was fine at first, there were mountains, rivers, animals, and other nature stuff just existing in peace and quiet. Even the villagers existed just fine with no problems. Then, the Players showed up and started tearing the world apart block by block for their own amusement. The creepers were the first to discover the new life form and found out that being near these Players makes them so overjoyed that they actually exploded. Let me say that again, they exploded…like into nothing, destroying the area nearby and hurting any life in the blast area as well. After this incident the Players labeled them all as monsters. 
Monsters…now that was something I knew about being. After all, my kind have always been treated as monsters because unlike other creatures we fed on love. Yes we’ve always pretended to be another pony but that’s because nopony ever wanted to willingly be around something that fed on an emotion for sustenance. They’ve always feared that our kind would suck it from them, bleed them dry of love so to speak. Their fear, not going to lie I think it’s pretty reasonable from their point of view, keeps them from  hearing us out when we would try to explain to them that we didn’t want to steal it from them, we just wanted to have some of their love. It’s like if you tried to take somepony’s sandwich that somepony special made for them, we don’t want to take it from them but we do want some of it…wow, when I put it that way I guess we really are a selfish species. You know what, forget the metaphor, the point is we wouldn’t force them to give us their love unless we were truly desperate, hence our ill fated attack on Canterlot.
When I realized they were still talking, it sounded like it was something I didn’t need to pay attention to so I zoned out again. I started thinking about the village and the houses they had in it. I wanted to build a house, even if it was going to be a cube shape. Actually, thinking about it that was what I was going for when I thought about the hive anyway so I’d be able to test how well it looked.
I walked out of the cave and saw several of these monsters roaming the area, even some spiders. I found a patch of ground that was pretty wide and not covered in grass or plants or animals or monsters and thought of how I was going to build my house. I thought of the wood I had gathered and it appeared in my hoof, good thing I mastered the art of item swapping with my mind, not that I figured out how to put stuff down yet. I thought about those saplings again and looked at them and back to the ground. “Stupid tree, why don’t you get off my freaking hoof and get back on the ground.” I punched the ground and almost fell back, the only thing that stopped me was my sense that this was not the weirdest thing I’d likely come across since it already wasn’t the weirdest. The weirdest would probably be the apparently legal murders that wolves commit on a regular basis. I got that nopony would try to stop that golem since it’s a freaking golem but that wolf couldn’t have been that hard to take down. I’d be willing to bet a good stampede would get rid of it but the cows were dumber than a sack of carrots around here and none of the animals seemed to understand anything beyond “I like grass”.
Anyway, I punched the ground and the tree popped up where I had punched it. This was a new one since so far all punching stuff did was break stuff. A new found hope sparked in me and I ran back to the three monsters in the cave to tell them about what I could do.
“Hey! Creeper and friends! Guys, I can put stuff back down after I pick them up! I finally did it!” I yelled happily. Seriously, I needed this, after being stuck in this world for three days I finally had something to show that I was starting to figure out this place. My good news must’ve been better than I thought because they stopped talking and all looked at me and started whispering amongst themselves.
“A player…” “He can’t be…” “But not only can he wield the items…” “We still can’t be sure…” finally they stopped and they approached me, I took a step back because I still hadn’t gotten over the zombie being around. “Show us what you can do, we must see it for ourselves,” the creeper said.
So I did, I placed all the tree saplings I had and to my surprise my hoof was empty. They started whispering again but I was tired of it at this point. “Hey, what’re you all talking about? I heard you in the cave say something about the Players. I thought they were bad, so why are you talking about me like I’m one of them?”
This time the skeleton spoke up…well to be fair the zombie’s tried talking first but all I got from it was ‘brains’ so the skeleton took over. “You can wield items like the Players. None of us have had that power over our world. So we have come to a decision,” they all got closer and said in unison, “We will teach you the ways of the Players so you may fight and keep them from destroying our land forever.” A couple times I heard the zombie moan brains but I tuned that out.
They were going to train me like a Player? Did that mean I’d get to build my own house!? The thought of that made me so happy I started doing a victory dance, something that would’ve gotten me kitchen duty back in Chrysalis’ army but since she wasn’t around to tell me that dancing was stupid I totally went for it.
We decided that my training would start in the morning with the creeper and the others would teach me during the night. With that I went to sleep, thinking of all the different designs I could make once I figured out how to build everything and got the tools I would need. My dreams were happy once more and I dreamed of bird baths and houses. Tomorrow was going to be a good day.
Now if only I could solve my hunger problem…
> Fish
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I didn’t think that nature could get any weirder than it already had since trees could defy gravity, Creeper told me that most things can do that except anything that moves as well as sand and gravel, but once more this world has screwed with my head. 
When I woke up the next morning I went to go outside and saw a giant tree around where I placed those trees the night before. Confused as to how it got there I went to investigate it. Lo and behold, about five of the saplings were gone and in their places were tree trunks that, as they went up, conjoined into said giant tree. Now I know the trees in the Everfree were really weird but I think this one just topped anything they could do. At this point my weird-o-meter had already gone past the ‘Chrysalis and the Princesses having a civilized meal together discussing which stallion they liked’ theorized limit so I just shrugged it off and chopped it down, climbing it higher and higher so I could reach the top since my wings still didn’t work.
When I finished I went back to the cave and waited for Creeper to get ready for my lessons. After about an hour of just sitting there he finally showed up and we began on the basics of what it meant to be a Player. He told me of how they went around, killing animals for food and other needs, using materials gathered from the blocks to build homes, and that they made tools.
My ears perked up at the mention of tools and I spoke up, “What do you mean tools? Don’t they just beat the blocks until they break and move on?”
“Not always, my friend, sometimes they use different tools to perform different tasks and these tools make them much easier.” Creeper moved over to the wall, “Come and try to break this wall.”
I walked over to the wall of stone and tried beating it with my hoof. Somehow I felt that my efforts weren’t doing anything, but I kept at it.When it finally broke I wanted to tell him that I didn’t see how a tool would’ve done anything for me, but then I saw that I got nothing for my work. I had to have a pretty dumbstruck look on my face or something because Creeper chuckled at me. I went back and took my seat from before.
“As you have now experienced, not all of your actions will end the way you want. If you lack the proper tool then your efforts will be fruitless. You see, they make their tools and they use them to obtain materials from the world that would otherwise provide them with nothing, as you have just experienced.”
“I get it, but how am I supposed to make tools? I mean, how do they do it?” I asked as so far all I’ve done was beat up trees and hadn’t seen anything close to anything that I could use to make tools.
“The answer to that is that they craft them.”
The remainder of the day was spent on learning how to craft stuff. The Creeper didn’t have any real experience with doing it so it was up to me to figure it out. This was fine with me; back at the hive I had spent a lot of my childhood making toys for the younger changelings. You can imagine the amount of beatings I got from the bullies for doing something as ponylike as being productive instead of being destructive.
By nightfall, I had learned to make planks and use them to make a table, which somehow came with any and all tools I’d ever need apparently. After that I made a sword, a pickaxe, and a hatchet. I was pretty sure I could make more but they didn’t seem like they’d be all that important right now so I settled with these.
As agreed to beforehand, the night was spent training with the Skeleton and the Zombie. Crafting had been my task during the day, but the night was spent learning how to navigate the area and identifying different materials that I came across. I really wanted to learn to fight so I could get some payback against that golem from before, but I figured knowing this stuff would help me in the long run so I went with it.
*Rumble*The noise coming from me made the trio halt. “What is that noise?” the Skeleton asked, pretty startled, as though it never heard a stomach before.
“What, you’ve never heard a stomach before?” I asked sarcastically, the hunger finally getting to me. Surprising really, I’ve gone more than a month without love before after taking in less love than I did during the invasion. I should still be fine but I guess this weird world was warping how much love I used to sustain myself. Either that or physical hunger meant more to a changeling here.
“No, I haven’t. I’m a skeleton and he’s a zombie. We don’t generally use stomachs- let alone hear them- on a regular basis. In fact, I don’t have one.” 
Right, skeleton. I still hadn’t gotten used to that. Of course it wouldn’t have a stomach. Come to think of it, these monsters didn’t seem like they’d really need food. The zombie was the only one that seemed like it even wanted to eat, always moaning “brains” and whatnot, although it hadn’t eaten anything yet.
“Well, I haven’t eaten since before I woke up here, so I’m guessing my love reserves are getting low. Oh right, you all don’t know what I am. I’m a kind of creature that lives off of love. I can eat food but I can’t live off food alone. It’d be like everypony else drinking only water and not eating food.” The entire time they stood there baffled at my explanation. I guess since nothing needed water here, my explanation was just pointless. I just sighed and said “Look, the point is that I need sustenance. If I’m anything like the Players then they must need something too. Maybe in this world I need what they need.”
The Skeleton looked as though it was deep in thought, “Hmm, you may be right. I am sure, during my time, that I’ve seen them consume meats and fish, both raw and cooked. Are these what you speak of?”
“I’m guessing that if they can survive off the stuff then I should be able to, too.Or, at least I hope so, because otherwise, I’m more than likely to starve to death. By the way, how do they catch fish? I’ve looked at the waters plenty of times and they look pretty empty to me.”
“From what I gather, they use some sort of rod made from sticks and the webs dropped by our spider brethren.” Wow, he actually sounded almost sad saying that. I guess these monsters really care for each other. If they were really this caring about each other then what are the Players like? From what the trio told me so far they seem to be selfish and dangerous. If I’m like them then how will I end up? Will I give in to whatever makes them so selfish and slaughter the monsters too, or will I help them reclaim their land by being the very thing they hate? 
This was getting really heavy and my head started hurting from thinking too much so I just shrugged it off and called it a night and we went back to the cave.
When the sun rose again, we began my crafting training again, and I made some more things.After awhile, though, I was let free to wander. I walked along the shores of nearby bodies of water and looked in them; I still didn’t have any kind of reflection. “I wonder why this world doesn’t reflect anything in the water…” I splashed in the water but nothing happened, not even ripples. This water couldn’t possibly hold life, it didn’t even seem alive. The stupid stuff wouldn’t even budge with me swimming like a fish, not that I could become a fish in this world. I wonder what fish even look like in this world. I got out and shook the water off and looked at the sky, “I wanna catch a fish.” Back at the hive I actually was a pretty good fisher, I’d often go into pony towns and sell fish I got from the nearby lakes to the markets when I wasn’t training to take them over. Of course I was in disguise but it always felt good to be able to interact with somepony nice for a change. If I ever got back to my world I think I’d like to stay in one of their towns, maybe even drop the whole disguise thing and try to gain their trust. “Nah, they’d never let one of us in their towns, especially after what we did to them. I can’t blame them either.” I sighed to myself, thinking of all the ponies whose faces I filled with joy when I sold them fish. It was something I would likely never get to do as I am. They would hate me just for being what I am, and who can blame them, I’m just a monster.
“Excuse me, Craft Hammer, I would like to speak with you.” The Creeper made me jump from surprise; I guess he had his name for a reason.
“Ah, um…yeah sure, what’s up?” I asked, trying to get myself back to normal.
“After talking about it with the other two, we have decided that you are most likely beyond our ability to teach crafting, however we have collected a supply of material that you may use for your time spent here. There are even materials that you would only get from slaying our kinds. It was not an easy decision but we know you are better than the Players and deserve them more than we do.”
Wait, what? I’ve spent a whole one day training with them and I’m done? Well that didn’t take as long as I thought it would but whatever, I guess it’s time to learn what I can on my own. The fact that they were willing to supply me with things that their own kind gave up only on death was very touching, more touching than anypony back at the hive would ever be willing to be, well except…no, I can’t think of her. It hurts too much. I was pretty stunned at the gesture and I wanted to thank them all but I couldn’t help but wonder how they got the stuff in the first place, they already said they couldn’t wield the blocks like a Player so how did they even get a collection in the first place?
When I asked them, all I got was “We may not have the ability to collect them and hold them the way you do but we have connections, and these connections collected them for us.” I wasn’t sure what that meant but I decided not to ask any further since they were willing to give me the stuff.
Out of all of the items I got, I recognized only a few: the weird meat, bones, and arrows. Other than that, I got some string, some stuff that looked like eyes, ew, and this powdery stuff. Wasn’t really sure what the eyes and powders were for, but that would probably come to me later. As usual the stuff disappeared into what seemed like nothing but I knew I still had them, if I closed my eyes and thought about them I could see them all in my mind. It was actually pretty cool.
I promised I would stay nearby and keep an eye out for any of those Players, but I didn’t tell them that I also planned on keeping an eye on that village. That golem had hurt me before, and if there was one thing about being a changeling I respected, it was that any pain unrightfully dealt to us would be dealt back tenfold.Since that thing practically almost managed to break something, I’d have to guess that tenfold of that was death. As far as I was concerned the golem had earned it and I would be the one to do it, but that would have to wait until I was ready to retaliate.So for now, I went and searched for a spot to build a house.
The whole idea of building a house was pretty exciting to me. Like I said before, I had made bird houses before, but that was small stuff.Those were for little birds; this would be a full sized house for me. I looked for a nice, flat area for me to build on and couldn’t find one that was empty, so I cleared out the grass in a nearby area until it was cleared out. I also got some seeds and these colorful flowers, but they wouldn’t help me make my house, so I just ignored them. I placed my table and made some wood into planks,then set up a decent perimeter that seemed like it’d be a nice area to live in. After I set that up, I worked on the walls,which was actually a painful task since I had to climb them as I set them up to make sure I could set my ceiling where I wanted it.Also because I fell off a couple times, and I’m pretty sure I bruised my butt or something.
In the end I made my house about fifteen blocks by another fifteen blocks, and about ten tall with a slanted roof. That definitely seemed like it was a bit much, but I figured maybe I could invite the trio over some time so they didn’t always have to stay in that cave. It was the least I could do for them since they actually tried to help me. I mean, yes they also expected me to be able to help rid them of the Players, which I still haven’t seen any yet, but they honestly seem to care for me, which is more than Chrysalis ever did for me. You know, other than invading a nation to feed the hive, that was a pretty grand gesture but I think she did it more for our overall survival since she hadn’t produced any real results for quite awhile. At least the trio gave me something with heartfelt sentiments. At least, I think they did. I couldn’t actually sense any emotions from them, which was just another way this world was screwing with my changeling ways.
The house looked pretty good, considering it was all wood and only had one door, although I managed to figure out stairs and made a second floor. What I really wanted from this table was a way to store the stuff I’ve gotten up until now so I could actually get an idea of what I had with my own eyes, rather than my mind. I was getting tired of focusing on what I had; I just wanted to look so I could actually know. Plus I was sure there was a limit to what I could hold, and I didn’t want to accidentally reach that limit and not be able to retain anymore stuff like a sponge full of water.
It was getting pretty close to nightfall, so I made a bed from the materials I had so far and almost cried when I saw it was a rectangle. I just sighed and slept on it.
I had another dream that night; I beat that golem up and it begged for mercy, something I considered giving it. I finished it off anyway; it was something that was drilled into me since I was young. ‘A debt must always be paid.’It was a saying they made sure we knew back at the Royal Academy; Chrysalis’ personal training school for her army. The cruelness they instilled into us was almost frightening, but I managed somehow. I guess it was my changeling blood not wanting to give up, doing what had to be done to ensure I made it through, though it sickened me at times. The satisfaction I got from slaying the golem was nothing compared to the serene atmosphere of fishing, which was the next part of my dream. Or was it another dream? I’m not going to pretend I understand dreams; that’s Luna’s kind of stuff. After all, she is the Princess of the Night.
When I awoke, I had this sudden urge to go fishing. I had no idea how to make a rod, though, so I had to spend a few painfully slow hours figuring it out. Finally I noticed that I needed string for one, and when I figured it out, I made twenty fishing poles and ran to the water. I set the pole in my hoof and cast the lure into the water, not really sure where it even came from since I didn’t use anything for it, but as I’ve learned in this world ‘if you question it, you most likely won’t get an answer that makes sense.’ Kind of like how trees floated for no reason when they should’ve clearly fallen, or how wolves could kill stuff and none of the animals cared at all. I spent an entire week just fishing, literally doing nothing else until my rods broke and I had to go back to the house. When I got back I noticed something odd, my door was open and I was pretty sure I closed it when I left. When I approached it I could hear some voices.
“Dude, this house is freaking big! Why would someone make a wooden house this big and put almost nothing in here.” “How should I know? I didn’t even know it was here. Hey,wanna make this our new mining house?” “Holy crap; that would be awesome! Let’s deck this place out!” These weren’t voices I knew, they didn’t sound at all like the monster trio, which meant they could only be one thing. Players.
I ran around the house and got to the cave, by now it was night and some of the monsters were showing up out of nowhere, as usual, but these weren’t the ones I knew, these were their minions…their copies so to speak. They all looked alike but I could somehow tell them apart from the trio I first met. Maybe it was some kind of bond we had, I couldn’t really say.
When I got to the cave, I found them just standing there talking amongst themselves again. “Hey guys, I think there are Players here.” This effectively got their collective attention.
“What?” the Creeper said, a tone of anger I hadn’t heard yet from him. “They’ve found us?”
“I don’t think so; they’re over at my house I built right now. They said they were going to use it as a base. A, uh, a mining house or something.”
“This is bad, ours is the only cave around for over one hundred blocks in any direction, if they come looking for us they will surely overtake us.”
The Skeleton spoke up, “Did you get a look at them? Did you see what they were wearing?”
“What? No, I only heard them. I didn’t want to go in my house while they were in there. I thought they might decide to attack me and I don’t think I’d fare well against multiple foes without my powers.”
“Curses, we were fools to think they’d just leave us alone.”
To everyone’s surprise the Zombie spoke this time “We…must…fight…back…Survive.”
I won’t lie, this surprised the crap out of me.Up until now, the Zombie barely managed two words without saying brains at least once.This time it managed a full sentence, and I suddenly felt proud for it. “Zombie’s right, how can we fight them? I’ve seen the many monsters hanging around during the night and even the other creepers during the day. Can’t you gather them up and launch an attack or something?”
“What about your house Craft Hammer? If we attack it may get damaged.”
“I appreciate the thought Creeper, but this is a more pressing matter than a stupid house.” On a side note though, it really was a touching thought. Creeper was legitimately looking out for me. “Besides, I can always make another.”
“In that case, we will gather the monsters and launch an attack on them at once,” the Creeper said in a commanding voice and it was settled. We moved out of the cave and called out to the monsters, who responded by listening to our commands, and we headed back to my house.
I ran ahead of the group, and I could swear I saw some weird thing in the distance looking at me. When I tried to get a good look at it, it disappeared and there was a faint purple speck trail where it had been. I knew that specific shade of purple; it was the same shade as the portal that sent me here. It took all I had not to go after it, and the sounds from the inside of my house snapped me back to reality, this reality anyway. Whatever that thing was, I’d have to find it again later and find out why it left a trail like that portal.
“Don’t you think we should set up some torches around this place? I don’t want to wake up with a bunch of creepers chillaxing outside.” “Good point,Iron Maxx, go set up some torches” “What the hell? Why me?” “Because you didn’t do anything yet, you just came with us.” “Fine, whatever.”
I moved back from the house and stood behind a tree a good distance from my house. The door opened up and I saw a dark figure…ow…ok nevermind. It put up some torches on the ground and they hurt my eyes for a moment. When I was able to see again, I saw a bipedal creature much like those villagers, but it had one arm to the side and another facing forward. It looked like it was wearing some kind of metal armor, and it had a tannish skin where I could see it. After it set up about twenty torches around the area it went back into my house and I moved back to it as well. I peaked in the window on the door and saw them standing there setting stuff up. Something that looked like a furnace as well as a chest, now the chest was bigger. They set up a few more chests and went back upstairs.
“Dude, why did you cover the walls in posters?” “Why not?” “Because they look stupid!” “Don’t make me kill you, we haven’t slept here yet you know.” “Wow, you don’t have to be a jerk you know.” “You started it.” “Whatever, I’m gonna just go kill stuff.” That sounded like the one who came out before. This time I stayed next to my house. I put my sword on and watched him come out.
To my left I saw the trio and I nodded at them, they left. I really hoped they were getting the mob ready. Not even ten seconds later I saw a huge army of monsters come out of the woods and the Player shrieked and ran back inside.
“OH MY GOD! GUYS YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!” “Woah, what happened?” “THE MONSTERS ARE ALL OUTSIDE!” “Well no duh stupid, of course they are.” “Yeah, where’d you think they were, in the water?” “NO I MEAN THERE ARE LIKE FIFTY OF THEM RIGHT OUTSIDE THE HOUSE!” “What?” “Are you kidding me?” “NO DUDE LOOK OUTSIDE” A loud thunk came from the second floor, they broke my wall…now they really were going to pay. “Holy crap, you weren’t kidding. Looks like this is gonna be a good night for killing some stupid monsters.”
I couldn’t take it anymore and I burst in the house, sword at the ready and fangs ready to strike, “Hey you jerks, get out of my house before I make you!” I didn’t care about the plan anymore, they wanted to kill all the monsters as though they didn’t have any other purpose than to be killed. Their tones were just like the ponies used back in Equestria when a changeling was discovered; a monster that only deserved to die, never to be heard from until its dying breath. This was the final straw. “I won’t ask you nicely since you invaded my home, now get out!”
The Players came down the stairs and shut the door, “Dude, chill. We’re just using the house to go mining, we didn’t know it was yours.” “Yeah, and by the way where did you get that skin? It looks awesome!”
“I got this ‘skin’ as you call it when I was born. I’m not from around here and neither are you. What gives you the right to barge into people’s homes and claim it as yours?”
“We just said we didn’t know it belonged to anyone. Why are you getting so upset anyway? Wanna come with us and kill some stuff?” This Player was wearing some of the white metal and a few brown pieces, his sword looked like it was stone. All of them looked exactly alike except the armor they wore.
“I’m here to kill something and it isn’t those monsters. In fact…” I opened the door and yelled “ATTACK!” The effect was astounding as zombies started pouring in and they latched on to the closest Player and suddenly they were all jumping like that cow from before, the Players were screaming like they were in pain, and the zombies mimicked it but with moans. I could see that the Players weren’t falling as fast as I had hoped they would and instead the zombies were being overwhelmed. Zombies were falling left and right but suddenly one of the Players fell too and a shower of materials and items covered the room and I snapped out of my daze. I couldn’t let them die in vain, I had to do something.
I slipped past some of the zombies and heard one of the Players yelling something about hacking, didn’t really get what he meant but I guess it was a part of this world. I delivered the killing blow to one of the Players and absorbed most of the items it dropped, he was still on the ground for a moment before disappearing like everything else that died here. The last Player had retreated upstairs and blocked the path with wood. “What the hell man!? How in the world did you do that?”
I stood at the top of the stairs, “Do what? Not get slaughtered like the monsters you have all been killing since you came here? Have you even thought of what they wanted once? Maybe they didn’t want this. Maybe they just wanted to be left alone!”
“What are you talking about? They are just monsters! They’ll just respawn anyway. We all do here.”
“What do you mean ‘respawn’? Is that like reincarnation or something?”
I heard movement behind me and the Skeleton appeared, “Why do you delay? He must pay for what they’ve done.”
“Who is that? I’ve never heard a voice like that before.”
“He’s a skeleton, like the ones you’ve slaughtered and were going to slaughter tonight. You may think that all monsters just exist to kill and be killed but from what I’ve seen it’s you Players who are the monsters.”
“Us Players? Aren’t you a Player too? In fact, why the hell aren’t they killing you?”
“Because we are the same. Always being called monsters without proper reason. No one gives us a chance, and instead they just choose to take us out because we don’t belong. It’s because of beings like you that they can’t coexist with the villagers anymore. I may be able to exist in this world the way you do but I feel more like they do. We are the same and I will stick up for them since nopony else will.” I broke down the wall the Player had built and stared at him. His helmet was a light blue, the rest was white and his sword was the same white metal too. “Tonight will be your last night.”
I lunged at him but he dodged out of the way and swung at me with his sword. It hit but unlike the others I didn’t bounce and glow red for a moment, it actually hurt and I felt the pain as I slid across the floor. I got back up and smacked him with the flat of the blade which seemed to daze him for a moment. I followed it up by pinning him to the ground and slamming on his arm until the sword came loose. I felt him look at me and he asked in a plain, fearful voice “What are you?”
I felt a pang of guilt as I remembered the same question coming from the foals in Canterlot when we invaded. I never wanted to hurt them because they were innocent. This one wasn’t and my guilt washed away in an instant “I’m not from this world, and you need to leave my friends alone.” With this I bit his neck and heard it crack. He poofed out of existence and his stuff floated nearby.
Within a few minutes the adrenaline wore off and I was shaking. I had killed. Even in Chrysalis’ training I had never killed anything, not even the fish I sold at the pony markets. The thought of having to do it again was painful. Yes, they needed to leave the monsters alone, but why did we have to kill them? Couldn’t they coexist ever? I didn’t want to see another world like mine where there were those who lived together, fearing monsters, and those who were labeled as monsters, fearing the day they would be hunted for being different. Outside, the day was approaching I could tell because of the hole they made in my wall. I also heard the sound of rain. I felt that maybe the world was crying over the fighting that couldn’t seem to be avoided. If only there was a way to get them to stop fighting.
Even though day had come, I went to bed anyway. It didn’t take long since I hadn’t slept in a week, and after the night I’d been through, I was feeling pretty terrible. Hopefully I’d have another good dream but sometimes you don’t always get what you want.

