Quest Mode Jumper In Minecraft

[LucianoWrites]

Premise:
A young man riding a bus to work blinks and finds himself in a coastal forest, early in the morning. He quickly realizes that he has gained strange abilities, and that behaving in certain ways affords him opportunities to gain even more.
Meta Notes:
This jumper has the quest mode alt-chain ruleset built in, and has a unique connection to the EdroGrimshell "Generic" jumps allowing him to utilize abilities from them. Said abilities still need to be trained, so while this is a strong jumper he is not an invulnerable or undefeatable one, he's just beefy. Still, VERY overpowered for this specific setting, so keep that in mind. This is not designed to be a death-world for this jumper.

The exact "Build" the jumper has for Minecraft is non-existent at the start. He is, unwittingly, utilizing the "Hardcore" mode the supplement mentions in exchange for his innate connection to Edro's "Generic" jumps.

Alchemist
Bard
Clergy
Culinary Warrior
Dimensional Traveler
Enchanter
Hedge Mage
Merchant
Style Warrior
Tamer

Quest mode itself is a system I designed, specifically for jumpers who find themselves interested in the freedom of creative mode, but don't want the instant power said mode offers, or who want to reward jumpers for engaging with a setting creatively and "in-character".
Prologue:
On a loud, packed bus, a young man idly studies a glowing phone screen. There is a gentle smile on his face, and amid the chaos around him he softly hums a curious tune. The few people near him who hear it do not consciously recognize it, but their unconscious minds do.

Those who can hear the faint tune he is humming are reminded of a simpler time, of a goofy, and childishly innocent love story, and of a distant school many people liked the thought of attending during their youths. A place of music, sports, and smarts.

The boy himself has many fond memories of the movie set in the school, and so it is on his mind as he mentally readies himself for another grueling shift at his job as a busboy at a local restaurant. It is at this moment that the figure shuts his eyes. Unbeknownst to him, the very second that he does this he unwittingly sets in motion a series of events on scales both bigger than he can imagine and much, much smaller than he can possibly fathom.

The world freezes around him, and his surroundings instantly blur. His body begins to be altered by processes that involve countless esoteric formuli and tremendous modifications to his spirit, mind, and body. These processes begin and end in a matter of attoseconds, and each one confers new knowledge, new memories, and powers to the young man. As they occur, the boy is transferred from one location to another, teleported by esoteric energies and universal winds.

The thing that tips off the boy, barely 17, to the oddities occurring around him is the sudden lack of noise. In the span of the seconds his eyes are shut he goes from hearing chaotic background noise to hearing nearly nothing, and this causes him to open his eyes curiously. What he sees makes him gasp, even as his other senses suddenly catch up and alert him to other oddities regarding his surroundings.

---

One moment I'm sitting on a bus on my way to work and the next… Well, the next I'm feet away from a forest that stretches as far as I can see in one direction, and an endless ocean the other. I'm sitting in white, densely packed sand, and I can hear and smell the ocean behind me.

I quickly get to my feet, keeping my eyes on the dense line of dark trees all the while. The trees are massive, extending some twenty or thirty feet in the air, and I can see and hear various animals running around on the ground between them. At the same time a strange number appears in the upper middle section of my vision. It reads "5,256,000.60" and it begins to tick downward within a millisecond of appearing.

"That's… weird. It's a timer." I remark, realizing this almost instantly. The instant that I do I get shocked when I hear a soft peal of feminine laughter come out of nowhere and in fact resound from impossibly close by. I quickly spin around, looking for the source of laughter and I get annoyed when I can't spot it. It takes the source of the soft sound to reveal itself.

"Ah, sorry. I should have introduced myself before I reacted to your remarks. You can't see me, I'm… a part of you." The voice explains, causing my eyes to narrow skeptically.

"It's true! I know it sounds crazy to you, which makes sense, but you are a 'Rebis' now. Among other things. And a part of how that manifests is in me, a feminine counterpart to your innately masculine outer self. I am inside of you, and can be allowed to wander, within limits, with a thought. Try it!" The voice explains, causing me to sigh silently. I look around, making sure that there's no one nearby, and then I try to do as I was told to do.

I envision this… other-self manifesting near me and I openly gasp in shock when a woman actually does appear on the sand in front of me, a bright smile on her face. She is almost intimidatingly pretty, appearing with light blonde hair in contrast to my own dark brown hair and with gentle blue eyes that are noticeably different from my own green ones. She is dressed in a casual outfit made up of jeans and a t-shirt. She is wearing a curious double necklace in the shape of a tiny sword and a small shield.

"Hi! I'm so excited that you were able to manifest me so easily," She says, cheerily. "Now I know that you're confused but thankfully I have a bit of an explanation." She tells me, before taking a breath and thinking about how to begin to explain whatever the fuck is going on.

"Okay, so every soul gradually accumulates energy. Most souls have a very tiny amount that they can safely store, and any more energy they accumulate is harmlessly dispersed around them. Your soul is a bit different." She explains, cryptically.

"This is not a unique anomaly by any means, but it is important that it be dealt with. Creatures with unusually massive souls are capable of surviving inter-universal travel unaided, though not unchanged. At the moment that you closed your eyes you hit your apotheosis-point, the point wherein your soul absorbed all of the energy it could safely absorb relative to the mundane universe you were in. You were shunted to this world, a world of some magic and various monsters, where humans are a rarity but not an impossibility, and where your soul can absorb much more energy safely before you are again shunted elsewhere." She tells me, dumping a lot of information on me at once. I look at her, curiously when she finishes talking, noticing she hasn't explained… her whole deal.

"Okay, let's say that I buy that… That doesn't explain you." I reply, even while glancing at the forest, and keeping my eye on it. She nods, and I can feel her noting the intelligence of my remark.

"That's a good ear. That'll help you survive. When you were shunted from one universe to another the inter-universal energies that touched you and left you changed awoke your innate connection to ten different arcane and esoteric arts. The ten are the art of the alchemist, the art of the bard, the art of the clergy, the art of the culinary warrior, the art of the dimensional traveler, the art of the enchanter, the art of the hedge mage, the art of the merchant, the art of the style warrior, and the art of the tamer. I am a complex manifestation of one of the higher end skills of the art of the alchemist." She informs me, her lips tilted upwards in a broad grin.

"There are strict limitations that apply towards me, for now, but with the decade we have here we have all the time we need to begin to work towards overcoming said limits." She says with a smile. My eyes widen when I hear her say that.

"A… decade?!" I remark, stunned by what she has just revealed. She giggles.

"Yep. That's how long it'll take you to accrue enough energy from this universe to be shunted to another one. In the meantime the knowledge that I, as the supernatural half of you, possess will gradually leak from me into you. I can guide you in how to utilize the full slate of powers we possess anyway, but it's better for you to fully internalize it." She tells me, a smile on her face. She falls silent and turns to glance at the forest behind her. I watch her tense up and am surprised when she grabs her necklace and unclasps it.

I hear a faint groaning sound, one that sounds quite some distance away, and the woman in front of me idly taps the bottom of the stylized dual-accessories on her necklace. The things morph into full-sized versions of what they were stylized versions of: a sword and a shield.

Behind where she's standing a strange figure emerges from behind a distant tree. My eyes widen in fear when I realize that I'm seeing a large, shambling corpse. The distant figure is lazily exploring its surroundings, but its definitely mobile and it has dark green skin and empty eye sockets. It is shrouded in the shade provided by the massive trees that tower over it.

My companion darts back until she is only just in front of me. She grimaces as she studies the creature.

"This is bad. It is dark enough in the forest for monsters to spawn. That's potentially cataclysmic news. I need to get you up to speed fast." She tells me, and when I hear her say that monsters are "Spawning" in the forest I glance at her.

"Like… in Minecraft?" I ask, and she smiles but she doesn't say anything. When she next speaks she does not answer my question.

"I need you to focus. Picture a vault in your mind's eye and envision it opening in front of you." She says, and though I keep my eye on the distant zombie I do as she says. When I behave as instructed I am surprised to find that my mental vault is filled with items already.

"Look for the necklace. When you see it, reach out and grab it with your hands. Like it is actually there." She tells me, and it takes me a beat to spot the necklace but when I do I follow her instructions. As I do the vault closes and the objects are in my hand, but in the fully manifested form hers took when she tapped them.

"Okay, at least you're good at this." She says, a smile on her face. The zombie begins to turn, this time in our direction. When its head is facing us I get to see the previously neutral expression on its face turn into one of hatred and rage, and the creature begins to bound towards us even as it gutturally roars in anger.

I steel my arm holding the shield and I grit my teeth but nothing could prepare me for what occurs the instant that the zombie runs out past the shade provided by the trees in the forest. The instant that the massive creature darts past the leaves blocking the sun's rays the thing bursts into flames. I sense my companion begin to smile as she leaps forward and swings her sword at the beast we are facing. The creature is struck by the blade and its whole body flashes red as it seems to be blown fully off of its feet by the force of the blow.

I immediately realize that this… must actually be Minecraft. In my whole life I've never seen anything other than Minecraft where monsters spawn from nothing in the dark, where zombies burst into flames in the daylight, and where a hurt creature flashes red the instant that it is harmed. The second I realize this I grimace and dart forward, my own sword being thrust in front of me as I roar in anger.

"I'm in fucking MINECRAFT?!" I roar, even as I slash out with my weapon. The thing feels incredibly light in my hands and somehow holding it fills me with confidence I reach the massive, flaming zombie and strike it clean in the neck with my sword which makes it flash again and sends it further back.

My companion darts to my side and follows up on her initial strike, and hits the zombie in its shoulder. This time the blow hurls the creature back and when it lands it collapses and disappears, leaving behind green experience orbs, a haunch of floating, almost green, meat, and to my surprise a ripped piece of blue fabric, like from "Steve's" default outfit.

"Oh hey, a trophy! That looks nice." My companion says, as she darts forward and grabs the thing. As she touches it I feel a curious sensation wash over me and I sense vague memories fill my mind.

I "remember" things that I know I don't actually remember, such as a distant part of the forest I cannot see from where I'm currently standing, and the general sensation of the zombie's slow movements.

"Whoa, that's… weird." I mutter, as I look over at my companion and sigh.

"Minecraft? Seriously?" I ask, even as the full weight of this begins to crash over me. A decade in Minecraft… The figure I'm looking at nods sadly at me.

"A decade. In Minecraft." She tells me, affirmatively. She then glances at the piece of fabric in her hand intently and then the thing vanishes. I sense it enter the "vault" I seem to be in control of. I glance at my objects and I focus on willing them to shrink down. A split second after I begin to focus the objects vanish and become one necklace that comes into being around my neck, making me smile.

"Huh… I also have superpowers. I guess that helps." I remark, causing my companion to smile.

"You do. It does. But by itself you'll still be in danger. We should start setting up a shelter of sorts," She tells me, to which I nod. "Fortunately you have something which massively simplifies that. Go ahead and open up the vault again. When you do, look for a blue cube." She instructs me, which I do without complaint or hesitation. I find it and immediately replicate the actions that allowed me to grab the necklace and this time a blue cube appears in my left hand. She smiles when she sees the thing in my hand.

"That is a 'Portable Cabin' and it tremendously simplifies the work of building a shelter." She informs me, a bright smile on her face as she proudly talks about the object.

"All you need to do is select a place to put the thing, and then press the button on top of the cube. It'll take a minute or so once you've pressed it, but it's effectively an instant house. You can move it, by pressing on a button in any of the rooms in the house. Once pressed the house will deform and return to a cube-state, which you can pocket and then place elsewhere. It'll even retain any changes you made inside of it!" She tells me, proudly. My eyes widen when she finishes speaking as I gaze at the object.

I study the beach I'm on, which I almost unconsciously realize should only be about two dozen "Blocks" wide, before selecting a spot in the middle of the beach and placing the cube on the ground near it. I tap the button on the top of the cube and I smile when I watch the cube light up and begin to spin of its own accord. Seeing this further cements the bizarre reality of the dangerous new world I'm in, even though this object is not a "Minecraft" object.

"Okay, so no time for fooling around. I need to go and figure out how to make this place safe, fast." I remark, as I study my surroundings. Ahead of me are trees that are both the source of some of the dangers I'm facing and a part of the solution.

I begin to walk towards one of the trees and my companion follows behind me, a curious look on her face. I reach the tree and realize that I'm about to test how committed to the idea of "Minecraft", quirks and all, this place is. I close my fist and begin to punch the bottom of the tree, and I mentally note that the tree doesn't feel particularly hard when my fists impact it.

I strike it with one hand at first, before I begin to both speed up and vary my assault by adding my other hand to the mix. It takes about half a minute, but the chunk of wood I've been assaulting eventually shrinks down and becomes a floating cube. The rest of the tree is not affected by this, and now it simply hovers over the ground with no connection to the floor of the forest. I reach down and grab the cube, and as I make contact with the cube it vanishes and a blue text box appears in the middle of my field of view.

[Alert: Quest-Mode Interface Installed & First Quest Completed

Congratulations [Jumper], you are the recipient of an experimental method of power acquisition, as dictated by the omniverse itself. This interface is known as the [Quest-Menu] and it is a system installed onto your soul to help you manage the burgeoning powers you are discovering within yourself, and also powers you will acquire over the course of your journey.

You have already noticed something important. The [Cosmic Timer] you can see in the upper-middle section of your field of view is a timer that is keeping track of how much energy your soul has generated. When it finishes its countdown you will be shunted to another universe, and your soul will be updated to cement the abilities you've gained here and to empower the objects you've found that resonate with you. In the meantime, your goal is or at least should be, to survive.

New powers can be acquired by completing [Quests]. Some [Quests] are quite simple, such as the one you've just completed [Basic Introduction], and others will be much more complex. Nonetheless, all quests, when completed, afford you with certain rewards. The quest you have just completed affords you the ability to utilize [Minecraft Physics] when doing so would be convenient to you, as well as access to the very basic abilities possessed by the archetypical [Traveler] and [Crafter], 'Steve' himself. Additional rewards can be found in your [Portable Cabin].]

This screen remains visible for a split second after I read it, and then vanishes. I turn to look at my companion and she shrugs at me.

"I know what you're thinking. Literally. I didn't know that would happen. Uh… That said, I can go inspect the cabin while you continue to work here, okay?" She asks, and I chuckle and nod at her. The cabin, meanwhile, is now translucent but visible. It is a decently large space, about eight blocks long in each direction and at a glance I can determine that there must be more than one floor.

I turn back to face the tree and begin to punch the next section of it, which starts at about my neck and proceeds upward for a bit. As I begin to physically assault the thing I hear the door into the cabin open and then I am surprised when I begin to see something wholly new: the inside of the cabin.

My vision has been bifurcated somehow. It's like I'm watching two people play a co-op, split screen video game. One half of my vision remains as it should, with me seeing the tree I'm assaulting, and the other shows me what I instinctively know is my companion exploring the cabin.

