In a World of Mining

by jack5writesfim

Rating: everyone
Tags: Crossover, Alternate Universe, Applejack, Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure
Length: 6756

Applejack wakes up in a strange land, where everything is made of cubes. Monsters surround her, and her friends are nowhere in sight. With the help of a reluctant Trixie, she mines deeper, searching for answers to the puzzle.

Sorry, but I have cancelled this story and am not returning to it. Please read Everfree Blanks or consider going to my Tumblr.

Applejack wakes up in a strange land, where everything is made of cubes. Monsters surround her, and her friends are nowhere in sight. With the help of a reluctant Trixie, she mines deeper, searching for answers to the puzzle.
Minecraft is property of Mojang.
Lead Writer: jack5 Artist: jack5 Critic: Browniel42 Assisstant Critics: PinkamenaParty, Rainbow_Flash, Wordsmith Bellatrix, Detective Chmilewsky

Published 2013-06-07 21:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-08-03 10:59:17 UTC

Applejack joined the game/Mellohi

Loading world...

Converting world...

Building terrain...

Applejack landed with a thud onto the soft ground. Sounds of the beach set the scene, and the noise of something sinking could also be heard, but that noise quickly faded away.

Applejack slowly regained her senses. It had seemed like a long time since she had gone to sleep in her bed. Normally she would've woken up from her bed in what seemed like seconds... now she was outside somewhere, and it felt as if weeks had gone by.

Applejack was also unusually warm. Ponyville was recently having a pattern of relatively cold weather, and sudden shifts in climate never happen. Such a change in temperature startled her.

The farm pony slowly opened her eyes, feeling very tired, but less than before. She was lying down on a large block of sand. In the distance was water, and up above was sky.

She got up, brushed the grains of sand off of her and had a better look at her surroundings. Now that she was up, it was much easier to see.

She was at what appeared to be a beach, yet the sand was flat and square. Even though the sand was this way, Applejack could feel it getting into her hooves. The water was square, the clouds in the sky were made of cubes, the grass was square... in fact, everything in the strange land Applejack was in was cubic in proportions some way or another. Nothing was familiar to Applejack, and there was no visible indication as to know where she was.

Apart from some bruises, the only thing that had changed about Applejack was that a satchel was on her back. She took it off and looked inside. There were four rows of nine pockets inside the satchel, one fitted with a torch. It was alight, but the flame did not burn the satchel. Noticing this made Applejack even more curious about her surroundings.

She called out to see if someone or something was near her in the strange land. "Is anyone out there?"

No answer.

Applejack called out once again. "Hellooooo?!"

Still no answer. Everything was completely silent apart from the echo of Applejack's voice and the sounds of the beach. She tried to picture in her mind that this was all a dream, but something inside her kept telling her it was much more than that.

She started to walk away from the beach and across the grassland. With every twenty steps she had to make an abnormal leap up or down in order to keep going. The ground seemed to jerk up at certain points. As Applejack continued her trek, she spotted some trees in the distance. Seeing them made her excited, but then depressed and confused once again.

The trees were also comprised of cubes and had no apples in their leaves, unlike the trees from the orchard. Despite this, the land was foreign to Applejack, so adrenaline kept her wanting to explore more. She walked over to one of the trees and stared at it for a while. There was an urge to kick the tree travelling around her body...

She shrugged, twirled around and swung her hind legs at the tree. She expected them to stop with the tree, but then again, this wasn't Ponyville.

When her hind legs hit the tree- no, passed through the tree, a small knock was heard, shortly followed by Applejack losing her balance and crashing into the wood of the tree, then rolling onto the ground with another crash.

"Oowwwww..." she moaned. Shaking the pain off her body, she turned around to check why her legs had passed through the tree instead of being stopped by it.

The tree was missing a piece of it's wood. This didn't happen in Ponyville- well- unless Big Mac tried apple farming. Applejack was used to apples falling from the trees... but this tree had broken in half, and it's top half was somehow unaffected by gravity.

Just before Applejack could ask herself another question, she saw a small block on the ground. She peered down at it and realised it was the block of wood she had kicked off of the tree. Applejack picked up the block of wood and put it in her satchel. It turned out that the shrunken wood was just the right size to fit in one of the pockets.