> Cobblestone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“What are you?” a little foal asked.
“Sorry, but I’m not supposed to talk to you,” I said as I led my squad around a family of earth ponies. “The queen says it’s not right to talk to your food. Round them up and prepare to siphon them for their love.” With that, I signaled a small portion of my troops and set off to find another group while the rest gathered what they could from the four ponies. Once we were out of earshot of them I swore and slammed my hoof against the nearest wall.
“Sir, you know we won’t hurt them,” my second in command, Garnet Fury, said to me, putting her hoof on my shoulder.
“I know, but I still don’t like that we have to do this” I let out a sigh, “Why did we have to invade them? Why do we have to always fight?”
“I don’t know Craft, but without their love we will die,” she looked me in the eye, dropping the whole ‘second in command’ thing, “You know that just as well as I do. We can’t just not have it. This is the only way.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is; you’ve seen what they do to others that they don’t understand. They fight, they banish, they exile. They would never let us in as we are and you know it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. Even if you live with them for a time they will come to fear you. They always do.”
“IT ISN’T TRUE!” I yelled, louder than I had intended, “I’ve seen them while I…spied on them. They are kind, they are caring. I’ve seen them when a group of dragons came to the town I always went to. The dragons kept trying to pick fights with everypony but they stood tall and asked them to leave nicely, not once did any of them try anything. The whole incident was solved without having to fight.”
“Not everypony gets off so easily,” she said as she walked past me, making sure that I saw the scar across her chitin, easily a few inches wide and cracked like broken glass, “You should remember this.”
I heard a crackle of lightning and woke up. That’s right, it was raining out. I got out of bed and walked outside only to see rain coming down a clouded sky. The sky always had clouds anyway but these clouds were moving on their own, unlike the ones in Equestria. The thing that was really weird was that even though there were clouds, and it was raining, I was pretty sure that those clouds weren’t the source of the rain.
It looked like it was still somewhat daytime out, at least it wasn’t dark so I assumed it was still day. With the rain came a lack of sun which explained the wandering skeletons and zombies. I asked one of the skeletons where the trio was and they pointed toward the cave so I walked there and saw them huddled together as usual and when I showed up they stopped chatting.
“Good day Craft Hammer,” the Skeleton said, still sounding like bones.
“Yeah, good day guys” I sat down on the ground and took a look around the room, “Hey, why are you always in this small cave anyway?”
“This is the only place not inhabited by them that they have not checked. It is our last hope for safety.”
After a few minutes of silence I asked them a question that had been on my mind since after the attack last night, “What did the Player mean when he said that you would ‘respawn’ when you died?”
The Creeper spoke up, “When one of us in this world dies, another of the same kind will be born again.”
“If that’s the case why would you really care about dying? If you can just be born again then why not just go out and explore? If you die then at least you get to do it again. Am I right?”
“Not exactly, when the Players are reborn they simply come back where they last spent a night. This holds true if they spent a night on a bed, much like your own. Without it they’re reborn where all Players originate in this world.”
“But how does it work for you guys? You make it sound like it’s different.”
“It is Craft. When we are reborn we are like newborns. We know nothing of the world other than primal instinct. Our memories of our previous life are wiped out completely.”
Woah, the Players got to keep their memories but the monsters didn’t? That’s just cruel. What kind of god or goddess would make such a system? Can’t they see that these monsters aren’t at all what the Players keep making them out to be?
“Wait, if you lose your memories then how do you know all of this? How long have you three been around?” My curiosity was getting the better of me and I had a feeling I already knew the answer.
“We have been here since the beginning. That’s how we know.”
Yep, that confirmed it. “Just how long ago was the beginning?” This was something I really wanted to know. If they’ve been here since the beginning then I wanted to know exactly how long this world’s been around.
“1,573 days and nights have passed since we became aware of our own existences. I am sure that that was the beginning.” This world apparently wasn’t a very old one. Seems a little early for life to have occurred but the way this world’s been so far that was probably normal too.
“You’re sure? You don’t actually know?”
“Our...beginning...since...Players.” The Zombie spoke up.
“So you’ve all been here since the Players?”
“Yes, our existences line up with the Players. Why did you ask this anyway?” The Skeleton asked me.
“It just seemed strange since you said before that the villagers used to talk to you but stopped once the Players showed up.”
“It is from our memories before our awareness; our primal selves’ memories, so to speak. I don’t remember much. Most of it is hazy, but there was a time when we communicated with one another.”
“If you gained your consciousness after they showed up, wouldn’t that mean there are others like you out there?”
The Creeper spoke with a tone, devoid of emotion, “There were. They were killed by the Players.”
“And you’re all that’s left?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” A few minutes of silence occurred before my stomach rumbled, louder than before. I excused myself from the cave and walked back to my house, eating a piece of what looked to be bread on the way back. There wasn’t really any taste I could detect but it filled me up. I mean like it would if I had eaten love from ponies. Like I had said before, normally eating food would be like others drinking water, sure it filled you but it didn’t really sustain you. 
This bread, however, seemed to fill me up like it would any other pony. I was getting full off of food. This was fantastic! I was like other ponies. I wasn’t tied down to love anymore! Well, I didn’t think I was anyway. Maybe it was just this world. In fact, it probably was. The moment I returned to my world I would likely need love again. This thought brought me back down to earth and I walked back to my house while eating another piece of bread.
I got back only to see a few zombies wandering around the area, even a few off in the nearby body of water. I went in my house and shut the door and thought to myself that I might as well find out what the stuff the Players put in the house were.
There was what looked like a stone furnace, several somethings that looked like chests, hopefully I would be able to store stuff in them, and several pictures hanging from walls all around the house. Some of the pictures were pretty cool with images of skeletons, martial artists of a race I think was related to the Players, and even a creeper in a boat. There were other ones but they weren’t as cool so I didn’t pay as much attention to them. I was never a big art pony, sue me.
I opened the chests but they were empty inside. If nothing else I could always put stuff in so I went ahead and thought of the stuff I didn’t want to keep carrying with me. In a few moments there were 3 spots of wood with the number ‘64’ floating nearby, weird. I also put the flowers I found along with some seeds, a few saplings, and my apples. Actually I wanted the apples so I took them back out. I sifted through some of the items I got from the Players: an iron sword, a stone sword, a leather helm, leather body armor, iron body armor, two iron leg pieces, two iron boots, an iron helm, and what appeared to be a bluish diamond helm. The helms wouldn’t be a problem to fit to my head but the body and leg pieces were clearly made for somepony of their shape and not mine. This might pose a problem for me if I want to be protected from their attacks. My soldier instincts were telling me I would need to find a way to make my own versions of these if I wanted to wear any armor other than a helm and boots. As far as things that weren’t deadly or protective, there were a few tools made of iron too, I decided to keep those on me though. 
The last few things I had from them were some pieces of cooked meat. Curious as to the taste, since it would be hard back in Equestria to find time to eat real meat when you are always hiding out as a pony, which are obviously vegetarians, and back at the hive we mostly just ate emotions we managed to keep in reserve for when we were hungry. I took a bite, which means I ate the whole thing, and it was pretty good. This made me wonder how the fish would taste, but first they would need to be cooked. This seemed as good a time as ever to stop messing with the box and go check out the furnace.
I checked the furnace and felt like it was in need of fuel so I put a piece of wood in there hoping wood would be a good choice since it burned rather well in my world and I saw no reason for it to stop burning in this one. I stood there for a minute after I put it in wondering why it wasn’t burning. There didn’t seem to be anything on it or in it that would indicate some need for me to light them. Shrugging this off, I put the fish I had acquired in the other slot I found and instantly, almost like magic, the wood disappeared and a fire appeared in its place.
“Cool,” I said with a grin. After a minute the wood burned out but only a few of the fish were actually cooked, I put another ten pieces in there and hoped that’d be enough. The way things ran in this world my food would be done without any issues since these things were all apparently built with auto pilot functions.
I snatched the fish after they were done and ate one. Suddenly I felt like I should’ve tried them out back in Equestria, you know...after the other ponies killed, skinned, gutted, and cooked the fish for me so I didn’t have to. The chances they would do that, however, were pretty slim because, I said before, they were vegetarians. I only ate the one though since I knew I wasn’t really hungry and it’d be best to save them for another time when I was actually hungry and not just wanting to taste real food.
I took another look at the stuff in the chests, the ones I didn’t put stuff in anyway. There were bars of the white metal, iron, along with pieces of wool, a few weapons including a bow, a weird black block that looked rather mysterious and I felt almost compelled to look at it. I shook off the feeling and kept looking; I found some of those torches, like the ones outside, a few other things, and some black rocks. They looked like coal, and given my luck they probably were coal. I made sure to add everything I saw to my mental catalogue of items I’ve come across, for future reference, and went back to the cave.
The trio was still there. Seriously, what did they do that would require them to huddle in this small cave all the time? Anyway, I came to the entrance and coughed to let them know I was back. “Hey, I found some stuff from the Players that didn’t look like you could just find them on the surface. Where do they get this stuff? Is there some place you go and just dig this up?” I asked, half-jokingly.
“Yes Craft,” The Skeleton told me, “They often dig the ground and take what they want and expand using these materials. From what you said when they came here, it sounds like that’s what they were going to do with our cave.”
“That’s what they meant? They were going to mine the cave when they’ve probably got places like this closer to them?”
“That’s exactly what they were going to do. They were going to mine our cave and craft what they found. It’s what they do: mine and craft. They do this day in and day out, slaughtering animals for, what did you call it, sustenance. Then they make buildings and farms and trap the animals, waiting to coax them into mating for food that they would otherwise eat themselves. All while keeping us away with those horrid lights.” That last part I could swear he said while looking at my house.
“Really? They just do that all the time? That seems so...boring and empty! Don’t they have anything better to do?” The thought of mining and crafting all the time while hunting down defenseless animals just seemed stupid, and in a way cruel.
“What he says is true” The Creeper confirmed, “They also eliminate our kinds constantly, even when we pose no threat to them. After their advances though I must say that there are times when we feel we must try to stop them so we can live a little longer in peace. If they would leave us alone then maybe we wouldn’t always be fighting them.”
I thought about what they said for a minute and had an idea, “You said they were going to mine your cave and use what it had for themselves. What if I did that?”
“Craft, you want to mine our cave?” The Creeper said, a little anger slipping in his tone.
“Hear me out, okay? If I mine it for you guys then at least I’ll be able to set it up so that it won’t really seem all that appealing to them. There are bound to be things I can use down there to start a fight against them in a way where I actually stand a chance. With you guys I was able to hunt those three Players, but that’s because we caught them off guard. What if they come back and have more of them? What if they have better stuff? I need to be able to fight them off with something, don’t I?”
“He’s right Creeper. If we don’t let him do it then the Players will make their way in and just take over the area anyway. Plus if he does it then we’ll be sure to have more places to hold our brothers in case they decide to return. It is by all means advantageous for us and him.”
“Hmm, it’s true enough. Alright Craft, we’ll trust our cave to you. Just promise to keep those lights to a minimum.”
I grinned at them, happy to see that I could help and gather my own materials for future fights, “Sure thing, I’ll only use them as I feel necessary.”
*~*
A few days in a cave would make most ponies wonder why they hadn’t left yet. It might even make some lose all the bravado they had when entering the cave. That was me; I was lost and it sucked.
I used all my torches on the way down and somehow found a natural cavern underneath my hooves about three hours after I went in. The trio didn’t follow me down, fearing they would likely die from the fall. I assumed that anyway since I left them at the entrance and by no means watched to see if they had followed me or not. It was a good thing I had my food and there were waterfalls scattered around the many areas I ventured into.
Honestly my haul so far was pretty good. Plenty of coal, a stupid amount of stone from the cave obviously, and even some iron ore, which was shaped like a Celestia forsaken cube of all things. I just let that go though since the walls seemed rather generous when I picked at them. Most of my stone pickaxes I made before the venture were broken though and I was starting to have to use my iron ones. What I would’ve given for a map though, and maybe some light...wait, was that light?
Off in the distance I saw light, which seemed odd since this was a subterranean cave and had no business with its own supply of light. It turned out I should just learn that I don’t know what lies below the surface, no matter how much I believe I do, because there it was; it was an area of lava just sitting there like being a lake underground meant actually being thousands of degrees and made of molten rock. I decided it’d be best if I kept my distance from the lava but some of the monsters down in these caves weren’t so bright it seemed. One of the creepers fell from above and into the lava, burning to death and poofing away, leaving no trace of its existence to be found.
“Another one for the recycle,” I said to myself, knowing none of the monsters would be able to understand what I meant.
This was just like when I first woke up in this world. Alone, looking at things that confused me, wandering in places I wished I rather hadn’t, and seeing things I wished had stayed in my mind. Take this blob block for example, it was just bouncing around the area making some splooshy noise whenever it moved. I dubbed it a ‘Slime’ and moved on.
After a few minutes away from the light and I turned back, it was nice having the light around. I looked around the area lit by the lava and saw some dark blue blocks in the walls. I couldn’t really get to it since there was a pool of lava in the way. Since the blocks around it weren’t breaking and melting and doing other things stone should do when lava touches it, I figured maybe I could put down some of my own stone blocks and cross the lava pool. Yep, nailed that one. A few blocks later and I got to the blue block so I mined it out with the iron pickaxe and several pieces popped out, a few landed in the lava though and they burned up like the creeper. I grabbed what I could and got the buck away from the lava, scary stuff that lava. I made a mental note to avoid lava when I could and to deal with the darkness like I had so far.
I wandered for another few minutes then went ahead and broke past a wall of stone that had some iron in it. To my surprise I found an open area that looked like an actual mineshaft, it looked abandoned but still. There were torches set up, frames to keep the ceiling from collapsing, remains of cart tracks placed randomly around yet in a line if you connected them. Then there was...the sound of spiders? What were they doing in a lit up area like this? Whatever, I figured I might as well see if they could point a way out for me. I followed the sound and came across an area filled with webs. I tried to push them out of the way with my hoof but I got stuck or something, it was really tough getting out of the web. In the end I just cut it with my sword and collected the string it dropped. Somehow I felt cutting the webs took a toll on the sword, which seemed weird since it was my iron sword against a spider web, but that’s the way this world worked and I just let it go.
Finally, I found the spiders and found myself questioning what I saw. Their color wasn’t normal, instead of black they were more of a bluish color. They were also slightly smaller than the black ones.
“What the?” I said, rather confused. I shouldn’t have said that. They heard me.

> Cave Spiders
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The next several minutes were full of me trying not to be swarmed to death by these spiders; apparently they didn’t know I was supposed to be on their side. Either that or they didn’t know what sides were. Probably that one.
It really sucked trying to fight them while the area was covered in webs; I slowed down while they weren’t even flinching at its stickiness, which was reasonable since they were spiders. That didn’t stop me from hating every moment of that fact. My only fight so far was against Players, rational beings that thought and felt things I could relate to usually...maybe. This time I was fighting spiders that seemed rather rabid and primal. The worst part was they were poisonous, and I know that because one freaking bit me and I felt like I was going to die. I felt my life slipping away.
I finally managed to get away from the spiders, after killing at least fifteen of them, and I put a wall up to keep me safe from anything that would try to attack me. There was some light in the tunnels of the mineshaft but only a few torches here or there. I fought my urge to sleep, knowing that the poison would only be more likely to claim my life if I wasn’t conscious to fight it off. 
My training from the academy didn’t exactly cover poison attacks, which is reasonable since not many races out there actually used poison anyway, but I had learned from some doctors in the village I always sold my fish at that you could suck the poison out of a wound if it hadn’t spread too far. I guess there was a time limit or something because it wasn’t working. I swore out loud and came to the conclusion that I’d just have to wait it out and hope it didn’t kill me.
The next hour was like a hell I never wanted to experience. Take getting smacked by a force field of love and multiply that by getting yelled at by your least favorite teacher while you have a migraine and you get the idea of what I felt. The poison was there and I couldn’t stop the pain, the fear it instilled in me. After learning about what happened to monsters in this world, I was afraid that would happen to me too. Minute after minute passed by, feeling longer each time another passed, the pain felt like it would never end and would instead keep me on the threshold of death’s door. Eventually the pain subsided and I only felt weak and hungry. The hunger I could solve with food, but the weakness would only go away once I rested so I ate some fish and went to sleep.
In my sleep I dreamed once more, but this time it wasn’t about the past. It was another of those random dreams you would expect from experiences that freak you out. I got chased by some spiders and they took me to their nest and I got eaten by the leader.
I woke up in a bit of a fit. I knocked my head against the wall and almost broke it down but I could still hear them on the other side so I left it alone. I felt like getting up would suck but sticking around there would just turn out to be fruitless in my efforts to get out of this place so I stood and found that, even with my near fatal injury, I was ok now. Did food not only keep you from starving here or something? It was starting to seem like food was a replacement for even medical treatment. Maybe sucking my blood out really did do something...well I’d never figure that out unless I got poisoned again and there was no way in hell I’d do that again willingly so I’ll probably just let that bit of knowledge stay in the dark.
Anyway I started up and got to moving around and found that the mineshaft was pretty big. The thing kept going on and on, full of resources that I’m surprised were left alone after all the effort I assumed was put in to make the shaft. Plenty more iron ore for me though, hopefully enough to make a decent armory when I got back to my house. I even found a few gold ore spots.
Wandering around in the cave for this long was starting to make me feel pretty lonely; I missed having the trio around. I got to thinking to myself and then it hit me; if I dug down to get in here then why not just dig up? It can’t end up bad can it? And so I walked to a wall and just started digging a path upward, avoiding the occasional piece of gravel, one of the few pieces that actually acknowledged the existence of gravity.
I didn’t think I really fell down that far, but even so I couldn’t see my way up. Luckily I learned that sand was a good indication that you were near the surface from the Skeleton. Now I just had to hope it wasn’t under some water or I’d probably drown.
Finally I broke the surface and found myself on the other side of the village with that jerk golem, I knew it was because I could see my giant tree off in the distance. I saw the golem patrolling the village and told myself that I’d get my revenge soon...hopefully. It was definitely on my list of ‘things that must die soon’ but it wasn’t my number one after having fought the Players. They were a real threat and they had to be dealt with now.
I made sure to skirt around the village, keeping away from the golem so it wouldn’t attack me again. Thinking about that thing gave me phantom pains in my side. It was day right now so all the monsters were hiding or...well I don’t like to think about the other option. It was bad enough they would never be who they always were; I didn’t want to remember how they lost their memories. It just wasn’t fair.
Once I reached my house I went inside to make sure everything was safe. Chests were good, furnace was good, paintings a-ok, bed was comfy as it going to get at this point. Everything seemed in order so I put away my new materials and walked over to the trio.
I arrived at the mouth of the cave and heard a new voice talking with the trio. I could swear there were only those three who could talk so why would a new voice be here? I didn’t get close enough to make out exactly what was said, in fear of my discovery. I tried to sneak my way closer but that went out of the window when I sneezed and they stopped talking and Creeper came out and looked around to find out what the noise was. I stayed hidden and sat low off to the side until he went back inside.
Once I was sure I was safe to move closer I did. That’s when I heard the words for sure this time.
“Can you get the blocks he’ll need?” the Skeleton said.
“Hey Skel, no worries dude I got this. I can get you sand, gravel, iron, and even dirt. What kind of thing could you need me to get that would cause you to call me out in the middle of the day anyway?” the new voice said, a high almost squeaky voice.
“We need the master blocks, the black blocks otherwise known as obsidian. Can you do it?” Creeper spoke to the squeaky voice.
“Psh, never heard of a block like that but I will do what I can or I’m not a part of Ender Services.”
“Aren’t you the only one of your kind that really knows how to communicate with us?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m also the one who gives out the orders to the others since they haven’t regained their own awareness yet after the incident that threw us out here in the first place.” This new voice wasn’t from around here either? First it was me, then the Players, and now this squeaky thing? Were any of the beings around here from this place? I really needed to get a look at this thing.
I poked my head inside and saw a big black thing, taller than the others by a head and it had ridiculously long limbs, of course they were like stretched cubes though. Probably meant it wasn’t from where I was from though.
I took a step toward it, entranced by its appearance, and my hoof hit the stone harder than I thought. It heard the noise and turned its head toward me and spoke, “I’ve been spotted! Evacuate!” and with that it ran past me, or something like that. It left a trail of purple sparks...wait a second. Those were the same as the ones from the night of the attack at my house. I looked around for it but it was gone, a few wisps of purple leading far away from the area.
“Guys, what was that and why did it talk?” I asked them, still looking for the black squeaky thing.
“Welcome back Craft, we were worried when you didn’t return the first night” the Creeper said to me.
“Look, I’m glad to see you guys too but seriously, what was that? I thought you three were the only ones who could talk.”
“We would’ve told you about them but they don’t like to be known by things they might consider a threat” Skeleton said, “They’ve only been around for maybe the last few dozen days but that’s the only one that seems to be able to communicate like we do.”
I listened to him as he explained but my attention was split between listening to them and looking for wherever that...thing might’ve gone.
“I overheard you guys talking to it about finding a certain block, what was that about?”
The trio did their usual and looked at one another as though they could communicate by looking between them, something I honestly considered possible at this point, and then Creeper turned to me.
“We know you aren’t from here and yet we’ve only imposed our problems upon you. We thought maybe we would try to help you.”
“Thanks for that and all but, since you guys found me, all you’ve done is help me to survive in this world. The least I could do is make use of my combat training for something good for once” I said with a tone of sadness, one not lost on them.
“Craft, we did indeed teach you the skills to survive but it was only so that you would be ready to fight our battles for us.”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m here I’ll fight to protect you guys” I knew they were trying to divert attention away from the topic of the block, but I let it pass for now and left the cave. From what I heard, it was likely the block they were looking for was that black one in the chest. I’d have to check that out later but for now I want a nice nap. That cave took a lot out of me and I needed the relief of some good, restful sleep.

> Flint and Steel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After a quick nap that took up most of the afternoon, I put all the ores that made the furnace work into bars of metal. I knew iron would be for weapons and armor but I wasn’t really sure what good gold would do for me. I was sure I’d heard something about gold being a good conductor for electricity but so far this world only had lightning for electricity so I guessed that it’d just end up being some really fancy looking stuff in the end.
The blue stuff couldn’t really do much but get turned into a big block of the same color so I just put that back away and looked at some of the other stuff I had obtained in the cave.
Checking out the box, I didn’t see much variety in the stuff I’d brought back from the cave. Most of it was just stone, something I could always use to build something nice. That brought me to thinking of some of my ideas I had come up with back at the hive. 
I had at a time dreamt of building large structures with towers and such to help with keeping watch around the badlands, but that idea was always scrapped when I brought it up since it would just draw attention to the hive and would hinder our efforts to go unnoticed by the other, less friendly inhabitants of the badlands. I argued the uses of such towers would outweigh the attention they’d likely receive but Chrysalis’s head carpenter didn’t want to build anything that could give us away. He always said something about pooling our efforts for the hive and not on some silly useless thing or something, I usually would walk away from him at that point since he wouldn’t listen anyway. The last time I brought it up I actually received a demotion in the army for “trying to hinder the hive” as they put it. Took quite a bit of effort to get that rank back.
Snapping out of my daydream, that was causing me just a hint of annoyance, I continued looking at the chest like something was supposed to change in the three minutes I had spent just standing there. Nothing did though, but my eyes wandered back to the black block I had looked at before... exploring the cave below the trio’s hideout.
“If I’m right, this should be what they called obsidian,” I said aloud to myself. I stared at it for a few seconds and then the sound of a sheep “baa”ing in the distance snapped me out of whatever trance I kept having when I saw them. That really needed to stop happening and I didn’t even understand why I kept feeling like I wanted to just look at it.
Taking it from the box, I left the house and headed to the cave where the trio was undoubtedly having one of their famous campfire sessions, though there were no campfires that I knew of in this world.
“Hey guys, I think I have something I should have you...” I just stopped as they were no longer in the cave. This seemed kind of strange since they never really left the cave unless they needed to and I couldn’t think of a reason they would need to right now.
I walked around and found them staring into an ocean of water far enough away that I couldn’t even see the lights from my own house. “Hey guys, what’re you doing this far from the cave? I thought something might’ve happened to you.”
“Something did happen Craft,” Creeper quietly spoke up. In my silence he continued, “They have slain another several dozens of our kind today and again we’ve not been able to stop it.”
“How do you know that? You don’t exactly get out very often,” I said, rather confused by this random bit of information.
“We can feel their deaths, we always have been able to and we’re starting to reach our breaking points. All this death and what have they to show for it? They just attack with no real reason and always have.”
I just stood in silence, horrified at this revelation. They knew when they’re friends died, they could feel them die. I fed on emotions and I could always taste the sadness of a pony but the idea of actually feeling another’s death over and over just shattered me.
I sat down next to them and for a few minutes we said nothing. Finally I broke the silence, “Back in my world, my kind is hated. We have a freaky look and steal from others just so we can live on another day. We do our best to disguise ourselves in societies that don’t know what we really are, or at least we did. Most of my kind think only of what is best for our people and keep to the shadows, fearing that our discovery would lead to our demise.”
They listened to me as I continued. 
“We’ve always lived a constant life of fear and have hidden ourselves away in the most barren parts of the world. This made us a rather cold race and we’ve mastered the art of deceit just so we can provide for our swarm. Thinking on an individual level has always been discouraged and our queen keeps us on our toes trained as liars and thieves so we can keep surviving. We don’t really live in the sense that others do, in order for us to actually interact with the other races we have to put on a façade that the others will accept just so we can walk among them. They are wonderful when you get to know them, the other races. Especially the Equestrians, the ponies there are so kind, they live life to the fullest and rarely have to feel regret over their actions. They just give and give and all we do is take from them, all while we pretend to be them.” My voice started to rise in anger, “All I’ve ever wanted to do is just live their lives for even a single day but I can’t. I’m not one of them and they would never accept me as I am! They fear my kind because we are monsters!” I beat the ground with my hoof and sat in silence for a few seconds before quietly resuming, tears starting to fall from my face, “We are monsters and I hate it.”
Skeleton put his arm on my shoulder, “Craft, we know the pain you feel. We can’t live in our world without fear of the Players. From what it sounds like, your world is much like ours, a place where we must always hide to stay alive. You told me before that your kind lives off of love. Is that what you meant when you said you had to steal to survive?”
“Yeah,” I said rather dejectedly.
“How exactly do you do that?”
“We pretend to be one of them and over time we just take it.”
“Skeleton, please take Zombie back to the cave, I wish to have a talk with Craft,” Creeper said.
After a few minutes of silence, it was just the two of us and neither of us seemed like we were going to speak.
“Craft, do you regret your actions thus far?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked back, not completely sure what he meant.
“I am referring to anything you’ve had to do to survive in your world.”
“Yeah, I’ve always hated the way we have to live. We’re always stealing from the others and haven’t done anything to better ourselves in their eyes. I’m no exception to it either; I’ve taken their love and fed the hive so we could live on.”
“If you’ve truly felt regret over your actions, are you really a monster?”
I looked at him, somewhat surprised at his words. Looking back at the water I chuckled, “You know you are such a sage at times Creeper.”
“I am glad to hear you open up to us Craft. It was nice hearing about your world, even if it is a cruel place sometimes. Nothing is perfect after all.”
With this he left to go back toward the cave. The sun was starting to rise but I just continued to sit there and think about what Creeper had said. It was true that I regretted my actions but did it really make me any less of a monster than my comrades from the hive? There were few who ever expressed dislike for the way the hive operated and those who had had been brutally beaten until they were close to death and then thrown to the wastelands we chose to hole up in, left there for the beasts to devour them as though they were nothing more than scraps left by a master to his pet.
Eventually I got up and walked back to my house and saw wolves in the area, several of them and they weren’t alone. With them was a single Player, clad in full armor made of diamond.
‘No,’ I thought to myself, ‘Another one is here.’ I hid myself behind a tree and listened to the sounds of barking and saw him go into my house.
“This place is just sad, made of nothing but wood. Good thing wood burns so easily.” He said, leaving my house, laughing the whole time, “What a perfect place for the one who bled my men.” He pulled out an item I hadn’t seen before and moved his arm. Suddenly a corner of my house was set on fire.
I couldn’t take it anymore and ran out there yelling at the top of my lungs, “NOOOOOO!” which caught his attention and as I was about to stab him with my horn he dodged out of the way and wacked me in the back of my head with the butt of his sword.
The attack was spot on and I was slowly slipping out of consciousness when he spoke, “Interesting, that should’ve been enough to kill someone without armor. Looks like you’re going to be interesting.” 
His laughter was the last thing I heard before he wacked me once more with his sword, completing his efforts to knock me out.