As the second part of the tree I'm assaulting begins to crack under my unending assault, I study the living room section of my cabin. Tucked away in a corner is a small Minecraft-style chest that my other self immediately wanders towards. When she reaches it she kneels down and opens it, only to gasp when she spots numerous beginner items from this game.

I scan the contents of the chest and immediately notice several loafs of bread, a complete "Stack" of torches, numerous wooden blocks, several packets of seeds, iron tools, and a full set of leather armor. I chuckle when my companion touches the armor and seems to just… will it onto herself, which works and leaves her outfitted in light but serviceable armor. She proceeds to touch and simply will each of the other objects in the chest into our shared "Vault", and I sense them entering our shared space. When she is done she closes the chest, and I sense her thinking. I can now hear her idle thoughts, and they are filled with observations about what she has just witnessed.

She eventually shakes her head, right as the part of the tree I'm assaulting breaks under the rough ministrations I'm administering. I pluck another cube, and watch as my companion begins to explore the rest of the cabin. I then reach into the vault and equip one of the iron tools the chest in the cabin held: an iron axe. As soon as I equip it I sense some of my new abilities activate for the first time.

The entire bottom tenth of my field of view is suddenly filled with various symbols and icons. One of them is a row of hearts, on top of which is a series of icons of haunches of meat, depicting my health and my hunger. Not far from those icons is a long "Hotbar", a series of boxes filled with items I can instantly equip. On top of my hotbar is a series of icons of iron chestplates, but they are currently black indicating that I am not wearing anything classified as armor right now. When I'm done studying the familiar symbols I glance back at the world around me and chuckle when I see faint lines defining each "block" around me.

"Minecraft. But in real life. Wild." I mutter, trying to take this in stride.

For the next forty or so minutes my companion and I pass time with idle but important tasks. I busily farm my surroundings, while occasionally getting coached by my other self in the usage of some of my abilities, including one that lets me repair objects with my mind, she carefully surveys the cabin. We both note, with delight, the fact that there is a modern bathroom and several bedrooms, as well as a full kitchen, and we are both overjoyed to see a crafting bench, which my companion immediately chucks into the vault, and an alchemical workstation in one of the rooms.

At one point during the nearly-hour-long terraforming session I place the crafting bench on the beach not far from me and I transform some of the oak blocks I have made into planks, and I begin to place torches in the immediate vicinity of the cabin. Doing so is easy, but during this time my companion tells me she has run out of energy for the moment and vanishes, leaving me alone, before mentally reappearing inside of me and explaining that in time, with training, she'll be able to function for longer and be more independent, but for the moment she can at most survive outside of me for an hour before needing to recover within me and only be a fairly short distance.

I quietly accept this, thankful that she is still safe and in fact conscious, and continue the labor of transforming my immediate surroundings until the sun begins to descend. When it does I quickly retreat to my cabin, aware of the dangers of the dark in Minecraft, entering the cabin shortly before darkness begins to creep towards my new home.

When I enter the cabin I immediately turn on the lights in the living room, the room right behind the door leading in and out of the cabin. I glance at the symbols near the bottom of my field of view and note that none of the symbols have begun to decay.

"That's because you don't need to eat. You're an alchemist, but one with a body that has innately mastered alchemical rituals and incorporated properties. You can eat for the heck of it, or to speed your regeneration, or to grow in power and intelligence thanks to your nature as a 'Culinary Warrior' but it is not necessary for you to eat to survive. Your 'Hunger' will only ever go down if it is used as fuel for your regeneration." My companion reveals, causing my eyes to widen in delight. Right as I am about to cheer I hear the sounds of distant, and loud monsters.

The sudden reminder of where I am tempers my excitement. I walk over to a nearby window and look through it, facing the beach and the ocean. For several minutes nothing happens as the sun completes its swift descent and the moon distantly begins to rise up, seemingly out of the ocean itself.

I can see for miles, and while there is a lengthy "Safe" zone that I have constructed using torches to keep monsters from spawning, there is still many miles of coast further down and I watch zombies come into being, along with bow wielding skeletons, all of whom form out of nothing but the darkness itself.

"Huh… Just creation out of nothing huh? That hardly seems fair." I grumble, as I begin to patrol the whole cabin. I look through every window to make sure nothing spawns in my safe zone, and I do so for a whole hour before I am content enough to move to one of the bedrooms. When I reach the thing I sit on the bed and take in the craziness of the last few hours.

"Minecraft… but for real." I say, as I attempt to wrap my mind around the very idea, on even the most basic level, of what has just happened.

"Fucking A, man." I complain, as I begin to put together various ideas and form a cohesive understanding of my situation.

"A decade here, in a post-apocalyptic world, with powers I don't understand… And the ability to get Minecraft powers and items if I complete 'Quests'. Okay. Probably not THAT bad, if I just keep my cool." I mutter, even as I relax and lay on the bed. My thoughts are punctuated by the distant sounds of the roars of monsters. The monsters always seem ready to interrupt me whenever I get a big head. I chuckle and shut my eyes.

In moments I feel my consciousness drifting away. It takes a matter of minutes, less then five, before I manage to fall completely asleep, but as I do my last thoughts are of idle musings and me wondering if maybe I'll wake up back on the bus, having simply doozed off. The voice of my companion is the last thing I hear, and she warns me that that won't happen and that this is real. Not exactly a reassuring sort, that one…

A/N: Trying something new. Each jump in this chain will serve as its own story, and some jumps may be decidedly NSFW, and thus in the NSFW writing place, but this one *won't* be. At most sex, if it occurs at all in this story, will be fade-to-black-style and it might not occur at any point during this story.

The intention is for each jump to last between 40-65 chapters. I am working on the next chapter as I post this, but I am a very *chaotic* writer, and sometimes a story can be updated more than once a day for a week, and other times it'll be months between chapters. That said, the intent is for us to have fun when we're together, not to be posting regularly. So... here's hoping this goes well.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 1:
My eyes snap open and I find myself atop the bed I felt like I just fell asleep in. The room I'm in is small, but the furnishings are nice and I sit up and find that new information fills my mind. But before I consciously unpack the new knowledge in the back of the part of my brain that is distinctly mine I glance at the cosmic timer.

The number on it now is not as high as it was before. Instead of reading 5,256,000.00 it now reads 5,254,560.45, which I estimate indicates that to the minute a full day has passed since I arrived here.

I have no real method of knowing what the precise local time is so I don't bother trying to determine it. It's late enough in the morning that I don't hear the screeching sounds of pained monster roars that I would expect to hear if the newly spawned undead were first discovering how the sun affects their kind, assuming that every Minecraft rule I'm familiar with applies to this world. I'm unsure of whether or not any undead smartly found cover in the nearby shade created by the closest trees, and when I glance out a window in the room I'm in I don't see anything indicating the fate of the monsters one way or another.

My mind begins to wander and I find myself reflecting on some of the new knowledge I possess. I am now vaguely aware of the basics of the ten "arcane and esoteric" arts that have apparently been baked into my body. Each of them is a distinctive and unusual thing.

"Alchemists" are practitioners of the art of alchemy. They are wise people, sages who can do acts such as creating liquid medicines that can cure diseases or bestow a range of favorable conditions on those who imbibe them.

"Bards" are those who transform music and stories into power. They are entertainers and everymen who turn charisma into influence and influence into a form of subtle might.

"Clergy" are those who are close to the gods and their kin. Faith is their bread and butter, and they gain powerful boons both from those who they speak for and from those who they guide.

"Culinary Warriors" are folks who have mastered the science and art of cooking. Their food is a balm for the soul as much as it is nourishment for the body.

"Dimensional Travelers" are brave scouts who venture beyond lands known and into spaces unknown. They are masters of movement and travel, capable of deftly navigating the world around them.

"Enchanters" are creators. They forge objects and transform even mundane things into magical artifacts capable of changing the world.

"Hedge Mages" are magicians and scholars, but not ones educated in vast universities or arcane palaces. They are magicians who listen to the world and who hone magic their own way.

"Merchants" are travelers who buy and sell goods. They gather and utilize wealth, mastering the unsubtle power of riches and greed.

"Style Warriors" are fashionistas who deftly clothe themselves in potent armor and good-looking threads. They are capable of weaponizing their own bodies in ways both surprising and frightening to those not expecting them to be fighters.

"Tamers" are the best friends of animals, even monstrous ones, and possess abilities attuned to the welfare of animals, as well as emulating their abilities. Their skills are varied and potent and are the skills that most interest me at the moment.

All of the powers inside of me, some of which I can now name and articulately call upon even without guidance from my other half, are powerful things. Even the least of them, traits more than powers really, amplify and empower me in ways both subtle and not-so-subtle.

A simple trait I possess as a "Dimensional Traveler" amplifies the speed at which I learn. It makes me learn things five times as quickly as someone else would. A trait I possess as a cleric amplifies my determination and willpower. Another trait from the clergy art makes me immune to mind control. These are simple things, decidedly less potent than greater powers I possess and my rebis is aware of, but that yet elude my distinct awareness. Still, the comprehensive package that is now baked into me is a powerful thing.

I quietly get up and allow my mind to continue to wander. As it does, I find that there is one area where my knowledge is strikingly complete: that of my items.

I possess an array of delightful tools in my "Vault". Some of these things are simple and direct, such as the "Templar's Armor" which is a suit of well-made armor that has a built-in forcefield that uses my faith to shield me from harm, and others are more complex such as the "Sheele"; an item that is a fully living being. The "Sheele" is an elemental spirit loyal to me that is capable of casting spells and using magic of its own. I possess two such spirits, with one linked to myself and the other linked to my other self, my rebis.

I opt to equip some of my items immediately, such as the armor, which I don with a thought by using the "Quickchange" power. "Quickchange" is a style warrior power that lets me instantly put on clothing and place the clothing I'm wearing in my vault. As the armor wraps itself around my body, I feel the subtle effects of other clothing-related perks I possess coming into play.

"Style Warriors" possess an array of abilities that make clothing better to wear. Perks like "Practical Fashion" which makes it so that clothing never restricts me and "Like A Glove" which resizes any clothing I equip until it fits me perfectly, are just two of my clothing-based abilities.

As I adjust to the sensations that accompany the lightweight metal armor I feel my rebis stir within me. It greets me quietly and asks me what the plan is for today, to which my answer is simple.

"The best strategy moving forward is to continue to work on establishing our shelter. Doing so might well unlock how we could gain more powers related to this universe." I remark, even as I begin to walk towards the cabin's exit. My rebis accepts this, and notes that she is feeling quite good since I followed her advice yesterday regarding a special perk named "The Magic Of Living".

That unique perk is one of two such abilities I possess that grant me some mental slots that I can put abilities in and allow them to effectively always be trained. In exchange for the utility of said ability, it trains such powers at a rate of a tenth as fast as real training would. This means that even having an ability in it for twenty-four hours would only train any such ability for two and a half hours, but that's still a lot more than not training a power would.

In seconds I have stepped outside and can study my surroundings more than I could when stuck indoors. The sky overhead is clear and in the distance, I can't see any monsters indicating that even the smartest undead were too shocked by the deadliness of the sun's rays to take cover before they were destroyed. As I study my surroundings I do two things at the same time. The first thing I do is place my crafting bench nearby, and the second thing I do is mentally place some items around me.

The first item that I place, other than my personal Minecraft crafting bench is an item I possess as a merchant. The thing is an android that looks like a tall, muscular woman, a "Constructed Guardian" which is a machine that is designed to loyally protect and serve me. It is clad in clothes that look like a suit of armor. The other items I place are faceless mannequins that are also designed to serve me, but in more utilitarian ways, six in total, that immediately look at me and wonder what to do.

My "Constructed Guardian" does not await instructions and instead begins to silently survey the area around me. It has white, colorless eyes that emotionlessly study our surroundings. The mannequins, dubbed "Mannequins" even within the recesses of my mind, are potentially more intelligent but need instruction in the beginning. They all look at me and await my instructions.

"Alright lads, here's the plan." I begin, even as I move over to the crafting bench and I begin to use it. I place sticks and planks atop the bench in the proper structure to replicate the "Recipe" as Minecraft defined it, of axes, and watch as they instantly transform into axes. The objects, being constructed by me, are both better looking and thus more effective than normal axes would be. Each time one is created I toss it to one of my servants.

"We're going to be terraforming this region. In this world, the darkness is an active and real enemy. Monsters spawn in the dark, and they have a personal, visceral hatred of us. So we're going to obliterate the areas where the darkness is free to churn out monster after monster. To do that, we're going to cut through this forest." I say, watching as the faceless mannequins study the axes and then nod at me.

"Get in pairs and work together to begin to cut through different parts of the forest. Stay close together, and if you find any caves immediately report back or signal to me that you've found one. Stay away from them for the moment. Additionally, before your axes break bring them to me. I can fix them so that we don't have to keep creating new ones whenever ours break." I order, and then release the creatures to set about their business. They immediately get to work, and I motion for my guardian to accompany me as I equip my iron axe and begin to get to work on trees nearby.

I hurl myself into my work, doing the same grueling labor as the bizarre machine-like beings that are serving me. The sounds of the labor, theirs as well as mine, soon fill my ears and moments later I begin to hear the sounds of blocks of wood turning into the tiny, portable cubes that can easily be pocketed and used to craft various items. I am surprised when one of my servants touches a cube and it appears in my inventory, but that is quite convenient as far as gathering goes.

Minutes begin to turn into hours as my crew diligently and tirelessly works to clear out the area. We work for a good long while and before I know it midday is approaching as the sun reaches the zenith of its orbit. The beach and the neighboring forest are warm but they are not uncomfortably hot, though I have no clue if that'd be my natural, organic reaction, or if it's only perceivably the case due to perks I possess…

I study the landscaped surroundings and note the impact of ceaseless diligence. Dozens of trees have been felled and that affords me visibility I previously lacked.

The area neighboring the beach I first spawned on is a long stretch of forest. Previously I couldn't quite determine how far the forest stretched, and I still can't, but I can now begin to estimate that it stretches for a truly long distance.

I can see and hear a range of animals, from cows to sheep, and even as I spot them, I begin to mentally count just how many of them there are. The animals are interesting to me, given the intense potency of "Tamer" powers. I silently summon my rebis and I turn to her with a smile.

"Do me a favor and go and grab the bench, would you?" I ask as I look down at the spot where she's standing. She's on the forest floor, and I'm atop an artificial pillar I made to reach the upper reaches of a tall tree. She smiles at me and nods as she begins to walk towards the beach where the handy object is waiting for her.

I begin to deconstruct my pillar, even as I begin to think about what I want to do next. As I pillar downwards I silently summon one of my "Items"; the "Sheele". The begin comes into existence on my shoulder, manifesting as an ethereal owl seemingly made of wind. It is naturally translucent and I can tell that it is a stealthy thing.