"Ah think ah can get used to this!" Applejack stated. She lined up at the tree again and kicked some more wood off of it. The wood up the top was a bit trickier to get off the tree, as she had to stand on her hind legs and punch it with her forearms, but it was worth the effort. She also collected two saplings and an apple from the leaves of the tree.

She thought for a moment, then continued this work on the other trees in the area. At the end of her work she had gotten thirty-one blocks of wood, seven saplings and three apples. Applejack was a bit disappointed by the amount of apples she had gotten, but this wasn’t Ponyville, so she had to make some adjustments to the new land.

Applejack didn't notice a block of wood was still on the ground. She launched her satchel onto her back, and stepped on it, breaking it into four. The sound of shattering shocked her.

She looked down underneath her body, and behold, four other blocks had replaced the broken wood. They looked like planks, a material that Applejack commonly used to build things. She was afraid at first, and stepped away from the blocks, but was drawn back to them.

Applejack reached out towards the blocks and picked them up with her forearms. The planks were put under pressure in Applejack's grasp, and fused together into another block. Applejack was interested, but then again curious as to why you could do such things in this land.

“Hmmm...” she mumbled, looking at the newly formed block. The majority of the block was wooden planks, but on top of it was a grid that consisted of nine squares, and a small axe was attached to the side of the block. Applejack smiled and put the block into her satchel. She would find a use for it soon, there was still a lot more to learn about the cube world.

Applejack had already started work on a makeshift house. After rediscovering how to break wood, and learning that grass could be dug up, she laid down a wooden plank foundation, six by three plank blocks in size. She was just about to start work on the walls when her stomach growled. She took one of the apples out of her satchel. It shattered into smaller cubes that faded away upon her biting it, but her hunger died down. Either she needed to find a better food source, or she was okay for a few more hours.

The sun was setting quickly. It was as if the afternoon was a time trial, a rather quick one, expecting Applejack to complete the house in such a short amount of time. Even so, Applejack was able to finish it as the moon rose. She had made good use of the new block by crafting sticks and a wooden door. She named the block a "tool maker thingy".

So far, Applejack was comfortable with this new land. In time she would know everything about it, and not have to work out how to craft things.

Applejack looked outside. The moon was now well in the sky, and the sun was concealed by the water in the distance. This land behaved very much like Ponyville- well, that's what Applejack thought- but something was off... something was not right...

Applejack stared out of the door, focusing on a distant object. It looked like a pony from behind, but it was standing on it's two behind legs, with it's front two legs out. It was wearing a shirt and pants, hiding it's tail, and it had no mane. Unusual for a pony.

Applejack pressed her face up against the door to have an even closer look. She accidentally opened the door with the force of her face, and the object turned around to the noise. Viewed from the front, it wasn't a pony, but Applejack couldn't care what it was. It looked unfriendly, and was approaching her house.

Applejack closed the door and rushed to the back wall of the house. The thing chasing her started to bang on the door. Cracks were forming. It definitely was not friendly.

Applejack started to dig up the floor of her house. Her hooves hurt, but there was no stopping now. She had to get underground. Just as she had made a hole big enough for her to fit in, the door was already half broken.

Applejack was fretting. The though of the thing at her door tearing her to bits kept her working. "Fill it up, fill it up, fill it up!" she shouted to herself.

She had ran out of planks, so dirt became the substitute for the filling of the hole. Just as Applejack placed the last dirt block down, the door broke. Applejack was safe, but stuck in the dark.

Applejack noticed a light coming from her satchel. She opened it and peeked inside. There was the torch in the top-right pocket... she had forgotten all about it.

She took it out and stuck it in the dirt surrounding her. It wasn't a very good light, especially in such a small confinement with brown walls, but it seemed to do the trick. She was exhausted from the quick escape from that thing- thing? Zombie? Best call it zombie. That word made much more sense. She switched hooves, as her front-right one needed a break, and dug away at the dirt to give herself some more room while she waited for the sun to rise again.

Applejack dug for a long time. Her hooves were wearing out, but there was nothing else to do in the darkness of the underground.