> Iron Fence
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I took a few deep breaths as I approached the pony city of Mareland. It was a coastal city not far from Baltimare, only about an hour by hoof, and it was my designated place of infiltration. I’d been to about ten other locations, scouting for potential places of interest worth working at, and decided that this shoreline city was the one I would work with. As far as anyling in the hive knew, I chose this city because it had a more abundant amount of potential love that was just begging to be taken from those who would be foolish enough to just give it away, but the truth was it was just a quiet port city where those who lived there did what they love and many of them loved fishing.
I double-checked my disguise: brown mane flowing freely about four inches off my coat, lighter brown coat that resembled the inside of an oak tree, cutie mark with a tan hammer and two steel nails. Check, check, and check. I grabbed my folding chair in my magic and made sure the fishing rod was slung on my back with the rest of my fishing supplies. With this, I set off toward the edges of the city where civilization met ocean and began my day with the sun arching high in the sky.
Within a few days of being around, my skills had become noticed and I was invited to join a fishing crew where I would help repair nets when they tore as well as maintaining my own fishing rod as the day passed.
“Geeze Craft, how did we ever get anything done around here without you?” the captain said on his fifth day of being at sea with me.
“It’s nothing Captain Crest; it’s just what I do. I like making things and even earned my mark that way,” I showed off my false mark, one I had hoped would’ve been mine truly were I a pony.
“I can see that son, but that and fishing? It’s almost a surprise you don’t have two cutie marks!” Captain Crest laughed loudly, soon joined in by myself and the rest of the crew.
Once they returned to the shore, everypony separated the ship’s daily quota and the crew’s personal catches and everypony set off in their own directions. I decided to try the market, and on the way I was stopped by a pony wearing a dark cloak and a blindfold. I tried to shake her off but she held me fast and refused to let go.
“Ah, wh-what do you want?” I asked, annoyed and apprehensive.
“You are not as you seem, are you?” the mare spoke in a quiet voice.
I shook my leg free from her grasp and said in a quieter voice than even her, “What do you know?”
She leaned in and whispered into my ear, “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”
I looked at her confused and noticed everypony staring at me with hate and fear only seen in those who never saw the light in the darkness. I gasped and looked at myself, naked and exposed as the changeling body I was born with was free and uncovered. I panicked and tried to recover my disguise but my magic wouldn’t work. I tried to fly away but my feet were planted firmly to the ground.
I saw the mare approach and she lifted her hood, a white mane flowed down the side of her face and even though I couldn’t see her eyes I know she was staring at me.
“It doesn’t matter where you run, they will fear you,” she leaned in and whispered the second half into my ear and I screamed.
I woke up screaming and almost jumped up when I realized where I was. I was in that other world, the one where my magic didn’t work and I couldn’t take a disguise. I heard whispers and looked around, only to see iron bars set up around me, a gap between me and any of the bars in any direction. I looked down and suddenly wished I hadn’t. The ground below me was actually a small square just big enough for me to stand on and below that was a decent drop that would put me into a pool of lava. Fear overtook me as I looked around for anything that could help me but all I saw were Players, some wearing armor but most just standing around doing nothing but watching me.
I swallowed and attempted to speak over the fear that presently kept me from falling off the edge only moments ago, “Where am I?”
“It’s true, it can talk.” “What is it?” “I’ve never seen a monster that looked like this before.”
These among others were whispers that I managed to catch from the Players that chose to watch me like a beast in a cage, which I was in from what it seemed but I was no beast.
“Move! The leader wishes to speak with the monster!” I heard close enough and saw many move out of the way only to see a few Players approach wearing all iron with diamond swords and behind them was him, the one who knocked me out.
I moved to look in their direction and just sat there, staring him down.
“You don’t know how hard it was to move you here without killing you, monster,” he spoke with disdain in his voice.
“Gotta say thanks for the hospitality but where am I?” I managed to say without cracking my voice, barely hiding the fear I really felt. Sometimes it really helped having been a soldier; my training was the only thing that kept me from pleading for my life right now.
“You are in the only village still standing that hasn’t fallen to the throes of anarchy. I’ve come to call it ‘New Hope’ but you can call it ‘The Last Place I’ll Ever See’ because you’ll never escape as long as I see fit to keep you here, let alone alive.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, why did you keep me alive?” I really asked since that beating I took seemed strong enough to kill a normal denizen of this world.
With this he walked to the cage and spoke with what almost seemed to be an icy tone of hate in his voice, “The only reason you still stand is so you can stand trial for the murders of the three you slew that night.”
“What?” This caught me off guard. Didn’t they just respawn when they died? “What do you mean? They were trying to kill my friends and take my house! I was justified in my actions.”
“’Justified’? Hah, what does a monster like you know of justice? All you’ve done since we made contact was commit cold murder of three of my best scouts, and none them returned!” He practically shouted this at me.
“Sir, the others haven’t been told of their fates,” one of the soldiers pleaded to this leader of theirs as many in the crowd gasped and even a few started to whimper.
“Oh, is that so?” He turned and faced the crowd that had gathered behind him, “Look upon this creature everyone! This is the face of the killer of the three sent less than a month ago to survey the land for more resources that would’ve helped us stay alive! It is he and he alone who is responsible for the fact that you will never see them again!”
That got me curious and confused enough that I had to ask, “What do you mean? Don’t you all respawn when you’re killed in this world?”
He stopped moving and looked back at me, “Yes, the laws of this land find us worthy enough to keep around when we die, but this world has also seen it fit to provide the same for those monsters that hurt us time and time again. The world sees it fit to provide the same protection for those things you call your friends.” That last sentence he spoke with venom.
These were the Players the trio feared? Many of them wore nothing and instead wielded tools that were more likely used to farm the land and chop down trees. The few that could fight, however, were definitely ones who should be feared. They stood there at the ready and seemed much more prepared that the three that tried to take my house that night. The leader had been able to take me out in a single swing using just the butt of the sword, fear kept me from imagining what it would’ve done to me had he decided to strike me with the blade itself.
“What do you have to say about the murders you’ve committed against my people, thing?” his words snapped me back into focus and I realized he had called me thing.
“Ok, seriously, as far as I’m concerned it was your people who started all of this.” I spoke with irritation, “First they broke into my house, and then they acted like nothing was wrong right after I caught them in the act of home invasion. Not only that, but after I fought them in self-defense, you showed up and invaded my home as well and then burned it to the ground without the slightest provocation!” I was seething with anger thinking about my house again. It may have been a simple home but it was mine and nopony else had any right to do what he did to it. Period.
“You claim it was self-defense but they did not attack you first, did they? You claim I burned your home without provocation but in reality you set to attack me without hesitation!” he shouted back at me.
“What do you mean? I attacked you after you set my...” suddenly something clicked, “Wait, if they’re all dead then how do you know I did not attack them first?”
Clearly caught by surprise, he stepped back just enough that I knew he was hiding something but none of the others seemed to notice this, “How else would I know this, creature? You monsters are always about attacking without provocation!”
Sensing his hesitation, not literally sadly enough, I continued to speak back “Say what you will but you can’t actually know what happened without proof! Before I showed up I bet you never heard a ‘monster’ speak before, have you? I bet the idea of a ‘monster’ being on the same level as you Players just irks you to no end. Know this and know this now, I am NOT a monster. I am a changeling and I am not from this world, just as you are not from this world! I may not know how or why I got here but I can tell you that I am not here by choice, but since coming here I’ve only seen the prejudice I’ve come to despise from my world against those who are different come from one side and that side is yours.
“You claim to be just and that they are the monsters but I think you people are the monsters. You come into this land and destroy the beauty that once was this land. You saw fit to make this land yours, by your own will. You gave no choice or chance to those who already lived here before you and came down with an iron hammer, demanding the world and giving nothing in return. You are the monsters and deep down you know this.”
For several minutes I stood there staring him in the eyes, never wavering. Finally he moved and faced away from me, walking away.
After several steps he stopped and turned to me once more, “You know nothing of the world I came from, or the world this was before our arrival. Those things attacked us without provocation and for that they are the monsters. I will give you three days until your trial. Until then you are to stand over that pit and think of the actions that led to this moment. Good bye, Craft the changeling.”
With that, he was gone and I was left there to stand over a pit of lava that would incinerate me before I could even scream for help should I fall and a group of seemingly harmless Players staring at me with looks I couldn’t distinguish. Even with all this and the impending trial ahead of me, I could only ask myself one thing: how did he know my name?
> Cooked Porkchop
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Not long after the leader departed, many of the Players started departing as well. Several went back to their respective homes, others wandered off toward the sounds of animals in the distance. A few curious ones stayed behind and chose to watch me, like an animal on display in a zoo.
Most were shooed away by the guards told to remain and watch me themselves lest I do something stupid that should be punished. Even so, I too watched them as they went along what I assumed was their daily routines. One Player opted to watch from afar, close enough to see me clearly but far enough to not be noticed by the guards. Once I noticed him I just stared back. A few seconds of this and he realized I knew he was watching and walked away. I simply sighed and resigned to watching the village and its people for the remainder of the day.
A few hours later, I noticed a fish was tossed in and I looked around only to see the same Player who had been watching me earlier standing there motioning me to eat it. I became confused since after hearing what they thought about me I couldn’t comprehend why any of them would do anything like show me anything that could resemble compassion. Not wasting any time, I ate the fish and realized that it was the only thing I had. That could only mean they had my stuff, even that obsidian block. I scowled at the thought of what they might’ve done with my stuff let alone everything from my house after its inevitable demise by way of fire.
“Excuse me,” a voice spoke to me. I turned around in surprise only to find the voice belonged to the same Player who had just tossed me the fish.
“What do you want? Are you here to berate me for existing?” I said back to him with a tone that said ‘don’t bother me’.
“No, nothing like that. I wish to know about what happened that night,” he said without any of the tone of prejudice the leader had shown me when discussing the same topic, “I was the younger brother of one of the scouts sent out on the mission.”
I turned around and faced him, “You’re related to one of those people who just up and tried to steal my house. What could you possibly want from me? I suppose you want to see me dropped in this lava?”
“No!” he almost shouted at me.
“Then what do you want? I am responsible for his death along with the other two you know.”
“Yes, I know that. What I want from you is to know how you got here.”
“...What?” I honestly wasn’t expecting that.
“How did you get to this world?” his question left me dumbstruck.
“I have no idea honestly, but could you leave me alone. I’m going to die in three days and nothing I say will change that.” I slumped back down onto the block barely large enough to accommodate my size.
“Well I want to know.”
“Don’t you get it, kid? It doesn’t matter since there’s probably not any way for me to return anyway.”
After about ten seconds he started walking away and I closed my eyes to await my fate, “It isn’t true.”
“What do you mean it isn’t true?” he had my attention now.
“You there! Return to your home at once!” a guard came around the corner and saw us talking. The Player took a step backwards and ran away. I promptly sighed and went back to watching the village.
Around midnight or so I woke up from a nap I didn’t realize I even fell asleep for. The village wasn’t really dark, the sky was but the village was lit up with torches and that killed most of the shadows that had built up leaving only light in their wake.
“Well I guess I won’t be seeing any of my friends tonight,” I yawned and tried to go back to sleep.
“Good,” a voice said behind me, startling me. It was another of the guards, this one different from the last one I knew of.
“Yeah, real good. At least they didn’t treat me like some kind of freak. They aren’t bad you know?” I said just to see how he would react.
“Silence, monster,” he simply responded.
“Why should I? All you Players are the same ‘Oh the thing is ugly, it must be evil’,” I threw my hooves up in mockery, “No better than those bigots from my own world.”
“I don’t want to hear this from a monster. Your kinds have only shown us cruelty since we came here and nothing you say will change this,” it was obvious he was just another bigot.
“You sure are chatty for a guard.”
“And you for a monster.”
“Seriously, what the hell? You don’t even know me! What is with you people and your random hate?” I turned to him and looked him in the face, “I know about what happened when you got here, a creeper blew up and then everyone was like ‘Ah, they all must want to kill us’. I bet none of you even know what that even was.”
“’Know what that was’? It was an attempt on an innocent life is what that was, you cretin,” the guard spat at me.
“I bet that’s all you people ever tried to get from that. You want to know what that really was? That was someone cursed to explode from excitement who felt joy that there were new people to share a world with. That creeper never wanted to harm you or anyone I bet. Not even they knew that could happen.”
“And how would you know that?” the guard looked at me like I would never be able to answer his question.
“I know because I listened to someone who knew what actually happened. They knew what happened because they were there when it happened,” I looked at the guard with a look of victory.
“You learn your history from monsters and expect me to take it seriously, what a joke,” the guard laughed at me and we both just went back to doing what we were doing. I tried to sleep and he watched me while I did it, kind of creepy now that I think about it.
The next morning was no better than the day before. This time, however, there was no one trying to feed me so I was starting to get hungry.
Over in a clearing I saw a Player much smaller than the ones I had seen before, a child I assumed. It was trying to build something and was using sand instead of almost anything else and was being pelted by it when it fell. I couldn’t stay quiet since this was hurting me to watch as an aspiring architect.
“Hey, kid!” my voice caught it off-guard and it looked around until it spotted me.
“Are you talking to me?” he spoke, his voice slightly high pitched but definitely a male.
“Yeah, you know that you won’t be able to build a roof out of sand, right? It just won’t stay up, it keeps falling down and you can’t change that. I suggest taking some and using the table over there to make it into sandstone first, it looks pretty close to sand and doesn’t fall.”
The child did as I recommended and placed sandstone where he wanted his roof to be and laughed cheerfully, “Thanks mister monster!” he waved at me, the elation in his voice quite clear.
“No problem kid, and just to let you know I’m not a monster.”
He hesitated and corrected himself, “Thanks mister!”
I couldn’t help but smile until another Player came up and picked up the boy as he told who I assumed was his mom that he built something on his own, she was happy until he mentioned me. She then scolded him for talking to me, a monster, and he became sad and they walked away. Nothing like a bigot to dampen the spirits.
“You, monster. Your food is here,” a guard said to me around noon and threw in a piece of cooked porkchop.
“This is all I get?” I looked at him and asked, not really expecting even this.
“Be happy you get food at all, if I had my way you monsters would be gone from this world without a chance at respawning.”
I didn’t bother trying to argue with this guard, he was like a rock and my words to him were like a tiny ant trying to move it. I just sat there and ate my food. Then I heard it. The sound of something heavy not too far from me, I recognized this sound and immediately cringed at the memory. I looked around and saw it; an iron golem was here in this Player village. I should’ve known this was going to happen but I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to deal with another one.
My reaction didn’t get past the guard’s notice, “What’s this? The monster is afraid of a golem?” he laughed to himself.
“Yeah, laugh it up. I bet you’ve never been hit by one of those things before.”
“And you have, have you? I knew it, you are a monster,” he said with a hint of victory in his voice.
“Look, I’m not a freaking monster! I just-“
“Save it, they only attack what they recognize to be a threat and since we aren’t a threat to it and monsters are that can only mean you are a monster,” he cut me off and cut me deep.
The world thinks of me as a monster? After all the things I’ve had to endure, the world defining me as a monster was a crushing blow.
Not long afterwards the guard went on his rounds in the village, leaving me alone with my increasingly antsy legs. Being unable to move for over a day without threat of death made me really want to move, curse that feeling.
“Psst.”
I turned my head and saw the Player from yesterday come back to me and I got up and turned to him, “Yeah, what’s up?”
“I wanted to tell you there is a way to leave this world.”
“What do you mean? Are there portals that open up and suck you into other dimensions against your will around here too?” I asked sarcastically.
“What?” he looked at me, confused, “No, but there are portals that can be made that apparently are linked to other worlds.”
I looked at him, skeptical that he would actually come up to me and just tell me this for no real reason, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t believe you are a monster,” his words sounded sincere, “From the sounds of it, you didn’t come here willingly and you should at least have the chance to return to your world.”
“That may be, but how can I do that? In case you haven’t noticed I can’t exactly move anywhere or I’ll die.”
“Tonight, I’ll break you out when the guards aren’t watching. If it’s not asking too much I’d like to see your world too.”
I just looked at him like he was crazy, lucky for him I like crazy, “What’s your name?”
“For now you should just call me Com. If I remember right your name is Craft.”
I nodded and saw the guard coming back from patrolling the village, “Look you should go, I’ll see you tonight but I can’t see how you’re going to help me escape.”
He looked at the guard and turned back to me before leaving, “You’ll see, I promise.”
The rest of the day rolled around and around sunset it started raining out of nowhere. Getting soaked, I sat there and wondered how he would break me out. Until he came I couldn’t do anything but play the waiting game.