"Hello little one, how are you?" I ask, and the creature chirps at me cheerily. It is a tiny thing, but one that will be immensely useful in the minutes, hours, and days to come. I can understand what it says instinctually, thanks to a "Tamer" perk, and it informs me that it is feeling good. I smile brightly at the beast and lightly tap my head against its own.

"That is excellent! I need your help." I inform it, and it chirps again, cheerfully telling me it's ready to help me.

"I need you to go into the air and see if you can spot an edge to either, or both, the forest, or the beach. If you see any caves, also let me know." I tell it, and its eyes narrow in determination. I smile as the beast flaps its wings and hops off of my shoulder, leaping into the air with ease and immediately sailing upwards. I reach the forest floor right as the owl above me stops ascending and begins to hover. I estimate that it must be hundreds of feet in the air and chuckle.

My rebis is walking back towards me, having gotten the bench and already placed it in our inventory. I place the bench nearby, and I immediately begin to place more planks and sticks on it. Planks and sticks form the necessary components of countless Minecraft recipes, and the ones I want to work on are just a pair of examples of that.

I watch as sticks and planks, configured properly, transform into fences and fence gates. I begin to collect the created objects and as I do this I watch my actions cement their transformation, permanently changing the sticks and planks into fences and fence gates. My rebis reaches me and she looks at me with a curious grin on her face.

"What are you up to?" She asks, studying the objects in our inventory with a curious look on her face. I chuckle as I get ready to answer her.

"I don't want to turn this place into a desolate landscape. I just don't want it to be dark. I'm planning, effectively, our first farm. And preparing for our first native friends." I tell her, causing her to smile at me curiously.

"I'm planning to create some animal pens, and to begin taming nearby animals." I explain, causing her to suddenly nod in delight.

"Oh! That's great." She exclaims, causing me to chuckle. For the first time, I wonder how thorough and persistent our ability to read each other's minds is, since we possess a telepathic connection of some sort but I appear to be able to hide some things and I have to assume that she can do the same thing.

"So of all of your powers, which do you like the most so far?" She asks, curiously. I don't hesitate to answer her question.

"Oh, my tamer abilities. In a world like this, the 'Tamer' powers are top-notch." I tell her, causing her to think about it for a second before nodding.

"Hmm… I can get that. 'Tamer' abilities are strong in any setting with a large emphasis on nature." She replies, even as I begin to place fence posts and fence gates in an area around the crafting bench.

I create decently large pens, and spend a few moments eyeballing measurements. Doing so is easy between some of my new abilities and the fact that my vision automatically frames the world into an array of equally sized blocks for the sake of things like this it is remarkably easy for me to create an array of pens. My rebis helps me by being the one to take the damaged axes brought to us by the mannequins and repair them so I can work without distraction.

The perk we use to repair the axes is a handy one. It is named "Seamless Repair" and while it works best on things made of cloth and fabric, it works on any damaged object, and repairing something as simple as the wooden axes is not a challenging feat in the slightest.

I create six different pens and once I'm done with that I recall my mannequins and equip them with different crops by using an item I possess as a "Culinary Warrior". I instruct them to bring the animals that we can now see wandering the parts of the forest we've cleared to the pens, and teach them that luring the animals to us is as easy as showing the beasts the appropriate crops. Once armed with this knowledge the mannequins depart from me. In a matter of minutes, right before my rebis vanishes, having spent a little over an hour and five minutes out in the material world, a pair of the mannequins enter one of the animal pens with a pair of sheep.

I shut the gate to the pen, and with that I have successfully captured my first animals. I desummon and resummon the mannequins outside of the pen and thank them for their work. They nod, silently, at me and then begin to walk off in search of more animals. I turn my attention to the captured animals who don't seem to mind captivity and nearly mindlessly graze on some grass.

The sheep have cute looks on their dumb faces, and I approach one of them even as I equip some wheat. This causes the sheep to look at the wheat intently and I chuckle as it begins to walk towards me. As it does I activate one of my powers, one that all "Tamers" possess; the power to tame beasts. The instant that I activate it I feel the creature, nearly mindless due to Minecraft's simplicity, become "Tamed" by me. The beast's eyes widen and I feel some semblance of intelligence enter its gaze.

"Hi there." I say, a bright smile on my face as I look at the beast. It looks at me in awe, and while I can tell that it has not become a genius or anything I can keenly sense the distinctly sharpened intelligence in its gaze. The sheep bleats at me, and the sound is filled with curious emotions.

"It's so nice to meet you." I say, responding to the sheep's "Words" which were an emotional greeting in its version of the language all animals speak. This is not a property of Minecraft, but rather something unique to me as a tamer, and I am left in awe of the potency of my powers.

I also feel a new sensation in the wake of my successful taming of this gentle beast. I feel newfound energy flowing into me, energy which I harvest idly from my tamed friends, and I smile as I hear my sheele gliding down to me. When the beast lands on my shoulder I turn to look it in its azure eyes, a striking color for an owl. The instant that our eyes meet the owl chirps at me, telling me important news. My eyes widen as I listen to the revelation it brings me.

"A canyon!?" I ask, wanting to be sure I understood it. The owl nods at me, brightly. I smile at it and cheer as I take in this news.

"A canyon… Excellent. A source of stone, some lava, and a way to explore some caves." I remark, brightly. I glance back at the owl and I ask it how far away is the canyon, which causes it to chirp in response to my remarks. My expression darkens when it reveals that the canyon is a good distance from here, at least a day's walk away if the area between here and it, which is just a dense forest, is not cleared somehow.

"Hmm… Well, that's disappointing. Expected, but disappointing. Still, the knowledge that there is a canyon nearby is very intriguing." I remark, as I thoughtfully consider what to do next. I allow the owl to remain perched on me as I turn my attention to the other sheep and I repeat what I did to the other sheep to this one, bringing up my total number of tamed animal friends to two. The sheep has a similar reaction, which is quite amusing to me, and I thank it for being here and joining my group. The animal nods at me, and I let the two sheep eat the wheat in my hands, even as the remaining mannequins begin to slowly bring over various animals.

The next few hours are split between me taming various animal companions, the majority of whom are sheep but some of whom are pigs and cows, and me beginning to light up the region of the forest we've cleared. In no time at all the sun is beginning to descend and I call on my companions to come with me back home. As we march back towards the beachside cabin I use my rebis to study the area we're leaving behind by having her focus on what is behind me.

We've cleared a region a few miles wide and about two miles long of trees. I have, quite literally, hundreds of oak blocks in my inventory. The region is lit up by torches, but I am nearly out of the vital tools. Thankfully I can just "Smelt" some of my wood for charcoal but even doing that requires that I dig down somewhere and get stone to build a smelter…

In minutes I'm back home, and I order my mannequins to stand guard near the various windows and the one entrance and exit leading in and out of the cabin. My constructed guardian follows me as I do a patrol of my home, and find it empty aside from the people who are supposed to be here. Night falls fast and in moments my keen senses pick up the first wails of the monsters that spawn in this world at night. They do sound noticeably further away, however, which is nice.

I head over to the kitchen, a surprisingly grand and modern thing, of the cabin, and study it. I am no longer adventuring by myself or with just my rebis, and even though my followers are all artificial lifeforms I have powers related to cooking that make it worth my time to cook for them.

As a culinary warrior, I possess powerful cooking-based abilities. Among other things, I can cook food for anything, even inanimate objects and the very land underneath me, and "feed" such things my dishes, which will make the things I feed better in various ways. I begin to get out some raw ingredients, all given to me by items I possess as a culinary warrior that provides me with a replenishing supply of food that is restored weekly, and I summon mindless servants.

The servants are "Homunculi", artificial lifeforms that vaguely resemble humans and serve as extra hands for me to operate with my mind. Together with a pair of them I begin to cook a meal for eight, which would ordinarily be a challenge but between perks I possess that simplify the act of crafting things, including meals, and my homunculi, as well as perks that give me exceptional cooking abilities, I find it easier than I could have ever imagined to manage the kitchen and to skillfully prepare a large meal.

The meal I make is a simple ramen meal consisting of chicken and vegetables all mixed in and cooked in a delicious broth. I eat the meal, and watch as my artificial followers and my sheele finish up their portions as well. When they are done I subtly study them using powers I possess as a merchant that my rebis slyly told me about while she was out in the material world. Such powers allow me to appraise both people and objects and do so in the form of showing me bright status windows quantifying the stats of things around me, and in doing so I notice that their stats and intelligence are a touch higher than they were before the meal, which brings a smile to my face.

I collect the dishes that we have just used to eat our meals and I clean them before heading to bed. By the time I'm in the same room I woke up in, over a full two hours have passed since I arrived back in my new home. Nonetheless, when I lay in my bed I feel satisfied that I am actually using my powers.

There are many abilities I still haven't used, such as my powers as a cleric or hedge mage, or even dimensional traveler, but using what I used today such as my tamer powers, my style warrior powers, and my powers as a culinary warrior allowed me to easily and significantly modify my surroundings and to begin to enhance the abilities that those who serve me possess. I have also made new friends, and I possess increased awareness of my surroundings. All in all, today was a success, and I begin to relax and muse on that as I shut my eyes.

I fall asleep nearly instantly, and I feel as though I wake up almost as fast, with no hesitation or grogginess holding me back when my eyes open. I instinctively check the timer and notice that another 1440 minutes have passed since I last consciously checked it, so my internal clock must be more or less primed to start my day at whatever time it is that I keep waking up.

I immediately get up and I get to work and before I know it another day has passed. For the next few days, my schedule is a simple thing. I get up, I work on terraforming the area between the cabin and the canyon, and I also hone my abilities as a tamer.

During this time I allow for subtle changes such as digging a hole just deep enough for me to grab enough stone to assemble a smelter or utilizing some of my abilities like "Ethically Sourced", a power that lets me harmlessly harvest animal resources like meat or wool without actually harming the animals I harvest it from, but for the most part, my schedule is monotonous.

At night I cook for my companions, including my sheele and my rebis. We delight in the convenience of the items we possess and are thrilled to feel our abilities growing stronger while we consume delicious foods. During this time I do not get any new Minecraft abilities, which is curious, but ultimately not a cause for concern.

On my sixth day here, shortly before the sun begins to set, we chop through enough trees to see the plains biome that I know is the location of the canyon. I quickly gather my companions and we dart back home, making it back into the area we've fully illuminated just in time to miss any spawning monsters. The rest of the night passes by uneventfully, and on the morning of my seventh day I wake up thrilled by the prospect of going and exploring the canyon which I know is not far from the boundaries of the plains biome.

"Stones, ores, lava, and access to the underground parts of Minecraft…" I mutter as I study the view my window provides me of the ocean with a bright, excited smile on my face.

Canyons are a treasure trove for someone who is, effectively, a beginner, and while they aren't without their dangers they are also incredibly exciting. In minutes I am out of the cabin, accompanied by my retinue of followers, and we are all marching towards the plains. I can barely contain my excitement.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 2:
I idly toss the cube containing the pocket cabin into the air as my companions and I march through the portions of the "Forest" we have forcibly modified. I have transformed the cabin back into its native state just in case we decide to make the plains our new home. I don't want to get overly attached to any particular region, and to get complacent. Surviving this world for a decade is no joke, and if I want to do that I need to be ready to move, especially if there are hidden secrets in this world that I am not ready for.

For a while during this walk I wondered if the animals would be okay before remembering that this is Minecraft. Mobs, once spawned, in this world only tend to die if slain by something or if pushed off cliffs. There are no cliffs in the area where the animals are corralled and with the light level so high there shouldn't be anything that'd want to devour them. And I'm not sure how long I'll be out in the canyon, I might come back today or I might be back in a week.

Thankfully the assurance that this is Minecraft, a pertinent thing I need to remind myself of every once in a while, is a powerful contextualizing factor that somewhat relaxes my concerns. In some respects this world is a nightmarish hellscape, and in others it is a game for children with an internal logic that runs like it was designed to appeal to children. Animals not randomly despawning is a handy way this game reminds gamers who it is meant to be played by.

Over the last few days we've cut a direct, straight path through the woods, quite brutally chopping down every tree in our way until we reached the very edge of the forest biome and could see the brilliant beauty of the plains, though I couldn't quite appreciate it as much as I would have liked last night given how late it was.

The morning air is cool on the parts of my body that are not covered in the lightweight armor I am using to shield my body. Truthfully there are ways around me using armor, if I felt like using them, such as a nifty perk designed to make armor obsolete but I don't love the thought of using such perks, even if one is currently shielding the parts of my body that aren't clad in armor.

The perk shielding me is named "Style Armor' and it works by making my body and clothes as sturdy as the toughest piece of clothing on me, including armor. The perk is handy and in a more normal world I would absolutely use it in a more active sense but in a setting like this one there is no reason for me to do that. In Minecraft people are more concerned with survival than with fashion and if I want to survive I need to match that energy. No time for fashion when zombies swarm the land every night.

Minecraft seems like a chill world until you're actually here, listening to the real sounds of actual monsters. These last few nights have been relaxed but I still overhear the sounds of monstrous roars every night. Every night this world devolves into a hellish landscape filled with violent monsters. Every morning the sun comes up and kills the majority of said monsters. What a mess of a world I find myself in.

My companions and I are marching through the part of the forest biome right beside where I spawned that we have, through sheer tenacity, cleared. Ahead of us I can see the plain we are approaching. I smile as we get closer and closer to this new landscape with every step.

The path we've forcibly carved through the forest extends for a few miles, and at night the path is illuminated by vibrant torches but during the day the sun allows us to see farther than we can at night and with considerable ease. All of us are silent as we carefully study our surroundings.

So far the only times any of us have actually been attacked is during the early morning. When monsters that survive the sun's rays retreat into the woods they have, on occasion, survived and lived long enough for us to have to put them down. They even damaged one of the mannequins two days ago, but I repaired it easily enough. That said, the encounters we've had have managed to make it so that we think before we move and so we subtly act more like a unit than a group of individuals moving in the same direction.

Our journey to the plains remains uneventful even when we cross over from the forest biome and into the space we barely reached yesterday. I can't help but smile excitedly when I step out out past the boundary of the forest.

"Alright, a whole new biome." I remark, grinning from ear to ear. I don't know the precise mechanics of Minecraft on the level of a professional player or researcher, but as I study the plains I immediately note some differences that decidedly matter.

The area ahead of me is almost completely tree-less. I can spot a handful of the objects if I utilize the full intensity of my post-peak-human senses, but even then I have to push my eyes.

The grass is covered in flowers and tall grass grows out of about every ten blocks that I can see. The sight of the stuff excites me since I know that such objects are the source of wheat seeds which produce one of the most handy crops in Minecraft: wheat. I also see an array of animals mindlessly grazing on the grass of the blocks around us. My companions cautiously survey our surroundings, but we all know that, at least for right now, there isn't a lot of danger here. We step fully into the plains biome and begin to close in on the canyon.