All of a sudden she heard music through the dirt. She decided to dig in that direction. The more she dug the louder the music got. At long last the dirt gave way to a cave, already lit with torches. There was a door in the side of the cave made of a very hard material which Applejack couldn't point out. There was a button next to the door, but Applejack also spotted a ladder behind the door, and she knew where it led. "Not goin' up there just yet." she told herself.

The music continued to ring in Applejack's ears as she journeyed through the cave. The terrain was very steep, but thankfully stairs had been put down to make going down and up easier.

Suddenly the music stopped. Without the music, the cave was a whole lot spookier. Applejack, despite shaking legs, went on. In only a short anount of time, she reached an end to the cave. The end was lined with wooden planks, with a wooden door in front of a long passageway. Applejack creaked the door open and tiptoed down the long path, just in case something else was around.

At the end of the passageway there was a path that divided into two sections: to the left there were wooden planks, and to the right there was stone.

Before Applejack could reach the end, the sound of footsteps suddenly became audible. They were fast, very fast... coming from the stone side. Applejack was frightened, and slowly backed away as the footsteps got even closer. Suddenly a silhouette raced from the stone side to the wooden side, not noticing Applejack. The footsteps died down instantly, nothing could be heard.

Applejack creeped over to the end of the passage and looked down the wooden side of the path. The silhouette was there, but it was facing away from the path, staring at an open chest. It was very busy in whatever it was doing.

Applejack got closer to the dark pony, until she was at the edge of the room it was in, and had a look around. The room was full of chests, paintings, and a couple of other things Applejack didn't understand. She was shaking in fear over the thought that this pony might not be friendly. She gulped silently and whispered to the silhouette.

"Uhhh... howdy?"

The silhouette turned it's head a little. A sharp red glow was in it's eye. Applejack's eyes narrowed at the sight of it.

Great and Powerful

The silhouette jumped at Applejack and locked her in place, pushing something up against her neck. Applejack struggled to breathe. The darkness faded, but it wasn't until the figure spoke that Applejack knew what an who the creature was.

"By the goddesses of Canterlot, the Great and Powerful Trixie will slaughter this hideous creature with great convic- oh- oh heavens, Trixie is so sorry!" the pony spoke boldly. She pushed the object against Applejack aside and carefully examined Applejack's bruised neck. Well, at least there was another pony in the strange land that Applejack could communicate with.

"Heh, no worries Trix." Applejack smiled, even though her neck was in severe pain. She looked over at the object. It was a cubic sword, with a long, jagged blade, a stopper and a stick handle. Applejack was surprised that she knew about fighting equipment... she was a farmer!

"Does Trixie know such pony?" said Trixie.

"Ah'm Applejack. One of Twilight's friends."

Trixie rolled her eyes and banged her head onto the plank wall. "Ugh... well at least it is one of Twilight's friends and not Twilight herself."

"There a problem with me bein' 'ere Trix?" Applejack questioned Trixie back.

"Oh no, the Great and Powerful Trixie enjoys company."

Applejack got up from the floor and started to explore Trixie's room. She had tons of things in her chests, all neatly arranged, in order of importance. The most important thing in her collection was gold, followed by blue wool. One chest was isolated from the others and decorated with blocks of gold. Inside- blocks of gold. Trixie also had iron, which explained the door Applejack had seen earlier.

"So you wer' in this place longer than me Trix?" said Applejack.

"Seems so. The Great and Powerful Trixie was asleep when she was transported to this world. A boat was made for her, a very poorly crafted one, and it washed ashore. Trixie has gotten used to life in this world ever since."

"Well ah was washed onto the beach just this world's mornin'."

"Trixie has been in this world for at least 10 days."

Applejack thought for a moment. "We better find out what's goin' on, 'cause if this keeps up, ev'ry 10 days there'll be another pony here!" she exclaimed.

Trixie's thrid-person referencing was confusing, but Applejack could make some sense out of it. "Odd... Trixie and Applejack should pay a visit to the shipwreck."

"Ok Trix, but first, I need supplies." Applejack wasn't very well prepared for the new world.

Trixie sighed. "Very well. Applejack may take whatever she needs. Trixie will wait."