> TNT
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Rain. Endless rain. How in the world does this world rain so much and not saturate the ground? I guess I can just chalk that one up to the world being weird.
It’s been three hours since it started raining, two hours since night came, and twenty minutes since I saw a guard so where in the world was Com?
As if on cue, I saw him pull a trademark move of looking at me from behind a building. I sat there and stared at him, but he just looked around trying to see if there were any guards around. I motioned for him to come over but he kept looking. I was really getting tired of this rain.
“Hey guards! Come quick, I’m about to make my grand escape!” I shouted loud enough for him to hear me. To my amusement he came over and hushed me.
“Stop that!” Com whispered, “You don’t know when they’re going to be back.”
“Com, it’ll be ok. I heard one of them say something about taking a break during the rain since no one would be able to prove they weren’t at their posts. We’ve got time for this.”
“I hope so,” he said. Com pulled a block out and started mumbling under his breath.
“Hey, what’re you doing and what is that block?” I asked, curious as to this new thing. It was red and there were a couple of letters on the side but I couldn’t tell what they were in the rain.
“Huh? Oh, this is your escape route Craft. It’s called TNT and I’m going to use it to open the door.”
I took a look around the cage, “Com there is no door.”
“...Yet.”
“Come again?”
He put the block down and made a trail with some red dust it looked like, “I said there is no door yet.”
I saw a hint of crazy on his face; this was starting to seem off. While he was setting everything up for whatever the plan was, I tried to think of what he said. He called that block TNT and for some reason that sounded familiar, almost like something from back in Equestria.
“Craft, you may want to hold onto something,” Com’s voice sounded a little crazy now. I looked up and saw him behind a building with a lever in front of him, “This escape is going to be a blast!” he almost yelled that last part.
I began to fear my trust of this Player, but he was my only way out so I just held onto the wood box that’s been my home the last two days. TNT, where have I heard of that? I knew I’d heard of it somewhere and it’s here. Why would something from Equestria seem so familiar here? I racked my brain over this for a few seconds while Com kept laughing to himself standing over the lever. The laughter was really creepy. Wait a second... creepy, laughter, blast, there isn’t a door yet? If the chitin on my face could go pale, this would be the moment it did. He was using trinitrotoluene, more commonly known as TNT, an explosive.
I looked at him and wished I had waited for my execution to escape, but it was too late for that. Com flipped the switch, the dust lit up, and the TNT...shrank? That was odd, but it also started blinking. I had to guess that was bad. My answer came a few seconds later when the TNT exploded and part of the ground, wall, and dust trail were either floating on the ground or just gone period.
There was a loud ringing sound in my ears and I could see Com trying to tell me something, probably to get the buck out of there, so I tried to move but that blast threw off my equilibrium and I almost fell backwards. He took all the dirt he could from the explosion and made a path to me. Nudging me along the path, we could see that some of the guards heard the explosion and were coming to check it out.
By the time we got out of the cage itself I had recovered well enough that I could walk on my own without tripping over my own hooves, running wasn’t quite up to speed yet. I chuckled at my own joke only to hear Com yelling something about us needing to get away quickly while he set up some more TNT and another dust trail.
He set it off and I could swear I heard the crazed laughter of a maniac coming from him. I knew what that stuff would do and as such my adrenaline kicked in and I suddenly remembered how to run at full speed again. Com wasn’t too far behind me but it seemed like he was trying to watch the explosion while running and that was hindering his speed. The guards in the village chose to stay back and hide during the explosion and by the time everything settled down the village was at a distance and I couldn’t see them chasing us. 
We ran for a few more minutes before finally dropping to the ground in an area that had a lot of water and what appeared to be lily pads.
My chest was trying to fill itself with air and then depleting said air rather quickly, my chest rising and falling faster than my hopes that someling back at the hive would let me build something constructive and useful while still being discreet about where we were.
“What the hell was that?” I managed to say once my breathing stabilized.
“What was what?” Com asked back, a hint of apprehension in his voice.
“The whole explosion thing, and the way you were acting. It was kind of scary, but mostly creepy.”
He was quiet for a few moments before speaking up, “I really like explosions.”
“No kidding.”
“It’s weird; before I came here to this world I was afraid of even my own shadow, but now I love everything about the night, everything about the darkness and what it entails,” he told me, “It’s almost like I knew I would be safe if anything got to me, since we can respawn.”
“Well that still doesn’t explain your weird behavior back there. At first you seemed so calm and collected, like some kind of normal... being, but then you pulled out that block of TNT and suddenly you were like another person, almost like something flipped a switch on your personality.”
“I can’t help it,” he replied meekly, “When I deal with anything that explodes I get hyped up and crazy. It’s been like that since I got here.”
“When did you get here?” I was curious; the world was only about 1600 days old at this point.
“I’m not quite sure, but I’ve been here since the leader was here and he was here the longest. I know he’s been keeping track using blocks as a number system but I haven’t had the time to properly look at it.”
“If that’s the case then I have a good idea of how long you’ve been here but whatever.”
After a minute of silence he spoke up, “What about you?”
I thought about it and realized I hadn’t been keeping track of how many days actually passed so far, “I think about two months or so.”
“You sure haven’t been here too long.”
“Yep, after all this crap that’s been happening with you Players, no offence, I almost miss my old world. At least here though I don’t need to worry about starving.”
“Do you not have very much food where you come from?” Com asked, clearly confused.
“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know. You see, my kind doesn’t only need food and water. We need love,” I saw a look of confusion on his face, saw that one coming, “You see, my body is able to take emotions and eat them as though they had real form. I got a second stomach...thing for it too. Kinda cool now that I think of it.”
“You eat emotions?!” Com asked with what I could only think was fear. He even went as far as backing away from me. I didn’t try to deny it though since that was the gist of it.
“Yeah, but somehow it seems that I don’t need to here. Hell, I can’t do anything I should be able to do. Oh yeah, I can do more than eat emotions,” I added that last bit to try and get him to be more curious than scared. It worked.
“What else can you do?”
“Well, I can fly and use magic. Those are pretty standard where I’m from. What’s really cool is that I can also change what I look like, though that’s usually because I have to pretend to be someone else so I can gather love from them. I hated that part.”
“I know you said you eat it, but why do you need to gather love like that?”
“You saw how the Players in your village treated me back there; everyone thinks my kind are monsters or something. I mean, sure we eat emotions and have holes in our legs and wings that remind you of insects... wow, I am not helping my case.”
He just laughed, soon joined by me. After a minute of this we stopped and I looked around. It was night and there weren’t any lights but I couldn’t see any monsters close to us, in fact I couldn’t find anything near us at all. There weren’t any wolves, sheep, pigs, or cows.
“Com, this is weird, there’s literally nothing around us except trees and water.”
“That’s odd, we never razed this area. I can’t imagine why it’s so barren of life right now.”
“Can we get a move on, I don’t like this quiet, it’s just unnatural.”
“Agreed.”
We headed in the direction Com was sure I was brought from but found that the swamp, as Com referred to it as, was larger than we anticipated and the sun was starting to come up by the time we got to an area I recognized as the grasslands I lived in. I knew there were many areas that looked alike in this world though so for now I just hoped this was my grasslands.
“Hey Com, why haven’t the other Players come to stop us yet? I mean, we escaped the area and I’ve only got one place I would go so why haven’t we seen them yet? It just seems strange,” I wondered aloud to Com.
He was quiet for a few seconds but when he spoke he seemed alarmed, “If they know you’re coming back wouldn’t they want to beat you to your friends?”
I looked at him in horror and we both took off running, I spotted the village I knew I encountered early on in my time here which meant that the remains of my home, as well as my friends’ cave, were just a minute or so away from us.
When we reached the plot of land that I once called home I saw a sight that left me confused only for a few seconds before the recently constructed “it’s part of this world, just roll with it” part of my mind kicked in. My bed, chest, and furnace were just sitting there; the bed was floating though since it was on the second floor. I left Com behind for a second while I checked my boxes, and to my surprise they were still full of stuff. Why the Players didn’t take anything I don’t think I’ll ever know but that’s ok with me, I still had a ton of stuff here for making an armory and I intended to make it happen.
Com caught up to me and saw my stuff exposed to the world, “Was this your house Craft?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “But it’s ok, I’ll just make another one. This time it’ll be out of something that won’t burn, probably cobblestone.”
“Not a bad choice, it’s definitely a resource you won’t run out of anytime soon,” Com said, trying to cheer me up.
“Yeah, that’s true,” I sat there in silence for a minute remembering the good time I had just building my house. Feeling those feelings again would be worth having to make another house.
I got back up and headed toward the cave where the trio holed up in, but I told Com to stay back in case they tried to attack him. I knew they wouldn’t be happy to see him but I owed him the chance to gain their trust.
When I got to the cave I heard plenty of moaning and bones clicking against one another, then I looked inside and saw a small army of monsters huddled in the small cave. I wasn’t really sure why they were clumped together like that but I had a good idea.
“Creeper! Skeleton! Zombie! I’m back and safe!” I shouted over the sounds of the monster army. Silence was swift and soon they moved out of the way to make a path for me. I moved toward the back and saw the trio just standing there. 
Then Zombie ran at me and tackled me to the ground, “Safe... glad,” he said to me. The idea of a zombie being this close to me would’ve normally scared the hell out of me but he was just happy to see me so I didn’t complain.
“It’s good to see you Craft,” Creeper spoke up having found his voice after Zombie’s rather emotional reunion with me.
“Yes, we were getting worried something really bad had happened. We were even preparing to attack villages until we found yours and rescued you,” Skeleton said to me, surprising me that they would actually risk their own safety for my sake. That was more than could be said for almost anyling back at the hive where if you were caught you were a goner in their eyes.
“I appreciate the idea but it’s ok, I’m back and I’ve got something I need you to know,” I got their attention with that and told them of what happened at the village as well as what the Players were like. By the end of it night was starting to come.
There were a few minutes of silence when I finished until Creeper spoke up, “This is unprecedented, we were sure they all were hunters that would slay us at a moment’s notice. You say there were only a small number of Players there but most seemed harmless.”
“Yeah, I mean there were quite a few that looked like they could fight, less that looked like they had already seen real combat, but most of them were just farmers or miners trying to survive in a world that threatens their very lives should they leave the safety of their village. I even saw children; there were children in the village living what I can only call a normal life for them at this point.”
“What should we do Creeper?” Skeleton asked, sounding as though everything they knew was suddenly to be questioned.
“I’m not quite sure yet, we will need to learn more about this village and those who seek to live there in peace. Maybe in time we can hope for peace,” he spoke, still not sure exactly what should be done. Like Skeleton, his perception of the whole idea of Players was starting to feel skewed. It was clear the idea of Players being frightened for their own safety hadn’t been something they thought about.
The following silence was broken as outside there was a scream for help, one that I recognized as Com. I jumped from the ground and ran outside to the sight of several zombies chasing him down.
“Stop you guys!” I yelled as I ran toward the scene, “Don’t attack him!” The monsters didn’t seem to take heed of my words and kept chasing him down even though he didn’t try to fight back.
“Craft, help!” I could hear the fear in his voice as he tried to outrun the undead mob trailing behind him.
The trio caught up to me and Creeper spoke up, “Craft, what is this? Why does this Player know you and why aren’t you trying to slay him?”
“He saved my life and helped me escape the village so I could come back. Please call off the monsters!” I pleaded with Creeper, who contemplated my words before nodding toward Zombie.
“Stop... kindness... Craft,” Zombie spoke, louder than I had heard him before. Almost immediately the zombies stopped chasing Com and stood there as though waiting for the ok to attack again.
I ran to him and made sure he was ok before I brought him to the trio. It was plain as day that he was scared out of his mind, can’t blame him since he almost got swarmed by zombies, but seeing that they weren’t going to attack gave him a little peace of mind.
There was a bit of an awkward silence that followed. It lasted longer than I had hoped it would and it was borderline annoying after about a minute.
I coughed and spoke up, “Um, guys this is Com. He’s the one who got me back here in one piece and says there is a way to get me back to my world.”
This got their attention and I nudged him to speak, “Oh, um, yes... it’s like Craft said. There should be ways to make portals that will take any that travel through them to another world.”
Creeper spoke up, “Do you mean the portal made from the black rock, obsidian?”
“Yeah, but how did you know about that?” Com asked, confused.
“We have spent our entire lives here, but the idea of this portal never meant anything to us since we can’t travel through it ourselves.”
“Wait a second,” I interrupted, “You mean that you knew there was a portal thingy and it would take me out of this world and you didn’t tell me? Why the hell didn’t I know about this?” I really felt like I should’ve known about this earlier and it was frustrating that they kept it from me until now.
“Craft, you must understand that it wasn’t certain what would happen should you use it. Like I said, we will never be able to enter it if it were ever made.”
“What he means is that we’ve never even seen it let alone know how it’s made, we just know a portal exists that should be able to lead someone away from this world if they went in it,” Skeleton said seeing that I was upset.
“You still should’ve told me about this at least. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have still been willing to help us if you knew there was potentially a way for you to leave this world?” Creeper whispered, looking at me in the eyes.
I held his gaze for a few seconds and walked away toward the area that once held my home. The trio just stood there for a moment before talking with Com, but I didn’t catch any of it and instead started working on my home once more.
Like last time I made it fifteen by fifteen by ten, but this time I added in a basement by digging into the ground and I lit it up with a few torches I made from sticks and coal I had in the furnace. I figured if nothing else the basement would serve as a nice place to put my armor and weapons, though I still had to figure out how I’d make armor that would fit me since there was no way the normal Player armor would work. By the time I finished recreating my home it was daytime and all the monsters were in their caves or...gone.
“Craft,” I heard Com call for me while I was working on figuring out my armor issue. I came up to the door and saw him standing outside, “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” I let him in and he looked around, “So what did you and the trio talk about last night?” I asked, still miffed that they would withhold information that could get me back to my world from me. I might not like what I had to do there but it was my world.
“We were talking about how we might start on making the portal, none of us have actually seen the portal and only heard of it from...well, we weren’t really sure about where any of us had heard of it. It’s like we just knew for some reason. I can guess that they knew because they’re from this world, they mentioned being here before us but not being able to remember anything in particular.”
All I did with this was continue to work on the basement, setting chests and a furnace up near my crafting table.
“Craft, I haven’t been here long but it really seems like they care for you.”
“If they cared about me so much then they should’ve at least told me about the portal. I do want to get back to my world,” I said with a neutral voice.
“Craft, think of it from their viewpoint: an opportunity to potentially rid themselves of the thing that constantly has plagued them since they can remember shows up and wants to leave. Yes they have an idea of how to return a being back to where it belongs but they don’t even know how reliable this idea is. They have no clue what will happen, you might not even be able to use the portal if it doesn’t work for them.”
I sat down on the ground and sighed, “Com, I get that they need my help but they kept this from me. If I’m so important to them then shouldn’t they have at least considered my feelings about how much I just might want to go home? After all the time I’ve spent here I really am starting to feel homesick, even if home is just so painful when I’m there. I’m torn between staying here, alone, for the rest of my life trying to help them stay alive by fighting Players, that includes you, and finding a way back to my world so I can at least be with the ones I love. 
“If I stay here I don’t have to pretend to be somepony else but if I go home I can get back to my family, my hive. Don’t you miss your world?” I asked him, needing to know how he felt about all this for some reason.
“Craft, I do miss my world but I don’t think you should hold it against the...trio for not telling you. They told me they were going to tell you but hoped that before they needed to that you would be able to help with their situation. I heard what you said to the leader back in New Hope, we are monsters. I came here with the leader and saw the world as it was. It was plain, simple, and peaceful, but you know what must be done. I know you’ve done it too, cut down trees and dug into the ground for resources so you could keep going. That’s what we had to do to survive. It’s because of our actions that your trio felt the need to eliminate us Players from this world. Maybe if we work together you won’t need this little lair you’re making, we might be able to come to a peaceful resolution.” He looked me in the eye, “If we can come to this conclusion then we won’t even need to keep you here. Then we can work together on making that portal to get you home.”
I was silent for a few moments taking in what he said, the chance for peace... something I’ve wanted back home for a long time. I could be instrumental in helping this world achieve peace, and if I could do that here then maybe I could do it back home, “I want to help them Com, I really do. If I had to choose between bloodshed and a simple talk to resolve our problems I would choose peace in an instant. But they didn’t trust me to choose to stay, that’s what I’m mad at them for right now. I was true to who I am and still I wasn’t trusted.
“Remember how I told you my kind changes our appearance back home? That was the only way we could gain trust with anyone not of our own kind. Then I came here and couldn’t change my form. No one has ever trusted a changeling before because of our deceptive capabilities, but here I can’t change and off the bat there are these three beings that see me and when I tell them what I had to do in my world they still trusted me. Now that I’ve finally gained some form of a chance to help their lives in a way they probably could’ve never imagined they’ve shown me that they never trusted me to begin with.” I strained to keep a straight face, and I was failing, “Com, I gave them my trust and thought I had theirs. They’ve betrayed my trust. I was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end.”
And then came the slap across the face I didn’t think I’d ever receive. Com slapped me across the face and spoke with a tone I couldn’t place but made me feel terrible, “Craft, you are the single most important thing they’ve come across since they can remember I bet. They clearly want peace and you’re the only one who can help them achieve it but instead you’re worrying about a trust NOT broken. Don’t interrupt Craft. I’ve only known them for hours but I can tell you that they want to help you. If you can help them with this problem now then they can devote their time with helping you. From what I saw they probably gathered as many of their companions as they could fit in that cave just to form a search party for you. If that isn’t friendship and caring then I don’t know what is. They were even prepared to wade through the water during the day just so they could come to the village once they found it, even if it meant that they’d have to leave the water to keep on your trail.
“I dare you to walk out there and tell them that risking their lives for yours isn’t trust in your capabilities to help resolve their problems. They trust you with their lives Craft, the least you could do is trust them enough to help you when this is all over.”
It never occurred to me that they would think of me this way. Yes I was a tool in their plan to make the land peaceful again but it wasn’t because I was a tool that they wanted me, it was because they felt I could make a real difference for them. They trusted me with the one thing they couldn’t do alone and now I might not have to do what we originally thought, there might actually be peace. I let my personal feelings from back in the swarm get in the way and almost ruined the trust that I had made with them because they didn’t tell me about a portal that I could’ve taken and left them to their own fates. If I had gone ahead and taken that portal then I would’ve been the one to have betrayed their trust.
Tears fell against the ground as I felt the gravity of everything hit me: it was I who was at fault; I went and almost ruined the one friendship that actually meant something here. I could mean the difference between them being able to live freely again or suffering under a fear that might not need to be but instead all I was doing was feeling sorry for myself because going home would be delayed.
“I’m sorry Com.”
“Don’t tell me that, let them know,” his tone softened up and I looked at him, “but first you may want to clean up because you look like a mess.”
With that I went outside and splashed myself with water and floated around in the water for a minute before getting out and heading to the cave where I found the trio standing around with their heads toward the ground. I know this is random but I wonder if they can sit.
They saw me and Skeleton began to speak, “Craft, I know it seemed like we were delaying you but I swear we didn’t want to hurt you.”
“It’s true Craft, we knew of the portal for a long time but we didn’t want to get your hopes up in case it did not work for you,” this time it was Creeper.
“Sorry...Craft,” even Zombie apologized. If only he could speak in more complete sentences I’m sure he’d have his own drawn out apology for me too, but I wouldn’t need it.
“No guys, it’s me who should be apologizing,” I said without facing them, “I was being unfair toward you. I know how much this means to you and I thought about it, if I had known about the portal beforehand I probably would’ve tried to make it and test it out. If it hadn’t worked I would’ve been mad at you for getting my hopes up and smashing them in an instant, and had it worked I would’ve been betraying your trust. I know I can help you guys with the Players and knowing about the portal would’ve only made me less likely to actually help,” I kept looking away from them, now looking out of the cave.
“It still was not right that we withheld what we knew about it, we were wrong. Can you forgive our mistake for not thinking you would help?” Creeper walked over to me and looked at me, then Skeleton put his limb on my shoulder soon followed by Zombie.
“Yeah, I can. I’m sorry for thinking that you didn’t care for me, I’ve been used as a means to an end my whole life and I guess I just slipped back into that thought process when I found out you knew about the portal. I shouldn’t have been so quick to think you wouldn’t help me down the line.” 
With that I stepped forward and looked at them all, “Now enough about this, Com and I have come to the conclusion that between me, him, and the three of you we may be able to make peace with the Players. Would you be willing to consider it?”
“Peace with the Players?” Creeper said with a tone of curiosity, it was something that had obviously never been considered. Even our talk yesterday seemed more like a pipe dream until now.
“Craft, can such a thing be possible?” Skeleton spoke to me with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Why not? You’ve given Com a chance and he hasn’t tried to kill you yet, he didn’t even try to harm the zombies who chased him when we got here. If we can prove that you aren’t necessarily something they should fear then maybe there is a chance. Shouldn’t we at least try for it?” I threw the question out there hoping they would take to the idea. There were looks exchanged between the trio, at least I assumed it was something like that since they all only had a single look to their faces, and after several seconds they looked back at me.
“If the Players are willing to give us a chance then I can’t imagine why we would need to fight anymore. We are for this idea,” Creeper told me in a voice of approval.
I grinned at their decision and trotted back to my house happy that peace was starting to look more and more likely but the hardest part was still to come. We would have to go back to the village that caged me and we’d need to convince them to talk with the trio without trying to kill them. That was going to take some effort.

> Wheat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	While peace with the Players would be nice, the first thing we needed to know was how to get their attention without putting the trio at danger. I mean, what if this goes bad? Without the trio there the worst would be Com gets killed and respawns, maybe I die too and we see what happens to me but I don’t want to think about that. If we brought them too then they might die and lose themselves from the respawn. I don’t think I could live with that. For now I decided that Com should teach me a few things about living here, like farming and breeding animals. 
He looked at me and chuckled lightly, “You haven’t learned how to farm yet?”
I looked at him and plainly stated, “Nope, kind of just been eating fish and a few pieces of meat. I did get to eat some bread after my house was attacked though.”
“Well, I guess now is as good a time as ever to learn. I know you don’t have any experience in farming but luckily it’s not that bad. All you need are some seeds and a hoe.”
He showed me how to make a hoe and till the ground. After that it was as simple as planting the seeds in tilled ground where enough light would reach it and give it time. No wonder he laughed at me, this was too easy and I never thought of planting the seeds the same way I planted those trees... well, actually I had but I didn’t know you needed a hoe. I really didn’t have any experience with this stuff.
Since apparently those seeds were the only thing I had and could actually plant and get anything from, we moved onto breeding animals.
“Alright Craft, this one is pretty simple too. All you need is to breed is a pair of animals that are the same kind and the right food related item. Most of the animals are vegetarians so you have to use wheat,” Com explained while I made sure I had wheat on me. I used some to make more bread but I made sure to have some spare wheat when we finished farming for the time being.
“So I’m guessing that everything takes wheat?” I asked since he made me keep some.
“Nope, I said most were vegetarians. If you want to breed wolves you need-“
“You can breed wolves?” I interrupted him. Seriously, if I could breed wolves, everything else was moot. An army of wolves, who wouldn’t want that?
“Um, yeah, you can. Anyway, to breed wolves you need meat of some kind. We’ve never tried fish though, just regular meat from cows and pigs.” He looked over to where the cave was and added hesitantly, “You can use zombie flesh too.”
I’ll admit that miffed me a bit that they would do that but since they never thought of the monsters as much more than mindless creatures I can’t say I was all that surprised.
“Have you ever used zombie flesh to breed wolves?” I asked him with no tone of judgment...I hoped.
“No, I wasn’t supposed to deal with wolves. The only ones allowed to have them were the guards and the leader.”
We spent the next few hours luring and trapping the various creatures that called the grasslands their homes. I even got to design pens to keep them in too, that was pretty fun. The idea of breeding these animals seemed really awkward though having met and had pleasant conversations with cows during my time in Equestria. They didn’t mind having friendly conversations but the bulls were a little...possessive. If they even thought you were looking at their mates they would turn an otherwise nice day into a game of dodgebull. Not a good way to spend the day, trust me.
When I bred them though I could only think of one word to describe the babies. Adorable.
That night I made another bed for Com so he could crash at my house for now since he didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go. We just laid there in our respective beds and I was thinking of home. I wondered how the hive was doing since some of us were blasted through different portals. I know she was one of them. My best friend...my most respected ally...my...my...
I sighed. I wasn’t even sure what she was to me at this point. I knew her since even before the Academy. We even grew up near the same section of the hive.
“Garnet Fury.”
“What was that Craft?” Com asked having overheard me.
“It’s nothing Com,” I lied. Thinking about my home got me curious though, “Hey Com, what was your world like?” That caught him off-guard.
“Huh? My world? Um, well it was a nice world I guess. It had grassy areas like this one and plenty of water.”
“Wow Com, sounds fascinating,” I said sarcastically, inciting a small laugh, “Seriously though, what was it like where you were from?”
“Well, I lived in a village where most of the homes were made of stone. Some were wood, but that was usually when stone wasn’t affordable to the family living there. I grew up with my family in a stone house and my brother would often scare me when I wasn’t looking. I was always fascinated by the animals that lived around the village though. If it weren’t for the barriers I’m sure I would’ve never made it past my tenth birthday,” he gave a somewhat forced laugh with that.
“What kind of creatures were there?” I asked with serious curiosity.
“Well, we had things called abadas. They were like unicorns but they had two horns that were crooked and their tails looked like a boar’s tail. We had unicorns too, pure as the clearest skies. They were always white but whenever you saw one you couldn’t help but feel like someone was blessing you with its presence. We did have our share of nasty beasts too. 
“Kalthites were one of the nastiest ones. They were the only ones that lived near our village capable of breaking the barriers. Our barriers were only supposed to allow people and whatever living thing they happened to be touching at the time to pass through but kalthites had this ability to pass themselves off as dead long enough to fool our barriers sometimes. The big problem with that was that kalthite meat was a rare meat that our strongest hunters had trouble getting since most of the time the only way you could truly guarantee it was dead was to cut their heads off, which would also speed up the decaying of their bodies.”
I gave him a look of awe that also said ‘I have no idea what that thing is but it sounds awesome.’ The way he spoke though made me have to check something.
“The way you talk about it makes it seem like your world doesn’t exist anymore.”
He sighed, “It doesn’t.”
What? “What do you mean ‘it doesn’t’?” I had an idea but that was just horrible.
“There’s a reason we’re here Craft. My people had been able to use portals before in order to quickly travel to other villages. We had to, otherwise the only ones who’d be able to leave our individual villages would’ve been the caravans and soldiers passing through as well as the hunters.
“We began experimenting with these portals, trying to figure out ways to create pocket dimensions where we could store perishable things like meat and snow for when we needed it later. Unfortunately we succeeded in a way we didn’t know was possible. We made a portal to another world. This world seemed beautiful, the creatures were docile and the land was rich with minerals and foods we never saw before. As we experimented more and more we found even richer worlds, but every right has a wrong and one day we found a dark world, full of evil. We tried to shut the portal and destroy it but these things were powerful.” I heard his voice cracking.
“Craft, these things forced open our portals and began to ravage our world from the only places we had considered safe. The only place that was safe was the capital city where they hadn’t permitted portals to other worlds for this exact reason.” He looked at me and spoke softly, “My parents didn’t make it. My dad tried to get his hands on a portable barrier stone during all the chaos so we could escape to the capital city but right as we were getting ready to leave he was stabbed by one of their cruel blades. I remember his voice as he told my mom, brother, and myself to run. It was full of anger, sadness, and a pain that went beyond his physical injuries. I don’t know exactly how long we ran but when we arrived we were ushered to the palace where the remaining mages, including my mom, managed to make one last portal with the intent for us all to escape, and we did.”
“Can’t you go back? Can’t you make a portal and go back to take your world from those things?” I asked, on the verge of tears myself. We changelings have suffered isolation from the rest of the world, but I don’t think any race anywhere in my world had to go through something like that before. I don’t even think the pony princesses had to deal with that, and nopony has any idea how long they’ve been around, not even Chrysalis.
“No Craft, we can’t. When we left, none of the mages followed since the only way to ensure that we were safe was to close the portal themselves so the things couldn’t get a trace on where we were. Hell, even WE didn’t know where we were going to be honest. At that point though anything was better than what had become of our own world.”
I was broken by his story; the only thing that I could even say right now was “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok Craft, there’s nothing you need to be sorry for. What passed has passed and nothing can change it. Come to think of it though, that might be what gave me the idea of you being able to get back.
“Enough of this sad talk though. What about your world Craft? What kind of creatures does your world have?” his voice told me he was still shaken up about what happened to his world but wanted to move on so he didn’t have to keep remembering the pain.
“Well, a lot of the creatures in my world I have no idea about to be honest,” I chuckled lightly, “There are more than I could hope to remember but I know of a few that are little more than animals, like the manticore. It has the face and body of a lion with a scorpion’s tail and draconic wings, although I don’t think they can fly. Then there’s the cockatrice, it has the head of a chicken but that’s just a front, it also has a very long snakelike body and is capable of staring anything that looks into its eyes into stone.”
“Those sound pretty bad.”
“They can be, especially if you can’t give them a reason to leave you alone. There was something I heard from a...another member of my hive that somepony managed to outstare a cockatrice before. Whoever it was actually managed to make the cockatrice cower and broke the stone spell its eyes cast on themselves and a friend of theirs, but I don’t know if I believe it. He wasn’t one of the brightest members of the hive.”
“Do you think anyone could do it though?”
“Honestly I’m not sure but I don’t think I’d want to test it though.” I shuddered at the thought of coming face to face with a cockatrice on my own.
For a little longer we stayed up and talked about things like foods from our worlds, the pain slowly disappearing from Com’s voice as he remembered the times he had with his family before they had to flee. The guilt I had from having killed his brother was starting to eat me up and I had to say something or else I was sure I’d go mad.
“Com, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok Craft, it’s like I said it isn’t your fault.”
“No, this one is. I killed your brother. Why don’t you hate me?”
There was a short silence followed by a sigh, “I don’t know Craft. I know I should; he was my brother and I know you killed him. Normally we would just respawn, but when the others respawned he wasn’t with them. I don’t know what you did that prevented him from coming back with them but he didn’t and it was your fault, but I don’t hate you. I guess I’ve just come to some level of acceptance that I would lose him too at some point and this is it. He’s just...gone.”
His voice didn’t even carry a real tone to it as he spoke, instead it sounded like it was something he had come to terms with a long time ago. It was as though the loss of his brother was something he had expected to happen since the loss of his world.
“Your leader said that none of the scouts came back. The way you talked about it makes it sound like only your brother didn’t make it.”
“That’s strange, I saw them respawn,” he said with a surprised tone, followed by a thoughtful one, “I wonder why he would say that when he sent them to the barracks.”
There was another short silence, funny how those things happen, and there was one last thing I wanted to know if he knew, “Hey Com?”
“Hmm?”
“How did your leader know my name?”
He sat up and looked at me, “What, didn’t you say it while you were talking to him?”
“No, I only said I was a changeling. I never mentioned my name.”
“Maybe the other scouts overheard your name being said before they respawned.”
“That’s what I was thinking too but when I think back to that night nothing comes up in my head about my name. The two that made it back never heard my name; Skeleton actually avoided using my name when he came to my house that night.”
“...Craft I think I know why he knew,” he said with a tone of realization.
“What, was he spying on me or something?” I asked jokingly.
“Actually yeah, that was what I was thinking. I think just maybe that my brother and his scout friends actually might’ve been sent because of you.”
“But how is that possible? I had only been there for a short time when they showed up. How would he have even had an idea that I was even there?”
Com thought about it, “I don’t know. Maybe it was a fluke. What if he wasn’t after you at all?”
That one got me, I honestly had nothing.
The rest of the night was silent and in the morning I went outside to check on my wheat plants as well as my animals. I saw a few patches of wheat that were almost done growing last night were missing or in an earlier stage of growth than they should’ve been. Weird.
Walking back to the house I saw something off in the distance, something that saw me too and hid from me behind a few trees. I ran after it and managed to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be an arm before he disappeared from sight the way only this world could manage. The short look I had, however, was enough and I knew how they knew my name now. Between the scouts, the lack of anything in that swampy area nearby, and the fact that the leader didn’t tell the village about their respawn, there was only one reason that made sense.
Com was right. They weren’t trying to track me, but they found me. They might’ve even been nearby when I came to this world, but why? Why would they come around here? That scouting party said they were going to use my house for mining, but the trio said their cave was the only one for a long distance. If they were making it a mining house then they were going mining. If they were going mining then the trio’s cave would be their most likely chosen place to mine. And if they were sent to mine that cave then that meant they were sent to find where the...
And then I made four and it hit me.
“The trio!” I yelled, realization having set in. They wanted to find and kill the trio.