The pristine scenery stretches out before us as far as even I can see. Miles of untamed, vast wilderness as far as the eye can see. Various animals wander the land, though invariably they are all animals I have seen before. All of my companions wield a weapon of some sort, from simple axes, to their own fists which are invariably harder than human skin.

We walk for close to an hour before I finally see the distant crack in the world that forms the borders of the canyon. When we begin to close in on it I get cheerful and urge my companions to hurry, a feat which is easy since all of us are post-human in various ways and can run without losing stamina.

We move much more quickly as we begin to close in on the canyon, and in minutes rather than an hour, we find ourselves within feet of the gigantic gash in the earth. I look at the floor of the canyon, which is well over two hundred feet below us, and chuckle.

The floor is covered in stone, and there are small pools of lava down inside of the canyon. I can also see a distant cave with darkness deep enough that at least from this distance my eyes can't penetrate it. At the same time I see a small bar appear in my mind's eye. It has the word "Traveler" etched over it, and it fills a bit. I instinctively understand that the bar is conveying to me that I've begun to make progress towards unlocking more "Traveler" perks, which encourages me to keep going, as this is the first concrete example I've seen of something urging me in a specific direction.

I don't hesitate to act in the face of this unusual challenge and I immediately plop my crafting bench in front of me. I am no Minecraft expert, but I do some basic things and some not-so-basic things, and one basic thing I know is how to craft ladders. My companions watch as I get to work placing sticks in the prerequisite shapes on the bench needed for them to stick together and become ladders. In seconds I have several ladders and I ask my companions to come and take some.

"Begin to climb down the canyon with these ladders. They are sturdy things, but be careful as the ground is far and hitting it would hurt." I tell the creatures as they grab tools and begin to walk towards the hole in the ground formed by the canyon. I watch them peak out over the edge and then kneel down and affix the ladders to the canyon's walls. Seconds later they begin to slowly climb down it. I whack the bench until it becomes small and pocket it before I get up to go after them.

The instant that I reach the edge of the ground beneath me I kneel to look for one of the rungs of the ladders my allies have been placing. I quickly find one, though not before seeing my companions slowly making their way down the canyon's walls. It is an amusing sight, and I look forward to reaching them.

The instant that I begin to climb down the ladder I get a surprising notification. It manifests as another large text box square in the middle of my vision, one that annoyingly takes up a gigantic amount of visual real estate but the information it conveys is amusing.

[Alert: Potential supplement detected

[Supplements] are manifestations of cosmic energy that can be infused into you and will shape elements of the world around you. Normally such things are detected immediately but you reached your [Apotheosis Point] abruptly and were shunted away before preparations were fully made.

If you [Install] a [Supplement] you will gain access to new powers and new items, though only a handful of new powers will be installed immediately. Items will be scattered throughout the world, and other powers will require the completion of quests to be acquired. That said the potential new powers are remarkably handy.

The [Supplement] in question is [Generic Platformer], which contains a number of abilities related to parkour, travel, and platforming video games. Would you like to install it? It is the only [Supplement] that will be available for the duration of your stay in this universe, and once installed it will remain a part of you, as permanent as other powers you have acquired.]

Both my rebis and I read through the notification and when we're done I do not hesitate, nor does she encourage me to not do what I'm about to do. As far as either of us can tell these things will only grant us powers and make modifications to select elements of the world around the two of us. It sounds like a clear case of something that is interesting and almost certainly more good than bad.

I opt to install the supplement and the instant that I do I feel a wellspring of curious, almost electric energy surge through my body and I hear the rebis let out a curiously cat-like hiss as we both react to the new powers that fill us. I tighten my grip on the ladder's rungs and I barely manage to hold on while the electrical energy courses through me and then eventually dissipates. At the same time I see a wholly new notification taking up visual real estate, one which outlines my new abilities.

The abilities are handy things. Two of them are curiously subjective quality of life abilities, "Colorful" and "Soundtrack" which let me modify how the world looks, to me at least, and an ability to play songs from a purely internal playlist of music from platformers.

The remaining three abilities are surprisingly potent things. One of them is an ability which lets me defeat foes and either take or learn something from them that relates to travel and mobility, such as defeating a teleporting enemy from which I can gain an ability to do some short range teleportation, which makes me feel excited to inevitably clash with an enderman, one of the others is an immunity to the negative effects of being underwater, ranging from not being able to breathe to its effects on things like weapon speeds and the effectiveness of most projectiles. The final perk is something named "Parkour Prodigy" and it is a handy thing that I fully intend to take immediate advantage of.

"Parkour Prodigy" is a handy, multifaceted parkour perk. I feel its effects surging into me, giving me a full decade of experience with parkour, and even instilling in me knowledge related to parkour. One of its handiest elements is that it gives me immunity to certain types of traversal-based damage such as fall damage, which I don't hesitate to take advantage of by leaping from the ladder and smiling as I feel wind rushing past me.

As I sail through the air, my mind idly wanders. For not the first time since I've arrived a part of me grapples with the fact that, among other things, this means that the multiverse is a real thing. I have not attempted to grapple with that bizarre reality because doing so would force me to deal with existential dread I don't think I'm ready to unpack, but the fact that I have superpowers and that I am sailing some one hundred feet through the air plummeting towards the bottom of a canyon and won't be hurt when I land is forcing me to think about it.

In some respects Minecraft is an excellent place to be while grappling with this bullshit. This is a dangerous, post-apocalyptic hellscape that gets weird at night so I really can't afford not to focus whenever I'm outside. Hell, even in this world if I were in a village I could probably relax, but I was spawned in the middle of nowhere, next to a forest. Forests are deceptively dangerous in this game, or rather world, and because I'm somewhere between a beginner and a decently experienced player I knew better than to relax in one. Still, now that I have more time to grapple with this… I'm beginning to think about what this means for my role in the multiverse.

While one part of my mind grapples with somewhat deep philosophical concepts and my nature as a multi-universal being, another part of me simply doesn't. That part of me feels free as I sail through the air and as I look at the ground rushing towards me I don't feel an ounce of fear. I've only been here a few days but I've personally felt and seen the decidedly real impact of my abilities. I know that they are real, and they work, and this is further cemented when I land on the ground of the canyon and feel completely fine.

Now that I am inside of the canyon I look around and study my surroundings cautiously. I can hear the distant groans of monsters, but I don't immediately see any around me leading me to wonder if the walls of the canyon are only a few blocks thick and obscure deadly foes. The walls of this canyon are surprisingly far from one another, at least a good dozen or two apart, which gives me a decent amount of walking space.

My allies are nearby and they are still slowly descending down the side of the canyon wall closest to me. Ahead of us, way off on the other side of the canyon, is the large cave I saw before. It's far enough and dark enough that I can't truly make out what is inside of it, but now I'm a touch closer to it, close enough to detect the miasma of dark magic, a magic that I've grown vaguely acquainted with during my limited encounters with monsters. I equip my iron pickaxe and I keep my eyes on the distant cave.

I efficiently mine a handful of stone blocks and drop my bench on the ground in front of me. When the thing resizes and takes on its true form I immediately arrange the stones I have just harvested into the shape needed to form a smelter. The second that I do the object is formed, and I instantly grab it and toss it to the floor next to me. As I do I begin to make some charcoal and summon my rebis who appears next to me with a smile on her face.

"Start making some torches, would you?" I ask, and she chuckles and nods. I'm not one to shy away from a fight, but at the same time I'm not stoked to be so close to a cave in a world where the darkness itself spawns unnatural, undead monstrosities. If nothing else I think it'd be wise to seal it somehow and either use it as a home or methodically clear it out, or even both options at the same time if the cave is big enough.

My companion does as I ask her to and she immediately begins to use the charcoal I already possessed to form new torches. I appreciate her lack of complaints, and in mere minutes the rest of our unusual party reach us. When they do they look at the two of us curiously, clearly awaiting orders. I chuckle and glance at the fifteen torches that my companion has made in the short minutes it's taken our allies to reach us. She nods at me, waiting for me to give out orders.

"Alright friends, while we could stay in the lit part of the canyon and stay here until night falls or until we need to head back to the surface, we have a problem we will need to deal with no matter what." I explain even as I point in the direction of the distant cave.

"That cave is filled with dark miasma, the same substance that my rebis and I see whenever we fight monsters and cut into them. I have to assume that that means that the cave is constantly producing monsters. In order to claim the canyon in any meaningful sense we need to go to the cave and either clear it out or seal it up completely." I inform my companions, who nod at me. After seeing their nods I smile and pack up my items before beginning to march towards the distant cave.

The cave is on the other side of the canyon and while the game makes canyons seem small the one we're in is massive. It takes us a few minutes before we are close enough that my eyes, empowered by a handful of perks, allow me to meaningfully peer into it.

The cave that we are approaching, now that I can actually peer into it is a gigantic thing. It is at least as big as the part of the canyon that is fully exposed to the sun's light during the day, and we were only in the middle of the canyon when we climbed down. And, sadly, the reason why my senses were going off about the cave is that I am right and the thing is a damn hive of monsters, which becomes clearer and clearer the closer my companions and I get to it.

The cave is not a flat surface surrounded by sheer, clean walls. Instead of being a conveniently neat space it is surrounded by walls that are messy and jagged with multiple ledges and outcroppings from which monsters spawn and then drop down onto lower floors, making the whole space incredibly hazardous to explore. I can physically see miasma concentrating in one space for a few seconds before a monster spawns, and there's also a frightful amount of diversity amongst the cave's inhabitants.

I can see zombies, skeletons, and endermen, as well as creepers milling about and though I also see some of them fall to their deaths after a misstep, that is cold comfort when I consider how many of them there are. I don't stop marching towards the cave, but I do issue an order to my companions.

"We need to either seal the cave off or blow open a hole in the natural ceiling that lets some light in. If we take it a step at a time we could possibly, maybe do both, but for now I say we clear out some space and seal off the cave." I inform my servants, and then quietly groan in annoyance.

"Four of the mannequins will work on building a wall which closes off the cave. In the meantime Rebis, Constructed Guardian, and the other two mannequins are with me. We're going to be going all out." I say, and all of my allies nod at me.

As we near the cave's mouth I watch a number of zombies milling about near the entrance to the cave turn and face us. They scowl in rage and begin to dart at us. "Hit creepers, the green lads, with fire. If you see one and can get a hit on it from a distance do so, as that's the safest way to deal with them. They explode when they get close. Don't let them. Hiting them with fire sets them off prematurely" I remark, and I sense the tension of my allies increase as the zombies get closer, close enough that with a range strike I could easily hit them.

I don't get the chance, and I hear the soft sound of a tense laugh emanating from Rebis's lips before she begins to speak and the zombies disappear remarkably abruptly, but the cause of their disappearance does not escape my notice. I can see a thin slit in reality, like a crack in the fabric of space in front of me, one just long enough for both of the zombies to have touched it.

"'Rebis'? You're… not very original when it comes to names, are you?" She asks, though I can sense the awkward smirk on her face as she considers the name. She seems to accept the name though.

"But, I guess naming sense doesn't matter much in this situation, huh?" She continues, even as I faintly sense the zombies appearing in the air behind us. I hear their pained howls as they begin to burn and fall towards the surface of the canyon.

"'Rips and tears'..." Rebis remarks, a bright smile on her face when she hits the loud thudding sound of the two zombies colliding with the ground. She has just used a convenient "Dimensional Traveler" power we possess, one that lets us open holes in reality and forcibly redirect projectiles… or people. It is that very power that will allow Rebis, my guardian, and the mannequins with us to escape from the cave when it gets sealed. The noise of our conflict alerts other monsters to our presence, and they begin darting towards us as I smile.

I mentally conjure a number of sharp business cards from within my vault and feel them appear between my fingertips. With a swift flourish I hurl them through the air and towards our foes. The cards are a simple item I possess as a merchant, a nifty toy that in my hands, thanks to a perk I possess as an alchemist, make for handy weapons. They sail out from between my fingertips and dart through the air before lodging themselves in a few nearby zombies and creepers. This causes all of the damaged monsters to roar at me, but Rebis is faster than they are, and though she is behind me I watch as a thin bolt of fire abruptly comes out of nowhere and nails a creeper on the top of its ugly head.

The tall, thin, green monstrosity begins to flash and vibrate for half a second before abruptly detonating and killing the zombies close to it as well as hurling the other creeper towards me. I don't hesitate and replicate the trick I saw Rebis perform. I aim at a space in the air that the creeper is sailing towards and reach out my hand towards it. As I do I envision space itself being ripped asunder and project some of my will towards that area, which causes a subtle cut in reality to form. I will the rip to toss anything that hits it high into the air behind my party and smile when I see the creeper collide with where I aimed and immediately vanish.

Rebis darts pasts me and leaps into the air. I don't have the time to wonder what she's doing before I hear the soft twanging sound of a bowstring being released from somewhere in the cave. A split second later I hear the surprisingly loud sound of an arrow being cut in half and I watch as Rebis sails through the air and once again mixes "Rips and tears" with a simple elemental spell to devastating effect as I hear the distant sound of a skeleton shattering and its bones clattering against the cave walls somewhere deeper in the cave.

My guardian darts forward, sprinting past me, and effortlessly reaches the next closest group of foes. Meanwhile the mannequins begin to get to work, whether it is through defending me or by getting started building a wall to close this part of the canyon off. I watch Rebis begin to gently descend before I see a rip appear right beneath her. She falls into it and I watch her vanish, followed shortly by the sounds of a brief scuffle and then the angered and nonsensical roars of a skeleton as it falls to the floor of the cave from some nearby ledge. When the thing hits the floor it's form is shattered and I hear its equipment fly away from the rest of its body even as I hear the soft jingle that accompanies the appearance of experience orbs.

I am about to leap forward when the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stand up and I feel the floor beneath my feet quake subtly and I instinctually leap off of the floor of the cave. I do this just in time as a tall… purple enderwoman bursts through the floor beneath me. She is not aiming at me, however, she's only barely conscious, having been sent through the floor, as opposed to having burst through it with the force of her own fists and she is pursued by a number of endermen, all of whom wear purple, glowing armor and carry a number of weapons and I instinctually realize that I'm looking at armed endermen, and they appear to be fighting each other. So I've officially left the established canon of the game.

I watch the enderwoman sail through the air, and as I study her I activate my "Rips and tears" ability which opens up a tear behind her and one on the floor a bit of a distance away from my current location. When the woman hits the rip she reappears on the floor close to me, and I watch this confuse the endermen who leaped out of the hole her body formed when she was knocked through the stone blocks that I was just walking on.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't love the sight of a bunch of armed creatures seemingly hunting an unarmed member of their own kind. I don't look the endermen in the face, and I smile as I conjure a potent holy weapon in the form of a glowing sword and stand between the monsters and their prey. One of them spots me and howls for its peers to look in my direction. Another one of them spots the woman behind me and growls a warning to me, but in the language of these eldritch creatures. I can understand them thanks to my nature as a bard, but it's positively bizarre to be able to speak to endermen.

