1: Not in Minecraft Anymore
I took a seat on the cold, indestructible bedrock. I ran my fingers over a wooden axe absentmindedly as I stared into the depths of the welcoming portal below me. Common sense dictated that I should leave it alone and find another way out, but the built in need for exploration called me into the unknown. I looked down at my very first tool; I couldn't risk losing it. At the same time, the slight chance that I will find something new was so appealing I almost jumped into the portal then and there.
I look up from my axe and my eyes wander through the forest of endermen surrounding me, careful to avoid the towering mobs, but still sensitive to the slightest thing out of the ordinary. As my gaze returned to the portal, I noticed something strange. A miniature bedrock spire reached out of the center of the portal, widening at the top to a circular platform a meter in diameter. That didn't at all concern me; that was supposed to be there. The true concern of the situation was the lack of a dragon egg atop the pedestal.
I had to find that egg. The creator might one day give it a use, and this is the only one in existence! I jumped into a standing position and leaped off the portal, falling 5 meters before hitting the ground. Ignoring the prick of pain I took from fall damage, I searched frantically through the hordes of endermen, hoping to find the obsidian egg. After several painful seconds of running my hands along the porous rock, I found something that made my blood turn to ice. I looked in sadness at the shells of the egg, who knows what The Creator would have one day let me use it for? I picked up the shells and tossed each one in the air, watching them vanish and feeling their presence in my inventory.
Wait… I thought as realization dawned on me I am such an idiot!
Somewhere along the way, I forgot how eggs break. This egg can’t be broken like I thought it was, it would just teleport away at the first touch, and even if you did break it, it would remain intact. But wait… it can’t hatch either… right? Still, it wouldn’t be the first time The Creator hasn’t informed me about an improvement to the world. My wooden axe replaced my sword in my hand. I could stay here, where it might be lost to something I already know, or hop into the portal, where it might be lost to something new.
That sealed the deal. Getting up from the spot where the egg shells once were, I sprinted up the endstone staircase to the bedrock portal. I took one final look within the portal, at the cold orbs floating in harmony, and dove into the portal, hoping to The Creator I would hear a boring and long-winded conversation.
I was, to my relief, greeted with a blurry image of a wall of dirt. As I waited for the painfully boring conversation between two seemingly omnipotent beings, I listened to something far less than omnipotent.
What is it?
I don't know... We weren't briefed about this!
We should report this to Captain Shining Armor.
We can't just leave it!
Are you suggesting we drag it all the way to Canterlot?
You're the unicorn, just levitate it.
You know I can't use magic until my horn is healed!
This would have been so much simpler if we found a gryphon spy...
I bolted upright as I regained consciousness, making one of the things before me jump and the other one to point a spear between my eyes. There were two horses in golden armor; one was white, and the other grey. I recognized them because The Creator gave us horses rather recently… but they also seemed familiar in other ways. The thing that really caught me off guard was a dull spike protruding from the head of the grey one. There would be many, many questions between us, so I at least knew they were as uncertain of me as I was of them. With this common ground, I decided to cunningly establish contact.
"Hello!" I said enthusiastically. Both warriors jumped this time, and the white one, who had backed up against a tree, looked like he would burst into tears. Unlike his more cowardly partner, Spike Head just tightened his grip on the spear.
When the horse with the spear between my eyes regained his composure, he also decided to cunningly establish contact. "I am Private Jerome Anderson of squad 888. You are coming with us to our captain, and it is up to us whether you live or not, so stay in line"
I decided to play along. This is clearly first contact for these creatures, and this guy's shot at a promotion. I wouldn't shatter that to keep my pride nice and shiny. "Yes, sir," I simply responded.
-{x = (-b ± √[b² - 4ac])/2a}-
After about half an hour, I decided try to talk to Jerome, “Just a random fact: Jerome is the name of my cactus” I knew from past experiences of trying to get people to laugh, sometimes all it takes is saying something really awkward and random. Jerome didn’t seem too happy, but at least I got a chuckle out of the white horse.
“You are pretty prickly Jerome,” He had said. Jerome just snorted.
-{x = (-b ± √[b² - 4ac])/2a}-
We walked single file through the dense plant life for about another hour, with Jerome walking in front and the other one bringing up the rear. Every time I tried again to make some kind of conversation Jerome would threaten me, so I took to observing the forest. The trees resembled those if a dark forest, with thick, knotted trunks and huge roots, but there was a distinct lack of giant mushrooms to be one of those. This must be one of the new biomes The Creator gave us, but I got an eerie feeling that told me The Creator had nothing to do with all of this.
My troubling thoughts were interrupted as we at last came to a halt at the gates of a grand city, with gold and white architecture making up most of the buildings. "Welcome to Canterlot," Jerome welcomed dryly.
After another 15 minutes of walking, we got to the city itself. As we strode down the streets, I received a wide variety of looks from the locals. Which was strange, whenever The Creator places me with others, they look at me with curiosity if they look at me at all. Now I have looks of disgust, fear, curiosity, and even amusement burning through my armor, accompanied by hushed words I dare not decipher. I just did what I did when faced with bats in a mineshaft and ignored them.
After yet another 15 minutes of walking and weird looks, we arrived to a very sturdy but ornate tower, and by the way the walls curved inward to make simple designs, such as six-pointed stars, told me the walls were very thick, which told me we were probably at the barracks. Using a tower for the entire barracks was something I had never considered.
My build planning was cut short when the still anonymous white horse prodded me in the back with his spear, indicating me to move forward. When my escort and I stepped through the hard stone doors, I saw the inside was nowhere near as easy on the eyes. Bare, unpainted concrete made up the walls, and much smoother stone made up the floor. Now the looks I got we're almost all glares.