> Crafting Table
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Forget walking, forget trotting, forget cantering, I was galloping at full speed with fear in my heart for what the Players could be doing to the trio if they were there. Scenario after scenario ran in my head for the short journey to the cave from the forest near my house and no matter what happened I came to the conclusion of the trio not making it out of there alive. This was all just speculating that the Players were already there. If they weren’t there then I’d have time to prepare for their arrival.
When I got to the cave I saw them there, safe for now. Creeper was the first to notice me.
“Ah Craft, we’re glad to see you here. We wanted to know-“
“No time! I think they’re coming!” I exclaimed, trying to not freak out about the possibility of an attack during the day. At least during the night we would have the possibility of the monsters being able to help us, but since it was day there was no real chance of that. The only ones that could roam around during the day were the other creepers but they wouldn’t be too effective as an army since they can only fight by exploding, killing themselves and maybe other allies nearby.
“What?” Any sign of happiness and peaceful joy was now gone from Creeper’s voice, “Do you mean the Players? I thought we were going to try negotiating peace with them.”
“I want to do that, but they know where this cave is,” I let that sink in for a second before continuing, “I think they’ve known since before I even got here.”
“What makes you think that Craft?” Skeleton asked.
I took a deep breath and began my explanation, “Remember when they came and tried to take my house? I originally thought they wanted it just for mining. But now I think they already knew the cave was here because when Com and I escaped the village there was a swampy area that had nothing around it, almost as if it was recently abandoned.”
“I don’t understand Craft, how does this mean they knew?” Creeper asked, the other two presumably just as confused.
“And why would they abandon it if they were using it for something? I assume it was nearby with a good enough view of this area if they were using it to find the cave,” Skeleton added.
“That’s the thing, they’ve known since before I got here. That’s more than a month of just waiting, but the question here is ‘why?’ If they knew the cave was here and had the power, will, and ability to fight, and maybe even win, then why would they wait? Also why would they take down a station they built for keeping tabs on your area when they haven’t actually done anything with you yet? I thought about it and I think it’s because they only knew the general area until I came here. Interacting with you guys has given them a better idea of where the cave is since I come and go constantly and have a house nearby, not to mention I stand out rather well in this world. My guess is that since I’m practically a beacon to where you live that they no longer needed it and they took it down, but that probably didn’t happen until they caught me.
“Aslo, when they came and tried to take my house, we killed his men and not all of them returned to the place they were supposed to. Their leader told me none of them made it back but Com said only one of them didn’t make it back.”
The trio stood around in thoughtful silence before Creeper spoke up, “This is strange; how can you be sure that the last didn’t actually respawn too?”
I took a look at my house and returned my gaze to the trio, “I trust Com, that’s how. Anyway, we’re off topic. If it was just the swamp I would’ve been more likely to pass it off as weird, this whole world is weird to me anyway, but just a few minutes ago I saw a Player running away off in the forest near my house and I think he was taking a final check to confirm where the cave was.”
“Craft, how do you know this means they know? I mean, couldn’t it just be a big coincidence?” Skeleton asked.
“No, I don’t think it was a coincidence. One thing I learned from my time serving Chrysalis was that coincidences are just conveniently planned events to get your attention. This is one of those times I thank her for those harsh lessons.” 
I took a moment to remember some of the harsher training missions we had to go through, one of the worst was the time she led my squad to a watering hole and took a drink from the lake only to have us do the same. It turned out that she put laxatives in the water and had expected us to figure out who was responsible. Nopony was able to pass that test at first because accusing the queen of harming the hive in any way was normally so close to treason you could practically taste the magic beating you in the face from her personal guard just thinking about doing it. It took a week before somepony got the guts to finally say something about it and he immediately got promoted on the spot for willingly accusing her when she had threatened us before the mission with guard duty out in the middle of the badlands should we question her leadership. She said he was the first to see through her deceit, and call her out on it, in over 300 years.
I shuddered and shook the memory away, “Also the leader knew something he shouldn’t have. He knew my name.”
“I don’t understand Craft, how is this reason for suspicion?” Creeper asked.
“Because there’s no reason he should’ve known. When his scouts came here, I never said my name. When Skeleton came to my house and talked to me, he never said my name. Even so, he knew my name. That means he must’ve learned it from the only way that makes sense. He’s been spying on you guys since before I got here and his scouts heard my name.”
Suddenly it seemed like they understood the gravity of the situation.
“Oh my, it seems we underestimated them,” Creeper whispered. I had the feeling that if he had arms or forelegs he would’ve put his head between them while they held his head up.
“Craft! Craft, help!” I heard Com shouting from the direction of my house.
I ran out of the cave to see what could be wrong but what I saw was worse than I thought. There were ten Players, each clad in iron armor and each wielding diamond swords. They had surrounded Com against the walls of my house and one of them was barking orders to the others. This one, along with 3 others, walked into the open field that was my front yard and began shouting.
“Craft the changeling, we know you can hear us. We have your friend, the traitor to mankind, Com in our custody. Come to us immediately with your monster friends or we’ll be forced to slay him and destroy your house, then we’ll come for you and those beasts you keep for company.”
The sight of all this sent me through a few phases, each lasting a few seconds each. First was shock, next was fear, and finally I was enraged. This last one stuck around and I spoke quietly to the trio in an authoritative tone, “Guys, stay here. I’ll handle this.”
“But Craft, his instructions were-“
“No,” I cut Creeper off with a single glance. I must’ve surprised him with the sheer rage planted across my face because he took a step backwards and nodded.
With all my rage kept in check by my wish to keep Com from dying, especially since it meant that he’d be even more at the mercy of the Players than he currently was, I slowly walked toward the group of soldiers with a deceivingly calm mask. I knew the fate of a traitor, killed if mercy was factored in, tortured if it wasn’t. Mercy was something that Chrysalis didn’t have for traitors; I didn’t want to test the Players on this.
When the soldiers noticed me they stood in a wide line, separating me from the others that held Com down.
“What do you want, Players?” I spat the last word out as though they were the traitors.
“Mind your manners, monster. We hold your friend, the traitor, in our grasp and were instructed to kill him if you didn’t come with us,” he paused for a moment, “and where are the other monsters?”
“They can’t come out, it’s daytime. Didn’t they tell you this before you put your helmet on?” I responded.
“Oh, we know, but we don’t care. Bring them out or we kill him.” One of the soldiers holding Com in place edged his sword closer to Com, who twitched away from the blade.
“If I bring them out they’ll die. Don’t you know the first thing about them?” I decided to play the smart alec card to see if I could get anything useful from them.
“Of course we do!” the soldier barked at me, “We’ve been watching them for months, we know more about them than you could possibly know.”
“Sir, you weren’t supposed to mention anything about that,” one of the other soldiers in the line whispered loudly, defeating the purpose of whispering.
“Shut up, private! I will say whatever I please, his highness won’t hear anything about this if any of you want to make it back with your equipment and job intact,” the soldier in charge yelled at the group.
“If you know so much about them, then why didn’t you know they could talk?” I said, wanting to get his attention.
“We do know that, creature. This isn’t news to us.”
“Is it because the scouts you sent to spy on my friends told you when they respawned after I took them down? Well, everyone except the one soldier I killed. I know he didn’t respawn like the others.” It hurt to say this with Com so close; I knew he must hold some sort of grudge against me for it even if he didn’t say anything about it. The soldier in front of me moved slightly, enough for me to know that he didn’t expect me to know that much.
“Let’s get down to the point of this little intimidation session, shall we?” I said in a firm tone. If this kept up any longer I wasn’t sure I could keep myself from doing something stupid. “Why are you here?”
The soldier in charge stood quiet for a moment before clearing his throat, “Craft the changeling, you and your...associates are hereby invited to the nearby village to talk.”
I stood there waiting for more...but nothing else came from him.
“Wait, that was the whole message?” I asked suddenly confused.
“That and that if not all of you show we will come for you, we will find you, and we will kill you. You’re actions in Last Hope has thrown our people’s idea of what you monsters actually are into question and our leader wants to talk to you, and refusal will only bring him to deciding you are worthless monsters worthy only of a swift blade to the throat.” That last part he said with a tone suggesting that was his favorite part of the message.
“If he wants to talk to me, that’s fine, but I won’t bring them if you can’t guarantee it’ll be just us and him.”
“That’s preposterous! You just want to kill him you filthy monster, don’t you?” he yelled at me, staying right where he was thanks to his fellow soldiers keeping him from attacking me while they reminded him that I was needed alive.
“I...we are not like the monsters that took your world away from you,” I said loud enough for them all to hear. They were all paying attention to me now, even the soldiers who were supposed to be keeping Com from moving, “I’ve lived with them long enough to know that.”
“And what would you know about our world?” one of the other soldiers asked me, earning a quick glare from the soldier in charge.
“I know they destroyed you from where you felt safe. If you would-“ 
I was interrupted by the soldier in charge shouting at me, “How do you know this?”
“Because Com told me what happened!” I shouted back. “He willingly told me what happened and I can tell you that the inhabitants of this world are nothing like that! They want peace as much as you do and you can’t see that because you are blinded by your hatred of anything that looks different. If you would just take a bucking moment to watch and learn without prejudice and bigotry you might actually find that they are very kind! They’ve only attacked because they were attacked. If you would’ve taken the time to find out why the first meeting of Player and monster went bad in the first place maybe you all wouldn’t need to be cowering in fear all the freaking time!
“Tell your leader that I will come alone to talk with him, I’ll represent all of us.”
“Craft, I will come too,” Com said with determination in his voice, “I want to be there. I needto be there.”
I almost said ‘no’ but something in his voice kept me from doing so, so I just nodded.
“And what makes you think he’ll agree to that, creature?” the soldier scoffed, “If we wanted to we could slay you here and now and all we’d have to say is that negotiations failed and we had to kill you.”
“I know you will because you know I can kill you. Permanently.” I wasn’t sure I could actually go through with that, but since I did it before I was sure they wouldn’t call me on it. “Now go back and tell him these are my terms for negotiating with him.”
Luckily my threat seemed to work and they began to collect and left in formation: the leader in front, followed by four more soldiers side to side, and finally the remaining five behind them also side to side. Before they got too far I heard one of them yell that they would return with an answer for me by nightfall.
Com came over to me and just stood there while we watched them disappear beyond where we could see. The limited vision thing this world had was still one of the top 3 strange things I had encountered thus far.
A few minutes after they disappeared, Com spoke up, “Why did you tell them about my brother and his friends?”
“I had to know what they were told,” I said simply.
“And what did they know?”
“More than the rest of the villagers. It sounds like your leader hasn’t told them about their survival yet. I think he’s trying to get them riled up so they’ll still want to attack.” There was a short pause, “Com, that Player called your leader ‘his highness’, who is he?”
“He was our prince. He was Prince Kaile. Now he’s our village’s leader.”
I sighed, “Royalty, it’s always royalty.” I got up and went into my house, down to the basement, with Com following me.
“What’s next Craft?” he asked me.
“Tell the trio about what happened.”
“What about you? What’re you going to do?”
I looked around and thought about it. I didn’t want to have to, but I knew that it would probably come down to it. First there would be negotiations. If they failed there would be an ultimatum. If that failed, there would be fighting, a war. And if they wanted a fight, then at least I wouldn’t leave us defenseless. 
I looked at him and grinned, “Me? I’m going to make us an armory.”

> Iron Chestplate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	So it turned out that I suck at making armor. Swords are no problem, bows are easy as pie, tools of the trade are made as easily as scarfing down oxygen after somepony challenged you to see who could hold their breath longer under water and you won. Armor was in a league all its own for some reason.
I asked Com about making armor when he returned from telling the trio what was going to happen tonight.
All he said was “You can make everything else and armor is your weak point?”
“Well excuse me but it’s a lot harder than it seems,” I said back to him while trying to figure a way to make some that would fit me. I could see how making it for him would be easy; the design for Player  armor was pretty simple to understand for some reason. Armor for me, a changeling who never was supposed to be here in the first place, seemed to be a more difficult task.
I sighed, “How did you guys figure out how to make armor?”
“I guess we already knew since we had to do it before we came here. Seems pretty natural now in this world, even for me. Before coming here, I hadn’t even practiced metalworking but now it’s second nature to me.”
“I never had to do it before either and I don’t think we ever needed any with our chitin protecting us from attacks.”
We sat in silence for a minute. I went ahead and made a couple iron swords for later, in case things got dicey with the prince and his inevitable gaggle of guards. As I made them I thought about how armor should be. The armor that the guard ponies always wore seemed to protect their vital parts. The armor the Players wore seemed to be the same. Maybe I should just make armor like the ponies? That may work since our builds are similar enough.
With that I began making the blueprints in my head and when I was sure I had it more or less accurate to my body shape I struck the iron with the tools provided by the table.
It felt like an eternity, but with Com letting me work in peace while he made armor of his own, I was able to come up with a design all my own.
A sleek and closefitting helm that ended right before my...mane, my face would have to be exposed but I managed to cover the center of it up to my muzzle. My body armor was made in two separate pieces tied together by leather straps that I’d have to have Com tie and fix up so that it wouldn’t come apart during combat if it came down to that. I wasn’t sure if covering my hooves would be the best of ideas since I need to hold stuff with them so instead of boots like the Players I made plated armor to cover my legs. Not really sure how well my amateur armor set would actually hold up in combat so I really hoped it wouldn’t come down to that.
After I had help from Com getting in my armor, which came after he told me how impressed he was with my original design, I looked outside and saw that the sun was getting close to setting.
“It’s getting close to the deadline for when we’ll meet with the prince,” Com said to me, “How ya feeling?”
More nervous than a dragon handler in a museum full of shiny things, “Not bad, but I really hope this doesn’t end up in a fight. I don’t want to have to take down anyone else.”
“With any luck you won’t have to.”
“What about you, Com?”
“What about what?” he asked, seemingly confused.
“He’s your prince, isn’t he? You betrayed him and your race by siding with me. Hell, I killed your brother and you’re still with me. Why?” I wanted to understand. Before he just seemed tired of everything, like it was just another thing that happened, but I couldn’t stand the idea of him suffering should the meeting end badly for us.
“He stopped being my prince when we crossed over. Now he’s just the leader of New Hope, master of those who stayed behind.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed, “You’ll probably find out soon enough.”
With that we walked out of my house and were greeted by a soldier saying the meeting was to take place in a short while. After we were sure he left, we headed toward the cave real quick to say hi to the trio before leaving for the meeting.
“Craft, Com, I hope your meeting with the Players goes well,” Creeper said as we prepared to leave.
“Yes, be safe and survive. Both of you,” Skeleton said after a moment of silence.
“Relax guys; we’re not marching off to our deaths or anything. We will be back, I can guarantee that,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster.
That would happen to be much less than I had when I decided to make my armor earlier since realizing they have an army and we have...well, me and Com. Technically we had a never ending army of monsters since the meeting’s at night but I’d rather not have to involve the trio if I didn’t have to. They, on the other hoof, have an army already at their disposal that is well equipped and could likely take us out without too much effort. Our escape from their village was a sheer stroke of luck and I knew it.
Zombie moved forward and spoke up, “Good...bye.”
I looked away, wiping a tear away from my face before turning back with a smile, “Don’t say goodbye Zombie, I hate goodbyes. After all, if you don’t say goodbye then we’re not really gone, are we?”
“If that is the case then I shall say it correctly. We will see you when you return,” Creeper said with a somewhat forced lighthearted tone.
With that we left and headed toward the village at a moderate pace that took us about ten minutes.
The village was surrounded by soldiers, some in towers, not previously there, with bows while the rest were spread on the ground with swords of varying types. None of them were wearing diamond but they all looked ready to take us if necessary and I didn’t doubt they all had the training of a soldier. The sheer number of guards, however, seemed odd. I know for a fact the prince wore diamond armor and had diamond weapons so why were there so many guards?
“Halt!” the first guard looked at us and nodded, “Go in.”
We did and another guard began escorting us to the house that we’d be meeting in. Honestly the houses were rather small but they looked like they would hold enough space for us. Some looked like they were missing a piece here or there though. It’s almost like they were taken at random. Another thing, where were the villagers?
*BAM*
I groaned and looked up only to see- “OH CRAP BASKETS!” I promptly shouted and backed up a few steps. The iron golem was still here. Don’t really know how I could’ve forgotten about it but I suspected it had something to do with the meeting and the guards and... you get the point.
I nearly wet myself and tried to run away, but the guard escorting us stopped me from getting much further than a couple feet while the golem ignored me and kept walking.
“Still afraid of the golem, monster?” the guard with an oh-so familiar voice said to me. I looked at him and shook his grip off. “Be lucky the golem won’t attack even you monsters without orders.”
“Hey, back off jerk,” Com said, putting himself between the two of us.
“Oh look, the younger of two failures wants to say something? How about telling us why you teamed up with your sad excuse for a soldier brother’s murderer?” the guard said with an arrogant tone.
“How about you tell me why you stuck around for our sad excuse for a prince?” I didn’t understand what that was about but the guard pulled out his sword and prepared to attack Com. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t move due to shock and he was only halted by the sound of a cough that came from behind me.
“Private Tael, would you be so kind as to explain why you were about to harm my guests?” the leader, Prince Kaile, spoke with absolute authority, paralyzing the soldier into place.
“My apologies, leader. They were talking badly about you and I couldn’t bare their insolent words.”
“Their words mean nothing, remember that,” the prince said before looking at me, “As for you, follow me or I’ll slay you in his place.”
The remaining five feet or so was covered in less than ten seconds and we went inside a small building reminiscent of a small church, only smaller. I mean, it had three floors by the looks of it but it was still really small.
“It’s a little small in here for a talk isn’t it, Prince Kaile?” I said to him, watching as he stopped at the mention of his name.
“You’ve learned of my name? I assume Com told you. Yes I am the prince of my people. I am our rightful ruler,” the Player’s leader spoke, losing himself in the feeling of having so many titles for himself.
“You may have been our prince at one time, but not anymore,” Com spoke up, defying the prince’s claims.
The prince turned around and stared at Com, “I am still your leader Com. It was due to his kind that we are here in the first place!”
“We wouldn’t have been stuck in this situation if you hadn’t ordered those unnecessary portals conjured!” Com spat back with equal force.
“How dare you speak to your leader with such a tone!” the prince spoke, his voice filled with indignation.
“Shut up!” I shouted, tired of this.
“Know your place, monster.”
“From the sounds of it your people don’t seem to know that piece of information. How about you tell me what it is?” I could tell he was getting riled up from this.
“You are a creature who lives only to destroy! Slaying you wouldn’t bring back the one you took away from me, but it would make me feel much better.”
“You you you, it’s always about you isn’t it? All you royals are the same,” I said, thinking back to my world. Sure the queen did what she had to to keep us alive, but wasn’t that just so she would be able to live on while we continued to perish over time?
“And what would you know about royalty, creature of the night?” the prince asked.
“I know that they get upset when even one little thing goes wrong. It could be something as simple as their food being just slightly overcooked one time and they’d act like it was the biggest tragedy to befall them in their whole life. You who live in the life of luxury could only know these first world problems.”
“You know nothing of my life! I had to fight-“ he stopped himself and turned away, “Com, do you remember those friends of your brother?”
Caught off guard, he responded slowly, “Yeah, Iron Maxx and his brother Strong Arm, what about them?”
“You know they made it, and my scouting team is incomplete without a third member. The loss of your brother was a heavy price for them.”
“Don’t talk about them like you know them, leader,” Com spoke with a surprising amount of hate.
“I do know them though. Sons of a blacksmith, lovers of climbing tall trees,” he turned to us and spoke with what I assume was accompanied by a grin, “champions of holding their breath underwater.”
Whatever he was talking about set Com off, “Don’t you hurt them, you poor excuse for kalthite dung!”
“Com, what’s he talking about?” I had a feeling this had something to do with why he seemed to hate the prince.
“Oh it’s nothing, creature. I’m just talking about his friends is all.”
Com pushed past me and came within a few inches of the prince’s face, “I swear on the eleven gods, if you hurt them at all you will pay.”
“What’s it matter to you? You betrayed them and sided with their best friend’s murderer.”
Tired of everything, I simply shouted “ENOUGH!” catching not only their attention but the attention of the nearby guards, all of them looking as though they would raid the building in an instant if I said another word to the prince. A simple wave from the prince and they scattered back to their positions. Com and the prince separated again, putting what little distance they could between each other in this cramped building.
“We all know you called us for a reason. It’s time you told us why,” I demanded from him what this was about. I knew he knew the location of the trio and yet he stilled called this meeting. He could wipe us out with no real problem, and yet here we were. Why?
“The answer is simple. My people believe you that you are not a monster at all, regardless of how painfully obvious you are one. You came here from a portal and we know there is one that can be made. A portal such as that would be a gateway to a new world, maybe even one free from these wretched creatures that plague this one.”
“I heard about this portal.”
“Then even a monster such as yourself should be able to understand that-“
“Stop calling me a monster,” I interrupted him.
“Why should I? Should I stop calling the grass grass? Or perhaps should I stop calling a cow a cow? A rose by any other name is just as sweet and an herb for any medicine is just as bitter.” He stared in my direction while I returned his gaze. Com kept his weapon hidden but I knew if anything seemed like it was going to happen that he’d pull it on the prince, training or no training.
“Are we going to talk about the portal or not?” Com said, trying to bring the talk back to what seemed to be the topic of the night. This got the prince to break his gaze as he looked out the window.
“Yes, the portal. It’s made from a rare, and hard to transport, block called obsidian.”
“I know that. If you want to make this portal then why don’t you get the materials yourself?”
“I don’t because I know that you want it too to return to your home world. Why should I risk my own men when I can have you worthless monsters do it for me?”
“Typical royalty, avoiding the hard work,” I snorted and he rounded on me.
“If I didn’t need you alive, I’d kill you myself!”
“Need me? You have plenty of loyal followers already it seems so why am I needed for you to make a portal?”
“It’s because you can go into the darkness and none of these vicious creatures will harm you.”
I felt offended, “They aren’t vicious! If you would just give them a chance you would learn that yourself!”
“What if I have!?” the room grew silent for a few moments. “What if I gave them a chance and they blew it?”
“What are you talking about?” Com spoke up.
“Did you know, Com, that when we first came here that I was one of the first to come through?” the prince said. With silence following him, he continued, “While the portal keeping our worlds connected still worked, we were susceptible to death as your brother was due to his attack,” he pointed at me. “I witnessed the first meeting of the inhabitants of this world and the horrors we escaped from our own were fresh in everyone’s mind. I sent one of my guards to check if it was friendly and he exploded my man to pieces!
“The creature exploded and killed my man, Com. I don’t care if they can talk, I don’t care if they have emotions, I don’t care if they can be reasoned with, I don’t care if they can control the moon and sun! They are monsters and they deserve to die because we deserve to live.”
I sat there and took it all in. There was a minute of silence, filled only by the sound of the golem moving around the village and fires keeping the trio’s family from appearing.
“Do you regret any of it?” I asked suddenly.
“Regret what?” the prince asked back.
“Do you regret what you’ve had to do to survive? The horrors you’ve caused for those around you: do you regret it?” I stared him in the eyes, my body tensing.
He snorted, pulling his weapon out while Com mimicked the action, “Why would I regret survival?”
“Then you must be a monster.”