Applejack climbed up the ladder to the surface. The ladder led to an enclosed part of a stone cliff-face. An iron door protected the exit. Applejack punched the button next to the door and walked out.

Trixie stood in the middle of the field, facing the sun. Applejack walked next to her and stood there too, but within a very short time, Trixie had started walking. She didn't seem to enjoy the thought of friendship. Applejack stayed where she was for a few seconds, before noticing Trixie walking off and catching up to her.

The beach was still. Even though there were no beaches in Ponyville, Applejack knew for a fact that beaches normally had waves crashing and sinking into it's sandy front, but in the new world, there were no waves at all. If there were shipwrecks, it would be was highly likely that they would've sunk.

Trixie stared into the water from the edge of the beach. She did not step into the water, probably because she didn't want to get her magician's cape wet. "All Trixie sees is wooden planks and sticks. The boats broke upon contact with the beach."

"Can we rebuild the boats?" Applejack asked.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie dismisses said suggestion. If the boats were to be remade, efforts to find the exact point at which they spawned would be in vain."

Applejack noticed a gold sparkle come from the depths of the ocean. "Hey, what's that in the water?"

"That? It looks like a book."

"Well? Go get it Trix!"

"You get it." growled Trixie.

Applejack grunted and dived into the water. After learning how to swim in a few seconds, she pushed herself down towards the book, grabbed it, and resurfaced.

The book, although soaked, was very fashionable, something Rarity would've wanted her hooves on.

The covers were made of gold, the spine was made of iron, and the inside covers were decorated with a green gem, located in the top corner of each. Imprinted on the cover was, in very fancy writing, "The Book of Notch".

Trixie took the book from Applejack's grasp and started to read it. There were many blank pages, but on those that weren't blank, there was information about the world, and items that Trixie had found previously.

There was a big silence as Trixie read through the book. A very awkward silence for Applejack, she was used to the noises of her farm...

Trixie showed Applejack one of the pages. The title was "Wheat". "Applejack, look. Wheat farms exist in this world. They're one of the only farms that this world allows, and the Great and Powerful Trixie knows how much Applejack likes farming."

"Yeah, ah should probably start working the ground. Ah need a little practice on that."

"Trixie and Applejack need to go back to Trixie's house to get the farming equipment."

"Hoe?" "Hoe."

Trixie handed Applejack the materials that she read from the Wheat section of the Book of Notch. "Seeds?" "Seeds."

"Water bucket? Water bucket...? Trix?"

"Leave Trixie be Applejack, she is looking! Water bucket- water bucket- ah, here is the bucket."

"Good. Let's go farmin'." sang Applejack.

Farm Pony

Both ponies worked the ground tirelessly. Applejack hoed and planted, and Trixie used something called "bone meal" on the wheat to make it grow faster. At first their farm was only six by five crops in size, but overtime it grew to eleven by five.

Applejack also did some work on her poorly-made house while Trixie was harvesting the crops. She turned it from wooden planks into stone, which Trixie had provided her, and put an iron door and buttons in the place of the wooden door, as it had broken from the previous night. She also fixed the interior of the house, removing the dirt and putting a ladder in place that led down into Trixie's cave quicker.

Applejack heard Trixie calling for her. "Applejack! Applejack!"

"Here ah am," Applejack said. She blew her hair off of her face. "Ah was doin' renovations to the ba- ah mean... house!"

"Trixie is not interested in Applejack's house building. There is bread to be made."

"Oh, of course- heh..."

Trixie didn't like Applejack's laid back farmer attitude, but tried not to get angry at her, because the two were going to be stuck together for who knows how long. She held Notch's book up to her face with her front-right hoof and threw Applejack the wheat with her left hoof. "Take the wheat. Three wheat in a row makes bread. Leave a quarter of it for the cake."

Applejack went into her house and stood in front of the crafting table. She stacked the wheat in a row, and bread came out of the table. She remembered to leave a quarter of it, as Trixie had specified they were going to bake a cake. Just the thought of cake made Applejack drool.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie orders that Applejack stop being idle! Get out here at once!"

Applejack stumbled out of her house. She was in a half-trance state, both alert and dreamy, not able to take her mind of the food introduced to her. "Come on Trix, ah was thinkin' 'bout the cake!"