Many thick wooden doors later, we arrived at a much more ornate door, with a shield carved into the side, guarded by two more armed equines.
"What is that?" The light brown horse to the right of the door asked the guards. I would have answered immediately, but something caught me off guard: this guy had wings!
Jerome saluted and said attentively, "We don't know. We brought him here for questioning.” This was definitely a superior to Jerome.
Wing-horse-guy glanced between me, Jerome, and the anonymous horse. After a long pause, he saw my sword and exclaimed, “Look at its sword! That thing is armed!”
I looked down, and sure enough, I forgot to put my enchanted diamond sword away. I tossed it into the air and felt it vanish into my inventory. Jerome, the guards at the door, and the ever-anonymous white horse stared at me in a mix of shock, anger, and wonder, but said nothing.
The guard didn’t seem very happy about it, but he let us in "Captain Shining Armor, Private Anderson and Private Mistwal have brought a new sentient species," he said through the open door. When he finished talking he turned back around and put on the ever-vigilant-guard face I saw on all the guards who weren’t glaring at me.
Jerome and the newly identified Mistwal came with me into the office. Behind a mahogany desk sat another white horse, but this one had carefully engraved purple armor. This was probably the Captain Shining Armor I heard about. Mistwal and Jerome saluted, and I joined in. A little bit of a show of respect never hurt negotiations. Or maybe it did, I don't know. Either way, he seemed happy to know I was willing to negotiate.
"At ease, men," The Captain said smoothly, and the guards and I returned to our usual posture. Captain Shining Armor looked at me, like he was searching for something, then smiled. He removed his helmet as he approached me, and I did the same, exposing my short brown hair to the light of day for the first time since my other pair broke. The first thing I noticed was that he also had a spike coming out of his head, and that his mane was blue with lighter stripes in it, a texture that The Creator has never shown on the horses back in Minecraft. As I looked back on it, many of the horses in the streets had textures that The Creator had never gifted me with before. Again, I got the dreadful feeling that The Creator had nothing to do with this new world.
My thoughts were interrupted when The Captain spoke again "What do you call yourself?" He inquired.
My answer was ready in my mind; I knew this was coming first “I am a Minecraftian”
“I meant your name”
My name? “Oh… My name Steve”
“Okay Steve, tell me about yourself”
This conversation was going somewhere I hadn’t expected it to go. I expected shining to be some kind of stereotypical angry drill sergeant type guy. I’m not complaining, but he was very kind to a potentially dangerous creature. I just did was any decent person would do, and told him about myself. “I, uh, love to build when The Creator puts me on the building world, I’m an operator on one world, administrator on 3, and moderator on 1, I’m the best person I know at using a bow and arrow, my armor and tools are solid diamond, and as we speak I have 128 cookies on me,” There were a few things I couldn’t tell him without making the questions become hostile, like my ability to eat meat and skill at survival games.
“What is your architecture like?” Why does he care? Doesn’t he want to know if I am capable of breathing fire, or something more important?
“Before I answer that, why are you asking about things like the architecture of my people, and not asking if I was a threat?”
“I can tell what is and isn’t a threat just by looking at it. That’s how a got my cutie mark”
Never has an answer started so manly, and ended so sissy “Your… what?”
“I’ll answer that soon enough, you’re the one being questioned. As I was saying, what is your architecture like?”
“Among my people architecture varies, some people build castles, other build skyscrapers, some prefer roofs, others prefer crenellations. The only consistency is that mostly everything is made up of perfect one by one meter cubes. I could show you how I build; I could have a decent tower up by tomorrow”
“You can build an entire tower in a day?”
“You can’t?” These people must be the slowest builders.
-{x = (-b ± √[b² - 4ac])/2a}-
The captain and I went on like this for hours, with a few highlights here and there, me dropping 128 cookies on his desk from “out of nowhere”, proving my armor and tools were 100% diamond, explaining how enchantments work when he found the magic infused in them, but eventually he asked about The Creator I mentioned.
“The Creator is the one who created Minecraft, hence the name, but he also adds to it every few months. Sometimes he changes how things look, sometimes he creates new creatures, twice- no, thrice he has added new dimensions, sometimes he makes me more powerful, other times he makes me weaker. It just makes life more exciting,” I had said.
Shining smiled “I just get more questions than answers talking to you. This better not be how it was when ponies met gryphons for the first time; they questioned each other for 3 days!” His smile vanished and head spike did something weird. It made a light blue aura around it that occasionally flashed red. I sat confused for a moment, and then I heard it.
It sounded almost like dragging a heavy stone slab across a stone sidewalk. I remember this noise from my relentless study of the past few days, and it was right behind me. I felt my sword drop into my hand and I stood to face the door. Jerome and Mistwal didn’t even notice I had an enchanted diamond sword out in the presence of the most important person in the building.
“CAPTAIN!” A skinny brown horse burst through the door and slammed it behind him, hyperventilating. “I was out on an everfree patrol with Lieutenant Simons, and… and…” The poor guy broke down into tears; Mistwal kneeled(?) down beside him and urged him to go on, “We saw some kind of monster… Simons was first to see it, and it was like it knew! It knew Simons was looking!” He let out a sob, and continued, “It teleported behind us, and it snapped Simons’ neck like… like a twig!” He broke down again, and no amount of coaxing from Mistwal could get him to continue.
Shining armor coughed and faced me “I hate to continue questioning you after such a tragedy, but you wouldn’t happen to know about any of this, would you?”
I did as any decent person would do, and told him everything.