> Window Pane
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The next few seconds came and went in what felt like forever as my body acted in a fight-or-flight response, both in this case...I wish I actually flew though.
The prince charged at me while I ducked and rolled, holding my right foreleg up to deflect the incoming blow. It hit, but it hit the leg armor I made, which made me thank any and all forms of divine life that his attack wasn’t enough to break through, and it slid off into the ground. My leg hurt, but when I got back on my hooves, Com was already swinging at Kaile. The prince parried the blow and smacked Com on the head with the flat of his blade, dazing him. Anger filled me as I turned around in this cramped house and bucked him with all my might, catching him by surprise and sending him crashing outside of the house.
“Com, we have to move,” I shouted at him, shaking him while the prince stood up slowly outside, still recovering from my buck.
“Nnrgh,” Com managed to sound out before becoming completely coherent again, “Yeah, let’s go.”
I looked back to the front door and saw the guards readying to charge in and attack. Thinking quick, I switched out my sword with a piece of cobblestone I had on me and placed it in front of the door, effectively blocking their entrance.
“Get them! They attacked the leader!” several guards were shouting while trying to break the stone wall I erected in desperation.
The door was no good, the window had Kaile outside, now nearly back up and ready as well, but there was a ladder going up. I took that chance.
“Com, the ladder!” I shouted at him. He nodded and we went up.
Luckily for us this was the one and only building they neglected to place an archer on top of. Unluckily for us, there were several archers on the other, nearby buildings. Now there were arrows flying and an angry prince screaming. I think I heard the golem yelling too.
I broke a few pieces of the ladder and placed a few more pieces of cobblestone where they used to be and made the walls slightly bigger than needed to keep us safe to buy us some time. I knew they could break through at any moment and we were pinned down by arrows and blades, plus that golem, so how in the world could we hope to-
“Hey, you’re that new guy aren’t you?” a high pitched, almost squeaky, voice spoke.
Of all the times I’ve ever wanted something to go right, I hoped this was one that actually did.
“You! Whatever your name is,” I said to it.
“Name’s Big E,” it said back. Big E? What a weird name, “Well, my name’s actually Enderman, but you can call me that if you want.” Just as weird, but I’ll take it.
“Enderman then, can you help us somehow?” please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.
“Probably.” Close enough.
“The meeting went wrong and we need to get back!”
“Craft, who is that?” Com asked at this point.
“Friend of the trio,” I quickly explained, clearly enough at this point since he nodded, “I know they sent you to find obsidian for me but monsters can’t hold blocks. Does that mean you can somehow?”
“Yep.”
“Can you help us get out of here safely?”
“Safely? I can try.”
The soldiers broke through the stone blocking their ascent, though they still lacked the ladder pieces I broke away so they couldn’t reach us.
“Break the ceiling down and kill them all!” I heard a gruff sounding soldier bark to the rest, all of them responding with some form of “Yes sir!”
“Oh snap, that looks bad. Yeah, I’ll help you.”
Suddenly there was a very loud, very painful shriek that stopped everyone from doing anything. Well, everyone except the golem, who kept shouting about invading monsters and protecting the village. When it finally died down there was near silence, the golem being the only source of noise.
“What the hell was that?” I managed to say after a few seconds of intense ringing in my head.
“Help, duh,” Enderman said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Soon there were Players shouting and the sound of things hitting the ground hard, followed by the familiar sound of “poof”ing that accompanied the death of anything in this world.
“What the hell are they?” I heard a soldier shout.
“Oh my gods!” another shouted, soon silent, although the sound of something moving very swiftly could be heard just barely over the chaos.
There were a lot of “poof” sounds as well as the sound of our help dying on occasion.
“Ow, holy crap. Why do I hurt?” Enderman asked to no one in particular.
The soldiers below us managed to regain their plan soon after the deaths were heard and continued to break the ground/ceiling below/above us/them. This was technically the roof but I’ve been in so many fights over what to call it with other architects for years that I just tend to say both for the sake of no stupid arguments. Anyway, they broke the block that Enderman was standing on and he fell, but as soon as they hit him he disappeared, leaving behind that trail of purple behind.
What the? I think he just ditched us.
In the momentary confusion that came with that, I leapt at them and knocked one down, stomping on his arm and dislodging his sword. I grabbed it and held it to his throat, stopping everyone from moving, although their blades were still ready to attack.
“Take one move and I will kill him,” I said, my voice thick with fury. I had the feeling that if Chrysalis every heard me speak with that kind of tone that she’d almost be proud of the way I turned out. She would be proud without a doubt had I not asked to redesign her throne room a few years back; I know she still resents me for that.
“Go right ahead, he’ll just respawn,” the gruff voice from before spoke.
“Not if I kill him,” I shot back, looking at his eyes, daring him to prove me wrong.
“I don’t believe you, creature.”
“Players!” I said to them all, “Do you fear death?”
They were silent.
“I know you do, that’s why you enjoy this world, isn’t it? I also fear death and do you know why?” 
More silence from them.
“Because I know that when you die, you don’t come back. And as long as I am your enemy, I can and will force you to remember what that means!”
My meaning was not lost on them as they began to sheath their weapons, anger filling a couple of their faces, fear filling the rest.
“What are you doing, kill the monster!” I heard the prince shout from below.
“There is only one monster here tonight, prince, and that is you. You constantly send your men into battle without any regard for them. You know what I can do to them but you send them anyway. What kind of coward are you!?” my voice started to increase in volume as I spoke, more rage filling it as I thought of those who have been and may have been lost at his control, “WHEN WILL YOU FIGHT ME YOURSELF?”
A small pause came, followed by the laughter of the prince, cut short by a coughing fit most likely brought on by my earlier bucking. When it was over the prince spoke up.
“And why would I waste my time fighting you when I can have my men do it for me?”
I looked the soldiers in front of me in the eyes, “When the endermen came and attacked just now, how many soldiers did you have stationed here in the village?”
“How many you ask? Ha, I’ll humor you. I stationed forty-seven soldiers here, including the six up there.”
I held my gaze with the soldiers, “And how many are still here?”
“Six, including the six up there,” he said, as though he had lost nothing in the fight.
“Players! When you die in this world, do you fear that this may be your end? Do you fear that you may not come back this time? Where I come from there is a saying ‘there are two things that you cannot escape in life, death and taxes.’ I don’t know if you have any currency here, or anything period to tax, but I know that you have a life and therefore you can lose it.
“I’m a soldier too, but if my queen were to try to send me out on a mission where I knew she thought I would die, I would be afraid. That is what your prince does on regular occasions. How many times have you died?” I let the rhetorical question hang for a second, “How many times have you thought ‘this might be the time I don’t come back’? How many times have you questioned your leader’s care for his own people? How can you follow someone who willingly sends you to your own deaths!?”
“Well now, you sound just like one of those pesky rebels, Craft the changeling,” the prince said.
Rebels?
I hesitated and felt the block underneath me break. Com shouted my name and jumped down to try and catch me, only to watch me receive a gravity induced meeting with the stone floor and a blade being shoved right through my left foreleg while being stopped by the remaining soldiers and having a blade pressed up against his back.
The sharpness of the blade pierced my armor with little resistance and cracked through my chitin, passing right into and out of my leg. The pain was unlike anything I had felt before and soon enough I began screaming and grabbed my leg, bringing it close to my body after he slid the blade out swiftly, and cursing the one who brought me to this state.
“You see, monster,” the prince spoke as his soldiers continued to restrain Com, who struggled against their grasp, earning him a pummel to the gut, “there is no reason I should fight you. You simply aren’t worth my time. You had the opportunity to not only defeat my men and escape with little problem, but also the chance to kill me and you didn’t take it. Is it because you know it’s futile since we will always return while you hesitate because you won’t?”
“You bastard,” I managed between labored breaths.
The prince laughed, speaking softly, “You see, now the tables have turned and yet still here we both are. Do you know why, creature?” He got close to my ear and spoke softly so only I would hear, “Because you are interesting.”
“What do you mean, I’m interesting?” I forced out, feeling each passing moment cover my body and the floor in more of my blood.
“What else? We’re playing a game, aren’t we?” he laughed as one would expect an evil villain to laugh. Appropriate, given the circumstance.
“You asked if I regretted survival” he continued, no longer whispering, “and I said no. What I’ve had to do to survive does not fill me with regret. Why should I regret living on while others fall around me?”
I forced the armor covering my blood stained foreleg off and held it tight, attempting to slow the blood flowing through my leg, “If you always spend your time watching others fall, how can you expect others to stand and help when you begin to start to fall yourself?”
“It’s simple,” he then spoke with complete seriousness and a face that believed his own words, “I won’t.”
I coughed hard and began to yell, “Don’t you see? He doesn’t even care about any of you! Why would you follow someone like him? He has no concern for any of you!” tears flowed from my eyes involuntarily, equally from fear, rage, and sadness that I felt for the Players who chose to follow this prince. The soldiers that I could still see were fighting themselves, caught between my words and their loyalty to their prince. I could only hope they’d see what I meant and free themselves from this madman.
“Bring me the traitor,” the prince said. The soldiers gave in to their training and did as they were told, tossing Com down to the ground floor and watching him land with a ‘thud’.
Kaile lifted his blade and brought it to Com’s throat, pressing lightly against his skin “Disobedience to the crown is punishable by death. Nod once if you understand, shake once if you do not.” His voice became very formal, all traces of who he was until now were gone and replaced with a tone that sounded rehearsed. It was as though this was something he had done before.
“No,” I whimpered, fearing my friend would soon be dead.
There was no response from Com.
“I’ll take that as you understand what I’ve said,” the prince said, his voice returning to an evil and joyful tone.
“No,” I said slightly louder this time, managing to get up to my knees.
“You're next, Craft. Goodbye, Com the traitor.”
“No!” I yelled, followed by the sound of something weird nearby. That hadn’t happened in a while...sort of.
I saw an enderman grab Com and vanish, a confused look filling the Players’ faces as well as the prince’s. I didn’t get to hear his reaction as a moment later something, I assumed another enderman, grabbed me and teleported me to a dark place.
I wanted to shout out Com’s name, desperate to know if he was here too, but the fatigue and blood loss caught up with me as the adrenaline started to wear off and I passed out, holding tight onto my leg hoping that I wouldn’t die from shock in the meantime. I don’t know for sure, but I think I heard a voice saying “sleep” before passing out.

> Witch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Ten bits,” the bartender said as I ordered a drink. I fished the money out of my bag and levitated it onto the counter. He grabbed my coins and looked at me, “Something bothering you kid?”
“I, uh... I...yeah,” I hesitated, but finally managed to say.
Normally I’d keep any of my problems to myself, secrets are a changeling’s essence after all, but the stress of it all was wearing me down. I had to talk to somepony and Celestia knows I couldn’t talk to my hivemates about this, so the local bartender would have to do.
I took a sip of my drink, a little more bitter than I was used to, and began talking, “Have you ever wondered if what you were doing is what you should be doing? Like, somepony tells you to do something and you aren’t sure you should but they’re in charge of you so you can’t really say anything back?”
The bartender put down the glass he had been cleaning, “Having problems with work are you?”
I sighed, “You could say that.” I took another sip and continued to talk, “Sometimes I wonder if the ones in charge are doing what’s really best for us. I look around and see how happy everypony not working my job is and can’t help but wonder if what we’re doing is right.”
“I know what you mean. I used to be a lawyer a few years back. Lost a case prosecuting a pony responsible for the death of two foals and he was acquitted because of me. I did everything by the book but when the case was over I heard him talking with his lawyer about it and it turned out they bribed the judge. Can you believe it? After that I wasn’t sure if I should keep doing the lawyer thing and quit. So many years, so much studying and money, down the drain.”
“What’d you do after that?” I asked, taking another sip.
“I thought that was pretty obvious, I got my license as a bartender and opened a bar by the sea. Good business and I help ponies escape their troubles for a short while, even if they do something stupid with it later.”
“I wish it was that simple for me, I’ll never be able to get out of this job. I’m stuck for my life, or at least up until I can’t work anymore. After that I’ll be tossed aside to make room for the next cha-pony in line,” I said, brooding over my life as I knew it would be.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad. You got a job and a place to live right?” he said to me, I could feel his attempt to cheer me up just as much as I could see it on his face.
“Yeah, I do, but-“
“But nothing,” he interrupted me. “If you aren’t satisfied with your job now, then why don’t you get a new job? I mean, look at me. I went from the Bar exam to a bar and I’m glad I did. Now instead of making bits off of the fates of others and chancing another pony’s life for my own bank account, I can say I own a bit of business that lets me meet new and exciting ponies every day.”
Another pony came up and ordered a drink, taking it to his own table full of what I could tell from their emotions were his friends... and one that might soon be his fillyfriend if he played his cards right.
The bartender sighed and came back to me, “I guess what I’m trying to say here is that it’s not too late to change who you are kid. 	You’ve got time to change to who you want to be.”
I chuckled at that, if he only knew. Smiling, I put a few more bits on the table and gulped down the rest of my drink, taking a breath when I finished. “Thanks for the talk.”
He smiled and I could feel his sympathy for me, “No problem kid, just remember that the ponies you work for can’t tell you who to be. Follow your heart and you’ll never go wrong.”
I waved at him and headed out the door... and woke up.
I woke up alert, seeing very little as the room I was in was underground and without lighting. My body was covered in dry blood and my leg was swollen around the wound, now covered in a wool wrapping. I tried to get up but fell on my butt, my blood loss seemed to be causing me some lightheadedness and my body didn’t want me to move quite yet. Too bad for it I was in control.
I got up slowly and tried moving around, only to hit a wall and fall back on my butt but this time with some minor face pain.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my face, wincing at the pain in my leg. The sudden darkness that this cave, I was sure it was a cave, had compared to the bright daylight and soft moonlight practically left me blind. Actually, without any light at all I was pretty much blind.
I remembered Com being taken right before me before I passed out, was he also here?
“Com!” I shouted. After a few seconds of silence I tried again, “Com!”
I was awarded with no response and decided to try to figure out if I could get out of this darkness and get into some light.
It was weird, walking around in a place this dark and not encountering any... well nevermind, there’s a creeper wandering right in front of me. I know it was there because I just bumped into it. It spared me one glance and continued on its merry way into the wall that wasn’t going to move anytime soon.
“Well, at least I’m not alone,” I consoled myself.
About fifteen minutes later I thought I heard something that sounded like a Player and stood still; straining my ears for any sound that could confirm my suspicions.
“I wish I had some lighting,” the voice said. I was ecstatic when I heard this as the voice belonged to Com.
“Com?” I spoke into the darkness, hearing the sound of him smacking the wall cease.
“Craft, is that you?” Com said back.
“Yeah, where are you?” I could hear his voice, but it sounded like it was bouncing off the walls.
“I’m over here,” he said, his voice reverberating off the walls as I suspected.
After a short game of “follow the echo”, we met back up.
“Com, do you remember what happened?”
“I’m not sure, one moment the soldiers tossed me to the floor and the next moment I woke up in a dark cave with a massive headache.”
“That’s pretty much what happened to you. After that, the prince was preparing to execute you but those endermen came back and snatched us up. I only remained conscious for a few moments after that.”
“Oh, your injury, is it ok?” he asked, with a tone that sounded worried.
“Yeah, it’s fine for now. Someone wrapped it though, was it you?”
“No, I woke up in an area back in the direction I came from.”
“I wonder who wrapped my leg then,” I pondered to myself the possibilities. Given how the endermen brought us here, I assumed it had to be them. I heard a zombie wandering nearby and my thoughts went to the trio. “The trio!”
“It couldn’t have been them; they don’t seem the type to know how to do that.”
“No, Com, the trio! Where are they?”  I asked with urgency. Given how their cave took less time to reach than it took me to reach Com, the Players could’ve easily gotten to them and killed them with time to spare for a trap or something for our return.
“Calm down, Craft,” he said, putting his arms on my shoulders, the slight increase of pressure on my hurt leg causing me to wince audibly, “Sorry. I don’t think they’d just sit there and let the others take them down without a fight, would they?”
“It might’ve been night when we left them but who knows how long we were out! We could’ve been out for hours! Even the trio could’ve been killed by the Players in that time.”
I felt around until I hit a wall and began smashing it, planning to make a path back to the surface.
“Craft, what are you doing? We don’t know where we are; what if we’re under a pool of water? We might drown,” Com said, worry in his voice.
“It’s a risk I have to take,” I said back, resolved to return to those three who cared for me. To save them from a fate they didn’t deserve. That prince was the true monster, sacrificing his soldiers without care. They likely had families and friends who worried about them every day and without care he just tossed them in the path of lethal danger. So what if the world wouldn’t let them stay dead this time, what if it chose not to next time?
Com kept telling me to stop being reckless, and I ignored him and kept going, wincing with each fruitless block broken. I really wish I had brought a pickaxe with me.
Over the next few minutes the stone turned to dirt and then finally fresh air. I took a quick look around and saw we were near a desert connecting to a jungle, the moon hanging high in the sky. I took that as a good sign. Behind me I heard a high pitched cackle and swung around with the most vicious look I was sure I had ever made and dropped it when I saw what looked like a villager wearing a witch’s hat and standing around a cauldron of water. Were witches a thing in this world? If that were true, then why won’t my magic work?
“Well now, if it isn’t one of you outsiders. Wait, make that two?” the witch said, walking around her cauldron and then toward us. “It looks like your bandages are holding, that’s good.”
I adopted a less fierce scowl and stood between her and Com, now emerging from the hole.
“No need to be so testy shape shifter,” she spoke at me, knowingly.
I dropped my face again, with the addition of my jaw this time, but quickly recovered.
“How do you know?” I asked, wondering how she could possibly know. The most I’d said to anyone in this world was that I was a changeling, and that was to the Players. Was she in league with them?
“I can sense it within you. I can sense your magic. Yes, this world has magic, but you can’t tap into it can you? Were you born here then maybe you’d be able to, but that isn’t how this world works.”
“Were you the one to wrap my leg?”
“Oh yes, that was me. Forgive me for not leaving a trail for you to my hut, the creatures of this world’s night can’t stay, nor come to be, in its presence for long, so I usually leave the lights off. Forgive this old maiden’s rudeness towards guests.” For a witch, she was being very polite.
“Thank you for helping me and my friend.”
“Oh it was no trouble; I was quite surprised to see one of these outsiders with the nocturnals.”
“It’s a long story, and I’m sorry but we don’t have time to explain. I have to get back to the trio before the prince and the other Players get there.” I turned to leave but felt something touch my shoulder.
“Wait.”
“There’s no time! They’re in danger and I have to save them or they’ll die!” I practically screamed. Then a bottle was shoved in my mouth, the contents spilling onto my tongue and a strange feeling coming over me. It felt as though I could run a marathon while doing jumping jacks and not be tired. I took the bottle out of my mouth and saw Com drinking one too. “What was that?”
“That was an energy potion and it will only last a few minutes. I heard the commotion from before and it came from west of my hut. If that was you then I suggest you hurry and get to them quick. And would you mind telling-”
I didn’t catch what she said next because I ran as fast as I could west, across the desert, not really sure how she heard the fighting when she couldn’t possibly have heard it when it was in a grassy plains and she was nowhere near anywhere like that. I didn’t have time to question it now, however, as I had to get back to the cave and save my friends.

> Stone Sword
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The desert was larger than expected, going on even after running for several minutes straight with the potion boosting my running speed to a level that would’ve made my drill sergeants drop their jaws.
“Craft, wait for me!” I somehow heard Com yell over the wind building around me. I skidded to a halt, the sand aiding my efforts, and saw him approaching at the same pace I had been running, which seemed ridiculous now that I was watching rather than doing. When he caught up we started running again.
There was silence between us for a minute before Com spoke up. “What was that about?”
I stayed silent for a few moments and turned to face him, “I’m sorry for ditching you back there. I just need to get to them. I can’t let them die.” With that, he nodded and we continued to run only to find that the effects of the potion were beginning to wear off, so we were forced to cross the rest of the desert at a normal pace.
The chilling winds of the desert were whisked away shortly after we finally crossed back into the grasslands. Com forced us to take a small break, and with that came the adrenaline crash I knew was coming, and I felt the pain my brain had been ignoring. I fell to the ground, sucking in air sharply and noticed a faint blood trail leading from where we’d come from.
“Craft, are you still hurt?” Com asked, seeing what I was looking at.
I nodded. “I guess his attack was as serious as I hoped it wasn’t.”
“No Craft, this is strange,” Com warned me. Seeing my confused look, he continued, “Our injuries heal quickly after we eat here. I don’t know why but that’s how this place works. Have you eaten anything since you woke up?”
“No, I don’t think I brought any food with me. I didn’t think I’d need it.” I closed my eyes and did a double check with my mental inventory and came up with no food, to my disappointment.
“Here, we have to get you some food so you can get better.” He threw a steak to me and I took it, eating quickly so we could get back to running back toward the trio.
Thinking about what the Players might do to the trio kept me on edge while we walked back to them, Com said that running would only make me hungry again faster and that would slow down my healing.
Soon I saw a light spreading across the horizon and almost thought the sun was coming up, but I realized the moon hadn’t gone down yet and I heard yelling coming from the direction of the light. thinking the worst, I ignored Com’s warning and took off, leaving him behind.
As I came over the hill that made up my horizon I saw trees set on fire and the land mirrored the hellish scene only a few blocks higher than itself. Something happened and I was determined to find out what.
A scream coming from my right made me snap my head around. A Player was running from something, and a quick glance revealed it was a skeleton, with several more behind it, showering where he once stood with arrows.
I ran and tackled him to the ground, quickly disarming his sword, a stone one, and placed one hoof on his throat. The wound on my leg was burning with pain, no blood thanks to the short time I had let it heal, but i didn't care. I was done messing around. “What the hell are you doing!?” It wasn’t so much a question to him as much as it was a demand I was going to have answered one way or another.
“Can’t...breathe,” the Player managed. I let my hoof up slightly and maintained my glare, making clear that my demand still stood strong. “The leader said he found the monsters’ hideout and made all the men get ready to fight.”
“And the fire?”
“He told us to set all the land on fire so they wouldn’t have anywhere to hide once day came around.”
It was clear he wasn’t a soldier; a real soldier wouldn’t have been willing to give up any information to someone who just kicked their flank like that. With a softer tone I spoke up, “Are you from New Hope?”
“How did you know?”
“I was held captive for a few days there, courtesy of your leader.”
I let him up and gave him back his sword, “Leave now and I won’t send you back courtesy of this world’s blessing.”
“Thank you.”
With that he left and the skeletons that were tailing him began to move again, having waited while I held him down. I didn’t let them, however, and I held up a hoof.
“Let him go. Where’s the trio?”
For being little more than mindless creatures, they were still able to show some form of intelligence. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were starting to regain their awareness or if they simply understood what I wanted as though they could sense my intent. They faced toward the center of the fire and scattered almost immediately after. There were footsteps coming from behind, but I could tell from how he ran that it was Com.
“You have to stop doing that Craft! I thought you might’ve run off into the fire,” he panted, his breathing slightly heavy from all the running we had done so far tonight. He was going to be running more before the night was up, I knew it and I’m sure he did too.
“That’s the plan actually,” I said, hiding a building hatred in my body.
“What do you mean? Does it have anything to do with the person who just ran past here, and the roving skeletons?” he asked me.
“Yes, that was a villager that Kaile sent from New Hope, one of many I assume,” I said to him. I was sure there were more if judging how I was still hearing shouts coming from the fire told me anything.
For a moment, he was silent. “There’s no hope for our treaty, is there?” His despair was noticeable.
I shook my head, “Not while he’s alive there isn’t. I have to stop him.” I stomped my hoof for emphasis. “I won’t make any promises Com, if I have to kill him like I did your brother...I will.”
He just nodded and we began running toward the fire that surrounded the place I had grown to call “home” during my stay in this weird world. To say I did not like the prince would’ve been like saying the sun was lukewarm. I hated him, and if it came down to it I was sure that I’d be able to do the deed I did for the first time only a short time ago, although after everything that’s happened since I got here it felt like forever. I just hoped the other Players wouldn’t try to follow in his footsteps.
I didn’t want to become a murderer, not again.