"Nah. I'm not moving." I say, even as my blade and my armor both begin to glow with the resplendent power of my faith in my abilities, which count as faith in a higher power so long as I believe it, thanks to cleric powers and perks I possess. A perk allows my words to be perfectly understood by those who hear me, and the endermen shuffle back ever so slightly as a perk I possess makes even my rather goofy "Hero" pose a bit more intimidating.

"No, don't…" The figure behind me half coughs half whispers as she recognizes what I'm doing.

"I'm not loving this, but I got you." I tell the strange, purple woman.

"Stay down, for now. I'll heal you when I'm done with the dweeb squad hunting you down." I exclaim, even as I ready myself for the inevitable onslaught of purple fists I've got coming. Still, between my armor and my perks… Well, if my friends come I should be fine. My heart skips a beat when one of the endermen abruptly vanishes and reappears in front of me, its hand raised and coming down towards me.

"Bring it, Barney!" I quip, even as I equip and lift my shield in time to block the blow while swinging my "Holy Weapon", a powerful sword, and taking aim at the big guy's visible, vulnerable knee.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 3:
The almost gallant figure standing between the squad of armored eldritch humanoids and the strange woman boldly endures a powerful blow from an enraged and tall figure. The blow has the force to shatter bone, but since it only collides with a shield it does nearly no harm to the young man who opts to tank it.

The mysterious man has been transformed by perks he possesses, perks which have transformed him on every level. The perks he is affected by are not subtle things that only slightly affect him, they are powerful esoteric properties that have transformed him on every level.

One perk that is vitally affecting him at this very moment is an attractiveness perk named "Eye of the beholder". This remarkable thing has made him more attractive than it is possible for humans to be, transforming him aesthetically in such a way that to be in his presence is akin to to being in the presence of an angel of beauty or demon of seduction on a purely physical level. He possesses a handsomeness that transcends species, and that, coupled with his gallantry is very powerful.

He has lovely looking, handsomely messy brown hair and powerful though slender muscles. He has changed, somewhat, on a physical level since he's arrived in this world due to perks he possesses. His growth has been magnified by perks he possesses and that, coupled with the busyness of his daily life, has resulted in him becoming both stronger and stronger looking as a result of the labor he does every single day.

He lashes out with the glowing sword in his hand, aimed at the knee of the tall monster he is fighting. His blade darts through the air between it and his target and strikes true, causing the monster to fall even as it lets out an incredibly loud wail of pain. At the same time the area around the monster's knee begins to radiate white light, the potent effects of the holy nature of the weapon dealing extra damage to the monstrous figure.

The other endermen, ten in total, hear this and scream in anger right before they charge at the fierce warrior. The warrior does not look up at them and instead he forcibly wrenches his blade from the knee of the fallen enderman he is confronting and using it to smoothly decapitate the creature.

As its purple blood flies into the air, Joaquin smiles and looks up at his foes. Rips and tears appear in front of the creatures and the woman the man is rescuing watches as the endermen suddenly vanish into thin air.

Their angered screaming doesn't vanish but it does suddenly sound like it's coming from elsewhere, some place noticeably far away. A pair of the ten of them scream for a bit longer before suddenly stop screaming, having taken enough fall damage to end them instantly after landing on tall ledges in another part of the cave, but Joaquin notices that not all of them do and is only barely able to react in time to turn into a blow that hits him with bone shattering force and send him reeling back. Joaquin is decidedly grateful to the nature of Minecraft which causes him to only feel pain for an instant, as the blow hits hard enough to actually lift the man off of the ground.

Two of the remaining eight endermen focus on the enderwoman. They also safely endured Joaquin's dimensional trickery, and through the same method as their friends: by teleporting. They appear right in front of her brandishing their weapons, and lifting them up to strike her down as Joaquin deals with the enderman in front of him.

The two mannequins dart at the endermen readying themselves to strike down their target, but they are brutally and violently intercepted by the remaining six endermen. Three of them tackle each of the mannequins, and proceed to attempt to wail on the curious beings, but they are quickly annoyed to find that the agile mannequins are not quickly struck down. The creatures have been being instructed in how to fight by the constructed guardian at night while their master has been sleeping, and the end result of that is directly visible as the mannequins dexterously prolong their lives by dodging countless blows, and even attempted stabs at the hands of their foes.

A powerful looking enderman glares at Joaquin and cusses in the eldritch speech of the monstrous race. The hateful monster's gaze is so focused on the face of the enemy who has slain three of its companions that he doesn't notice when the blade in Joaquin's hand is suddenly replaced by an open, modern water bottle which Joaquin instantly and abruptly douses the enderman with. The liquid in the bottle is not water, which the enderman realizes instantly. Joaquin has doused the enderman in holy water, derived from an item that the jumper owns, and the enderman is suddenly forced to reel away from the enemy in front of him as the water's twofold harm is felt by the rampaging monster.

The enderman doesn't even get to scream as pain courses through his body. The first sort of pain is almost a normal feeling, like the sensation of eating something too spicy and feeling the heat spread through one's whole body. The second kind of pain, on the other hand, is far less natural. It's the sensation of light and life coursing through a body made of darkness, of life-energy colliding with weaponized, sapient entropy. The pain is so visceral that it stuns the part of the enderman's brain capable of sapient thought. Joaquin capitalizes on this, and he tackles the monster, right as he opens a tear in reality high above the fighting behind the creature and sends him out of the fight, by making the creature plummet to his death.

Joaquin turns in time to see the pair of endermen swing their weapons towards the woman he is endeavoring to protect and he reacts by violently outstretching his hands and projecting two subtle rips in reality. The edges of the swords the endermen are swinging disappear for a second before another pair of rips appear behind the heads of the endermen and the blades of their weapons reappear, impaling them on each other's swords. Their blades violently penetrate their own heads and dark blood appears on the swords when their ends emerge out of the other ends of the heads of the eldritch monsters.

The figure doesn't even turn as he faces the enderwoman and uses his inventory to equip a few more bottles of holy water. He chucks them at the ground near the strange endermen attempting to pummel the mannequins and listens as the creatures are hit by the splashing water, screech in pain, and are promptly defeated one by one by the mannequins with methodical, singular strikes since the creatures are stunned. The sounds of experience orbs hitting the ground fill the air as several endermen are unceremoniously dispatched.

---

"Whoa… That was crazy." I mutter as the final two endermen I am fighting fall to their knees, and then fall forward before vanishing in puffs of smoke and leaving behind a pair of eyes of ender. My mind is teeming with new memories, ones I now own as a result of defeating the attackers who were aiming for this woman's head, but I ignore them for now. I dart forward and with a thought teleport, activating my newest ability, over to the side of the tall, hurt woman I have just rescued.

The sensation of teleporting is a strange one, like I have just taken a long, unwieldy step and only barely avoided falling. Still, I do not fall, and when I reach the side of my new ally I look her and appraise her using "Upgrade", a potent "Enchanter" perk in my possession that lets me learn the qualities and traits an object or person possesses as well as allowing me to learn their current state.

A text box appears in front of me that outlines the abilities and traits possessed by this figure. Some of her abilities are almost a touch like mine, which is both strange and exciting. She has some knowledge of topics like teleportation, including technology that can allow for teleportation, and she has some knowledge of alchemical magic.

She has a name I learn, memorize, and instinctually recognize that I cannot even begin to pronounce it, so I don't even try, but I do immediately learn something interesting: she has been poisoned by something dubbed "Water venom", which I realize must be why she's so out of it. Water is, somehow, harmful to endermen, so if there is water in "Water venom" then it makes sense that she'd be in pain and out of it.

I order the mannequins near me to collect the weapons and then go help with putting up the wall so that we can leave, even as I kneel down next to the wounded woman. She is still out of it but I reach into my inventory and I equip a handy bottle filled with a strange silver liquid. This is but one of the potions I made and had on hand, just in case something bad happened during this conflict and as I shut my eyes I feel quite happy that I prepared this in advance.

The silver liquid is a "Neutral Potion", an amorphous, flexible liquid that is receptive to supernatural energies and mystical intent. By holding a bottle filled with the stuff I can morph it into a potion based on a spell in my arcane arsenal. I could make a harmful liquid that I can use as a sort of splash potion, like I used my holy water bottles, or I could make something restorative. I intend to make something restorative.

I concentrate on the silver liquid and I envision the arcane energies inside of me, fuel I expend whenever I cast anything more complex than the simplest spells in my magical arsenal. I will the energy to transform from its idle, stem-cell-like state, and to turn into potent healing and curative energy. I feel the liquid in the bottle in my hand begin to bubble as the "Neutral Potion" is morphed into a potent potion of restoration, which I immediately and ungently administer to the creature.

The woman imbibes the liquid, which is still silver, and as she does I watch her body begin to subtly glow. Her eyes shift as she drinks the potion and I see sense begin to return to them, al while I feel strength and vitality begin to return to her. As it does I hear the distant sounds of combat getting less and less intense, and I watch the tiny amount of light in the cave beginning to disappear as more and more of the wall sealing this place off begins to get placed.

When the woman is done with drinking the potion she groans in pain, but her purple eyes flutter fully open and she studies me. I smirk but don't look at her, instead I tilt my head up and glance at the distant combat.

I can see my guardian combatting a number of undead corpses. Rebis is in mid-air, benefiting from the fact that I have passively been training the perk which allows her to exist at all, and fighting skeletons, zombies, and creepers up on ledges a fair distance from me. My mannequins have downed potions and I am watching as the arcane liquid coursing through them heals each of them, since they were tackled by gigantic endermen. Behind me the mannequins tasked with installing the wall are hard at work.

I glance up at the natural ceiling that defines the upper boundaries of the cave. As I do I imagine creating a small hole up on the surface and just dropping alchemical weapons into the cave and destroying anything that may spawn here before leaping down and using torches and other light generators to illuminate the cave. I mentally map out how many resources it'd take for me to do this, as I already have the enchanting skills needed to turn objects into light sources, I'd just need to see how bright I could make objects.

I eventually refocus and smile as I look at shut my eyes and turn in the direction of the woman I have saved. The darkness behind my eyelids isn't a whole lot darker than the cave, especially as the light creeping into the cave grows a bit dimmer every few seconds.

"Hey there. My name is Joaquin. How are you doing, Eliza?" I ask, referring to her by the first few letters of her very long name. For the first time I allow a part of my mind, specifically the part of my mind that can mentally multitask, to focus on the memories coursing through me.

The part of my mind that can mentally multitask, a part of me empowered by a perk named "Magic Weaver", focuses on the memories I acquired when I defeated the endermen who came to assasinate "Eliza".

I possess a number of memories from each of the warriors I have defeated, including the ones slain by the mannequins, but they primarily show me the same sequence of events from different angles. I get to see a view of an underground city, but only as a sort of silent movie with occasional text boxes to provide context.

I know that the city of the endermen is not located far from here, though it is far enough that I'd have to go out of my way to interact with it anytime soon, a city of darkness where endermen live and serve creatures of darkness known as "Sculk". I instinctively realize that this city must be where the assassins are from! In this city the endermen receive telepathic communiques communicating their next orders after every assination.

I watch a montage of the assassins participating in a series of assassinations targeting a range of lifeforms, from villagers and illagers alike, as well as other creatures like specific undead and even other members of their own kind. In between each assassination they'd return to the city and get new orders, as well as new equipment, such as new weapons like the strange "Water Venom" and even, on occasion, new armor to keep themselves safe.

The assassins never falter in their execution of their orders, but curiously when they get the order to assassinate the woman they came here to kill none of them recognized her from the city. This doesn't stop the telepathic handlers the assassins have from revealing bits and pieces of information about Eliza, which is curious as it suggests that the sculk get some sort of external knowledge about the world beyond their patches of sculk blocks. I wonder if she is an alien of some sort, or simply not an influential figure until the strange creatures of darkness decided to kill her off for reasons the ender-assassins never bothered to question.

As I see their skill I mentally note that the reason I succeeded in a fight against them is because I have stuff they could have never seen coming. My teleportation abilities are both different from and superior to their own, and I have nasty weapons in the form of holy gear and holy water, plus my ability to handle their strikes, provided I see them coming, is not something endermen can counter. If I had been forced to rely on Minecraft's normal gear and lost my abilities I absolutely would have lost against them.

Ten Endermen versus one annoying lad with subpar gear? That's a short fight unless someone is using truly ridiculous Minecraft strategies.

"Uh… Thank you, stranger." "Eliza" eventually tells me, moments after I finish giving myself a snapshot view of the memories of the dead entropy-monsters I absorbed. I chuckle and grin at her even as I get up and offer her my hand. She takes it without hesitation, and I look away from her as I open my eyes while pulling her off of the ground. Behind us the wall is nearly completely formed, and I take this moment to take a breath and prepare to project my voice.

"Alright, ladies and mannequins, we're leaving! Go and grab a teleporter, either Rebis or myself, and hold on tight." I command, my voice exploding out of me and resounding throughout the cave supernaturally loudly. This, caused by a bardic perk, causes Rebis, who has been using "Rips and tears" to facilitate her movement, darts from ledge to ledge and occasionally fights in midair while distracting ranged foes, to turn towards me and nod.

I watch as she glances at the ground and teleports to it, crossing a distance of perhaps sixty feet in the air in a single instant thanks to the power I received from killing endermen and having "Killer Parkourist". The instant that she hits the ground she glances at my guardian and teleports beside her, before grabbing her in a hug and then teleporting behind me, appearing on top of the wall. She calls out to me and tells me to hurry up.

I place a hand on the enderwoman's shoulder and quietly ask if I can leave and bring her along for the ride. I can feel her heart hammering in her chest, but she simply nods and I teleport us to a place that Rebis can see, an area on the other side of the wall.

The instant we appear there Rebis instructs the guardian to place the last stones in the wall, and to touch the mannequins. Her instructions are followed mere attoseconds before Rebis teleports the creatures next to us, though several creatures are hugging Rebis and the guardian, as the two of them have awkwardly managed to transport six mannequins with them.

"Okay… I guess we did it." I remark, as I study everyone. My guardian is covered in foul green blood, Rebis's clothes are stained with white dust from the bones of the skeletons she fought, and the mannequins who fought alongside me are still a bit banged up, but no one is permanently injured, or even still hurt… And we have Eliza with us now. I momentarily wonder about what to do when I begin to hear groans from the other side of the wall. The sounds allow me to easily make a choice regarding what to do and where to go. If I want to conquer the cave I can just use the strategy I came up with a few minutes ago. Bombing and then illuminating the place is a perfectly fine, viable strategy here. And I can't do it right now, I'd need more magic than I currently have.

"Alright, the time for introductions is not now. Eliza and I are going to move. Everyone else… it's time to say bye, for a few minutes at least." I remark, which causes Rebis to grin at Eliza before she vanishes. No one else pays the stranger any mind as they opt to return to my inventory. They vanish nearly instantly, and Eliza and I are left to ourselves. I turn to face her even as I summon my sheele.