Trix facehooved and handed Applejack Notch's book. "Ughh... here. Applejack may look up cake, and mouth-water all she wants."

Applejack looked at the cake page. The cake, though square, looked so delicious... madeira with white icing and red sprinkles- looking at the cake made her want it more... she wasn't hungry before, but now after seeing the cake in the book, she was famished.

"Do we need anything else for the cake?" Applejack called out, still enjoying the vision of the cake.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie needs milk. She has sugar and eggs, but she has vowed never to touch a cow with her own hooves. Applejack must milk the cows." Trixie handed Applejack three empty buckets and took back the golden book. "Go on!"

Applejack shook her head at Trixie's vow, but went off to find cows in the wilderness. There were a couple of cows on the hill in the distance. Applejack raced up the hill, but once she had neared the top, she slowed down, to avoid frightening the cows.

The cows stared at her for a few moments, then stared to wander around the top of the hill aimlessly. Applejack got down next to one of the cows, put the three buckets underneath it, and reached for the udder.

As soon as Applejack tugged on the udder, the cow jumped out of Applejack's grasp, and ran down the steep side of the hill, killing itself. The body of the cow evaporated, and some leather lay in the area. Applejack was disgusted, but even so, climbed down and picked up the leather, put it in her satchel and then went back up to the top of hill.

She got down next to another one of the cows, and this time held the bucket up to the udder. She heard a splash, and then pulled the bucket out from under the cow. The bucket was significantly heavier after the milking, and it weighed her satchel down.

Applejack did the same with the other two cows and filled the three buckets. The buckets weighed her down very much. She had to limp to keep her satchel on her back. On the way to her house, Applejack dreamed of the cake again. It didn't seem to leave her mind.

Well, that was all until Trixie yelled

at her. "Will Applejack ever stop daydreaming? The Great and Powerful Trixie is very annoyed!" she shouted.

Applejack immediately snapped out of the dream, and took the buckets of milk into her house. Trixie provided her with two lumps of sugar, one egg and three bundles of wheat. Applejack arranged the items as Notch's book had described, and behold, the cake came out of the crafting table.

She was about to take a bite out of it, when she remembered Trixie. Trixie wasn't such a friend of hers, and maybe, just maybe, it would all resolve over some cake.

Applejack handed the cake to Trixie. Trixie stared at the cake, then at Applejack, then back at the cake. "Why does Applejack give cake to Trixie? Isn't she frothing over it?"

"Ah thought you might want some." stammered Applejack.

Trixie stared at Applejack a bit longer, before taking a bite of the cake. About a sixth of it shattered into cubes. Trixie then handed the cake back to Applejack. "Trixie does not want any more."

Applejack awkwardly bowed at Trixie, then turned around and bit the cake. Applejack was a very messy eater, and got icing all over her mouth.

Applejack couldn't get enough. Overall she had about three bites, leaving two parts of the cake. "Mmff- good cake." she muffled.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie hates people who talk whilst eating."

Applejack wiped the white icing off her face with her hoof apologetically. "Oh- heh, sorry."

The Persson spawning system

Trixie and Applejack had descended into Trixie’s home before night fell. It was very quiet underground, the only noises audible being their crunching as they ate the bread they had harvested. There wasn't much to talk about anymore. Applejack studied the Book of Notch, and Trixie wrote in a brown book with a quill. Applejack couldn't see what Trixie was writing, but it didn't matter. Probably comments to herself about how "great and powerful" she was.

Applejack had also fashioned herself a cape out of the leather she had gotten during the making of the farm. It was very simillar to Trixie’s cape, except it had no decoration, and it was tied at the front. This cape had replaced her satchel, as there were pockets on the cape.

All of a sudden there came a noise from the stone side of Trixie's home. An echoing whisper. It got louder, and then suddenly vanished. It was as if the cave was calling them.

"Uhhh... Trix?" Applejack shook.

"What does the Great and Powerful Trixie need to hear?" answered Trixie.

The two looked down the stone side of the cave house. It was another cave, simillar to the one that led to the entrance of Trixie's house, but it was not as steep, and badly lit. The torches were spread out, leaving dark patches.