> Rotten Flesh
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The moon hung beyond the midway point in the sky, a couple hours from daylight. That was my deadline for stopping and ending this attack and hopefully anymore attacks against the trio and the other monsters, the creatures of the night. After hearing the witch refer to them as such it started to feel wrong to refer to them as monsters. With any luck they wouldn’t have to deal with such a thing after this night.
Trees burned left and right. Soldiers were fighting the creatures, both sides dodging the fires aflame everywhere. Com and I leapt into a battle taking place in a place now devoid of a thick tree count and the soldiers never saw us coming. I rammed my shoulder into one of them, knocking him into another, sending them to the ground and I took their swords, putting them in my inventory rather than just wielding them. Com came behind me and took out his own sword, standing over the two we had downed. When they looked up I was staring them in the face, they tried getting up and almost ran into the sharp point of Com’s sword.
Hesitantly the one on the right spoke up, an adult by the sound of his voice, “What do you want with us?”
I stared them each in the eyes a moment and spoke calmly, “Where is your leader?”
They looked at one another and the left one spoke up, his voice barely that of an adolescent, “Why do you-“
I interrupted him, “Where is he?” My voice carried a tone of ‘tell me or else’ and they could probably guess the ‘or else’ part seeing as how I knocked them down and grabbed their weapons. The fire behind me probably helped with my intimidation.
The one on the right punched the younger soldier, “We won’t tell you, monster.” His voice was firm, he was a true soldier. His younger companion was likely forced to do this. It seemed like something the prince would do.
“I am not a monster!” I shouted at him, the younger one flinching at my sudden rise in volume. “I am not the one who came to an alien world and killed the ones who lived here peacefully!”
“I will not be swayed by your lies, Craft the changeling. The prince told us who you were, how you slew our scout soon after you came here. You are no better than what you think we are.”
I mulled over his words, tensing at the thought of how every moment I wasted with them another creature of the night would be slain and the trio would likely be that much more in danger. I heard the sound of someone behind me, rushing in for an attack.
At the last moment I turned around and tripped my failed assassin and watched his blade slip out of his hand, the elder soldier seizing this distraction as an opportunity to gain a new blade, his previous one iron and this one stone.
I growled loudly and pulled his blade from my inventory while Com stood over the younger soldier again with renewed vigilance. “Sorry Craft, I got distracted.”
“It’s ok Com, let’s end this quickly,” I replied, looking at the elder soldier while holding my blade at the downed assassin’s body. “This can end in one of two ways; either we fight and you all lose, sending you all back to your village without anything, or I can let you go here and now and we won’t make you respawn.”
The elder soldier laughed, “You have guts for a monster. You forgot the third option we have; I slay you and kill your friend.”
I sighed internally, option one it was.
He rushed me without hesitation, forcing me to dodge and leave the downed assassin where he laid.
“I’m sorry it came to this then.” I steeled myself, “Com, take him down.” He took action, and I knew it was as hard on him as it was for me seeing as these were his people. That said, he took his blade and struck the younger soldier until he poofed. Afterwards he joined the fight of me and the elder soldier.
The standing soldier grunted and spoke in a low tone, “Like I said, you’re no better than the monsters you make us out to be.” He ran at me and our blades clashed loudly, louder than even the fires that still burned around us, turning the beautiful night this could’ve been into a hellish red and yellow flickering tint, shining on all of our armors.
“I gave you a chance to run! I gave you a chance to choose something that wasn’t this!” I said, pushing him back slightly, the strain of his blade against mine causing my wound to be felt once again.
“Retreating is never an option! If you were a real soldier you would know that,” he pushed his blade back at me, halting my own efforts to pin him down. Never an option, those were familiar words. Her words.
I growled and continued to strain myself against his blade while Com circled around us, waiting for his own opportunity to strike the enemy soldier, “This is a waste of time! I need to get to the trio!”
I flicked my blade down and removed his from my own. Com took this chance to attack and managed to nick the soldier’s shoulder, the soldier noticing the attack at the last moment and failing to completely dodge the incoming strike.
“Not bad kid, too bad I’m still in my prime,” he said, rotating his shoulder to get used to the pain. It looked a little odd since he, like everything else, was block shaped but I’d seen it enough times in combat practice that I knew the movement.
He renewed his rush against us and I thought he was coming at me but it was a feint. Catching Com by surprise, he managed to disarm him but retreated when I came in for my own attack that would have likely killed him.
My temper was running shorter than a newborn’s attention span and I knew it was affecting my swordplay, but I couldn’t drop this feeling no matter how hard I tried.
I took a split moment to try and calmly think about the situation before I realized that almost directly behind the enemy was the downed assassin from earlier, his still knocked out body was exactly what we needed. I quickly came up with a plan and, without telling Com, I acted upon it.
I rushed him and swung wildly: left, right, left, and finally I arched overhead and struck down. The movement was unexpected by him and he backed up to regain his stance, then I repeated it again and again until he fell over the body.
I put my sword over him and yelled, “This is exactly what I said would happen! Why wouldn’t you just run?”
“Because a true soldier never backs down, even to the end,” the last point he emphasized by readying another strike. The attack never came, however, as an arrow flew between his eyes and he was poofed away. Then another came and the assassin poofed away too, their stuff being catalogued in my inventory as it came to me following their deaths. I turned around to see whoever it was that struck them down and I was rewarded with the sight of a skeleton.
“Craft, thank goodness you’re here,” the leader of the skeletons, Skeleton, said to me. Right behind him were four other skeleton archers, ready to attack whatever they had to.
I looked at him, a wave of relief rushing over me knowing that there was a chance that they were all alright, “Where are the others?”
Com spoke up, “And how did you know where we were?”
“I didn’t, but these archers did and I followed them to here. As for the others, they are in the cave,” Skeleton spoke, in a frantic voice, “Craft, he intends to finally kill us. We have to run.”
With that he turned around and we ran toward the cave. As we did I couldn’t help but watch soldiers and nightlings, as I now decided to call them, each falling to one another and thought to myself how this could be over if the prince were gone. And what about the rebels the prince spoke of? They obviously didn’t need the prince to run their lives so why hadn’t the people of New Hope done the same?
A few times we had to stop and end a skirmish we came across, thankfully a few were willing to accept my offer of running to live another day. They said the prince was heading the way we were, which solidified our belief that he was after the trio’s lives tonight.
I couldn’t help but wonder though, “Why hasn’t the prince tried this before?” I asked Com.
“I’m not really sure to be honest. I thought we had killed them all and he was just looking for more stuff to stockpile. All I know is that if he wanted that portal before now he should’ve been able to find this obsidian stuff long ago. We’ve been here for years and he’s never made any effort to create this portal before.”
“I suspect it’s because it never did occur to him before Craft showed up, Com,” Skeleton piped in, confusing us both.
“What do you mean about me showing up?” I asked, appropriately confused.
“Have you ever heard a voice since you showed up here Craft?” he asked.
“Yeah, but after I met this witch right after and she said she fixed me up I assumed it was hers.”
“You say you met a witch? Did she live near a desert?”
“Yeah, why?”
He paused before answering, “It’s nothing, forget I mentioned it. Anyway, I doubt it was hers. The inhabitants of this world have been known to hear a voice, almost like a suggestion, before and it seems like you might’ve heard it.”
“What’s the voice?” If it wasn’t for the terror of the current situation I would’ve probably gotten an answer, but our luck ran out as we neared the cave they hid in.
We stopped running, my injury had finally stopped hurting at this point, and I noticed ten wolves sitting at the foot of the cave’s mouth. My blood turned to ice in contradiction to my rage burning anew with ferocity I had never felt before. At the mouth of the cave was the prince, in his diamond armor and wielding a diamond sword, holding the limp body of the simple spoken member of the trio, Zombie.

> Diamond Sword
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The look in the prince’s eye as he looked down as me with Zombie in his hand told me to give up now and let him end us all. The look I gave back would’ve put an ursa major in its place. He merely smirked at me, as though it would take a god smiting him to put him in his place.
“It looks like you’re here a moment too late, monsters,” Kaile said, nearly shouting to be heard over the roars of the flames nearby. He turned toward us and tossed the corpse of our undead ally down the incline, the body poofing away as it hit the ground. “I will admit he was a brave one, staying behind so the other could escape. He was brave, but stupid all the same.”
I held my tongue now simply because the only thing that would come from it at the moment would be a loud and primal roar of rage and hatred. I may not have liked zombies, I may have been afraid of the undead, hell, I was creeped out by his looks, but Zombie had been a good friend to me. He had little to say but when he had spoken it was filled with meaning. He was the reason Com was safe from harm when the nightlings tried to attack him after I brought him to the trio. Now he was gone and he would never return.
The tears I wanted to cry never came. It wasn’t that I had no tears to cry, but instead I was unable to cry. My rage wouldn’t allow it.
Since I was unable to speak, Com spoke up instead, “Why are you killing them all? We could’ve made a treaty! We could’ve had peace in this world! Why?”
The question hung in the air for a few moments before the prince responded with a serious tone, “Their kind is a blight upon this world and thus I take it upon myself to rid the world of their disease. Without them we will be able to live in our own peace, one where our people won’t have to fear for their next meal. If we won’t eradicate them then-“
“Cut the crap, prince! You know as well as I do that we have enough food. We have an unlimited supply of water. We have protection that we never had in our world. The actual world protects us from dying. Why should they even pose a threat to us when we return better off than they do?”
The prince dropped his high-and-mighty act, loudly laughing, almost maniacally so, and started walking down the steps created by the blocks between us. When he reached the bottom there were only a few blocks that separated him from us. “’Why?’ you ask?” his voice loud enough that we could hear it but soft enough that it was nearly a strain for me, “It is very simple. It’s because I enjoy this fighting very much. Get them!” he ordered his wolves. They responded by standing up and lunging at the skeletons and myself.
He pushed past me as I fought off a couple wolves that came at me from the side. I felt sorry for them, as they were only doing as they were told by their master, but I had to put them down. I looked up at him and saw him preparing to slay Skeleton, who was with the other skeletons shouting orders of his own to them. I wasn’t about to allow that.
I ran at him, my horn pointed toward his back and shouted, “Skeleton! Watch out!” He heard me and just barely avoided being hit by the diamond sword, which continued to swing, hitting other skeletons in the process, their bodies poofing away as he landed fatal blows on them in an attempt to do the same to their leader. A few fell before my horn collided with his armor, a loud thunk sound was heard and a slight headache was felt as stars flew in my vision after my failed attempt to pierce his armor. Diamond was much sturdier than iron if nothing else.
He stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance, turning around and slapping me in the face with the flat side of his blade, “Wait your turn, cretin. When I finish taking the lives of your friends, then I will deal with you.”
I recovered much faster than I had before from his attacks, likely because I still wore my helmet. Com came over and helped me back up before a wolf bit him on the back of his leg. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard him swear before slaying it. When he saw me staring at him he yelled at me, “Don’t worry about me; go help Skeleton!”
I collected myself and looked to the side where I could see the prince deflecting a barrage of arrows shot by the skeletons protecting their leader. Just looking at him reminded me of what he had just done only a few minutes ago and that sent me back into a state of rage. My mouth twisted in a snarl, I leapt at him, neglecting the arrows, at this point hoping that they wouldn’t hurt much, and we stumbled to the ground.
I began pounding on his arms and exposed neck while the two remaining wolves changed their targets from the skeleton mob to me. One tried to bite me and succeeded only in being slapped away before being shot with an arrow and dying with a poof.
The last wolf grabbed my left foreleg as I lifted it to strike the prince. With a yell full of fury that would’ve sent even a manticore running, I turned to it and pulled it closer to me, ignoring the pain of its teeth putting a great deal of pressure on my chitin. When I had it in front of me, and I could see the whites of its eyes, I unleashed my wrath and bit the wolf’s neck until I heard a snap sound. It only took a few seconds for the wolf to be dispatched, and when it was over I looked up to see a look of fear on the faces of my friends, although Skeleton’s fear was more or less assumed since he lacked an actual face to display the look. 
Taking a moment to understand why, I realized I probably looked like a vicious monster bent on destruction. I was sure if I could sense their emotions right now, the darkness of fear would’ve filled the air, and a bitter taste would’ve been stuck in both my heart and my mouth.
I got off of the fallen prince and grabbed the sword he dropped when I tackled him to the ground and stored it wherever it was these things went when I’m wasn't using them.
Com walked to me and hesitantly spoke up, “Craft, are you alright?”
I took a deep breath and turned my eyes downward, felt the warm breeze created by the nearby fire under my helmet, and then released the air I had trapped in my lungs. “I’m angry, and he needs to die.”
“Craft, I’ll do it. He was my comrade before we even knew who we were.”
“But it was my fault this happened; I should be the one to finish him off.” I was pressing for his permission to be the prince’s executioner. It was selfish, I know, but after everything that happened I wanted to be the one to take him down. I was sure that even without being told yes I would do it anyway. It was hard to describe but I almost felt like I was supposed to do it. 
Behind us I heard a muffled sound, almost like laughter. We turned around and I pulled out the diamond sword I took from the prince, something about that laughter gave me the chills.
The laughter only grew louder until I saw the prince’s body twitch. Slowly, he stood up and when I saw his face, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
He was unscathed.
“I’ll admit that you surprised me again, changeling. I thought I had stepped up my game enough to deal with you by now. To see that it was not enough only interests me even more than you had before.” The prince looked at us like we were nothing but a challenging game waiting to be figured out and beaten.
Something about his tone sent another wave of chills up my spine. I wasn’t sure but I could’ve sworn I saw his armor shifting colors, as though covered in an oily substance. Then he pulled out a new sword too, also seemingly covered in a substance of shifting colors. We began to get closer to one another, while the other skeletons under their leader’s command shifted around to try and enclose him in a circle.
“I guess it’s time to get creative.”

> Bone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The sounds of death filled my ears as the prince disappeared from sight going behind me. When I turned around I saw about a third of the skeletons that had accompanied the three of us to the cave, their remains littered the ground.
“Weak!” the prince shouted, disappearing behind me again. The sounds of death repeated and I turned once more to find the rest of the skeletons were down and out.
Bones and arrows were scattered across the field making a circle of death, surrounding the three of us. He disappeared again.
“GAH!” Com shouted from my side. I turned a third time to find the prince holding his arm, twisting it around and looking pleased with himself.
“Stop it!” I growled.
“And why should I? This is the most entertainment you’ve given me yet!” he shouted while twisting Com’s arm further, eliciting another scream.
“I said STOP IT!” and with that I charged at him, only to have him sidestep at the last moment and push Com into me, sending us both crashing to the ground.
“My brothers...” I heard Skeleton say weakly, observing the remains of his fallen family.
“You talk as though a monster like yourself could ever feel emotions,” the prince said, appearing behind him.
Skeleton snarled and turned around so fast I was sure he would’ve gotten whiplash were he a fully fleshed being. He aimed his bow at the prince’s head and fired. At nothing.
It baffled me as to how it was possible that he could be moving so fast. It baffled me that he could take the beating I gave him and come out without a scratch. But it baffled me most what was happening now. He was flying.
“How are you flying?” I asked with a fair amount of confusion, and a hint of jealousy.
“When the world favors you, anything is possible,” he said, with a huge twisted grin plastering his face.
He slowly descended to the ground and walked over to me. I would’ve run, but he would’ve caught me. I would’ve attacked, but he would’ve struck me down. I would’ve done either anyway, but then I would’ve left my friends behind, and that was something I couldn’t do. Instead, I faced him down and almost wet myself out of fear. I prayed that Chrysalis never found out about that.
“You are the only one who has ever given me a challenge. We are going to fight,” he said, changing his stance to one for a proper duel.
I gulped and raised my own, taking my own stance, “And if I choose not to?” I asked, defiantly.
“That’s not an option, I’m afraid,” he said with an even tone. Then he closed the gap between us, and the fight began.
I have to say that a diamond sword is much sturdier than a wood one, a stone one, and even an iron one. My armor, on the other hoof, was not so sturdy and soon was full of dents from blows I thought I could block.
Kaile began laughing like a lunatic dancing before the moon. His swings were precise, always aiming for my armor. When he swung his blade, I would raise my own to defend myself, but it was as though mine didn’t even exist. It was simply pushed aside and the hit would connect.
“What’s wrong, creature? I thought you’d provide a much better fight than this!” he said, pausing his strikes to taunt me with hand gestures and words.
I took the moment to catch my breath and cough up my life’s substance. After wiping what I could from the sides of my mouth, I took a look at him and looked into his eyes. They were cold, they were like a frozen metal and even more empty than The Abyss. To say his eyes lacked any trace of a soul would be an understatement. It was as though he thrived on taking the souls of others and reducing them to nothing, crushing any hope they might’ve had of having a decent life. These were truly the eyes of a monster.
After another moment, I got up and ignored my instincts to flee. I pulled my blade back out and stood my ground, waiting for him to make his next move.
“Good, it appears I haven’t broken you yet,” he said.
I smirked at him, “I’ve had worse.”
He stopped smiling and spoke with an even tone, “Such bravado will only get you killed quicker, beast.”
“You haven’t been able to yet,” I challenged, waving my foreleg around, trying to get Skeleton’s attention. He noticed, but so did the prince.
“What are you doing?” he wondered aloud.
“What’s it matter to you?” I countered. I had to stall for time so Skeleton could get Com out of here. They had to escape.
The prince pointed his blade at me and I looked at it. Even after smashing into my armor so much, there wasn’t even a scratch on it. My armor was starting to push into my chitin after the beatings and my heavy breathing, but I couldn’t land a hit on him if I tried. This wasn’t a battle; this was a child playing with his food. It was a cruel kid burning an ant with a magnifying glass and Celestia’s sun.
“I’ve given you the fight you wanted. You will treat me with respect, you vile creature.” I saw Com getting up behind Kaile and Skeleton was helping him get out of here. I didn’t look directly at them though, as the prince would probably catch on and turn around. Just another minute and they’d be safe.
It seemed as though that wasn’t going to happen, however, as I forgot something that now was biting my plan in the butt. Com picked up a few bones and arrows trying to get away, and even I heard the sound over the dying flames of the forest. The prince looked around and saw them limping away and began walking toward them.
I feared for the worst and resorted to my plan I used the last time he turned his back on me and rammed him to the ground. I don’t know why, but apparently that worked as he didn’t dodge me or even try to evade me in any way.
I looked at them and shouted “Run!” while doing just that myself. Luckily, Com seemed to be able to fight through his pain and he let go of Skeleton, nodding at me. The three of us ran out of the area as fast as we could, the low number of Player soldiers still around was surprising. I guess the nightlings were able to fight them off; either that or some of them took my words to heart and fled the fight on their own terms.
The few that did spot us didn’t seem too worried about us and instead looked as though they were merely hoping we wouldn’t attack, or maybe they were afraid to interfere with the prince’s prey.
After all the fighting I was tired, Com was tired, even Skeleton was tired. Even so, we kept running. It seemed as though the prince wasn’t chasing us anymore by the time we reached the edge of the forest, with daylight approaching fast, and as far as anyone was concerned, we had no plan of what to do next. I had a feeling that there was one place left that I could consider safe right now. It was a feeling I wasn’t completely sure of, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment. As we rested, I figured this was a good time to bring this up.
“Com,” I said between a few hard breathes.
“Yes, Craft?” he wheezed, wincing at the movement of his injured arm.
“We need to get back to the witch. I think she can help us.”
This seemed to peak Skeleton’s interest in the conversation. “A witch?”
“Yeah, she helped us when the endermen got us out of the village.”
“What was her name? Did she tell you her name?” he asked, nearly demanding an answer as he walked up to me. The sudden rise in interest caught me by surprise.
“I uh, I didn’t catch it. I ran out of there really quick when she gave us energy potions.”
“Her name was Agetha,” Com spoke up, his second wind kicking in and his injury appearing to be in more control by the looks of it, though he still held it and a trace of him wincing was still noticeable when he shifted it around.
“Oh, thank goodness it’s her. If it’s her, I’m sure we’ll be safe. I know she’ll be able to help us,” Skeleton said, clearly relieved and in favor of the plan.
“How did you know her name Com?” I asked, curious since she didn’t mention it while I was there and we left at almost the same time.
“You ran off right before she said it,” he said, looking at me like I asked an obvious question with an obvious answer, one that would’ve been obvious if I hadn’t run off so quickly earlier. I looked away, feeling the slight embarrassment that came with making rash decisions sometimes. “I remember which way it was from here, but it’s almost day time. How are you going to get there safely?” he asked the skeleton in our group. It was a fair question; with daylight here he wouldn’t be able to travel over land safely like he would during the night.
“Hmm, that is a troubling thing indeed,” Skeleton said, realizing with the rest of us how impossible the journey would be given the current circumstances.
I looked at the sun as it began its ascent over the horizon, cursing it silently for the harm it caused the nightlings. Not a moment after I finished my internal monologue of dislike, the sun vanished behind the clouds and the loud sound of rain was heard. The effect was instantaneous, and, like most things I had encountered in this world, it was weird.
I saw Skeleton come out from under his tree and for a moment I panicked, thinking that he would die because it was day. Then I remembered the last time I was out during the rain, how the nightlings simply seemed to ignore the sun since it was hidden.
With a renewed hope, Skeleton stepped into the desert. “It appears that luck is on our side.” He turned around to face us and said, “Let’s go, before they come looking for us and before this rain decides to let up.”
I nodded at him and moved over to Com, helping him stand up while he muttered thanks to me.
After a few moments to ready ourselves, we began our journey back across the desert to the witch’s hut. I just hoped she’d really be able to help us like Skeleton believed she would.

> Cocoa Beans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	We made it across the desert, to the witch’s, Agetha’s, hut with the storm going overhead. Although to be fair it wasn’t actually doing anything more than covering the sun while we crossed the desert. It seemed to be enough, however, since the nightlings, including Skeleton, seemed to be ok with it. None of the Players seemed to be following us, but we still made sure to run as fast as we could, not stopping for even a moment in case they were actually following us.
When we got there, we checked in with her only to find that even she did not know where Creeper had gone to. The next few days were filled with silence and dread, knowing that the Players could come for us at any moment didn’t help. We mourned the loss of Zombie properly and found it hard to do much more than sit there and wish it was all over.
Finally, after a week of doing nothing and staring at my new diamond sword, which had barely been scratched even after that fight with Kaile, I decided I had to do something and asked Agetha what she could tell me about this world. She obviously knew more about it than any of us did after all.
“This world...it has no name you know,” she said, in her mysterious way of talking, fitting rather closely to the typical witch from my own world. What a coincidence, “and not even I know how it began.”
I walked over to her; she was closer to the jungle that grew right next to her hut than I was and it was hard to make out her form in the moonlight, “The nightlings know when it began, were you not around back then?”
“No, I wasn’t,” she said, turning around to face me. She had some sort of brown thing in her hand. I could smell it and it smelled like...cocoa? “I bet the nightlings don’t know how it started either. They might’ve been here when it happened but do you remember when you were born?”
She had a point. My first memory was of my old podmaster teaching us what it meant to be a changling. I usually got scolded because I kept looking at the walls when he was talking.
“What about when you first met the nightlings, how long ago was that?” I was curious since they had said their memories of before they became aware were primal but they remembered the villagers.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve known them. When we first met, I found a creeper approaching my hut and scolded him for trying to blow it up,” she laughed, walking toward a wheat field she had behind her hut, “You see this was before they knew what they were doing so he just looked confused before walking away.” She picked some wheat and planted the seeds that came with them.
“Why don’t you live with the villagers?”
“That’s a whole story for another time, shape shifter. I think you have other questions for me though, don’t you?” she asked, knowingly. How she was this perceptive I couldn’t say, but I probably wasn’t too hard to see through at this point. That might’ve been why it was so easy.
“The prince, he did something to himself,” I began, remembering our fight, my body trembling at the memory, “I don’t know what it was but it was like I couldn’t hurt him, and he suddenly could fly and move anywhere in an instant.”
Agetha moved over to a crafting table I had set up the first day we had come back, and to my surprise she turned back around with cookies. Handing me one, she said “I’ll be honest, shape shifter, I’ve seen many things during my life here but what you’re describing to me sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard of. I know of many things in this world, even some magic the likes of which I never want to see again, but nothing like that. Was there anything else you noticed, anything that could be considered strange?”
This whole world was strange, but I didn’t need to tell her that. I took the cookie and said, “After I took away his sword, he got up and suddenly his whole armor set started looking like it was covered in swirling oil or something, he even had a new diamond sword that looked the same as his armor.”
“Hmm, those sound like enchantments.”
“Enchantments? You mean his things were magically powered?” I asked, confused as to how the prince could’ve had magic when I hadn’t been able to use any myself.
“Yes, it would seem he has figured out how to tap into this world’s magic. There are tools that would allow you to do the same, shape shifter, but that would require a journey in and of itself outside this world.”
The look I had must’ve been a good one because she chuckled to herself. “What’s so funny?” I then asked her.
“I apologize, but that reaction never gets old. I’ve told the villagers about this before but none of them were willing to listen to me as I am but a witch to them, a crazy old lady who can see magic where no one else can. Look at your friend out there,” she pointed to Com, who was outside cutting a jungle tree for more wood, ”even he has magic that he has untapped. It isn’t much right now, but he has potential.”
I hesitated, but then decided to ask, “How about me? How much magic do I have untapped?”
She looked at me and said in the most serious voice I had heard her say thus far, “More than I’ve ever seen in a single body before.”
With that she said goodnight to me and I watched as she retreated down to her cellar before closing the door behind her. I wandered outside and I lay down on the sand. It was cold, but it helped to distract me from my current thoughts and frustrations.
According to the witch, Agetha, I had a very high untapped magic potential, but I couldn’t use it in this world. How could I tap into it? Was there some thing I had to build that would channel my magic like the prince’s enchanted armor and sword? If so, how would I even know when I saw it?
“Hello Craft,” I heard a bone like noise from behind me.
“Hi Skeleton,” I replied without looking at him.
“Why are you lying down on the sand?” he asked.
“Nothing really, just thinking about how we’re going to deal with the prince. I haven’t thought of much so far though,” I said, with a sigh as I turned over to my side, resting my head on my forelegs.
“I know it’s tough, I knew Zombie since we became aware, Creper too. Even so, we can’t give up on them. You know Zombie would want you to keep going, for all of us to keep going, though with fewer words,” he chuckled to himself, putting a small smile on my own face.
Another set of footsteps could be heard and when I looked up I saw Com standing over me.
“Any luck with Agetha, Craft?” he asked, sitting down next to me.
“She said that Kaile was tapping into some magic that only he seemed to be able to tap into. She said that somehow he had used his magic to enchant his stuff, but she wasn’t sure how.”
He hummed to himself for a few moments before speaking up again, “Maybe he made something with the crafting table. I’m not completely sure but it’s not out of the question, right?”
Then it clicked, the idea of the crafting table was something I had overlooked. I wasn't sure how though, I blamed the stress of the situation. I looked at him and said, “Com, that is definitely worth looking into.” I got up and opened the hut door looking over at the crafting table Agetha had used earlier to make cookies and set myself up to check out what I could make. It always confused me how all I had to do was sit in front of the thing and suddenly I would know what I could make if I had the right items. I thought about what could be made to channel energy into items, but nothing came to mind. I tried for several minutes while the others stood behind me waiting patiently for me to finish whatever it was I was doing, but even after what felt like forever I had no clue what I was actually looking for and gave up, smacking the table for good measure.
“Any luck?” Skeleton asked, to which I shook my head.
“I don’t know what he used, but he has had more time than any of us to figure out what it is he needs,” I said, walking over to a chair that looked more like steps than a chair, and put my head on the table, which clicked every time any of us put weight on it.
We decided to go to bed after that, although I don’t think Skeleton ever actually slept, and in the morning I grabbed some pickaxes and went to the cellar.
“Good morning, shape shifter, what are you going to do?” the witch, Agetha, asked as I wandered past the area she said was her room.
“I’m glad I ran into you actually Agetha, I needed to ask you a favor.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to sound rude but would you mind if I started mining down here? I don’t want to risk the Players knowing where we are by starting from aboveground and we’re going to need resources to make some equipment for when we have to fight again,” I said, hoping she’d say yes.
“I don’t think there will be a problem if you do,” she said.
“Thank you, I’ll start it down at the end of this-“
“However, you must give me all the lapis lazuli you find,” she said with a smile on her face.
I was confused, “Oh, um, alright. If you don’t mind me asking, why is it you want those in particular?”
“I am partial to the color blue.”