"Hello friend. Please climb up there and show me what you see." I say to the elemental, which nods at me, before leaping off of my shoulder and flying away. I finally turn to face Eliza. I have a curious look on my face, I can feel it from the way that my smile feels on my face, but I can't help it.

"Okay Eliza, I know you must have many thoughts and questions, but we should probably get moving." I exclaim, even as I frown gently. Her eyes narrow in suspicion as she studies me and I sense her keen mind appraising her situation.

"I… I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I have at least a few pressing questions. First, who are you? You are calling me by a pet name of some sort but I don't know how you know even that much of my name." She says, asking a reasonable question. I think for a moment about how to answer it. As I do, Rebis highlights a cleric ability I possess, which I decide to incorporate into my answer with a gentle smile.

"I possess unusual powers. One of the powers I possess is the ability to take some memories from those I defeat. The endermen hunting you were assassins from a dark, underground city. Their memories included a bit of information about you." I exclaim, telling the truth though also opting not to reveal the full length of my knowledge or the precise source of my knowledge, instead substituting a true source of knowledge in the exact place of where I learned what I know. I pause for a moment as "Confession" activates and I watch Eliza's face relax.

"My name is Joaquin. I am a traveler. I have set up a camp not far from here. We are still close to where you were pursued, so I think we should leave and go there. Soon." I tell her, and she pauses before eventually nodding at me. I smile and put my hand on her shoulder again. I teleport the two of us put to the top of the canyon, and when we reach the top I let out a gentle laugh.

"How can you do that?!" She asks, as she almost falls over dealing with the strange feelings that accompany teleportation and I tell her that I'm something new, not like anyone she's ever met. This activates "Confession" yet again, and she silently frowns but still accepts my answer.

It only takes me a few moments to begin to guide Eliza, my new friend, to where I previously planted the cube that can be transformed into my portable, private cabin. In a matter of minutes I'll go ahead and plant the cube in the same place and reactivate it.

As Eliza and I begin to make our way back to my home base it doesn't escape my notice that she grows more relaxed as we get further and further away from the cave. That's fair, it's where she almost died after all. It takes us the better part of an hour to make it from the canyon back to the beach, but by the time a full sixty minutes have passed since I left the canyon, Eliza and I are back inside of the cabin and she is looking around in awe of the place.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 4:
I watch as the enormous enderwoman explores the cabin. It is a big space, big enough to house ten full bedrooms, each of which has a modern and luxurious bathroom, so it's more than big enough to house even the truly gigantic maiden.

"This space is all yours?" She asks, as she wanders from room to room. I chuckle and tell her that that is correct. As I say this I feel the effects of "Confession" activate again, since it is the truth and I do want her to believe me.

"That's amazing! This is so much more space than I have… had. I guess I should get used to the idea of being on the run." She says, before suddenly pausing and realizing that she's said something she can't take back.

"I shouldn't have said that." She says, her back turned to me. I pause for a second and then speak.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" I ask, looking at her back still. As I speak, I realize that a pair of perks are subtly going off in my head. One is named "Loyalty" and it has the curious effect of increasing the impact of my actions on others and making them quicker to trust me, as well as deepening the loyalty they feel towards me. The other is named "Sponsors and Allies", and it has the effect of attracting powerful potential partners and quickly allowing me to make deals with them.

I half-wonder what sort of an impact they are having on Eliza. I then realize I'm about to find out… The woman doesn't respond right away, but eventually she nods, so slightly that I almost don't notice.

"I… I should. You saved me. The least I owe you is an explanation. And it's all I can offer you, really." She says, before turning and looking at me.

"You already know my name. I don't know what else you know." She says as she studies me. I chuckle and scratch the back of my head.

"Uhh.. there actually isn't much else I know. I know that the assassins came from a city not extremely far away, and that they get their orders from some sort of… unnatural-looking shrubbery." I quip, mixing truth and falsehoods. She nods as she hears my remarks.

"Ah, so you've… 'Seen' the sculk. Nasty stuff isn't it?" She asks, and I nod darkly at her. My nodding makes me laugh lightly.

"Okay… So that makes parts of this easier, I guess." She begins, before walking over to the living room and sitting on the couch.

"I'm an enderperson. Males of my species were sometimes referred too as 'Endermen' whenever we encounter natives of this world, some of whom are humans like you. I… I think. You LOOK human, at least, but I've never seen a human do what you do." She says, and her eyes narrow as she studies me. Eventually she sighs and closes her eyes before beginning to speak again.

"I'm being hunted because I know ancient secrets about my people's home dimension. Secrets that the creature that has taken over the ouroboros, the place I'm from, would rather no one remember." She reveals, her voice almost breaking as emotion fills it.

"I come from a place known to the people of this world as 'The End', but once my people called it an 'Ouroboros'. Long ago an ancient civilization, one with a potent mastery over eldritch sciences, constructed a continent-sized settlement in a… time-loop." She begins, looking at me, and trying to make sure I am keeping up with her.

"Wait… like a settlement was placed inside of a break in space and time that would repeat itself at certain intervals?" I ask, my enhanced mind immediately picking up on what she's saying, though I myself was hardly a science, or science-fiction, fan growing up. Her eyes brighten when I ask this.

"Yes! Exactly! Eons ago, possibly even millions of years ago, the same civilization that built portals to 'The Nether' and constructed curious underwater settlements, experimented with time travel and time manipulation. They hired some sage, my grandfather, to construct their settlement and they gave him a budget and futuristic materials with which to do his job. He successfully constructed a settlement to their specifications, and for countless eons he lived there. It was there where he met my grandmother." She says, a smile on her face.

"The two of them had a child, my mother, who met my father when the people of the Ouroboros reached out to the inhabitants of this world looking to recruit new residents. I was born outside of the Ouroboros, and I was quickly brought into it. When I and a few other children like me were brought into the Ouroboros we… mutated. Something about our nature makes us bizarrely compatible with entropic forces. That's why we are vulnerable to holy and life-giving things like water. We became the first enderpeople. And our energies began to cause the place to malfunction, occasionally bringing us to new worlds for minutes, or even hours at a time. And our mutations spread." She explains, neon pink tear-like orbs filling her eyes.

"A few months ago our contagious mutations infected the last original inhabitants of the time loop. But at that point many of us had already spread to this world, and done things like made contact with the sculk, who somehow managed to persuade some of the other enderpeople to serve them, as mercenaries at best and as little more than slaves at worst. Still, the worst was yet to come." She says, her voice softening.

"A month ago my home was invaded by an extraterrestrial monster. It found our home when the Ouroboros glitched out and arrived in the skies above a strange world. The creature saw us and invaded, quickly killing our bravest warriors and proving resistant to our technologies. Somehow it even began to use our technologies, even before our home vanished. When our mini-world vanished from the planet we found the monster on, the monster came with us. It began to hunt and kill all of the endermen who could remember things, as not all of us could. Some ancient rule about the Ouroboros made it so that some people would have their memories wiped every cycle. Some of the people who could remember were my grandparents and parents…" The woman explains.

"I was forced into hidding and when we appeared on this world again, our home malfunctioning again, I fled. I wandered for a long time, meeting other endermen and almost meeting an inglorious fate at the hands of the sculk before I reached the cave you found me in. I just went deeper into it then you did, but I also covered my tracks. The dragon must have made contact with one of the sculk's cities and placed a bounty on my head." She exclaims, before nodding and seemingly agreeing with her own assessment of the situation.

"The time-loop still works. Which is… unfortunate, for the victims of the monster. The… 'enderdragon' as some of its victims have taken to calling it. It has somehow become the new lord of the loop, and it resets the loop every week, resurrecting fallen enderpeople and prolonging their suffering, normally after selectively tampering with their memories. The only people it doesn't dare resurrect seem to be my relatives, for reasons unknown to me, though I wonder if it's somehow afraid of them?" She asks, as the tears that bubbled in her eyes now begin to stream down her cheeks.

Her words just now matter. So in this world "The End" is a broken, or at least glitching time-loop, and the enderpeople are a race of mutant humans now enslaved to the dragon, itself a creature from some other world altogether, or the sculk… This is much more involved lore than the actual game, but it's also interesting. In almost every bit of context Eliza gave me, she dropped more and more tantalizing information. One bit of information she revealed was that her people, enderpeople, have access to some esoteric technologies and futuristic materials. If she knows how to use even a tiny handful of that technology, and can share it with me…

"Hey… It's okay, you're alive. As long as you're alive, there's a chance." I tell her, causing her eyes to soften and for her to sniffle quietly.

"A chance?" She asks, looking at me curiously. I chuckle and smile at her.

"Yes. A chance. Every minute you're alive you have a chance to rise up against that dragon. To… do something against it. To avenge yourself and your family. And all of its victims. You just need to choose to do so." I say, almost whispering as I look at her. I look at her lips, but I don't directly look into her eyes. Her lips turn upward in a smile.

"Ha. Hahahaha. Fighting against that beast… I can't even dream of it." She says, and I can hear the honesty and the defeat in her voice. That monster left a tremendous impression on her, psychologically.

"Well… Did you ever imagine that you'd be able to survive the encounter you just lived through? Or that a human, one like me at least, could do what I did?" I ask, causing her eyes to widen as she considers my question.

"Huh… You know what? I would not have. I could not have imagined surviving water-poisoning and enduring the assault of a squad of ender assassins." She remarks, honestly. Her eyes relax as she looks at me and I can feel her want to be brave. I can somehow read it in her body language, in the way that she looks at me, and in the way that her body moves closer to me ever so slightly.

"Would you… I know I've already imposed on you, but would you mind if I stayed here for a while? If nothing else, I promise I won't get in your way I just… I need a place to think, and I'm safer with you and your friends than I am on my own." She remarks, humbly. I feign consideration of the question, pausing and seeming to deliberate over it for a while. When I answer I begin to smile at her.

"You're more than welcome to stay here. I have no problem with you considering my home… Our home." I tell her, causing her eyes to widen, and I bravely look her in the eyes for a second, which causes her skin to flush and she quickly looks away but she doesn't fly into a rage or attack me.

"Okay… I have a home." She says, as she looks away. Her eyes quickly dart back to me, and I smile at her, brightly and happily.

"I had kind of forgotten this feeling." She admits, as she allows herself to relax.

When the conversation wraps up I offer to feed Eliza. She is quick to take me up on my offer, and I begin to make the two of us dinner. I slowly reveal bits and pieces of the curious array of powers I possess to Eliza as I cook dinner. I lightly tease the nature of my inventory, plucking ingredients from it and eventually calling forth the rest of my retinue, sans Rebis, so we can all grow while we eat.

Eliza, politely, does not attempt to discover the precise mechanics of my powers, or to figure out the truth behind my allies. I don't volunteer the information, but I do show her what I am cooking, and even offer to show her how to use the cooking technology I own.

Eventually dinner is prepared, eaten, and then Eliza and I go to bed. She is a polite guest, though I can tell she is trying, and failing, to view herself as a true house-mate, and when I wake up, again feeling like I'm waiting up instantly after going to sleep, I get out of bed and leave my room only to find her in the kitchen trying to make breakfast for the two of us.

---

The unlikely duo are quick to make breakfast after Joaquin asks to help show her the ropes. Unbeknownst to the two of them this will mark the beginning of a pattern for the two of them: a tradition of working together.

After making breakfast the two of them go out of the cabin and begin the day in full by tending to the flock of animals that Joaquin has tamed and begun to boost the intelligence of. They feed the animals, and gather a range of supplies from them, such as milk from cows, and wool from sheep. Doing so is quick, especially once the two of them fall into a rhythm.

The rhythm is not super consistent the day after they meet, as each time Joaquin suggests they do something new Eliza needs a beat to adjust. Still, the enderwoman is eager to help out, and so she throws herself into every one of the daily tasks that Joaquin seeks to complete. Partway through the day she asks if he wants to go back to the canyon, and he informs her that he does, but he is willing to slow down, work with her, and adjust to the intricacies of having a new person, a "Real" person, verbiage she notices but doesn't comment on, before he goes back.

Their first day together is a bit of an awkward, if earnest, affair. Eliza gets to see as Joaquin's mannequins, his guardian, and Rebis, all collaborate with him and she joins in the efforts to clear through some land and to go and round up animals they discover during their forceful, unsubtle terraforming campaign.

She even gets to see him do some actual farming, at least the Minecraft version of it, which involves him planting some crops near the ocean. When the sun begins to set Joaquin directs them all back home, and again the group does not brave the dangers in the dark.

The day ends with Joaquin and Eliza cooking dinner together. When the meal is ready the two of them share it with the rest of their companions, and Joaquin drops a tiny morsel of knowledge by explaining that food he makes is just made different, made better, by his involvement. He even hints that eating his food can result in demonstrable changes, improvements, in those lucky enough to eat what he makes. Eliza should be skeptical of this, but "Confession" activates again, and she finds herself feeling that somehow Joaquin's words are true… Because they are.

After dinner Joaquin tests out another part of the fuller scope of his powers and uses his singing and improvisational skills to entertain Rebis, Eliza, and the mannequins and the guardian. He finds that perks related to his skills as an entertainer are every bit as accurate as other perks he possesses. This is also destined to become a part of their daily routine.

The two go to bed again, and then the next day they wake up and find that they are much smoother now. They begin to work together without hesitation and without the endearing awkwardness they felt the day before. Partway through this day, Joaquin summons Rebis and asks her to teach Eliza how to fight using weapons and he has the curious being play with Eliza and have a mock-battle with her. When Eliza asks him about this he remarks that he wants her to come with them to the canyon, but for him to feel comfortable with her there then he needs to know she can defend herself.

This day also marks the first time that Rebis stays manifested for over two hours, due to the powerful cocktail of perks amplifying Joaquin's speed of acclimation when it comes to his perks. Telepathically, the two of them share delighted thoughts and reactions to this fascinating development.

This slight deviation, Rebis and Eliza sparring and in so doing Rebis teaching Eliza how to defend herself, becomes one of the only slight variations in the daily day-time routine of the group for a week. Every other day Rebis and Eliza work together and Eliza finds herself training with a range of weapons, from her fists to swords, to other equipment given to her by Rebis for the sake of ensuring she can defend herself in nearly any situation. On her sixth full day with Joaquin and Rebis, Eliza has trained three times.

On the early morning of the group's seventh day Joaquin surprises everyone by declaring that this'll mark their first day where they aren't developing things horizontally. When one of the mannequins, which are beginning to gain true personalities at this point, asks if this means there'll be no terraforming, Joaquin chuckles and tells them they are going underground. This surprises everyone other than Rebis, but Joaquin is quick to assuage their fears by saying that they aren't going far, he just wants to set up a workshop so he can start to enchant everyone's gear and create more unique inventions.