Trixie pulled her sword from her cloak and held it near her body. Applejack clutched her satchel. Both were very afraid.

The noise didn't come back until a few more seconds. Someone or something was down in the cave, but the question was, what was it?

Applejack and Trixie went down into the cave. The darkness made them have hallucinations. Applejack kept thinking that there were blanks lurking in the dark. Trixie however, thought Twilight was somewhere in the cave, waiting to pounce on her and kill her.

Suddenly, the cave split into three parts, and the lighting changed from normal torches to slightly dimmer and redder torches.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie- should part ways- with Applejack." Trixie stated.

"No!" cried Applejack, "-ah ain't leavin' you! You've got the sword!"

"Trixie thought Applejack got a sword when she was, as Trixie remembers, getting supplies!"

"Well that ain't what 'appened Trix!"

Trixie sighed nervously and ventured down the rightmost path, Applejack close behind. The whisper did not sound again, but footsteps and the occasional computer noises echoed around the maze.

All of a sudden Trixie saw the forearm of somepony disappear behind a wall, quickly followed by fast footsteps. Trixie ran in the direction of the steps, but Applejack ended up in front, as she was the better runner. They followed the noise around the maze until Applejack caught up with it. She jumped onto the source of the noise.

It was a very unusual thing indeed. It looked similar to the zombie Applejack had seen on her first night, but it was conscious and it had lighter skin, as well as a brown mane, facial hair, a different shirt, different pants, weird growths around it's feet and a top hat. Lyra would've known a lot about such a creature. It spoke: "How did you-?!"

“Who in the hay are you? Answers.” Applejack ordered, one hoof on the creature’s body, pinning it down.

“My name is not important.” the creature said.

“I asked for answers!!” Applejack shouted.

The creature turned to Trixie. “Do what Applejack orders.” Trixie sighed.

“No. Leave me be.” the creature continued.

Trixie was about to slice it's head off, when it suddenly disappeared. A message hovered over the disappearance site: Notch left the game.

Trixie sighed again. "That creature was Notch?"

Suddenly lots of noises could be heard. They were very loud, indicating there were tons of monsters in the maze, all very different. The two ponies backed away from the noise, only to reach a dead end.

"What are we goin' ta do Trix?! We're goin' ta be toast in a minute!" shouted Applejack above the noise to Trixie.

"Trixie believes she knows what to do! Stand back!" Trixie yelled.

The monsters spotted the two ponies and started to advance towards them, a combination of zombies, giant spiders, skeletons... and other things that could not be described. Trixie focused her magic, causing her to break sweat. The maze started to fill with a flashing black and white solid. Whatever the solid touched glitched and ceased to exist. The monsters went into full panic and started racing around, one by one being taken by the solid. One of the skeletons got close to Trixie, but the solid reached it's feet and glitched it before Trixie and Applejack. The skull melted and lifted upwards, the body distorted itself, then the skeleton's bones split in half, rotated fast and finally evaporated and no longer existed. Before the solid could reach Trixie, she stopped her magic. The solid disappeared immediately.

Trixie fell down, exhausted and sweating all over. Applejack stood near Trixie with her mouth open, shocked and speechless.

"What in tarnation was that ya just did?"

"The flashing wall is a glitch. Trixie found it out when she tried to use her magic beforehand. Magic corrupts this world."

The night had flown by whilst Applejack and Trixie had been underground. After the close encounter with Notch and several monsters, they could not distract themselves from it. There was nothing to talk about that didn't relate to the incident, and every time Trixie tried to divert Applejack's attention away from the topic, she would start up again.

Applejack took a different approach and tried to comfort Trixie. "Ya know, ya did a mighty job of savin' me. Better than Twilight would have ever done."

"Applejack does not mean what she says," Trixie muttered to herself. "-the mention of Twilight indicates this."

"No, ah'm bein' serious! Without you, ah would've been turned into toast- literally!"

"Applejack says that all the time."

"Come on Trix, think for a moment."

Trixie sighed. "Ok, maybe the Great and Powerful Trixie did save Applejack from the clutches of the monsters, bur even so, such will not be enough to form a relationship."

Applejack simply stared at Trixie.