> Redstone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I spent the majority of the next week mining and gathering a vast amount off materials. It was a quiet week for us. When I went above ground to drop off my load of resources, mostly cobblestone and coal, with some iron mixed in, I saw Com building a farm outside the hut. I wasn’t really sure how he did that in a desert but I had the feeling he just put some dirt down and planted the seeds as he gathered them. Skeleton spent most of his time inside talking with the witch, Agetha, about what we could do about our situation. Every time I came up I would ask if they had heard anything from Creeper but every time the answer was no and I’d go back to digging.
Spending my time in the ground brought up memories of my life in the hive, the life I’d return to when I got back. When we weren’t training for stealth missions in the name of love, or training for combat should we have been discovered, we often took shifts working to expand the hive’s internal network of tunnels to accommodate the newborns, and the ponies we brought back to suck the love out of. The sheer terror of the ones brought back before being put in a stupor where they’d only see us as someling to love and cherish, forced of course, was the biggest source of an entertaining day for those stuck working in the tunnels, but not me. I knew that going against Chrysalis was stupid so I never did, but I’ve always questioned some of her methods for gathering love, such as forcing ponies to love us and then putting them in a stasis where we could harvest their love until their bodies turned to empty husks.
Even with my doubts, I continued working for the hive as it was the only home I knew and it was my life and I wanted it to be the best I could help it be. That’s why I became an architect, to help our hive prosper and not collapse under its own weight, literally.
As I continued to mine, I kept digging deeper and deeper, using torches to light my path and allow me to see what resources were available. On one rare occasion I came across a red substance that, when hit, gave off a small amount of light. That seemed interesting so I noted it in my head and planned on seeing what the others knew about it later. Most of my digging ended up being me digging down and making a staircase of blocks as I went, but every now and then I’d discover a pocket of emptiness and I’d sit down and rest, partially because digging was tiring work and partially because I needed to eat and get something to drink. Going down into the ground I already knew it’d be hard to come across food and water so I always brought some down with me to let me keep going without having to return to the surface.
After over six days of digging, I had created a system of stairs and ladders, made from the wood of trees growing in the nearby jungle, that I could get anywhere I wanted underneath us for likely over a mile in any direction. I thought about it and chuckled at something I remembered Garnet Fury saying about me once, she said that if I put as much effort into our espionage and pony mimicry that I do into expanding our hive and trying to ‘make the place fancy’, as she put it, then I would’ve been able to trick the princesses into my bed by now. I’d always say that if I didn’t keep at it then there’d be no bed to bring them to and we’d share a smile. Then we’d be back to work, that was all before we went on assignment into the cities, when she still had her smile.
I shook my head to clear it and brought myself back to the present. I stood in a room I had created and looked at the absolutely absurd amount of chests I had filled with just cobblestone; they filled a space more than three times the size of Agetha’s hut, in every dimension.
“Ok, I might’ve gone a little bit overboard,” I said to no one in particular. 
A zombie wandered around the area, and for a moment my brain waited for him to say hello in the slow fashion I was used to hearing, but it never came. I sighed, my heart still heavy with loss, and went to the room next door, where I had more chests filled with sandstone I made from the sand I had to excavate near the surface to keep the whole desert from falling apart. The room was much smaller than the cobblestone room, as I decided to call it, and housed only enough chests currently to rival the hut in size, though honestly it was still impressive as to make the stone from sand you had to compress four pieces into a single stone so the amount of sand actually converted was rather overwhelming when I thought about it.
I heard footsteps coming from behind me and turned to see Com following Agetha.
“I see you’ve been quite busy, young shape-shifter,” Agetha said, small segments of hair dangling over her eyes.
“She’s not kidding, we got lost a couple times getting here,” Com said, chuckling at his journey most likely. “Maybe you should put up some signs to help us all figure out where everything is.”
“Hmm,” I pondered the idea. It should be easy enough to do; I only needed wood for signs if I remembered right, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. I guess working with tunnels most of my life just kinda gave me a sixth sense of how to navigate them so easily.” I looked at them and remembered I needed to ask them something, a broken record of a question really, “Any luck with Creeper yet?”
Com sighed, “Not yet. Skeleton has the nightlings looking for him but none of them seem to have any idea of where he went. They are all over the world and still there’s no sign of him.”
I frowned, mostly due to the building frustration that even with a network of eyes and ears as large as the one we had and yet we still found ourselves coming up short on anything to work with.
“Is there any place that they haven’t been able to check up on?” I asked, hoping we might’ve missed something we could look for.
“Other than a few villages taken by other Players and the entire underground, not really. The world is pretty big though, even with everyone looking there is just too much area to search effectively, especially when our eyes and ears are mostly wild and aren’t looking for him all the time, only when we manage to remind them for however long we can.”
“Any word from Ender and his group?” I asked, grasping for straws. I knew they could teleport and they seemed to be a rather reliable group for getting to where they wanted, and the best part was they weren’t affected by the sun so they could actually get around all the time.
“Nothing from them either, I haven’t even heard from Ender for the last few days. I’m starting to get worried to be honest,” he said with a sincere tone.
I looked at him and felt glad that in this world where his people took over, he knew that everything they did was not just and decided to help the ones native to this world, even when that meant he had to be a traitor to his people.
“There are the rebels you’ve mentioned before,” Agetha spoke up from the other side of the room where she was looking around in the chests, probably for lapis lazuli.
“What about them?” I asked. It wasn’t that I hadn’t considered them so much as I didn’t think they’d be doing much other than trying to live without Kaile’s rule.
“Not long after their kind came here, some of them found my hut, after I moved away from everyone, and asked for help. I provided help for them, at a price,” she said with a smile that for a moment seemed sinister, though I may have imagined that. “They have been living in the shadows of the world ever since and even I haven’t seen them more than a handful times since.”
“Do they have a leader?” Com asked.
“Everyone has a leader, even other leaders. But to answer your question in particular, yes. He said his name was Artemis the hunter.”
Com gasped, whoever that was apparently had some significance from his world.
“What? Who is that?” I inquired, looking at Com, who looked as though he were remembering something important that could be of use.
“He’s the best magician from our world that communed with the animals of our world. I never met him but I heard that he could even talk with the monstrous beasts that plagued us,” he said, a distant look on his face, “His skill was legendary amongst even the king’s magicians. I thought all our mages were stuck defending the portal here; how could he have gotten here?”
His question was directed toward Agetha, who was still looking in the chests. When she realized this, she turned around and spoke, “I have no idea. I didn’t question who he was, I only knew he wanted to escape the man who gave him a hell worth escaping from so I helped him escape and I haven’t heard from him since.”
For a moment Com was stuck looking around the room with a pensive look on his face. His eyes darted around every direction, as though looking around helped him think about what he wanted to say.
When he spoke, his voice was full of determination, “We need to find him.”
Agetha laughed, “Good luck with that, both of you. I helped him hide, but even I don’t know where he ended up. I just made enough potions for them all to escape even the prince’s sight long enough to get him away from his people. I assume his want to escape had something to do with how insane your prince seems to be.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong about that, but we need to find him. What direction did he leave from here?” Com pressed her for answers. Whoever this Artemis person was, I could only guess that he’d be a great advantage to have against the prince.
“He went into the jungle, I told him that it was easy to get lost in there if you lost sense of which direction you came from for even a few moments but he just laughed at me with a smile on his face, and a bow in his hand, and then he left. Kinda handsome fellow, if I do say so myself.”
“Com, do you think this Artemis person will be able to really help us?” I asked, hesitant to think another Player would be so willing to join us so easily.
“If you knew half the things the prince did while he was in charge of the kingdom, you’d know for sure as I do that he’ll team up with us. He’ll probably even want to meet you. I heard he kept a log of any creature he met and reported it to the king so we could better prepare ourselves against the beasts if they ever managed to get past our barriers, or if we ventured outside one without a barrier stone.”
Tired of standing around, I sat on the hard stone floor. Com did the same.
“To be honest, I want to know how he managed to escape the prince’s notice when everyone came here. Maybe he even has more magicians with him.” I saw a smile on his face, a real smile. It had been so long since I saw one I couldn’t help but smile myself.
A short time after chatting about the farm Com had been working on, along with the other mundane things that happened while I was mining, I went with them back to the surface and we all slept, the moon high in the sky and Skeleton standing watch from inside the hut, looking wary of anything that moved. We had a plan and now all we had to do was get ourselves prepared for the journey.

> Vines
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I woke up to the sound of a fire, its warmth on one side of me while the cool of night dominated the other. Yawning, I looked around and saw Com standing guard around the camp we had set up earlier that day. It was the third day we’d been gone from Agetha’s hut and there was still no sign of this Artemis person or anyone he had been with.
I walked over to Com, after stretching, and kept myself from yawning again. “It’s my turn, go ahead and get some sleep.”
He turned to me and nodded before heading to bed himself. I watched him head back to our makeshift camp and put a few more pieces of wood in the furnace we’d brought with us. Knowing the fire was set for the rest of the night, he climbed into the bed and went to sleep.
The night shift had been a rather uneventful one, a few nightlings here and there. There were some strange cats, ocelots Com had called them, wandering the jungle, but they never got close to us. As such, I let myself wander into my thoughts again. Each encounter with the Players seemed like the last I’d ever have, but their leader, Kaile, would somehow mess up each time. That last time he even pulled out magic and still I stopped him, but how? How was I, no, how am I able to stop him when I can’t even use my own magic? I looked at my hooves and wondered if somehow I was channeling my magic in a different way, maybe in a way that this world acknowledged. 
I heard a rustling from the bushes nearby and tensed up for a moment before realizing it was just a spider trying to climb a tree. I almost cracked a smile at that, but I noticed something beyond the next hill, something that wasn’t cubicle. Normally that wouldn’t mean much, but it wasn’t one of those cocoa beans that were often present on these enormous trees, it looked like...
I gasped, but only slightly. We were being watched. I wasn't sure by what, but I kept my eyes on it...and then it came out. It was a zombie; that had been its nose. I sighed and slapped my face gently a few times to try and wake up. “Come on, Craft, stop being paranoid.” We were days away from the hut and the Players didn’t know where she was or where we had gone to anyway. Right?
I shook my head vigorously and continued to keep watch, but the night was quiet. Unfortunately, quiet meant thinking time again and this time my mind wandered to my world. It wandered to my squad, Garnet Fury the most, but the others as well. Honestly we were a rag-tag group that knew our jobs but liked to have fun on the side, something Chrysalis wasn’t too fond of. Even so, thanks to my excellent skills, her own words, I was put in command of them. I never had a problem with them though; they welcomed me with open arms. It was kind of refreshing really. Before them I had been stuck with some of the most single minded soldiers ever to come out of boot camp. They were one mind, one body all the way. It was changelings like them that made the other races think we were a hive mind race. That made for effective military tactics and all but they weren’t much else off the field.
I mentally sighed as I watched the surrounding area. I thought I saw something flying around in the sky, almost looked like a bat, but I couldn’t make it out even with the luminous moonlight.  I spent the rest of the night wishing they were with me.

In the morning we picked up the remnants of our firewood and put away the furnace and continued onward. We still hadn’t any clues as to what we were supposed to look for -even Com hadn’t been exactly sure how to locate the magician that could likely help us.
Around noon we took a break and set our stuff down to make a temporary camp. I watched our stuff while Com went for some water from a nearby stream. Since he’d be gone for a couple minutes I decided to climb one of the trees with a lot of vines on it. That was one of the convenient things about these jungle trees, they all had vines on them and most could be climbed to the top that way.
When I got to the top I noticed this jungle was rather massive. We’d been traveling for half a week and still there wasn’t an end in sight. I let out a whistle that conveyed how impressed I was.
“Hey, are you going to come down or what?” Com said from below, his voice slightly faded from the distance between us.
“Yeah I’ll be down in a sec.” I took the vines down and near the ground one of them snapped causing me to fall on my butt.
“You ok?” Com asked, handing me a bucket of water. How didn’t they have bottles here?
“I’m fine, though I’m sure my butt’ll be in pain for about an hour or so. I’ll get over it though,” I said, taking the bucket and sucking down the water until it was gone. This jungle was hot, hotter than the desert ever got somehow, probably the humidity.
“Hmm?” Com said, before leaning down right behind where I had landed. He turned to me, “Craft, I think you did some real damage. You broke the block of dirt.” Confused, I did a mental count and sure enough I had an extra block of dirt I hadn’t had before.
“Alright, but why was that something I had to come over here for?” I didn’t get what he was getting at.
“There’s cobblestone down underneath that spot.” It took a moment but I got that something was fishy about it and he must’ve read my face because he nodded and continued, “Cobblestone isn’t commonly a natural part of this world. It’s usually the result of someone mining stone and placing it back down.”
I looked at him and I could tell he was thinking about the same thing I was, “We’re not alone here, are we?”
“I’m afraid you’re not,” a new voice said, a deep voice. It likely belonged to a male, middle-age, and well versed in sneaking to have gotten the jump on us in the middle of the day. These observations were easy to make after being in infiltrator training as long as I had been.
“You’re lucky we’re not supposed to kill on sight; instead of that, we’ll just have to take you to our camp.” A Player walked out from behind the very tree I had climbed. I mentally berated myself. How had I not noticed him there?
This new Player took a look at me, almost like he was sizing me up, trying to figure me out. After a few moments he repeated this with Com. 
“You’re with a monster. Why?” his tone was forceful, yet curious.
“What’s it to you?” I said in response. He merely spared me a glance before looking back at Com.
I could tell Com was hesitating on what to do. He seemed torn between running, talking, and fighting for his life. After a full minute he chose to talk.
“We’re looking for someone, his name is Artemis and we heard he made it to this world.” His voice quivered slightly.
The mysterious Player seemed to mull it over before talking again, “The one you seek, Artemis, isn’t here anymore. He’s been gone for years now. In his stead I am in charge. You can call me Apollo.”
I wasn’t done though. “What do you want with us?” Again he looked at me and ignored my question. That was starting to make me mad.
“What is he?” the Player, Apollo, asked Com.
“I’m a changeling! And I can talk for myself!” I frowned at him, anger still building in my chest.
“I’ve not seen his kind here before. He’s not from our home world either. What does he do? Where are his kind?” Apollo asked. His questions stung me a bit, reminding me that I was alone here. It made me yearn for Equestria and the hive.
He must’ve noticed as he turned toward me and muttered something under his breath before turning around. “I suggest you move quickly, lest I have my men give you reason.” I heard a shifting noise and realized he wasn’t alone.
I quietly swore to myself and turned to Com. He gave me a look and nodded as though saying that we might as well. I relaxed my stance and walked forward, ready to brandish my stolen blade if the need arose. Com settled on a trying to not look as nervous as he actually was.
I just hoped that his words didn’t mean we would die when we got to the camp.

> Glowstone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I really wished I had just been paranoid, but things are never that simple.
It turned out that we had been followed, that was the only thing I got Apollo to tell me while he and his three man squad led us to who knew where. My guess was that he saw us pass the entrance to their lair the day before and had been following us since. 
When we got to the entrance I wanted to smack myself a little bit for missing it, or at least I did until the door closed and I realized they had hidden the entrance with a very clever mechanism, one that I noted in my head to figure out as soon as I could.
The inside of their base started as a narrow corridor leading to some stairs heading down. The stairs, much like the rest of the cramped area around me, was made of cobblestone. I looked at the bare walls around us, some dirt early on while stone became more frequent the farther down we went until there was nothing but it. The trip walking down took nearly two full minutes, but when we reached the bottom, I let out a gasp as the interior was massive. I wagered that even the famous Element of Loyalty wouldn't have been able to cross the span in under ten seconds at top speed. To be honest, this structure was so massive that I wondered how it could possibly stand to remain so sound with all the weight above it and the lack of any support beams of any kind. For as large as this area was, this place made no sense. It hurt to just think about as there was nothi-
"Welcome to The Bog," said our captor, Apollo.
And just like that, I made peace with how this place was still standing, and tore my eyes away from the structure to look at him.
I hadn't gotten a very good look before at his face, but now I saw it completely. His face was marred with several scars, most were small but there was a long, thick one that ran from where I guessed his left temple was down to right below his jaw line. His eyes were a rather piercing gold color that just seemed unnatural to me and sent a small wave of chills down my spine, as though they could see my soul and were judging me as he spoke.
"What do you want with us?" I asked simply in a flat tone. He hadn't been willing to answer that or much else on the way here, maybe he'd talk more since we were pretty much his captives in their home base.
He stood still for a moment before ignoring my question and walking toward a doorway a few dozen blocks away. Typical.
"Follow me, both of you," he said before stopping and adding, "the rest of you will wait outside." With that, the other Players that had come with him waited outside the room that he had slipped into only a moment after issuing his command.
Before going in, I glanced around the area and saw many Players, adults and children, looking at us from all over the large room. Then my vision went dark as we too entered the room.
"Sit," a voice commanded from the darkness.
"Sit where?" I shot back at the darkness.
"Sit," the darkness simply repeated with no change in its tone. This time I chose to do as it said, hoping Com would do the same and that we'd get some answers soon.
There was another clicking noise and soon the room was flooded with a blinding light coming from the walls. I took a glance at one of them after my eyes stopped hurting and saw that it was a new block, one that looked like some sort of stone block but shone a bright yellow color and lit up much of the area around it, despite it being embedded into the wall. I noted the stone in my head and looked at Com to find that he was paling at the sight.
"Com, what's wrong?" I asked, not liking his reaction to this glowing stone in the wall.
He ignored me for a moment and looked back at them, "How did you get in there?"
"If we choose not to kill you, then we'll explain," the one who had talked so far said. This caught my attention and I looked at the one who kept talking, leading this conversation despite not being Apollo, who said before that he was in charge. Instead, Apollo was simply standing off to the side, as though he was little more than another observer like his guards had been before entering the room. Suddenly this Player in front of us was very important.
"What makes you think you can-" I began, but got cut off.
"Craft, no!" Com said, interrupting me. I looked at him and saw only fear on his face. Something about these lights and the Player in front of us seemed to genuinely frighten him. I took it to mean that if they wanted to, they could really end our lives, not just send us back to where we started and shut up.
"Are you finished, monster?" the voice asked, his tone almost mocking. "Good, now I can get to the point. I suppose you want to know who we are, don't you?" When I realized this wasn't rhetorical, I nodded and he continued, "I'm sure by now you know of how we came to be here. Am I correct?"
"Yes." I was determined to get some answers from him, one way or another. Com's fear of this one made me realize how important this meeting could be for us.
"Good, then I can move on to my next point. We've been watching the world, much like that prince has been since we arrived here, and you are the first to arrive in a manner similar to us, ever. How did you arrive in this world?"
"I don't know."
Apollo didn't seem to like my answer and came up to me and punched me across the face. Com stood up and came to my side, and when I looked up I saw him pull out his sword. Apollo did the same, but stood his ground
"What the hell was that for?" he yelled at them.
"I don't appreciate smart talk, brat."
"I'm not being smart, I just showed up one day!" I exclaimed back, deciding to bite him if he tried that again. 
He went for another swing with his empty hand, this time at Com, when the other Player simply said, "Enough, Apollo. That was uncalled for."
His fist stopped in mid-punch and Com opened his eyes, pulling his sword away from a defensive position.
He growled and returned to his spot by the corner, crossing his arms while he leaned up against the wall, "As you wish."
Returning his attention to us, and as I sat back up, this mysterious Player held up a hand, "I'm sorry for his uncalled for behavior. Even now he fails to reign in his temper, much like his father. What do you mean that you don't know how you arrived in this world? How could you come to another world and not know the method?"
"I was... I mean, what does it matter? I'm here now and I'm trying to get back. Who cares how I got here?"
He sat there for a moment, his eyes closed, seemingly contemplating my answer, and my question, carefully before answering himself.
"We came here from a portal that was made of magic energy that we harnessed in our own world." He stood up and began to walk around the makeshift desk in front of him. "Every monster that has appeared so far has been here since before we arrived, and yet now you are here, a monster that none of us have seen before. Our agents didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when you arrived."
I was getting really tired of being called a monster, "Alright, but why do you need to know how I got here?"
"If we understand how you got here, we may be able to figure a way out." His words hung for a moment, sinking in to both Com's head and my own. "So, again, how did you arrive here?"
I held my head slightly down, thinking of whether or not to actually tell him. He seemed to have some confidence in his idea of escaping the world, but why did it matter how I got in? It just didn't seem to make sense. They came by portal, and so did I. How would knowing that change anything? I looked at Com, still a little frightened from the look on his face and he looked back and nodded at me, swallowing nervously.
I looked back at him and trusted Com's nervous council, "I was teleported here in a purple portal from my own world, but I didn't try to leave my world, unlike your people. Myself, and others of my kind, got teleported, although I didn't see any other purple portals like mine before I fell in it."

"There were others?" he asked, seeming genuinely interested in my answer.
"Yes, though I haven't seen any of them so far," I said, my heart aching at the reminder that I was alone, none of my squad here to help me understand this weird, stupid world.
Somehow that gave him a reason to take a moment and think. After a couple silent minutes passed, he looked to Apollo, "Give them a room to stay and begin to brief them on our plans. I think we may have a shot at this."
"As you wish, high priest." Apollo simply bowed and walked toward the door, "Come. We can't afford to waste any more time."
He seemed pretty antsy to get us going, and Com was all too eager to follow, though his fear was hidden now if he still felt it. My guess is that he did, and I didn't blame him.
*After taking us through a small maze of rooms not far from where we were interrogated, for a lack of a better way to describe what had happened, he stopped at a room labeled 'War Atrium' and went inside. Following him in revealed a room that had a rather large, wooden table and enough stone chairs to cover every possible seat. Despite this, there were only two other Players in the room.
Apollo reached the end of the table, Com not far behind, before noticing that I hadn't gone nearly as far as them in the short time spent in the room. 
"Get over here and take a seat, we have a meeting to start," he said loudly, making sure to get my attention, as though I were simply lost in my own thoughts.
I frowned, but didn't say anything as I walked toward the end where they had gathered and took a seat next to one of the other Players.
"So why'd you get us too, Apollo? I was sleeping before you had the guards come wake me up," the first one said. For talking to the one who was supposed to be in charge, his tone was very casual. Maybe this one wasn't as bad as Apollo.
"There's been a change in the schedule for our mission. Thanks to these two here," he gestured at Com and me, Com trying to shy away from being noticed for too long, "we have an unprecedented opportunity on our hands."
"Hmm, I take it you're the one they had the big guy tracking a few months back," the first one said again, pointing to the other Player that had yet to talk.
"I guess so," I simply responded, looking at the new Players with interest. The talkative one was slim, but had quite a bit of muscle on him after taking a moment to really observe him. The silent one sat there with a much more dense build that still managed to bulk more than expected.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the large one finally spoke.
"What loss?" I asked, confused where that had come from.
"Your zombie friend, I'm sorry that you lost him," he said with a sincere tone, honestly making me happy for just a moment that someone else remembered him before realizing that that must've meant he was there for the attack against us that day. Had he fought for Kaile, or had he watched on the side while refusing to help us? 
The thought of that made me temper my gratitude and I simply nodded, "Thank you."
Com and I took our spots next to them and Apollo resumed talking, "You, Com, I know you recognized the glowstone in the priest's chambers. How?"
Glowstone? While appropriate for what the block did, it just seemed too obvious, not that I had a better name for it at the moment.
Com opened his mouth to talk and hesitated.
"How?" Apollo repeated, his tone more forceful this time.
He flinched under his piercing gaze, and broke his silence, "My brother and his team were sent out one day and returned within minutes changed. I never saw where he went, only that he and his friends came back completely different than they are now."
"Where did they go?" Apollo pressed him.
"I think I overheard him call it the Nether while reporting to the prince shortly after," Com said, his eyes full of sadness and his voice simple and quiet.
Ignorant to his condition, Apollo nodded and looked back to the rest of us, "Just like we thought, they've been to the dark lands beyond this world. He even named it after our own land of sin and evil. No one in their right mind would come back from that intact as they were, but minutes you said?" he turned to Com again as he asked the question.
Com nodded, "Yeah, it was only minutes but he insisted it had been weeks, months even in a world of fire and darkness like we've only heard of described in our world. Not even the worlds we found before could have been described like this. I think that's why he went so far as to call it the Nether."
I just sat there and absorbed all of that as he spoke, realizing that he had let go of his brother already once before. His death was simply a form of peace from Com's perspective, a peace that would keep him from the horrors that that world held over him.
It also explained why they were so weird when I encountered them.
"Sorry about your brother, kid. That's gonna make this job a lot harder on you I think, but bare with us," the vocal one said, catching our attention.
"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked, wondering if he meant what I thought he meant.
His response was simple, a sadistic smile on his face, "We're going to storm the Nether."
Maybe he was worse.