They select a bit of cleared out space in the forest biome almost directly beside the pens where the animals are kept and end up digging a slowly sloping tunnel that leads a few blocks down as the site of the workshop. The group is able to do as Joaquin both commands and shows them how to do it pretty easily, especially by taking advantage of the wonky physics of Minecraft.

In hours they are actually inside of the workshop, having set up a wall and then cleared out an area beyond it using their numbers and a nifty perk Joaquin possesses dubbed "Work Crew" which helps them work together at a greatly enhanced rate. Joaquin is quick to light the place up, and thus ensure it won't become the home of some monsters.

Over the course of the next two weeks after this Joaquin is quick to get to work using the workshop. The group does end up digging out a small mine adjacent to the workshop, finding neat ores and minerals thanks to "Treasure Sense" , a perk Joaquin possesses as a merchant. They do not find anything as exciting as redstone or diamond, though.

They even construct a number of bed chambers, filled with beds that Joaquin himself makes by combining various perks in his possession. During this time Joaquin manages to unlock the second perk in the "Crafter" origin, by crafting a full suit of custom-made armor for Eliza. More days pass by, and the group continues to grow closer to each other, and more familiar with their gear.

When Joaquin has been in some bizarre version of Minecraft for a full month, the day comes and goes without pomp and circumstance. In fact, the lad will have been in the version of Minecraft his apotheosis shunted him too for thirty five days when the figure and his ender friend wake up and leave their rooms to go and make breakfast only to find a stranger waiting for them outside of their home.

The figure is a short man dressed in a bright blue outfit, accompanied by a friendly looking llama wearing a saddle outfitted with filled pockets. Joaquin, armed with the ever handy gift of meta-knowledge, recognizes this man immediately and he invites the wandering trader into his home with a smile. Eliza, not armed with meta-knowledge, is made curious by her friend's excitement, and watches as the trader who has come to bargain steps into the living room of the pleasant cabin she has spent most of the past few nights in.

A/N: Timeskips AND dialogue. Oh my goodness, I feel like a real author on my way towards telling a multi-year-spanning story! Wild.

I loathe writing dialogue in stories, and dialogue is often my weakest area. I also find time-skips... interesting to implement. That said, they are a critical part of jumpchain stories, and I actually liked this one. So... here's hoping it actually goes well, haha.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 5:
The trader steps forward and smiles as he feels the cool air of the air-conditioned cabin wash over him. I chuckle as the man learns of creature comforts that I doubt he could learn of anywhere even in this remixed version of Minecraft.

"This feels… wonderful, my new friend." The trader tells me, his words lightly accented with an accent that vaguely reminds me of the brand of Italian-Americans who, on TV, live in New York City. I smile at him and ask him to take a seat. He quickly obliges me, and in moments he is sitting across from Eliza. He glances furtively at her, but is careful to keep his gaze lowered. She is not oblivious to his nervous attention, and slyly smiles at me when the man isn't looking.

"So, friend, my name is Joaquin. I can see that you have traveled a great distance. What can I do for you?" I ask the man, causing him to look at me excitedly and for his body language to relax a bit.

"Oh, Joaquin, it is not what you can do for me but what I can do for you!" He says, smiling at me all the while. My name sounds a bit funny coming out of his lips, but I don't make that aspect of my impression of him visible on my face.

"My name is Arabas and I'm a wandering merchant, I travel the lands buying and selling goods, and I was delighted to find someone this far away from any villages." The merchant exclaims, causing me to smile brightly. There are many implications in his words that I catch and that excite me.

I figured that there were villages in this… island, region, continent, landmass, or whatever this part of the world is. The beach stretches farther than I can see with the naked eye, and the plains and the forest both go on for miles in the directions they are in. Whatever landmass I am in, it is not a small one. One plausible reading of the trader's words would suggest that my hunch is correct… The fact that he exists at all, and is here, is interesting to me since this is not a video game, and thus he was not "Spawned" like wandering traders are in Minecraft. That said, if nothing else he confirmed that villages DO exist, somewhere in the world.

"I have many intriguing wares for sale, and I'd be delighted if you'd peruse them at your leisure." He adds, a bright smile on his face. I nod at him and tell him that I'd be delighted to browse his wares and he grins at me as he asks to head to his companion to gather some of his inventory. I grant him "Permission" to go and retrieve his wares. He quickly gets up and as he does I glance at Eliza and we both quietly laugh.

"The poor man is terrified of me!" She says, speaking the language of the civilization that sponsored the settlement she was raised in. We've taken to calling her language "End-Speech". I smile at her and shrug.

"I think he's a bit braver than you give him credit for. He sat still while in your presence and didn't flee." I remark and she considers my words before conceding my point with a nod.

"True. He is outside right now, excitedly thinking of how you'll undoubtedly have riches beyond measure. He thinks we're rich!" She says, with a curious confidence and specificity that makes me look at her with an inquisitive expression on my face. I watch her skin lighten a touch when she realizes what she said, and she hastily corrects herself.

"He thinks YOU are rich." She says, and I inwardly chuckle when her remarks do not address the cause of my curiosity in the slightest. Still, I feign satisfaction and I allow her to feel as though she has averted my suspicions.

The curious woman's quirkiest habit is what she just did. At time she'll say something positively bizarre like that, as if she can read minds, but for some reason she's never said anything to that effect about Rebis or myself…

The man reenters my home, a broad grin on his face as he steps up to where Eliza and I are sitting and he places a rug on the floor. On the rug are an array of curious items, mostly different pieces of armor and assorted tools fashioned from different materials, though that's not all that's there… Occupying a different spot of the rug is some red powder, arranged in a single large pile.

I recognize the stuff immediately and don't bother to try and hide my interest. The powder is an invaluable item in Minecraft, the potent engineering component known as "Redstone Dust". The mere sight of it is enough to excite me, as even as a decently casual player I understand the impressive potency of redstone dust in the right hands.

"I see you've stumbled across an intriguing item…" I remark as I stare openly and covetously at the dust. Both Eliza and the trader are openly amused by the look on my face as I study the dust and begin to imagine what the stuff could be capable of in my hands.

"Ahh yes. I've taken to calling it ruby dust, though it doesn't actually come from rubies." The trader tells me, causing me to chuckle.

"How much would you like for it?" I ask, as I turn and look him in the eyes. He studies me for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes me and I watch him attempt to evaluate my worth.

"Well, friend, I normally only deal in emeralds." The trader informs me, but I hear the word "Normally" and I can hear the subtle capitalization of it. That word is doing a lot of heavy lifting right now. I watch his eyes narrow as he considers what to say next, his own shrewdness revealing a lot about himself.

"But, we're new friends now aren't we?" He asks as he locks eyes with me. I allow him to think for a second before I begin to smile shrewdly myself.

"If you deal in emeralds… I actually have some." I remark. The man's eyes widen in delight as he hears my words, and at the same time there is a subtle micro-expression, a flicker of doubt that crosses his face for a nanosecond. His skepticism would, normally, be warranted but I am actually… kind of telling the truth.

I glance at my inventory, doing so without actually making any physical gestures, and I study its contents. As a merchant, some of my powers are curiously capitalistic things with two notable examples being "Nickel and Dime" and "Reclamation". With "Nickel and Dime" I can convert currency from one type of currency into another type of currency, and with "Reclamation" I can destroy things and transform them into currency. Both abilities are actually kind of busted in terms of how hilariously strong they are, but in this setting they lose a lot of their raw power.

Minecraft is so damn desolate that many merchant powers seem less than useful here, however in this moment this combination of powers is a heavy hitter. I ask the merchant how many emeralds he'd want for the redstone dust and I begin to transform some of the sticks I've gathered into fragments of emeralds. The man considers the question for a moment before he tells me that he'll give me the pile for five emeralds.

I glance at it and I sense my perk-altered brain estimate that the pile must amount to probably five or six "Blocks" worth of redstone dust as it matters for my inventory. I quickly convert the fragments of emeralds I've made into full, complete emeralds, ten of them in fact, and I give half of them to the man. He happily accepts my offer, and smiles at me I as I take the dust and cause it to vanish, entering my inventory.

"Ahh, I love the sound of a deal being struck. Joaquin, you are a good man!" He tells me, with a bright smile. I chuckle and smile brightly at the man, and while I don't know if I'm a "Good" man, I can tell that he feels quite satisfied with our deal. I smile as I feel the possibilities that naturally arise in this setting when someone has even a bit of redstone dust.

"Arabas, you are a skilled trader. I've been in this area for a month and though I know that I can find 'Ruby Dust' if I go down deep enough, I also know it's dangerous to go in search of it. You must either be a talented prospector or a skilled haggler to get your hands on this stuff." I tell him, causing him to beam at me. My words, which are quite sincere, seem to have touched on a bright spot for him quite naturally.

"Ah, my friend, this is simply the product of me making a few good deals! Still, it warms my heart for my talents to be recognized. I greatly appreciate your kind words. Are you interested in anything else I have to offer?" He asks me, and I take a beat to study the rest of his wares. I consider purchasing some of his tools, as the subtle glow of the items leads me to realize that they are enchanted gear, but I ultimately shake my head.

"Sadly, the ruby dust is the only thing that I must have. Still, I strongly encourage you to mark my location on your map. I would love to see you in the future." I tell him, and his expression drops a bit but doesn't really falter. He quickly accepts my words and is quick to promise that he will return with more items in the weeks to come. When the man leaves I turn to Eliza and smile at her.

"Do you… know what this is?" I ask, as I allow some of the redstone to appear on my hands. She shakes her head at me, and I chuckle.

"I think you might like this. Let's go and experiment." I tell her, causing her to giggle and get out off the couch. The two of us quickly leave the cabin, joined by the rest of my normal retinue, and in minutes all of us find ourselves deep in the bowls of the workshop-mine.

Ahead of Eliza, the Guardian, and I is a wall, which marks the place where the mine ends. It is currently well-lit thanks to a system of torches, which primarily serve to keep monsters from spawning.

"So what this dust does is… Well, it kind of acts as a substitute for electricity." I tell Eliza, causing her eyes to widen. I begin to place a line of the powder on the floor in front of me. Eliza watches me intently, curious to see if what I've said is actually true.

I reach into my inventory and I manipulate some of what I possess using my powers to form new things. One power I use for the first time, due to how inefficient it is, is a remarkably potent ability dubbed "Universal Bartering" to transform a number of emeralds into glowstone, a potent block located in The Nether. The problem with this perk is that even though it's one of the ones I am currently training using "The Magic Of Living", it is still deeply inefficient. For even a single glowstone I need to sacrifice ten emeralds, which is a not fun expenditure. I then expend some of my redstone, using "Fast Food" to transform some of the redstone dust and the glowstone into a nifty object known as a "Redstone Lamp".

I reach out and put the lamp right beside some of my powder. Eliza looks at the thing curiously, while we hear the soft sounds of the mannequins distantly working in other parts of the mine. I grab a lever, something I made on the way here, and I affix it to the lamp. I then hit the lever, lifting it from the off position to the on position, and watch as it makes the object light up, casting a soft red glow on our surroundings.

"Whoa! And is that a redstone object?!" Eliza asks, referring to it by the nomenclature I told her some people use for it while we were walking here, and I nod at her as I retrieve the lever. The light shuts off when I pull the lever off of it, and I smile as I place the lever on the ground next to some of the powder I laid out earlier. I then hit the lever again, and the object lights up once more, making Eliza laugh in delight.

"Redstone! Now that's amazing stuff." She exclaims. Right now she is handedly the happiest I've ever seen her.

"Are you… into technology?" I ask, as I look at her with a smile on my face. She beams at me and nods.

"I loved the technology of the Ouroboros! We had stuff that was… well, it was LEAGUES ahead of stuff in this world, but even this is amazing." She says, reverentially. My smile widens as I look at her and study the details of her surprisingly human face.

From a distance she is almost indistinguishable from other enderpeople but up close… Up close Eliza has a soft, feminine face. She has full lips and high cheekbones, and her facial expressions can be almost intimidatingly beautiful. When she's happy like this she seems remarkably human, and it's because when someone properly contextualizes her existence as an enderperson, coupled with the knowledge of how this setting's version of enderpeople came to be, she IS human. In the ways that matter she is a human being.

"We had the most marvelous technologies Joaquin. We had flying machines, and the most important places were connected via teleportation pads. Oh what I'd give to go back, even just once more…" She says, softly. Her voice softens as she speaks until her last words are almost inaudible. I look at her curiously and decide to ask a question that I've long been curious about.

"You know I've been wondering… If you were raised in a time-loop how did you age?" I ask her, causing her to laugh softly. She raises her hand and gestures for me to look at it. I watch as a ring, a loop of a strange, almost plastic-looking, material appears on her finger. The material is soft pink in color, and it almost reminds me of some earthly medicine from my… past life, back on Earth.

"This is how. This is a 'Modular Ring'. These rings were commonplace in the Ouroboros and this particular type of ring served a specific purpose." She begins, and I watch as she grows unfocused and untethered to the present, her eyes filling with a wistful longing.

"Modular rings are the creations of figures with 'Aspects'. 'Aspects' are a type of… power, for lack of a better term. People with them, like my grandfather, could create modular rings, and we used them for a range of purposes on the Ouroboros. This one is one that was given to all children, and pregnant women, who lived in the Ouroboros. It allowed us to be partially out of synch with the time-loop, enough for us to grow until we hit a certain age, and then stop. For pregnant women it allowed them to go through a pregnancy, and also minimized the negative health effects of a pregnancy while it was worn." She explains, as she smiles and I watch her eyes fill with a number of memories.

"My grandfather had an aspect, but he never really told me what it did. The main way he flexed the power of the aspect he possessed was in the creation of modular rings. Creating a new one was difficult, but once one existed he had some means of replicating them over and over." She says, and she looks troubled for a moment.

"I do want to go back to the Ouroboros. Someday. I miss my old home." She says, as she focuses on the present.

"But I… I can't win against the dragon. Not alone." She utters, aware of her apparent inability to defeat such a monstrous foe. I put a hand on her shoulder and smile.

"Now… Why are you thinking you're going to be going alone when you face it?" I ask, causing her to smile at me as she turns and hugs me.

"Hey… Don't say that so lightly you fool…" She tells me, but the tone in her voice does not suggest she is mad, despite her words. I smile and hug her back.

"I'm not saying it lightly." I tell her, sincerely. It's true that I want to see her home, and have a chance to study her tech, but we have grown close over the last month and having a goal to strive towards would be nice… She tightens the hug, pulling me close and up against her chest.

"I… I can't ask you to come with me. Not for this. It's too dangerous." She says, her words containing truth and also opportunity.

"If you want me there… If you want us there… All you need to do is ask." I counter, leaving the choice up to her. I want her to be the one to say it. I want her to want us to be together when she faces down that beast.

For a moment I think about what it'd be like to be there. To be in The End and to be facing… it. Minecraft's final boss. The Enderdragon. A creature who is so vastly powerful that it has enslaved an entire dimension, brought a continent-sized region to its knees. I am momentarily lost in the thought of standing before it, sword drawn, ready to cut it down and save a world. And then I refocus.