Trixie replied to Applejack's silence. "Sorry, farm pony. Trixie is not into friendship."

Quarrels

Applejack and Trixie spent most of Applejack’s third day in the world mining at the cliff-face tirelessly. There was a lot of iron, and a little gold here and there. Don't forget the coal- there was tons of that stuff. Most of the coal ended up being thrown into a small hole in the cliff-face, thanks to "the Great and Powerful" Trixie. She didn't care about anything else except the gold. She did whatever she could to get gold, using whatever blocks and tools she had at her disposal to help her.

Applejack didn't like Trixie caring more about gold. "Trix, ah don't think ya should be prioritising gold above everythin' else." she suggested, "Notch’s book says iron is more durable than gold."

Trixie had a rather good comeback. "Why would Notch use gold for the cover of his book then?"

"It's a decoration Trixie. Notch used iron for the-"

"Obviously Notch thought it would be more appropriate to use gold than iron."

"Then how come you can’t make gold doors in this world?"

Trixie, unable to this of a response, groaned and returned to her gold mining. Applejack shook her head and continued mining as well. She had mined a fair bit of the cliff-face away and was just about to finish gathering another chunk of iron ore, when she spotted a new kind of ore. It appeared as soon as she had mined the second last block of iron ore, to the left of where the iron used to be... and it was a very light blue colour...

Applejack backed out of the mine and called out to Trixie. "Yo Trix! Come down here! Ah found blue iron!"

"Blue iron? Ha! Don't try and trick the Great and Powerful Trixie into mining iron over gold. That will never happen, ever."

"No really! Blue iron... or something else that's blue!" Applejack wasn’t really sure what it was.

Trixie sighed and jumped down from her gold mining to have a look at the "blue iron" Applejack was talking about. Seeing it made her drop her pickaxe.

"Applejack... this is not iron... this is..."

Trixie held the front of her cape up to the ore. The gem on the cape matched the material in the ore.

"...diamond..."

Trixie didn't think twice. She very quickly reached for her pickaxe and set to work. Applejack, noticing Trixie's excitement, also started mining the diamond ore. Trixie's gold pickaxe turned out to be a time waster, so Applejack pushed Trixie aside. Overall she collected 7 diamonds.

Directly after all of that particular diamond ore chunk had been mined away, both ponies raced to Applejack's house to get to the crafting table. Trixie made herself a diamond sword to prove just how great and powerful she really was. Applejack wasn’t such a good fighter, so she made a diamond pickaxe. The remaining two diamonds were put into Trixie's "super secret super special gold storage" chest, which was full of gold blocks at the time.

"Applejack didn't make a sword?" asked Trixie, again in third-person.

"Nah. Ah made a pick 'cause- ya know... I'm more skilled at minin' than you. Just sayin’."

Trixie didn't get angry, which surprised Applejack. She didn't get angry at all! "That's actually a good move. Trixie is mildly impressed."

"A- good- move? Really?"

"Yes! The Book of Notch says there is a material called obsidian that can only be mined with a diamond pickaxe. Applejack must’ve thought hard."

"Nah- ah didn’t... You had me startled for a second, ah thought you were gonna get angry and all."

Trixie laughed. "The Great and Powerful Trixie losing her temper?" She laughed for a while before her face suddenly grew a stern look. The laughter stopped instantly. "Good one."

"Ugh. Typical Trixie, she's tryin' to hide her weaknesses again." said Applejack under her own breath.

Trixie and Applejack had returned to the maze that had almost killed them before. Because of Trixie's glitch, monsters didn't seem to lurk in the darkness of the maze anymore.

The farm pony and the magician were at a dead end of the maze. There was a hole 3 blocks wide and 1 block high in the top of the wall, that opened up to the floor of a very dark railway network.

"Is there anythin’ in Notch’s book about those wooden gates?" Applejack asked Trixie.

"Notch's book says that the railway network is really an "abandoned mineshaft"." Trixie replied.

Applejack tried to reach the hole, but it was just too high, so she mined away some of the stone from below the hole to make stairs. She walked up the stairs first. Trixie followed.

"Do ya think the glitch you caused got into this part of the mine, Trix?"

"The Great and Powerful Trixie cannot give an answer to that question, she doesn't know everything about this world..."