"Someday. Someday we'll be there, in front of it. Freeing a world, together," I tell Eliza, causing her to smile gently at me. "At least, if you want us to be." I add, smiling as I look back at her. Eliza is quiet and her face is serene as she studies me.

"I… I might just you up on that offer. Someday." She says. I smile at her and repeat the singular word back to her. She laughs and I do the same thing. I grab the goods I have placed and I study the scene around us.

"You know… If we're gonna save your home, save a continent, we need to properly prepare." I tell her, and she nods sagely at me.

"We're gonna need better stuff than this." I say, as I point to my own gear, my well-constructed templar's armor, and she laughs lightly.

"I agree. I'm gonna need armor." She says, saying that for the first time. I look at her curiously and offer to make her some. That elicits a smile from her and she asks me if I'd want payment in exchange for my work. I consider her offer, and ultimately decide to broach a topic I've wanted to ask her about for a long time, almost the whole time I've known her.

"Would you… Would you be opposed to teaching me about your tech?" I ask, causing her to begin to laugh. She laughs for a full minute, before telling me if I make her some armor and maybe some other equipment she'll teach me all I want to know. I smile the widest and most sincere smile I've smiled in the time since I arrived in this world, and I tell her that it's a deal. She approaches me with her arm outstretched, and I reach out mine in return. She grips it with surprising strength and I return the favor, before we both grin at each other.

For the first time I consider offering her something special. A way to gain some facsimile of my powers.

In my inventory there are a number of objects, a pocketwatch, a cookbook, a crown, and other things that if I loan them to people they can freely gain versions of my own powers. If I let Eliza use my powers we'd have a much, much easier time against the dragon. It takes me a second to decide against such a strategy, for now, but I do decide it's worth keeping in mind for the future and just in case.

I steel my gaze and lock eyes with Eliza. To my surprise she doesn't look away, and instead returns the gaze. Her eyes are soft and filled with curiosity as she studies me. I think something in her impression of me has changed.

"If we've any hope of ever defeating the dragon that took over your home, we need a plan. And we need allies." I tell her, causing her to nod.

"Do you have one in mind?" She asks, and I shake my head. She nods sympathetically at my gesture. I do, however, grin mischievously, after a few seconds of shaking my head.

"But I can begin to put one together. For now, we're in no rush. Let's focus on getting you some personalized equipment, and on getting us what we need to even begin to piece together how to return to your home." I tell her, which makes her happily nod at me.

A few weeks ago she told me that when her world appeared on the surface of this world she leaped off of it and fled. She confessed then and there that she doesn't know how to return, but she did say that she knew that her people built citadels deep underground throughout this world in the ancient past and that those places had teleportation devices synced to The End. We just need to figure out how to get to one… And, thanks to meta-knowledge, I know just how to do that. But I need to let Eliza arrive at that conclusion independently. It's… gruesome, or at least it would be to her, so I need her to piece that one together on her own. So for now, I just need to keep her company and make her gear before we begin planning further.

And like that, time begins to pass once more. All of us now armed with further motivation and with dreams of our own begin to train harder, gain more experience, and envision brighter days ahead. Before I know it another week has passed, and then week, before I find myself in front of Eliza and Rebis and the rest of our retinue, deep in the mines once more.

Ahead of us is a door I made a few nights ago. I made it to mark that we had stumbled across a pre-existing mineshaft during a routine expansion of our mine and to mark that the area ahead was not to be explored alone.

All three of us, Eliza, Rebis, and myself, have new equipment on and determined looks on our faces as we study a door leading into a small, well-lit room. On the other side of it we hear the soft, distant sounds of roaring monsters echoing across walls made of thick, packed stone.

New creatures accompany us, including a cat made of water, a wolf with fur as dark as midnight, and a bear clad in armor made specifically for it. The creatures are Rebis's sheele, and two of my items that I only began to make use of recently, one I possess due to my nature as a dimensional traveler and the other I possess because of my nature as a bard.

I approach the door and smirk as I push it open and stride onto the pre-existing mineshaft. I'm ready for a new adventure, and so are my friends.

A/N: Gonna go ahead and say it now so friends have solid confirmation: this Minecraft adventure is mixing in the lore from MythicLegendary's latest work, the Ouroboros Choose Your Own Adventure. We are not integrating it fast, but the plan was always for this to be mixed in, and I have quite liked mixing its lore with Minecraft's lore. I just want that to be known and for friends to be able to envision what all this means for the story.

 

[LucianoWrites]

Chapter 6:
I hear soft footfalls behind me as I wander into the room. It's just large enough for the retinue I have with me, so I am quick to head towards the edge of the room.

Ahead of me the grim sounds of monsters echo faintly across the walls of the mineshaft. I take tense, cautious steps as I slowly move forward and I grin faintly when I hear my allies and partners behind me. We are not a subtle group, but hopefully we're a strong enough group to handle the nonsense we're about to have to deal with.

Normally fighting in such a tight passage would put us in danger, but with both Rebis and myself here and "Rips and Tears" at our disposal… We can circumvent some of the dangers of this kind of fighting. Still, this is hardly my ideal fighting situation. I close my eyes and focus on a piece of equipment in my ear, a nifty device I made using some of my enchanter perks over the course of the last few days.

"Alright, can everyone hear me?" I ask, not speaking but actually projecting my inner voice out to everyone. I smirk when everyone affirms that they can, in fact, hear my mental voice. Some of them, such as my wolf pet and Eliza all respond with articulate words of their own, and I smile appreciatively at them when I glance back in their direction.

I quickly refocus on the area in front of me, and as I do I subtly tighten my grip on my weapons. The area I'm in is dangerous, unlike most of the region around my home which my friends and I have tamed through sheer diligence. If I relax I'm putting myself and my friends in danger.

I reach the back of the room, an area to the right of the door that serves as a subtle warning to the rest of my faction, and proceed past its boundary. I find myself stepping past a pair of walls made from wooden planks. The lightly colored planks could easily be collected and be used by my faction but so far I don't need wood that much. Heck, I've actively begun to plant trees on the surface and in selected areas underground to ensure that I have wood, as well as making use of some of my more curious abilities to achieve that same end result.

I step past the two pillars and into the area where my forces and I have never actually set foot. Ahead of me the mineshaft continues for a short while, past more pillars made of wooden planks, and eventually ends in a dark, open area. My sharp senses also alert me to the reality that beyond my current location and before the end of the shaft are places where monsters lurk. I relay this information to my followers and I proceed towards the end of the mineshaft, a smile on my face as I explore new locations. A familiar bar appears in front of me alerting me to the reality that I'm making progress towards unlocking my next "Explorer" perk.

I step past a pair of pillars and find myself surrounded by paths, both of which obscured monsters from view. A zombie lunges at me with a hideous, and hateful screech and a gigantic spider darts towards me from the other side. I don't truly react to their lunges, more than adequately able to deal with them by using "Rips and Tears". I don't even turn my hands towards them to do so, merely willing a tear to appear in front of the zombie darting at me and another to open up right in front of the darting spider. The zombie enters it and crashes headfirst into the spider, hitting it and causing it to emit an awful pain-filled screech.

The spider levels its rage against the zombie, hurling the full weight of its gigantic body against the humanoid corpse. I turn to face the two fighters and with a single fluid movement I summon and immediately toss one of my blades at the spider. The blade impales the beast between two of its eyes and I feel new power surge into me even as I will business cards to slide into my fingers from my inventory. The spider slumps to the floor and vanishes, leaving behind green experience orbs I'll collect in a second as well as its eyes.

The zombie attempts to turn and lunge at me now that I've dealt with the spider and I don't give it the chance. I utilize "Rips and Tears" again, and open a portal in front of the zombie and one far away from me, and when the zombie teleports through the thing I hurl some of my cards through the rip right as it shuts. The cards hit the zombie in the head, chest, and groin and the creature falls before vanishing in a puff of smoke and releasing experience orbs.

I instinctively know that I can now climb walls without using ladders like spiders in this game can. That's a neat ability and I smile as I glance down the two paths that have now revealed themselves.

One path leads deeper into the mineshaft, staying as narrow as the path I've been walking down and the other, the one to my right relative to where I was walking before, also leads to a massive and dark opening. At a glance it looks like the area beyond the mineshaft is an underground canyon… It's perfect for harvesting stone and finding monsters, and it's terrible for trying to claim an area.

Claiming an underground canyon is an arduous task. Before one even begins trying to permanently render the bottom of the canyon safe they need to go up each ledge and painstakingly make it so that monsters can't spawn and then drop down on unsuspecting travelers. Plus there's never a time when one can explore the canyon in relative safety, since it's always dark.

I see a skeleton walk into view and with a smirk I open a rip right in front of the area it's walking towards and then open another one further out, over a large pit where the wooden floor of the mineshaft gives way to the open air of the canyon. The skeleton walks into it and suddenly disappears. It reappears in the open air before plummeting and eventually crashing with the ground and I am delighted to see a notification appear in front of me.

[Alert: New Perk Earnable

Complete the following quest to gain the perk [Skeleton Company]: Kill five different enemies from five different enemy types with arrows fired by skeletons.

[Skeleton Company] is a perk that lets you summon skeletons who will obey you. Initially you can only summon ordinary skeletons but in the future when you slay one hundred different skeletons of different types such as wither skeletons and strays, you will be able to summon them as well.

This perk is also the first perk from [Minecraft Manhunt] that you can earn. Doing so will immediately allow you to complete other quests, and potentially even immediately unlock some perks if you have already done enough for them.]

The deep implications of this are not lost on me. Among other things this says that there is a source of some sort that dictates what I get, as the word "From" is a fascinating word in one of the sentences in the message. It's not the biggest deal, or at least the most immediately important, but it doesn't escape my notice. I wish I could somehow do some research on "Minecraft Manhunt" as I don't actually know what that is off the top of my head. It sounds like some player-vs-player type Minecraft minigame, but I'm not familiar with it so I am just stuck in the dark right now…

There's also the intriguing fact that this perk gives me command of normally hostile mobs, though by summoning them rather than by making normal ones recognize me as a leader. That is curious, and makes me wonder if there are other perks like that. Something tells me that there are, I just need to unlock them.

I subtly spread news of this to my companions, alerting them to the fact that we will be keeping skeletons we come across alive for now. They are confused, but none of them question it.

My companions join me and ask me what direction we're going to be moving in. I point one of my swords in the direction I was initially coming in and my companions nod at me as we begin to move in the direction I pointed in.

We pass by more pillars and as we do occasionally we'll stumble across more branching paths. It turns out that this mineshaft is surprisingly labyrinthian. Nonetheless, we persist and reach our end goal, all while smartly blocking off the branching pathways and using doors to give us an ability our opponents don't have: the power to move freely throughout the dungeon. Doors, even in this version of Minecraft, stymie all of the enemies I've encountered so far.

We are standing on a large wooden platform held aloft by thick iron chains that extend pretty far down, perhaps three hundred feet. I sigh as I study countless ledges that need to be reached and illuminated before I can even begin to think about claiming this area.

"This… This shit sucks." I complain, as I study the vast gap. None of my allies other than Rebis or Eliza could even make it down the gap without dying or suffering some intense damage, and I doubt that any of us would survive down there for long, judging from the fact that I can hear a healthy amount of activity below us. Eliza walks next to me and she studies the gap before letting out a quiet laugh.

"That… that is a drop." She exclaims and I lightly chuckle. I gesture at some of the distant ledges, all of which are too far for any of the monsters on them to try anything, before I begin to speak.

"This canyon is massive but it's way too dangerous to try and claim it with all of those ledges." I remark, and she nods.

"Too many chances for something in the dark to drop down on us. So what do we do?" She asks, looking at me curiously. I begin to equip one of my wooden plank blocks and I kneel before affixing it to the edge of the ledge. She watches me curiously and smiles when she sees my block adhere to the platform and effectively expand it.

"We spread out and illuminate the ledges." I tell her, even as I begin to spend some of my wooden blocks doing just that. She smiles from behind me and carefully participates in her own way, by using her powers as an enderperson to go and retrieve stone blocks from claimed parts of the mineshaft and our small mine and coming back to give me blocks. At the same time, other groups of my retinue split off and do the same thing, with Rebis and the Guardian staying together and expanding the platform towards some of the other ledges, while the mannequins do the same thing.

For the next few minutes, I do this continually until I reach the closest ledge. Strangely during this time, no monsters have spawned on it, and so I fully illuminate the thing in moments, using just two torches. I have dozens of the things so I'm not worried about that, though some of the torches are now resting on the largely expanded platform we're standing on.

I study my surroundings and spot inhabited ledges. Zombies and skeletons, as well as creepers and bats, explore the ledges. At the moment they seem serene, almost happily wandering the area, unbothered by the effects of the sun.

My followers and I end up spending the rest of the day expanding the mine's platform to connect various ledges and illuminate them. We connect several dozen ledges and I successfully trick various skeletons into killing several different enemies using "Rips and Tears", and also just controlling the battlefield while ordering my allies to stay out of fights involving the creatures. I punish the skeletons when they try to hit my allies, redirecting their arrows into themselves and chuckling when their efforts to hurt Rebis, Eliza, or the Guardian result in them getting hit by their own arrows.

All in all the day was a success, and when we finish up we erect various walls and doors to ensure that no wandering mobs accidentally stumble into the mine we've made. The day ends with me cooking meals for us thanks to a nifty item named "Kitchen Space", which is a portable kitchen that I can overlay anywhere that is appropriately sized for the kitchen and use as if it were fully powered and I were in a modern space. Truthfully, my biggest powers are my items… They make living in this world a lot safer than it would be otherwise.

Things like "Portable Cabin" and "Kitchen Space" are immensely helpful and allow me to do stuff like have a safe place to live and eat things more complex than cake or bread. I also have weapons and armor that are mine due to my multiversal nature rather than being products of my own hard work, and such items are of solid quality. Still, I do need to be careful. Creepers could still do tremendous damage to me if I wasn't careful, even if I used my own handmade armor and had perks backing me up.

Plus this world has strange enhanced mobs like that gigantic zombie I encountered on my first day and the ender assassins… I can't let my guard down at all, unless I want my story to end early.

Eventually my companions and I wander out of the workshop and find ourselves outside at night. This is a rare occurrence, but I feel like seeing the world under the moon's light is a nice change of pace. We are just outside of the workshop and are only a few feet from the cabin. Torchlight illuminates the area around us, and allows us to see the cabin as well as the pens where the animals live.

All sorts of large creatures, many of whom have grown larger thanks to my powers as a tamer, watch us and greet us warmly. None of them speak, at least not words a human could understand without perks, but I still return their greetings warmly as I make my way back home.

In a few minutes I'm back in my own bed, and I hear Eliza slip into her own as well. I shut my eyes and welcome the dark unconsciousness that overtakes my senses nearly instantly.