Trixie placed torches down with every few steps. At one point Trixie thought she heard a noise, so she raced to place the next torch down then backed out of the mineshaft, but the sound was only her mind playing tricks on her out of fear. She climbed back up the stairs and caught up with Applejack, embarassed.

"Heh- at least we have somethin' in common when it comes to mining in the dark." Applejack laughed.

"Oh shut up," Trixie groaned, “-that is not something to laugh about.”

Spiders, Spiders, Spiders

The abandoned mineshaft was quite long. Every 10 steps there was a gate which the railway passed under. At some points the railway was missing a piece, and at others the mineshaft cut open to let water pass through. It wasn’t lit by torches, so darkness swallowed the far half of it.

Trixie lay the torches down at the gates, but there was always the one step where she couldn’t see anything. After so long, she fell into water that just happened to be there.

Applejack thought Trixie had hit her head, because a large stone was positioned directly after the water hole. “Oh my- Trix, are you alright?”

“Trixie thinks she is...” the magic pony slurred.

Applejack helped Trixie up from the water. Trixie placed a torch into the gate she had failed to reach before. Then she realised that she was wet. Normally a pony would instantly know if they were wet.

Trixie untied her cape and held it up. The stars on her cape were bleeding towards the sides. She started to cry.

“Nooooooo!! Not the Great and Powerful Trixie’s cape! Nooooooooooooooo!!” she wailed.

“Stop worryin’ about your cape Trixie, ah’m sure ah can dry it later.” sighed Applejack.

“But- this cape- it’s been a part of me for so long... and now it’s- ruined...”

“Ain’t ya hearin’ what ah’m sayin’ Trix? Ah don’t wanna have to drag you to the other side of the railway.”

Trixie, still crying, got up and followed Applejack. She left her cape lying near the water hole.

You already know that darkness had a hold of the mineshaft, right? Well, soon after Trixie losing her cape, the railway split into two. One railway went straight ahead and stopped, the other went to the left, and it was too dark to see much down that way.

“Trix, you finish off the straight railway. Ah’ll go start explorin’ this one.”

Applejack didn’t stay to see Trixie’s response. She started down the new railway, the lighting darker than in the main room... pitch black even.

Suddenly Applejack saw a fire in the distance. Normally fires would eventually burn out and give off light, but this fire did neither of those things. It just sat there.

Applejack carefully approached the fire, continuing to place torches down. All at once the walls of the mineshaft were too far away from the walkway, and where the walls weren’t there was a rather deep hole, so Applejack started putting the torches on the ground.

Now that she was closer to the fire, she could see a lot more. The fire was inside a purple cage, and hovering above the fire was an image of a spider.

Applejack reached into her satchel, pulled out her diamond pickaxe and was about to mine the fiery block when she heard clicking. It sounded like spiders... giant spiders, and lots of them. She started to back away from the cage towards the main railway, then all of a sudden spiders dropped from the ceiling and slowly crawled towards her.

She was scared beyond belief. She ran out of the room, grabbed Trixie, and headed for the entrance to the maze.

“What is the meaning of thi-” Trixie growled, but shut up when she saw the spiders.

The spiders did not stop for anything. Not even the water hole. Heck, they didn’t even need to see where they were going. They jumped over their obstacles as if they were remote-controlled planes.

Applejack was careful to pick up Trixie’s wet cape as well before jumping down into the maze and running off. The spiders stopped at the stairs, and didn’t go down into the maze- probably because of the glitch. All they did was watch as the farm pony and the magician escaped unharmed.

Applejack finally reached the point where the maze joined up with Trixie’s underground home. She dropped Trixie and Trixie’s cape, and flopped onto the ground, exhausted all that running whilst carrying everything.

Trixie was still speechless, but she was sensing a pattern. If Applejack was putting her in danger all of the time, that might mean that Applejack has evil intentions for her and only wants to kill her when the time is right.

Trixie shook the idea away. Another one of her exaggerations, she thought.

“Trixie thinks Applejack needs practice with the sword.”

Applejack took a big breath before speaking again. “Ya might be right Trix. Ah’m terrible at fightin’. All ah know is how to kick.”